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“Supreme Court puts Trump back on Colorado Republican primary ballot”

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/04/supreme-court-rule...

And another defeat for democracy.

Here's the opinion:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719...

Unanimous on the point that states cannot enforce the 14th Amendment against candidates for federal offices. Concurrences disagree on whether enforcement has to go through Congress or other federal institutions.

Unanimous decision. Sweet

Well, if it was unanimous, then it was probably the right call, Constitutionally. But then, how do we enforce the 14th? Normally you sue, and the courts enforce the Constitution (e.g. a free speech suit). Well, this was adjudicated in a state court...for some reason they skipped the federal courts and went straight to SCOTUS, as I recall. Maybe if it was appealed to federal court, and upheld, the SCOTUS ruling (it would have eventually ended up there) would have been different?

Well, if it was unanimous, then it was probably the right call, Constitutionally. But then, how do we enforce the 14th? Normally you sue, and the courts enforce the Constitution (e.g. a free speech suit). Well, this was adjudicated in a state court...for some reason they skipped the federal courts and went straight to SCOTUS, as I recall. Maybe if it was appealed to federal court, and upheld, the SCOTUS ruling (it would have eventually ended up there) would have been different?

You have to actually convict someone of a crime. You don't get to declare them guilty absent a trial just because you don't like them.

Not only was it 9-0, but it also reinforces that the 14th Amendment is there to *limit* state power.

This case raises the question whether the States, in addition to Congress, may also enforce Section 3. We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency. ...

The respondents nonetheless maintain that States may enforce Section 3 against candidates for federal office. But the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, on its face, does not affirmatively delegate such a power to the States. The terms of the Amendment speak only to enforcement by Congress, which enjoys power to enforce the Amendment through legislation pursuant to Section 5.

This can hardly come as a surprise, given that the substantive provisions of the Amendment “embody significant limitations on state authority.” Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427U. S. 445, 456 (1976). Under the Amendment, States cannot abridge privileges or immunities, deprive persons of life, liberty, or property without due process, deny equal protection, or deny male inhabitants the right to vote (without thereby suffering reduced representation in the House).See Amdt. 14, §§1, 2. On the other hand, the Fourteenth Amendment grants new power to Congress to enforce the provisions of the Amendment against the States. It would be incongruous to read this particular Amendment as granting the States the power—silently no less—to disqualify a candidate for federal office.

But then, how do we enforce the 14th? Normally you sue, and the courts enforce the Constitution (e.g. a free speech suit). Well, this was adjudicated in a state court...for some reason they skipped the federal courts and went straight to SCOTUS, as I recall. Maybe if it was appealed to federal court, and upheld, the SCOTUS ruling (it would have eventually ended up there) would have been different?

The majority held that this particular provision is a grant of power to Congress, and Congressional action is required for enforcement. So it wouldn't have mattered if the case had come up through the federal courts. The concurrences said they would have stopped at "states can't enforce this," and wouldn't have reached the question of which federal procedures can be used to enforce 14A S3. So we don't know whether they would have accepted federal judicial enforcement or not.

You don't get to declare them guilty absent a trial just because you don't like them.

There was a trial, and Trump got to participate. It just wasn't a criminal trial, since this wasn't a criminal penalty. It's very common for there to be civil consequences to criminal acts, and for people to be subject to the civil consequences even if there isn't a criminal trial - or even if they're acquitted in a criminal trial - as long as there is a civil trial.

It's very common for there to be civil consequences to criminal acts, and for people to be subject to the civil consequences even if there isn't a criminal trial - or even if they're acquitted in a criminal trial - as long as there is a civil trial.

Like OJ Simpson? Though that was a suit brought by family, not by a government entity.

Sure didn't take the court long to dispense with that issue, did it? Twenty five days from arguments to decision. Some will say this issue had an inherent "clock" associated with it since a decision was required for a state to print ballots. Well, the primary is TOMORROW and there was a stay on the removal so he was going to appear on the ballot regardless. The issues associated with immunity from criminal prosecution are more general and thus don't have an "urgency." Only in the Bizarr-o world occupied by the Supreme Court.

How odd that the same Supreme Court pushed by members like Clarence Thomas to roll back individual civil rights including those crucial to the rights of criminal suspects are blazing new trails finding "rights" for the most corrupt among us to seek power in the highest offices of the land.

How many more decisions like this can be piled atop the weakened frame of our democracy before it collapses? It feels more and more like the last forty years have been an extended effort to get a X-ray of every ambiguity, misplaced comma and incidence of sloppy grammar in our laws to twist and misinterpret them in service to the corruupt and wealthy and against the interests of the ninety nine percent. When every application of the law for the rich and powerful seems to lack any common sense or morality, it's no wonder the public becomes more uninterested in participating in what they view as a charade.


WTH

Like OJ Simpson? Though that was a suit brought by family, not by a government entity.

Sure, but there's lots of other examples. For example, securities fraud cases can be prosecuted both civilly and criminally by the SEC and DOJ. Tangential to my line of work, there's tons of environmental pollution offenses that can be the subject of both criminal and/or civil enforcement actions - and as with other types of cases, the absence of (or an acquittal in) a criminal proceeding doesn't prevent the civil case from moving forward.

The issues associated with immunity from criminal prosecution are more general and thus don't have an "urgency." Only in the Bizarr-o world occupied by the Supreme Court.

It's not Bizzaro. It's not uncommon for criminal cases to take more than a year to go from indictment to trial, especially when there are novel questions of law and the defendant is well-lawyered. That's pretty standard stuff. They had to expedite the 14th Amendment cases super-fast because there were a bunch of state courts/state agencies that were facing the choice whether to have him on the ballot or not. Since there's no comparable urgency on the criminal case, they only expedited it really fast, not super fast (under regular order, this case would have been heard next term, with oral arguments sometime in October and a decision in 2025).

The three (so far) folks that rec'd your post apparently don't realize he had a trial. As albaby already said. It just wasn't federal, and it wasn't criminal. Those are still pending.

The ruling appears to have centered on state powers. (So much for the conservative position of "state's rights(!!)".)

There was a trial, and Trump got to participate. It just wasn't a criminal trial, since this wasn't a criminal penalty. It's very common for there to be civil consequences to criminal acts, and for people to be subject to the civil consequences even if there isn't a criminal trial - or even if they're acquitted in a criminal trial - as long as there is a civil trial.

And how does a single state have jurisdiction in a federal election matter? What's amazing is that this went on as long as it did.

The ruling appears to have centered on state powers. (So much for the conservative position of "state's rights(!!)".)

That's the liberal chant, that conservatives are just like Confederates who wanted "States rights".

What conservatives actually want is the right, as in correct, set of boundaries for state and federal law. In this case, some rando judge in a rando state has zero jurisdiction over a federal election.

left wing mileage obviously varies.

And how does a single state have jurisdiction in a federal election matter? What's amazing is that this went on as long as it did.

