X-Loop: openpgp.net
From: "Tim May" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Had the Second Amendment not been as explicit as it was, guns in the
> U.S. would have been heavily regulated and/or confiscated a long,
> long time ago. The Second is far from perfect, but history shows that
> the Second was a useful deterrent against regulation and/or
> confiscation.
You mean confiscation would have been *attempted* a long time ago. I still
hope *some* americans will react violently to that...
> Your point that there should be no "Bill of Rights," as it is not
> needed, is valid up to a point, but naive. The point of the BOR was
> to make it clear, just so there would be no debate in the future,
> about what some of the rights are.
And this is exactly the problem - the (tenth? whatever) ammendment
notwithstanding, the enumeration of those rights was interpreted *exactly*
to mean that other rights don't exist, or are reserved for the state /
fedgov / national guard / whatever. "Anything not mentioned here is
forbidden to the gov't" would have been more clear, IMO.
> (BTW, you may be one of those Xtians who argues that "rights" emanate
> from God or Baal or Shiva or whomever,
God.
> and that there is no need to
> spell out rights explicitly in a human document.
Bullshit. There's no connection between the first and the second statement.
The second is a fallacy on its own :) There's no *need* for anything (all
needs are contingent), and the number of "rights" is practically infinite.
My point is specifically proven by the second ammendment, which was twisted
and turned even by its alleged defenders (NRA), to mean everything from
"assault weapons aren't covered" to "saturday night special aren't covered"
to whatever.
My point was: if the constitution doesn't say "the government has the right
to own and use nukes", then the gov't doesn't have that right, period.
[Yeah, I know I'm dreaming, but we're talking fiction here, it's not like
what I say will make Clinton change his ways...]
> Well, unless you
> know how to channel Baal or the Big Bunny or whomever runs the
> cosmos, humans cannot rely on some claim that rights don't have to be
> made explicit because Yag Sotteth gives them to us!
Rights don't have to be made explicit because that's impossible. "You have
the right to pick your nose, to wash your feet with 90% alcohol, to bake
your own cakes...". If you want to write all the rights down, be my guest.
> There are many
> well-meaning folks who claim that a "right to decent housing and
> adequate medical care" is a God-given right. Never let the Jesus
> freaks define what rights are.)
I don't remember that in the Bible. I only remember "thou shalt not kill",
"thou shalt not worship other gods", and so on. [Taking care of the poor is
an *obligation* for the Christian churches, not a right.]
[I'm getting tired of fighting American idiocy... even Romanian schools are
better than this. We at least knew that anything "they" said was to be
reversed. They said "capitalism is bad" - that was a sure sign that it's
good. They said "Christianity is evil" - well, I fell for that until I was
23 or something...]
Mark
