It was at least 15 years ago or more, and I think it may be a familiar story for those who keep track of such things, but back then a guy I knew was earnestly explaining that all modern languages were secretly transcribed (not descended from or influenced by, but transcribed from - perhaps it was by initialisms somehow?) - from Basque.
He had a degree in computer science and worked for a big corporation at the time.
I remember that story like it was yesterday! I cracked up at that, in fact I’ve told it to a couple of poker and book groups’ worth of friends.
The lunkhead was right. Read the Preamble to the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment (and the other nine) were added later to the Constitution “in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers”.
If the city is what I think it is, Ichabod Washburn was actually a devout Christian.
Over the years, I worked with pharmacists who did not know that:
I would imagine that very few people do that. Not many people have a Mary statue there, either, in part because they can be dangerous in an accident.
Not quite. The document was not identified as a “bill of rights” but as a slate of amendments. The whereas part (not exactly a preamble, as such) reads
The conventions of a number of states, at the time of their adopting the Constitution, exprefsed a desire, in order to prevent the misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declatory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government will best ensure the beneficial ends of its institution.
That sound exactly not at all as though Article the Fourth* was intended to preserve the right to take up arms against the government. They meant for the Bill of Rights to keep that from happening, and anyone who holds otherwise should have the gold fringe on their flag rent off with great vigour.
*The first Article was never ratified, and that is probably a good thing, because if it had stood as is, the House would have over six thousand members; the second Article was ratified in 1992 as Amendment 27
o/ I don't care if it rains or freezes 's long as I have my plastic Jesus glued to the dashboard of my car... o/
For your convenience, I called it the Bill of Rights so casual readers would know what I was talking about. What anybody called it is not germane to the fact that “in order to” precedes the rationale they had in mind as their purpose of adding the amendments. The only reason they gave was “in order to prevent the misconstruction or abuse of its powers”, and any other reasons, like hunting, was not mentioned.
It is to “take up arms”:, if you wish, atainst those would misconstrue or abuse (their words) the Constitution, whether the misconstrue is named Trump or Fudd.
My crew at the big airplane factory got a much needed new member this week. It appears he decided just recently that the laws and police are violations to his right to “common law” and that he does not need to follow either. He claims he will no longer carry a driver’s license, license his vehicle and traffic laws won’t apply to him as long as he doesn’t infringe on any other’s common laws. He can drive where he wants, ignore tolls and entry fees. Any attempt by the police to interfere with this freedom will result in him defending himself, if it means killing the cop, so be it.
I informed him by doing this, he is infringing on my “common law”. He told me because I choose to be depressed by the “man”, I don’t have any rights to common law. To end the conversation, I informed him that one of his job duties will involve driving company vehicles. The company requires drivers of said vehicles have a valid driver’s license in their possession. Failure to comply with company policy will result in correction action, including loss of one’s job. I’m letting management deal with him now.
He really said that? I haven’t heard “The Man” used unironically since hippie days.
One of YOUR job duties is to engage this yahoo in conversation as much as possible and report back to us. Bonus points if you poke him a bit. Extra super bonus points if you shoot video (especially if you can get the interplay between him and management… heck, you’d be a big deal on YouTube!).
Things I have learned from the radical anti-abortion protestors I’ve talked to:
Well, they do.
Might take a couple of decades, say, 'til after menopause, mind… 
People keep saying that, but it certainly would solve that whole gerrymander thing, and make it much more expensive to buy legislation.
There are doctors and scientists who have done research to show that women on birth control have uterii that are peppered with tiny dead babies.
Oh, yeah, we exchanged cassettes with my cousin when he was stationed at Schofield. On one of them, he was talking to some guys about this other soldier who had to have a testicle removed, “… It was the left one. That’s the shooting ball. So now it just dribbles out.”
(How he would be privy to the state of the other soldier’s ejaculations is as much of a mystery as where he learned this – probably from following a dairy bull around, as he was quite well known in the family for his deficit of honesty.)
I had a manger that was convinced that we never went to the moon. I played along with, and furthered his conspiracy theory by pointing out that there actually isn’t a moon at all.
Some points I raised.
Tides come twice a day, if the moon was causing it, then the water should be pulled towards the moon, not away from it, causing only one tide a day.
There are no mentions of the moon in any literature prior to 1950.
There shouldn’t be phases of the moon, if it were really in space, there’d be nothing to cast a shadow on it.
It’s bigger on the horizon than it is in the sky, because it is closer when it is setting and raising.
I had some other reasons why the moon doesn’t exist, but it was about 20 years ago, and as none of them are true, I can’t really recreate them.
I even went home and wrote up a website, then gave him the URL the next day, he was utterly convinced (if its on the internet, it must be true), and said he was going to share the link with his friends who didn’t believe him.
Much more personal representation, if a congresscritter only has 30,000 constituents rather than the best part of a million. So, we’d have to turn the house into a stadium, that’s not that hard to do.
That is brilliant. I mean, trolling him was already, but concocting your own website just for him? Nice!
Now, can you do me a favor? Make a page that proves that that all a Freeman On The Land needs to do is run naked into a session of Congress and shout 'Gimme All Uh Whats You Owes Me!" and the Speaker of the House immediately hands the Freeman a satchel filled with a million dollars in cash, and a plane ticket to the secret state of Freelandia, complete with a deed for ten acres.
It was the late 90’s. Writing websites for shits and giggles was what we did back then. Didn’t pay for a domain, just used yi.org, which I suppose, sadly, is no longer in existence. (website redirection)
I’ve seen some sovereign citizen sites, and I don’t think I could actually come up with anything to top their claims. (Full disclosure, my brother is a sov cit, and was always talking about how he has an account with millions of dollars in it, if he can just use the ambifacient lunar waneshaft in such a way that side fumbling is effectively prevented.)
How did this guy get hired?
Considering that there is a drastic shortage of women in some areas of China, for reasons beyond the scope of this board, he may have a valid point.