Because the U.S. Constitution delegates a fair amount of authority over conducting federal elections back down to the states. All federal elections are administered by the states, who are to set the rules governing the time, place, and manner of conduction elections under Article I, Section 4 and Article II, Section 1. And because state law in Colorado was construed as reaching this question, the state court held that it had jurisdiction to resolve the question of whether Trump met the state requirements that incorporated the federal ones. Which itself is not that unusual - many states have their own constitutional and/or statutory provisions that mirror or incorporate their federal analogs, and so it's pretty common for people to have a state cause of action to enforce things like freedom of speech or what have you under the state analog to or incorporation of the federal provision.

This hasn't gone on long at all. Because this case dealt with a novel issue of law that concerned (among other things) the extent of a state's ability to enforce that type of a provision, it lasted for as long as it took to reach the Supreme Court - which wasn't actually all that long. Remember, Colorado's lower courts did not strike Trump from the ballot, and it's only been since December that there was a ruling to the contrary. Four months from state supreme court decision to the SCOTUS issuing a ruling is lightning fast.

Because the U.S. Constitution delegates a fair amount of authority over conducting federal elections back down to the states.

But insurrection is a crime against the United States Federal Government and the commission of such a crime would obviously be covered by federal courts. Or, putting a more fine point on it: Did J6 happen in Denver or in South Park?

In this case, some rando judge in a rando state has zero jurisdiction over a federal election.

In this case, allowing for your sweeping generalization, the SCOTUS agreed with you.

And it's not just the Confederates. I've been hearing that chant from the right pretty much my entire adult life. When I was a Republican, I agreed with it. As I learned more, and learned how it was (and sometimes still is) abused, I became less in favor of it.

Slavery was a good example of the Confederacy, but more recently there were Jim Crow laws, laws against gay marriage, and now we are seeing the curtailing of women's rights by some states. How does it make sense that a frozen embryo is a child in one state, and just a block of ice in another? It's stupid. It either is, or it isn't. Shouldn't matter what state you're in. Just as a current example.

But insurrection is a crime against the United States Federal Government and the commission of such a crime would obviously be covered by federal courts.

Sure - but again, it's not at all uncommon for state courts to have mirror provisions or incorporate by reference provisions of federal law, and to have violations of federal law have an effect under state law.

Trivially, there are lots of instances where being convicted of a felony will affect your ability to do something under purely state law. For example, if you commit a federal felony (say, insurrection against the federal government) you might not qualify for a state license (say, get a state liquor license). If the state rule doesn't require a federal proceeding but simply incorporates or mirrors some federal requirement, then a state court has jurisdiction to make a finding about whether that federal requirement has been met.

And it's not just the Confederates. I've been hearing that chant from the right pretty much my entire adult life. When I was a Republican, I agreed with it. As I learned more, and learned how it was (and sometimes still is) abused, I became less in favor of it.

It's largely used as a pejorative by the liberal set. Sadly, these people have very little understanding of basic civics and that's why so many of them fail to grasp the notion of jurisdiction or the tension between the federal government and the states that is actually one of the reasons why our system works so well: the dynamicism keeps things moving forward.

For example, if you commit a federal felony (say, insurrection against the federal government) you might not qualify for a state license (say, get a state liquor license).

Sure...except that you'd have to be convicted in a federal court for that state provision to trigger in that instance. Trump was never tried, much less charged, with "insurrection" in a federal court.

If the state rule doesn't require a federal proceeding but simply incorporates or mirrors some federal requirement, then a state court has jurisdiction to make a finding about whether that federal requirement has been met.

Point well taken Albaby.

And it's not just the Confederates. I've been hearing that chant from the right pretty much my entire adult life.

That's probably a function of when your adult life took place.

It is a gross oversimplification, but not an entirely wrong one, to say that from WWII until a short time ago, the federal courts were mostly applying the Constitution to tell state governments that the Constitution prohibited them from doing conservative things, and instead had to do liberal things. From the 1940's through the 1960's, and especially during the Warren Court, the SCOTUS started "incorporating" the Bill of Rights against the States and issuing a large number of rulings that circumscribed State restrictions on a range of issues. The Constitution was interpreted to ban segregation, prayer in schools, bans on birth control and marital aids, limits on free expression, and bans on abortion. That's also the period where the federal government also extended a lot of it's regulatory ambit, again mostly in service of things that modern liberals wanted and conservatives didn't - environmental regulation with the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, the Voting Rights Act, etc.

It's no surprise that views of the proper role of the federal government ended up aligning the way they did.

Now both sides are a little wrongfooted on that question. For the first time since the 1930's, you're seeing some of the major changes in federal jurisprudence going the other way - the Court telling states that they lack the power to do things liberals want, like regulating gun control (or striking Trump from the ballot). As that trend continues, we are probably going to see some scrambling of positions on federalism....

Sure...except that you'd have to be convicted in a federal court for that state provision to trigger in that instance. Trump was never tried, much less charged, with "insurrection" in a federal court.

Yes - but it doesn't have to be that way. For example, you could draft a state law that says that no one can serve as a county treasurer if they have failed to file their most recent federal tax return. That's a state law requirement, but it would require a state court to determine some questions of fact dealing with compliance with federal law: was a candidate required to file a federal tax return, what was the most recent year they were required to do so, and did they do it. The fact that the federal government also has the ability to bring enforcement procedures doesn't keep the state court from making rulings on those issues.

So if the state has a rule that says that no one that has committed insurrection can run for Governor (again, for example), then a state court could make a civil determination whether a candidate has committed federal insurrection. They would be able to do that regardless of whether the federal government has filed charges or not, because they would be applying state law.

That's the liberal chant, that conservatives are just like Confederates who wanted "States rights".

NO. The liberal view is that the South rewrote history so that the war wasn't about slavery, but about state's rights. Which is what happened. It's part of the Lost Cause mythology.

State's rights became a code word or a dog whistle:

"Since the 1940s, the term "states' rights" has often been considered a loaded term or dog whistle because of its use in opposition to federally-mandated racial desegregation[42] and, more recently, same-sex marriage and reproductive rights.[43][44]

During the heyday of the civil rights movement, defenders of racial segregation[45][c] used the term "states' rights" as a code word in what is now referred to as dog-whistle politics: political messaging that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different, or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup.[46][47][48] In 1948 it was the official name of the "Dixiecrat" party led by white supremacist presidential candidate Strom Thurmond.[49][50] Democratic Governor George Wallace of Alabama, who famously declared in his inaugural address in 1963, "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" later remarked that he should have said, "States' rights now! States' rights tomorrow! States' rights forever!"[51] Wallace, however, claimed that segregation was but one issue symbolic of a larger struggle for states' rights. In that view, which some historians dispute, his replacement of segregation with states' rights would be more of a clarification than a euphemism.[51]: wiki

That's probably a function of when your adult life took place.

Possibly. Adult life started in the early 80s. Reagan was king. I voted for him second term, before I realized all the "dog whistles" that I wasn't hearing (but should have...I plead youthful ignorance). He was all about state's rights, and I've been hearing that phrase now for 40 years.

