Hit it boys;
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Originally posted by DonSkotus
The right to own slaves, the right to exact lethal retribution against each other and an entire host of ‘fundamental freedoms’ have been limited and done away with in the name of the heightened sense of the common good, and the protection of the rights of others.
Just to be perfectly clear, I am not comparing, in the moral sense, the ownership of guns with the ownership of slaves - I’m sure most pro-gun advocates are people of good intent who are clearly not participating in an evil and vile practice - sorry if you inferred otherwise.
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Originally posted by DonSkotus
The members of a society continuously take part in an organic process of the state growing and responding to the needs of the present historical context through judicial and legislative means. What most of you rampaging liberals and die-hard libertarians seem to forget is that in this process of evolution, societies can justly apply the interaction between the individual and the state to curtail individual applications of personal autonomy as well as expand them. The process of the evolution of individual rights does not only go one way.
More poetry. Interpretation?
I will try to be clearer - The government is a union between citizens, elected officials and the various arms of the state. The people form the government through their participation in it, and cannot therefor be considered to be distinct or separate from it as you statement seems to imply. Secondly, the process of determining the scope of a person’s civil liberties can go both ways - a just society can conceivably restrict freedoms in accordance with the Constitution as well as it can expand them. Slavery (once again, no moral comparison) was guaranteed by state constitutions and upheld federally for decades before being repealed by President Lincoln. In this example, the society chose to remove one right in favor of another.
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Originally posted by DonSkotus
The most basic principle of representational, republican and democratic government is that it is of, by and for the people.
This was exactly my point.
Then how can you consider the state and the people to be distinct? That was Lincoln’s point in using this phrase.
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Originally posted by DonSkotus
The fundamental flaw in your statement is that it completely divides the people from the state. Nonsense! No such division exists.
Nonsense! The President can order a nuclear strike on China. I can’t. Sounds like a huge difference to me.
Of course the President will have greater authority than a given citizen will in matters of state since a majority has elected him (usually). But all members of the Executive should derive their power from a mandate that you as a citizen have contributed to provide them. Also I didn’t say difference, I said division; again I would refer you to Mr. Lincoln’s statement.
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Originally posted by DonSkotus
Congratulations, you have just completely nullified the social contract.
In any ‘free society’ there is a tacit understanding between the citizens of that society that they are members of a greater union for their own sake, and hopefully for the sake of the common good.
I was never very good at interpreting poetry, and that’s what this looks like to me. What does this mean?
This means that representational, democratic, parliamentarian and republican governments all operate under the principle that society exists as a union of citizens with certain common goals and certain common values. The Constitution is designed as much to reflect this as it is the expansion of the rights of the individual. Something that is entrenched as a fundamental right can be done away with legally and justly if it is seen to present a real threat to the common good (again, the sum of common goals values and ideas within a society). The entire heart of the gun control debate is one of civil liberty versus the common good.
To speak to your prior point, citizens are regularly called upon to justify and rationalize their actions before the state - its called going to court. The law sets down parameters of what is acceptable and then the give and take of appeal, new legislation etc… determines what the ‘reasonable’ position is. The fact that there is such a rampant debate going on in the US over gun control obviously indicates that some citizens and lawmakers feel the need to get some degree of justification for the mounting urban arms race that already exists.
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Originally posted by DonSkotus
Given that the United States has exponentially greater gun-related deaths per year than the rest of the Western world, one needs to ponder if there’s much of a debate left to be had.
Greater restrictions on firearms (I think level 3 would apply) and the aggressive prosecution of the illegal gun trade are the solution, not pointless libertarian rhetoric.
You accuse me of using “pointless rhetoric”? Oy! The chutzpah(sp?)!
This is NOT pointless rhetoric; the appalling level of gun violence when compared to the rest of the industrialized world is well-documented fact. My only use of rhetoric is in implying that the situation is so bad, that it makes me wonder how the question of guns in the US can still be a question at all. Your statement, conversely, lacks factual background, ignores the basic principles of political history and the philosophy of government and implies a false division between the people and their government - hence, I refer to it as pointless.
Finally, three things;
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Thanks for not answering my points but simply dismissing them as ‘poetry’ - its nice to see a good strawman from time to time. You want poetry, read Shakespeare.
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Not once did I use Iambic Pentameter
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I don’t know how to spell chutzpah either.
Is he related to her and poor?