I don’t pretend to know what exactly they would have been OK with. But a good question for debate’s sake would be what they would have changed, if anything, about freedom of speech and religion had they known radical Islam was going to be an issue with Americans who were born here.
The Sally Hemings comment was in regard to the idea that we don’t believe everything they believed in was OK.
Nope. We’re talking about "bone older women because they put out since all vaginas feel the same " and “put a basket over her head if she’s ugly” Ben Franklin. Not to mention an illegitimate child…
I know that he’s not a FF, but John Tyler’s granson’s are still alive - thanks to some old man procreation.
Because the Founders apparently didn’t have a problem with those issues. How do we decide what they were wrong about and what they were right about? Not everyone thought/thinks they were wrong about women’s suffrage and/or slavery.
I’m not sure as to what your first sentence is a response. It doesn’t matter what they were right and wrong about, because there is a way to amend the Constitution. It doesn’t matter what people think about women’s suffrage and/or slavery, because the Constitution was amended to deal with those issues.
This is a pretty cool fact, in my opinion.
It’s hard to say what they would have done if they’d realized the government they were creating would just be a single, all-encompassing one. Nothing in the Constitution or Bill of Rights would have prohibited states and localities from dealing with radical Islam in their own ways. Thunderbolt has previously made a similar point in regards to gun laws in cities, if I’m not mistaken.
Provided those ways did not violate the Constitution.
Yes, and it was amended because of what people at the time thought and not what the Founders thought in their time.
The FF’s method for preventing tyranny was divvying up power between three co-equal branches of govt. That, and elections. They did not include a ‘nuclear option’ of armed rebellion in the Constitution.
I would love to see this assertion put to the test before the SCOTUS.
Obviously. Has anyone argued otherwise?
Sure they did, it’s the second thing they added to the BOR.
My copy of the 2A says nothing about tyranny or armed rebellion. Quite the opposite–it is clearly phrased to promote the defense of the state via “well-regulated” (= not irregular) troops. In short, it codifies the ability of the state to shoot rebels–not arm them.
I assume this is your response to what I said about radical Islam. The Bill of Rights was intended to limit the Federal Government.
This statement tells me a lot about what you feel the role of government should be.
The problem I have with this line of argument is that they designed the new country to endure for centuries. They may not have been able to foresee technologies of the future, but they DID think in terms of future generations, and they were more than capable of considering the principles and the execution of those principles that would secure a future foe the country.
Because one may not see what technologies may come does not mean one can only think about the present or the near future.
I don’t really want this to turn into another 2nd amendment thread (I suppose it was inevitable given the subject though).
However, I think this is a worthwhile addition to the thread:
http://scholar.valpo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1956&context=vulr
I highly suggest a read for those looking at history.
Let’s rewind a bit here.
The only position I’ve taken is that your ideas about our so-called “gun fetish” problem don’t seem to hold a lot of water. I was hoping you’d explain how you think this so-called “gun fetish” actually leads people to commit violent acts, but to your credit, you admitted that you had no data to support it. This led you to making this claim, commenting on on our friends and neighbors who let us all know that guns are their thing…
This was a false statement, and it was the moment I began disagreeing with you on the facts. My specific problem with this claim, beyond its deceptive nature, is the frequency with which it is employed as an anti-gun talking point. Speaking of deceptive anti-gun talking points, I was genuinely surprised to read that the Washington Post article you linked spoke extensively about the Kellerman study. Why do you think it made no mention of just how thoroughly it has been debunked as junk science?
I’m just a layperson, but do you think any serious researcher still stands by the conclusions of Kellerman? Yet we still see it cited, over and over again, just as you did in this thread. Junk science, still going strong in 2017.
If you want to understand the issue, it is worthwhile to understand that the Dickey Amendment was a rational response to the Kellerman study. Our rights were under attack by people who have no qualms about using taxpayer dollars to deceive as many people as possible in a deliberate effort to erode our rights. Why should that be allowed to continue?