I think the CO case about the ballot is the first time I can remember that conservatives said "a state can't do that". Before it was always "the feds should let the states do what they want" (oversimplified, admittedly, but you get the point).

I do expect more abortion nonsense from the conservatives as they will probably want the federal to ban the practice regardless of what the states choose to do. So "state's rights" apparently is only a thing when the feds are doing something they don't like. I prefer we stick with the actual Constitutional powers of the states and the feds, though I think I can safely be called a federalist. I don't like a hodge-podge of "rights" depending on what state you happen to be in. They should be uniform nationwide.

the tension between the federal government and the states that is actually one of the reasons why our system works so well: the dynamicism keeps things moving forward.

It would only appear to be moving forward to a person whose head is located in the vicinity of his/her ass.

"Since the 1940s, the term "states' rights" has often been considered a loaded term or dog whistle because of its use in opposition to federally-mandated racial desegregation[42] and, more recently, same-sex marriage and reproductive rights.[43][44]

You're making my point for me. left wingers chant "states rights" at right wingers in (what they think is a sly) way to call righties racists. Imagination isn't a thing in some political circles.

I do expect more abortion nonsense from the conservatives as they will probably want the federal to ban the practice regardless of what the states choose to do. So "state's rights" apparently is only a thing when the feds are doing something they don't like. I prefer we stick with the actual Constitutional powers of the states and the feds, though I think I can safely be called a federalist. I don't like a hodge-podge of "rights" depending on what state you happen to be in. They should be uniform nationwide.

Excellent. Then let's sign you up for nationwide concealed carry and a blanket repeal of AWB's across the country!

I think the CO case about the ballot is the first time I can remember that conservatives said "a state can't do that". Before it was always "the feds should let the states do what they want" (oversimplified, admittedly, but you get the point).

Oh, no - and we've talked about some of them.

The Second Amendment and gun control is the most notable recent example, of course. States wanted to regulate guns in a certain way, and the Court said they were prohibited from doing that because of the Second Amendment.

But it's not the only one. On the First Amendment, the Court's pushed back on the scope of State anti-discrimination laws (gay wedding cakes and the website designer) and efforts to get religion out of school events (football coach praying). The Court applied the 14th Amendment to strike state college efforts to promote college diversity/affirmative action. Their campaign finance jurisprudence also limits state regulations on campaign speech.

I think that you're starting to see some serious reversal in attitudes about the Court precisely because it's shifted from an institution that (mostly) reads the Constitution in a way that limits government power in ways that liberals have liked and towards ways that conservatives like.

So, yes, conservatives are going to start reversing their ideas about whether issues should be settled at the state or federal level - but I think you'll start to see progressives doing that as well, as the Court starts construing some of the limitations on state power to prohibit things that liberals want to see happen (like economic regulation).

No, let's sign me up for "there is no militia anymore, so the feds can ban whatever they like".

No, let's sign me up for "there is no militia anymore, so the feds can ban whatever they like".

You should read the Federalist Papers. The militia...was the citizenry.
At any rate in 2 years AWBs will be gone nationwide.

At any rate in 2 years AWBs will be gone nationwide.

We'll see. The Seventh Circuit just upheld an AWB, applying the Bruen standard, and a petition for cert was just filed last month. So we'll probably know by this summer if the Court believes that the 2A prohibits AWB's under Bruen.

We'll see. The Seventh Circuit just upheld an AWB, applying the Bruen standard, and a petition for cert was just filed last month. So we'll probably know by this summer if the Court believes that the 2A prohibits AWB's under Bruen.

Here's a filing of interest, stemming from one of the many suits against Illinois' AWB.

Barnett vs. Raoul: https://www.nssf.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Ba...

When this Court discarded the approach that
nearly every court of appeals had been applying to
Second Amendment challenges as incompatible with
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008),
and insufficiently protective of a fundamental right,
one would have thought that everyone would finally
get that emphatic message. Unfortunately, Illinois
responded to this Court’s seminal decision in New
York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen,
597 U.S. 1 (2022), with defiance. Rather than trim
back existing restrictions on constitutionally protected
rights to comply with Bruen, Illinois promptly enacted
the most restrictive firearms law in the state’s 200
year history, banning the possession of more than
1,000 previously lawful semiautomatic rifles, pistols,
and shotguns, including many of the most popular
models in the country, along with their component
parts, plus ubiquitous ammunition feeding devices.
More remarkable still, a divided panel of the Seventh
Circuit vindicated that massive resistance by
resurrecting pre-Bruen caselaw and embracing the
novel theory that Illinois’ law does not even implicate
the Second Amendment and trigger the state’s burden
to prove that it is “consistent with this Nation’s
historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Id. at 17.
The Seventh Circuit’s decision cannot begin to be
reconciled with this Court’s precedents. Indeed,
rather than faithfully follow Heller and Bruen, the
majority castigated and cast them aside at every turn.

You're making my point for me. left wingers chant "states rights" at right wingers in (what they think is a sly) way to call righties racists. Imagination isn't a thing in some political circles.

You're being thicck here. Conservative"s chant "state's rights", not leftists. Left wingers have only pointed out its racist origins. Pretend all you want, lots of righties are racists and use state's rights as a dog whistle. Not hard to understand.

You're being thicck here.

You're not comprehending again. libs chant "state's rights" at conservatives as a form of insult, as you're doing now.
Toodles!

You're not comprehending again. libs chant "state's rights" at conservatives as a form of insult, as you're doing now.
Toodles!

Sorry, I umderstood you, it's just this chanting by libs only happens in your imagination - Dope's pretend world. Here's Lee to splain to you the evolution of politalk in Southern polies, etc.

"You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”"

Now that's Lee Atwater in a taped interview from 1981. This actually happened DOPE. Not anyone's pretend imagination. I thank my Aussie friends for the term dogwhistle.

Since we’re quoting historical figures:

‘I’ll have those <n-words> voting democrat for 200 years”.

“Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.‘

I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader as to who said what. You can also plant that Aussie dog whistle somewhere; the biggest racists I’ve ever known are all liberals. They don’t call it the left wing plantation for nothing.

I have read the relevant Papers. That's not quite what it says. It says the militia is drawn from the citizenry. But it isn't necessarily the whole citizenry, hence the term "well-regulated" in the 2A. A mob is not "well-regulated".

Scalia himself in Heller said the term "milita" was obsolete, and that service in a "militia" was unnecessary to the right to bear arms. Basically, he said "the first 13 words don't count". (Yeah, a real originalist.) Militias were all the rage before Heller, with folks thinking that if they could say they were in a "militia" then the gummint couldn't grab their guns. There are still some, but after Heller a lot of them just went home and stopped playing "army" in the woods.

We've already been over national defense, and the vision that citizen militias would be the go-to. So I won't recapitulate that. The only bit that is still relevant is that some were concerned the people would need to "defend themselves" against the federal (i.e. the anti-federalists).

I have read the relevant Papers. That's not quite what it says. It says the militia is drawn from the citizenry. But it isn't necessarily the whole citizenry, hence the term "well-regulated" in the 2A. A mob is not "well-regulated".

You're applying "regulated" incorrectly. It doesn't mean "some rule a government flunky wrote" in that context.

At any rate, let's hear it from James Madison in Federalist 46:

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01...

Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the state governments with the people on their side would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield in the United States an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.

And how is this possible, you might ask?

Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprizes of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

Indeed. Can't have the proles hold any real power, which is what the debate over 2nd Amendment is really about.

To which I retort with Hamilton in 29:

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed29.asp

It requires no skill in the science of war to discern that uniformity in the organization and discipline of the militia would be attended with the most beneficial effects, whenever they were called into service for the public defense.

...

But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable...



Lots more in that one. He sees the argument about defending against a large federal army, but he also is speaking of regulation/training. Again, it's not a mob with pitchforks and muskets. It's a disciplined militia, similar to today's national guard. Which the feds can call-up as needed, and they have done so numerous times.

The 2A, despite Scalia's "jiggery-pokery", is talking about an organized, disciplined militia (answerable primarily to the State, not the Federal).

But, again, we've gone over this before. The Constitution was written with an economy of words. So each word means something. The first 13 words of the 2A mean something, and I think Hamilton pretty much elaborates it in 29.

"It's not Bizzaro. It's not uncommon for criminal cases to take more than a year to go from indictment to trial, especially when there are novel questions of law and the defendant is well-lawyered. That's pretty standard stuff. They had to expedite the 14th Amendment cases super-fast because there were a bunch of state courts/state agencies that were facing the choice whether to have him on the ballot or not. Since there's no comparable urgency on the criminal case, they only expedited it really fast, not super fast (under regular order, this case would have been heard next term, with oral arguments sometime in October and a decision in 2025)."

You don't think it is urgent for voters to know if a candidate on the ballot is a convicted criminal or not?

Besides, It is important for SCOTUS to rule on presidential immunity before the election so Joe Biden can get Seal Team 6 trained up to kill all of his political enemies before the election.

The 2A, despite Scalia's "jiggery-pokery", is talking about an organized, disciplined militia (answerable primarily to the State, not the Federal).

But, again, we've gone over this before. The Constitution was written with an economy of words. So each word means something. The first 13 words of the 2A mean something, and I think Hamilton pretty much elaborates it in 29.

Their weapons need to come from somewhere...namely, their homes.
Can't do that...unless you have the right to keep and bear arms. Case closed.

So if the state has a rule that says that no one that has committed insurrection can run for Governor (again, for example), then a state court could make a civil determination whether a candidate has committed federal insurrection. They would be able to do that regardless of whether the federal government has filed charges or not, because they would be applying state law.

In your example, the theoretical candidate violated a federal law with the fact determiner ultimately being a federal agency (meaning, there's no crime unless the IRS testifies that so-and-so hasn't filed a return).

The state could then use the law you propose to keep our delinquent filer from running for Official Dogcatcher or Governor...but would be powerless to keep them from running for President in a nationwide federal election. Where it would get interesting is would your law keep someone off the state ballot for something like Senator or Representative to Congress.

Their weapons need to come from somewhere...namely, their homes.
Can't do that...unless you have the right to keep and bear arms. Case closed. = Dope

-=----------------

That reason more or less concedes that firearms are allowed in home for the purpose of quickly forming a militia. Since SCOTUS has determined the right to bear is an individual right, is where I say the decision was "case "closed". I don't need to have or need to give a reason!

That reason more or less concedes that firearms are allowed in home for the purpose of quickly forming a militia. Since SCOTUS has determined the right to bear is an individual right, is where I say the decision was "case "closed". I don't need to have or need to give a reason!

Nope. There's no more of this 2nd class right nonsense when it comes to the 2A. It's on par with the right to a speedy trial, free speech and all the other things.

I do notice how quickly the love of Federalism goes away when you bring up the Second Amendment, lol.

1pgNo, let's sign me up for "there is no militia anymore, so the feds can ban whatever they like".

You should read the Federalist Papers. The militia...was the citizenry

Reading the Constitution is enough. We ratified the Constitution.

Article I, Section 8
The Militia Clauses

Clause 15. The Congress shall have Power * * * To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.

Clause 16. The Congress shall have Power * * * To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

Then you go to the code:

10 U.S. Code § 246 - Militia: composition and classes

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

Me: Modernly, the unorganized militia is the pool of men (a)(see above) that both the Fed and State can enlist and draft from. There are no self appointed militias. So, Dope, we defined in the Constitution who had the powers regarding the militia and Congress has the largest power. Modernly, the cases give the Federal Government almost all the power.

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.

Except for that part.
Case closed. AWB bans go bye-bye soon.

Their weapons need to come from somewhere...namely, their homes.
Can't do that...unless you have the right to keep and bear arms. Case closed. = Dope

-=----------------

That reason more or less concedes that firearms are allowed in home for the purpose of quickly forming a militia. Since SCOTUS has determined the right to bear is an individual right, is where I say the decision was "case "closed". I don't need to have or need to give a reason!

But in Heller, the 2A was found to support an individual right to keep and bear arms, and mostly for self defense. The prefatory clause about the militia, was found to not modify the operative clause, so it has no effect on the individual rights. We didn't ratify the Federalist papers, look to the Constitution and see what it says about militia, and the modern code applying that understanding.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state

Has no legal effect per Heller. It's just an intro.

This is interesting, Mike and Albaby -



The Collective Right Endures: Pre-Heller Precedent and Our Understanding of the Modern Second Amendment
Abstract

Prior to 2008, legal scholars who examined the Second Amendment fell roughly into two camps: those who believed “the right of the people to . . . bear arms” only covered state militias, and those who believed it extended to individual citizens.

After District of Columbia v. Heller conclusively established that the “Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms," discussion of the collective right to bear arms largely receded from public discussion and most litigation surrounding the Second Amendment shifted to define the outer edges of the individual right. But the pre-Heller showdown between these competing viewpoints did not fully encompass or address the nuances of federal precedent. Although the credits may have rolled on the collective versus individual right discussion in the public forum, it left much undiscussed in defining the scope of the Second Amendment.

This Note argues that the dichotomous split in opinion over the Second Amendment pre-Heller led both camps of scholars to overlook particularly important aspects of the collective right that survived Heller in federal precedent through two cases: Presser v. People of the State of Illinois and United States v. Miller. Because Presser and Miller are binding precedent, their holdings still offer insight into our modern understanding of the Second Amendment. Taken together, Presser and Miller clearly and expressly limit the federal government’s ability to regulate firearms when state governments can show a reasonable relationship for militia purposes. These cases essentially give individuals and states a justification to challenge federal assault weapons bans and other regulations, so long as the parties can present a reasonable relationship to a militia function. They also suggest limitations on the reach and extent of the modern individual right by reinforcing traditional areas of state firearm regulation. Although Presser and Miller do not sit neatly within the bounds of the pre-Heller arguments, these cases represent surviving aspects of the collective right framework that have relevant, modern, and practical uses in shaping our use of the Second Amendment.