If our rights should be eroded, I think it behooves us all to start with an honest case for why. Yet you seem to be shifting the goal posts a bit with your last few posts. Let’s agree on some terminology. We somehow went from you saying this…
To this…
It would seem to me that the government studying gun violence was not, in fact, impossible. It happened. The NRA did not prevent President Obama from ordering the study, nor the CDC from completing it. Because they can’t. And you didn’t forget to lump some suicide figures in with your numbers, but I’m not going to spend any time unpacking that number
You can call it whatever you want. I’m just a layperson, and I try to speak plainly. When I read your words below, you called America’s so-called gun fetish a “key difference”, presumably speaking about the outcome of gun violence. You’re right, a “key difference” is not the same phrase as “major driver”. I’m not quite sure what the distinction in this context is, but I’ll defer to you on that matter.
My over-arching issue with your posts on this topic, which fall right in line with often-repeated anti-gun talking points, is the deception and word games. If you want to make a case for something, speak plainly and don’t move the goal posts with petty semantic quibbling. I’ve got no problem with understanding a topic in more depth. That’s not what the Kellerman study did, and that’s not what the Dickey Amendment prevents.
As of now, your evidence against my assertion is no stronger than my evidence in favor of it, so I’m not sure how you can claim it ‘doesn’t seem to hold water.’
Which part is ‘false’? That a significant portion of gun owners are members/supporters of the NRA, or that the NRA impedes the ability of the govt to act on gun violence? And what exactly is "deceptive"about it?
The sort of research conducted by Kellerman is outside my scope of expertise, so I am unable to state the extent to which ‘serious researchers’ stand by it. I can say that the NEJM has never retracted it, and thus it must not contain fundamental, egregious flaws. Further, you describe yourself as a “layperson” in this regard, and yet seem to feel confident in concluding that Kellerman’s work was “junk science.” Coming from the same individual, those two assertions are incompatible.
That is a matter of opinion, and mine differs radically from yours on this score. (And eventually, so did Dickey’s himself.)
Again, as you are a self-admitted layperson with no expertise on the subject, I’m at a loss as to how you can make such bald, black-and-white statements about it. I can only conclude that this is simply a recapitulation of talking points promulgated by the NRA and like groups.
Because it’s important. As mentioned, even Dickey himself came to regret the effect of his amendment.
Again, if you want to stake out a position that the existence of TWO POTUS-ORDERED STUDIES, in the wake of ARGUABLY THE MOST HEINOUS MASS-SHOOTING IN AMERICAN HISTORY, is proof that the govt is free to conduct gun research as it sees fit, that position is all yours. In response, I would argue that the fact that we can count the number of govt-sponsored gun studies on one hand of a veteran band-saw operator is proof not of the ability of the govt to perform said research, but rather proof of the fact that it can’t.
My “petty semantic quibbling” is in response to false/misleading words being put in my mouth.
My initial comment was in response to the suggestion that the answer to gun violence lies in addressing certain maladaptive aspects of culture, all of which were several steps removed from gun violence itself. I simply countered that gun-culture itself was a contributory factor, and perhaps should be addressed directly.
Well, I think you need a new copy because it does not say what you just wrote at all.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
You just completely bastardized the 2A and why it was added to the BOR in the first place.
I’d like to understand you in more depth here if you would please. Are you implying with this statement that the governments’ past proposed actions would actually help the gun violence situation and that the NRA’s lobbying prevented this? Or are you saying that the NRA is stopping any discussion of any kind?
I have not read Kellerman and am not familiar with it, so I couldn’t speak to it specifically, but this doesn’t necessarily mean he’s wrong–no offense, but I think we both know of a multiplicity of studies that were never retracted and yet contain major, even fundamental flaws. I have a folder on my computer dedicated to them. Shit, it still took a decade to get the Wakefield study retracted AFTER things surfaced and that was blatant.