Me: So they may be able to use collective precedent to argue a reasonable relationship to militia along with historical tradition.

https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol31/iss2/1...

Has no legal effect per Heller. It's just an intro.

And now you're arguing my point for me.
The right to keep and bear arms is a fully enumerated civil right.

You don't think it is urgent for voters to know if a candidate on the ballot is a convicted criminal or not?

I don't think it's especially relevant to the Court, and probably for good reason. It's the norm that people who are being subjected to the criminal justice system have outside lives that are going to be completely disrupted by the proceedings, and many other people who will be affected by the fact that they may (or may not) end up being convicted of a crime. As a rule, the courts don't bend over backwards to accommodate those things, except when minor children are involved. The process is the process, protecting the rights of the defendant and the legitimacy of prosecutions are paramount, and the fact that the proceeding may have significant impacts on other people isn't generally the courts' concern.

The whole premise of the prosecution is that a former President - or a current candidate for President - should be treated like anyone else. That they are entitled to no greater favors or special treatment by virtue of their status than anyone else. The same is true on the reverse side, though - the fact that DJT is a candidate for President does not make him special. It doesn't entitle him - or the prosecution - to any extraordinary treatment in the review of the case. They'll bend within normal order to accommodate those outside factor, but they're not going to break normal order.

I'm sure the fact that the indictment didn't come until August 2023 - two and a half years after the events in question - also played a factor in the Court's assessment. If you bring charges in a white collar criminal prosecution with novel and heavily contested issues of law against a well-lawyered well-resourced defendant, it is the more likely outcome that you won't get to trial in a year. So I'm sure the Court casts a skeptical eye towards the proposition that it is "urgent" for this case to be resolved before the election.

In your example, the theoretical candidate violated a federal law with the fact determiner ultimately being a federal agency (meaning, there's no crime unless the IRS testifies that so-and-so hasn't filed a return).

Not at all. The IRS isn't the finder of fact - the court is. If the plaintiffs can prove their case without IRS testimony, then IRS participation isn't necessary.

I run into this all the time in the environmental permitting side of my practice. A lot of state environmental laws will incorporate by reference the federal standards for whatever the subject matter is (wetlands permitting, pollution control, what have you). So the state and local agencies will make a determination whether those standards have been met. It's really not all that unusual for state courts to apply federal law (or vice versa) when circumstances require it.

Dope's dredges up quotes by long gone Democrats as a 'what about', as if they make the current white xtian nationalism/ right-wing racism less concerning.

RBG didn't have a racist bone in her body. The right wing uses her quote dishonestly, out of context. Typical right wing misinformation.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ruth-bader-ginsb...

The famous quote attributed to LBJ must be considered in the totality of his political/social goals. Right wingers use unconfirmed 'quotes' like that as 'what abouts" to make their current racists seem less deplorable.

LBJ was a Texan who had to cultivate a "good old boy" image to get anywhere in Texas elections; a politician who knew his political existence depended on walking a fine line between the racist Texas/South, and northern liberals in the Civil Rights era.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-voting-democ...

Their weapons need to come from somewhere...namely, their homes.
Can't do that...unless you have the right to keep and bear arms. Case closed.

Nonsense.

A home inhabited by psychiatric basket cases, violent people with criminal histories, substance abusers, spousal abusers, a home with an unsecured armory is not well-regulated.

Case wide effing open.

Here's another LBJ quote:

“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”
― Lyndon B. Johnson

When the Filipinos I know asked me if the US was racist I said Yes. It;s always just below the surface and periodically it bubbles up into view. I show them the Lee Atwater quote "nigger, nigger, nigger" and then the above LBJ quote and tell them it hasn't gone away.

Good for you. When was the last DEI class you took? I’d say you need to spend some time pondering your Privilege.

When the Filipinos I know asked me if the US was racist I said Yes. - Lapsody

------------------

If you stopped at Yes, then you missed an opportunity to highlight some of the vast progress that has been made; and that our system allows for continuous debate and improvement; and although we are imperfect and always will be, we are better, lots better, than it used to be.

Their weapons need to come from somewhere...namely, their homes.
Can't do that...unless you have the right to keep and bear arms. Case closed.

Nonsense.

A home inhabited by psychiatric basket cases, violent people with criminal histories, substance abusers, spousal abusers, a home with an unsecured armory is not well-regulated.

Case wide effing open.

There are a few things they haven't considered. One is that George Washington complained heavily about how worthless the militia were. The militia had a few successes up front in the war, but Washington's assessment was they were more trouble than they were worth. They usually voted on who would be their Captain and there would be no discipline. He complained they would eat up his stores and then take off whenever they wanted to. Many were farmers and would leave when it was harvesting or planting time. He wrote letter after letter complaining about them to the Continental Congress. He wanted soldiers that enlisted to be paid, they could discipline them and there was no farm, etc., they needed to tend to. When one state hadn't met its enlistment quota they offered to send volunteers and Washington said no. That's how it was.

I think that's why you see Congress and the State being mostly in charge of the militia in the Constitution because by then they knew they need well disciplined troops. Washington got a Prussian General to discipline his troops and one of the first things he did was have them build latrines because they were walking around in their crap.

And if you look in the Constitution there are no self appointed militia. Only the Fed and the State can designate militia. The unregulated militia is the pool of able bodied men you can enlist and draft from.

To me the 2d Amendment is satisfied if there are there are a hundred or so models each of pistols, shotguns, and rifles. No military capability is necessary to satisfy the 2d Amendment, because it's an individual right unconnected to the militia.

We do have varying opinions here ( see the abstract I posted). The modern disciplined militia is the National Guard. Beyond that we have the individual right to keep and bear arms that is mostly for self defense. We don't need 3%ers, or Oathkeepers, or Nazis playing paramilitary, or have neighborhood gun junkies talking shit and getting themselves worked up. That is all. :)

If you stopped at Yes,

Why do you think they asked if we are racist? Because they didn't think so from all the nice Kanos they've met, like me. :) I was just forthright about it. We are racist, the troops were racist when we first got to the Philippines. Rudyard Kipling's poem White Man's Burden is about the Philippine American War. The one's I know aren't dumb either and know more about the Roman Empire than I do.

Besides, It is important for SCOTUS to rule on presidential immunity before the election so Joe Biden can get Seal Team 6 trained up to kill all of his political enemies before the election.

No. But Joe is already very old, as is Trump. So maybe Joe could test that in practice on Trump. Send the SEALS to eliminate Don, and let the courts set their precedent. Then we don't have to deal with this in the future. :-|

Case not closed, because the general citizenry is a rabble. They are NOT trained (in general), and not regulated/disciplined. Therefore they do not meet the criteria that Scalia attempted to brush aside.

Now, case closed.

Case not closed, because the general citizenry is a rabble. They are NOT trained (in general), and not regulated/disciplined. Therefore they do not meet the criteria that Scalia attempted to brush aside.

Now, case closed.

Let's play this game. Most people who comment on politics are untrained and undereducated and in many instances lean left because of that lack of training and understanding. Perhaps we should require proper education on civics and economics before allowing someone to post on the internet. After all, words are violence, right?

You guys really want to go there?

We didn't ratify the Federalist papers, look to the Constitution and see what it says about militia, and the modern code applying that understanding.

Very true. But the Federalist Papers do indicate what the Founders were thinking at the time. But, as we can see in the 2A debate, they weren't in agreement regarding the reasoning. Hamilton envisioned a disciplined and trained militia, while Madison appears to have envisioned all the citizens grabbing their muskets and running to repel the Redcoats. Ultimately, what was ratified was a compromise, and we have to see what was written there. And the first 13 words -despite Scalia The Originalist [scoff]- favor more of Hamilton than Madison.

Florida has environmental laws? I would have thought that DeSantis declared them "woke" and eliminated them.

Yes, Mike. Vast progress has been made. No question. When I was born, miscegenation was illegal in many states. Love was ruled while I was alive and kicking. So it's not some "distant past" (though I am old!).

1poorlady says that sometimes she is treated differently if I am there versus when she is on her own. 1poorkid experienced it when she was public-facing working in a sandwich shop.

So, yes...we are better than we were. But we're still racist. And the problem is that a lot of it is institutional; so deeply embedded in peoples' circumstances (e.g. they are where they are because of past racist policies), and sometimes the law.

We say "racist", but it is actually more complex than just guys in pointy white hats. They are the ones you see, and can easily denigrate as "racist". But it is so much more complex when you say the US is racist.

No military capability is necessary to satisfy the 2d Amendment, because it's an individual right unconnected to the militia.

Just for context, a simple hunting rifle today would be more advanced than someone in the Revolutionary War could have dreamed. You don't need an AR15...a Remington 30-06 would be suitably impressive to them.

But, it was Scalia who decided that it's an individual right not connected with the militia. And while I concede that is the current law, it needs to be overturned. And I will support any efforts to do so. But it will take a long time because we have a wildly conservative SCOTUS, and it will take time for them to age-out. And then you have to have a case brought before them that can overturn Heller and McDonald. Not going to happen within my lifetime.

Doesn't mean I'm not a federalist. It just means I think the SCOTUS, and especially Scalia, got it wrong this time. If our Union persists long enough, I think Heller and McDonald will be viewed by history right up there with Dredd-Scot as huge errors by the Court.

Ultimately, what was ratified was a compromise, and we have to see what was written there. And the first 13 words -despite Scalia The Originalist [scoff]- favor more of Hamilton than Madison.

I'm not sure why you guys are hung up on the militia concept. Americans have the right to keep and bear arms, period.
Did you think that only militia members are afforded this right?

I'm not sure why you guys are hung up on the militia concept.

Before answering - is that a rhetorical question, or are you genuinely unfamiliar with what the competing argument against the "individual right" claim is?

I'm not sure why you guys are hung up on the militia concept.

Because that's what it says.

Americans have the right to keep and bear arms, period.

Says who? It's not a god-given right (since there probably is no god). It was (primarily) Scalia's interpretation. Just as the court once interpreted a woman to have a guaranteed right to an abortion. Well, Roe is gone now. Someday, hopefully, Heller and McDonald will be gone. It's only a right because Scalia (primarily) said it was.

Did you think that only militia members are afforded this right?

Yes. Because that's what it says. Members of a government-sponsored militia (not some bunch of yahoos saying "we're a militia"). The states (or feds) can pass laws to allow or prohibit possession of firearms. They could pass laws about licensing, testing, or whatever. As the Constitution was originally written. Scalia didn't see it that way, and -for the time being- this is the law of the land. But give it 50 years. It will change when they realize what a horrible mistake Heller was.

Hopefully, by then, women will have a restored right for bodily autonomy, too. Again, it may take 50 years...but I digress...

Not trying to speak for DOPE, but I took it as a genuine question. FWIW. IMHO, he thinks the counter-argument is so obviously ridiculous and wrong, that he can't really see it. Or, perhaps, he is religious and thinks it is god-given. Dunno.

I think I'm more of an "originalist" than Scalia, or at least more of a literalist. It says "well-regulated militia" right in the 2A. That means what it means. If one doesn't like it, change it through the amendment process. Don't just ignore it like Scalia did.

Before answering - is that a rhetorical question, or are you genuinely unfamiliar with what the competing argument against the "individual right" claim is?

It's a bit of both. I've found it interesting over the years that the anti-2A set chooses to focus on the first part of the amendment while ignoring the last.

Says who?
The actual Constitution, historical precedent and two hundred years of legal rulings.
Other than that, you guys have a tremendous legal leg to stand on.

It's not a God-given right (since there probably is no god). It was (primarily) Scalia's interpretation
Not just him.

How many other rights do you think the feds can just take away from you?

Members of a government-sponsored militia (not some bunch of yahoos saying "we're a militia").
That's not how it works.

You've been referring to Hamilton. Are you sure he said what you think he says?

This will not only lessen the call for military establishments; but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow citizens.

Where do they get their arms from?

I think I'm more of an "originalist" than Scalia, or at least more of a literalist. It says "well-regulated militia" right in the 2A.

You're substituting what you think the proper definition of "regulated" is. "Well-regulated" means "disciplined". It does not mean "government passes a bunch of USC items".

I've found it interesting over the years that the anti-2A set chooses to focus on the first part of the amendment while ignoring the last.

I think that reflects a misunderstanding of the argument - namely, that both parts of the amendment have to be read together.

The argument (generally) is that the text of the reference to the militia defines the scope of the right being granted. It's important to remember that the U.S. at the time was a collection of sovereign nations - not a single country, as we would understand that today. It was more like the EU than a single entity. The conversion from the Articles to the Constitution was a major transfer of governmental authority away from those sovereign nations to a new, federal governmental body.

One of the major, MAJOR points of contention was military power. The States each had their own military forces. They were loathe to allow the new federal government to have a monopoly on military power. Not even a monopoly - there was considerable distrust of even letting the federal government have its own standing army. Like so many other issues, the primary concern during the Founding was about how much power the federal government was going to have, not at all about protecting the "rights" of individual citizens.

The Bill of Rights, as initially conceived, has to be understood in this context. Nothing in the Bill of Rights protected citizens from "government," writ large. It protected them from the federal government. State governments were perfectly free to abridge their speech, take their property without compensation, prohibit certain religions, or any host of other measures (consistent with their own State constitutions). And take away their guns, or regulate them in any way they wanted. No citizen at that time had an inalienable right to own a gun, any more than they had an inalienable right to practice their religion - the Bill of Rights merely identified which government was in charge of determining whether they could own a gun or practice their religion.

So, for example, the reason the federal government couldn't establish a church wasn't because government churches and official state religions were bad. It was to make sure that the States retained decide which church would be the official church - or to have a state church at all. The BoR allocated power between the Feds and the States.

In this view, the Second Amendment did not grant individuals a right to own guns - after all, the States were perfectly free to prohibit guns altogether. It preserved the ability of the States to keep their citizenry armed, so that the States would always have the option to have a military force under their control rather than cede all military power to the newly-created federal government.

Flash forward to 1868, and the Reconstruction Amendments are adopted - and for the first time, the States now have some real substantive limits coming from the Federal Constitution on what States are allowed to do to their own citizens. The purpose of the Amendments was to carve out a sphere of rights that the States couldn't interfere with, that would be protected by the Federal Constitution against the states. In addition to being protected against chattel slavery or the denial of equal protection, citizens would now be protected against the States depriving them of "life, liberty, and property" without due process.

But what does that mean? What is "liberty" in that context? The Courts eventually settled on that term meaning (at a minimum) the sorts of things that the Framers originally protected citizens from Federal authority, that the enumeration of them in the Bill of Rights means that they're the sorts of things that are "liberties" and could meaningfully be ported from applying to the federal government to the state governments.

Two clauses, though, are a little weird - the Second Amendment and the Establishment Clause. Those are the two things within the Bill of Rights that aren't necessarily understood as being there to protect individual freedoms, but can instead be understood as protecting the prerogatives of the state - because both involve state action. Only a State can establish a church; only a State can establish a militia. Private individuals can't do either of those things. They involve the exercise of governmental authority. So there are arguments that neither of those things are protections granted to individuals as "liberties," rather than being more properly understood as a division of power between State and Federal government.

Under that framework, the "right" granted by the Second Amendment is actually only a limitation on federal authority so that States would have the ability to maintain their own military forces independent of the national government. It is therefore only a right exercisable by the State itself, or collectively on behalf of forming a militia - not a right that can be asserted by an individual that wants to own a gun for their own purposes, and certainly not against the State.

Albaby

N.B. - Clarence Thomas has continually argued against the incorporation of the Establishment Clause for exactly this reason; that it is not an individual right granted to ensure that individuals are "free" from state-sponsored religion, but a collective right to allow the people to determine at the State level whether (and which) religions should be officially sponsored without interference by or competition from a Federal religion.

In this view, the Second Amendment did not grant individuals a right to own guns - after all, the States were perfectly free to prohibit guns altogether. It preserved the ability of the States to keep their citizenry armed, so that the States would always have the option to have a military force under their control rather than cede all military power to the newly-created federal government.

Except that this is the argumentative trap that's being applied: Only militia are allowed guns, and since we don't have militia, nobody needs any guns. The problem with that is that it flies in the face of historical precedent and ignores the basic intent of the 2A...which was that Americans are an armed people.

Only militia are allowed guns, and since we don't have militia, nobody needs any guns. The problem with that is that it flies in the face of historical precedent and ignores the basic intent of the 2A...which was that Americans are an armed people.

No, that is not the argument.

The protection of the Second Amendment did not mean that only the militia are allowed guns. It meant that the federal government could not decide whether the citizenry in any given State was allowed to have guns or not, in order to protect the ability of the State to have a militia that it could draw on if it wanted to. The State was perfectly free to decide whether or not to allow individuals to be armed (and with what weapons), and the federal government could not butt into that.

The question is whether this provision was structured/intended as a collective right to protect State power ("We are prohibiting the Feds from doing this because we need to preserve the capability of State governments to have their own armed forces") or as an individual right ("We are prohibiting the Feds from doing this because we think it is an individual right the people should get to decide for themselves.")

If the latter, then like all the other individual rights in the BoR, the right to bear arms can be construed as a personal "liberty" that is now subject to the 14th Amendment. If the former, though, then the right to bear arms isn't a "liberty" - it's a collective protection from federal overreach that is still subject to whatever rules the States want to impose.

The protection of the Second Amendment did not mean that only the militia are allowed guns. It meant that the federal government could not decide whether the citizenry in any given State was allowed to have guns or not, in order to protect the ability of the State to have a militia that it could draw on if it wanted to. The State was perfectly free to decide whether or not to allow individuals to be armed (and with what weapons), and the federal government could not butt into that.

Then it comes down to whether or not being armed is an individual right. It is, and recent cases have settled that.

Perhaps we should require proper education on civics and economics before allowing someone to post on the internet.

That would eliminate Dope, for sure.

You guys really want to go there?

We are there, slugger.

Then it comes down to whether or not being armed is an individual right. It is, and recent cases have settled that.

To the same extent that Roe v. Wade settled that having an abortion is also an individual right, sure. But that didn't stop people from arguing - strenuously - about what they saw as defects in Roe's reasoning or why it was wrong.

Which is what happens in these discussions whenever they flare up. Your interlocutors aren't disputing that Heller and McDonald held what they held. Just arguing that they were wrongly decided.

I'm not sure why you guys are hung up on the militia concept

Q: Why do ammosexuals consistently omit 'well-regulated' in discussions of the 2A?

"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."

A: For the same reason the SCOTUS swept it int the corner: they are beholden to those who feel inadequate without high-capacity/rapid-firing firearms.

the anti-2A set chooses to focus on the first part of the amendment while ignoring the last.


Bzzzt . Dope has it backwards again. He's in the anti-2a set, the set that objects to the 2A as it is written.

1poorguy supports the 2A as it is written, as do I.

Trump won a long time ago.

He could be found guilty and sent to the moon to live with one day's supply of food and water and air.....



But it's Biden and Democrats, saying "I'M SO TRUMPY!" on immigration :)


And EV's are in the poop chute and Blue Cities want to be "tough on crime".

Go drool over your Wall Street profits. That's all the Left is now :)

Why do you think they asked if we are racist? Because they didn't think so from all the nice Kanos they've met, like me. :) I was just forthright about it. We are racist, the troops were racist when we first got to the Philippines. Rudyard Kipling's poem White Man's Burden is about the Philippine American War. The one's I know aren't dumb either and know more about the Roman Empire than I do. - Lapsody

------------

The Philippine–American War, known alternatively as the Philippine Insurrection, Filipino–American War, or Tagalog Insurgency, was fought between the First Philippine Republic and the United States from February 4, 1899, until July 2, 1902

Philippine American War? So you go back 120 years to justify your current position that the USA is still just as racist as 1902. You give no acknowledgement to the progress made in of the last hundred years. Sure racism still exists, but nothing like slavery or the Jim Crow era, or the pre-Civil Rights movement. You should explain to your Philippine friends that we aren't as bad as you allow them to assume we are. Or maybe in your opinion, we still are a bunch of racists with our foot on the neck of POC. I would agree with you but then we would both be wrong. <g>

Very true. But the Federalist Papers do indicate what the Founders were thinking at the time.

I realize that. :) But what we ratified in the Constitution gave Congress and the individual States control over the militia. So you need to modify that thinking with what actually become law. Congress has quite a bit of power over it, and modernly, even more. Then what were the concerns expressed by the anti-Federalists that lead to the 2A? I think one thing touted was that the Federal government would enter the states and disarm the populace. (similar to that) Each state had its view, i.e., the Southern states needed arms to be able to put down slave uprisings, and for their slave posse(s) that continually scouted for runaway slaves. So the 2A seemed aimed to putting that idea to rest for all states.

Pretty much all of the amendments in the Bill of Rights were responding to complaints and requests that Madison promised to address in the first Congress in order to get the Constitution ratified. The anti-Federalists, led by Patrick Henry were quite vocal, but when the Bill of Rights was passed, all the complaining stopped. Later Patrick Henry got behind the Constitution.

The USSC is notoriously bad at history.

1pg
Just for context, a simple hunting rifle today would be more advanced than someone in the Revolutionary War could have dreamed. You don't need an AR15...a Remington 30-06 would be suitably impressive to them.

Agreed. But you have people pointing to the militia part of the 2a, and prior decisions on that part, that think they should be able to have machine guns, grenade launchers, armor piercing rounds capable of going straight through cars, etc.

But, it was Scalia who decided that it's an individual right not connected with the militia. And while I concede that is the current law, it needs to be overturned. And I will support any efforts to do so. But it will take a long time because we have a wildly conservative SCOTUS, and it will take time for them to age-out. And then you have to have a case brought before them that can overturn Heller and McDonald. Not going to happen within my lifetime.

I'd like to see that, but I'm resigned that it's here to stay, and we need to keep it out of a military expansions. I also don't think the same laws for a city need apply to the West and rural, but not sure how to deal with that. Those fellows out west commit suicide with guns at a high rate and somehow we need to attempt to address that. To me it's simply cold, snowed in isolation for months at a time that causes it. But I digress.

I want to limit the weaponry, the magazines, ammo,. etc.

I think I'm more of an "originalist" than Scalia, or at least more of a literalist. It says "well-regulated militia" right in the 2A. That means what it means. If one doesn't like it, change it through the amendment process. Don't just ignore it like Scalia did.

And that appears to be in line with the collectivist view of the 2A, which I like too. When I look at the Constitution, I see that Congress and the individual States have control over the militia. That there are no self appointed militias, and that Congress, who has the power, has in the US code designated the National Guard and a Navy group as the organized militia. The unorganized militia is the draft pool of men.

In the collective rights view, the prefatory clause modifies that operative clause, and the right to keep and bear arms is a collective right, not an individual one. So the 2A gave the State power over militia, and there is no individual right to keep an bear arms. I thought of it as a Heisenberg 2A principle - the more you want military weapons, the more you want the prefatory clause to mean something, the less individual right you have to keep and bear arms. The more you want an individual right to bear arms, the less meaning to the prefatory clause, the less military style weapons are available.

Now it appears some people think there can be a hybrid between individual and collective rights.

BHMPhilippine American War? So you go back 120 years to justify your current position that the USA is still just as racist as 1902.

No. I"m not justifying anything at all to you, simply giving you some history. The MEN I was talking to are college graduates, very successful in their lives and understand that the quotes are just a background. They actually know about the civil rights era in the US. In case you don't know the American Civil Rights Era is taught in various different places around the world. I've met people from New Zealand, Australia, Europe, Asia, and yes, the Philippines, who all saw Bull Connor hosing down blacks in their classrooms. I don't have to tell them anything about that, I do have to tell them it's still there and just below the surface, it hasn't gone away, but they know we've changed and moved forward - but it's still there, thus the dog whistles. Rather than whine, why don't you get on a plane and go live in another country for a couple of years and get that chip off your shoulder.

Now it appears some people think there can be a hybrid between individual and collective rights.

How does a "collective" free speech right work?

Now it appears some people think there can be a hybrid between individual and collective rights.

Dope: How does a "collective" free speech right work?

Ploink.

Ploink.

It was a serious question. Darn. Now I have the sadz.

>> BHMPhilippine American War? So you go back 120 years to justify your current position that the USA is still just as racist as 1902.<<

No. I"m not justifying anything at all to you, simply giving you some history. The MEN I was talking to are college graduates, very successful in their lives and understand that the quotes are just a background. They actually know about the civil rights era in the US. In case you don't know the American Civil Rights Era is taught in various different places around the world. I've met people from New Zealand, Australia, Europe, Asia, and yes, the Philippines, who all saw Bull Connor hosing down blacks in their classrooms. I don't have to tell them anything about that, I do have to tell them it's still there - Lapsody

-----------------------------------

Still where? This is what pisses me off the most, where exactly does this racism live? I will tell you where, in the hearts of men, of many men, of far too many men. But that is entirely different than labeling our beloved country itself as racist. The fact is the United States makes continuous improvements as it moves farther and farther away from a racist past. There are racist individuals, and some are in government but that still does not make us a racist country.

Rather than whine, why don't you get on a plane and go live in another country for a couple of years and get that chip off your shoulder. - Lapsody

That which you dismiss as whining is simply me expressing pride in our great country and with what we have accomplished so far. You should try it.

It was a serious question. - Dope

-------------

I thought it was too. I had hoped for another enlightening discussion of how the "collective" vs "individual" could be applied to our rights as a citizens. Too bad your question short circuited the desire to defend and discuss.

I thought it was too. I had hoped for another enlightening discussion of how the "collective" vs "individual" could be applied to our rights as a citizens. Too bad your question short circuited the desire to defend and discuss.

He went from 0 to 60 rather quickly, didn't he? I was honestly curious which rights are "collective" ones vs "individual" ones and how that works for say, a right to a speedy trial? Or freedom from illegal search and seizure? Oh, well.

How would you define your terms? Individual vs collective rights, specifically. I can envision a few variations, such as a "collective" would be a lobby group or other organization (made up of individuals, whom are exercising their rights to associate and collaborate to form that organization).

Or perhaps you're referring to the collective right of -for example- an army to kill people, but as individuals we do not have that right (except self defense)?

I do agree with your first paragraph, as well as the prefatory/operative clause portion of your post.

Still where? This is what pisses me off the most, where exactly does this racism live?

Ok Mike, you need to fuck off and stop lecturing about an event that happened 15 years ago and you weren't there. I'll talk to my friends ion the Philippines as I see fit. My friends asked me if the United States is racist and frankly compared to them, we are. It was an adult conversation in which I asked them about the attitudes toward Muslims in Mindanao, or the Chinese, or toward the headhunters in the mountains of Luzon. Not a one of them felt insulted about my inquiries or attempts to make comparisons.

I talked with them about the slavery that existed on the island of Cebu, and the different types and how much it was different than the type of slavery that existed in the US. About the Muslim slave traders that hit Cebu and Negros Islands, the reason for the Bell Tower in the town I was in to sound a warning that the slavers were there capturing people. And yes, also how the US made hard won progress, that it was bloody, and that the Klu Klux Klan burnt crosses in my home town and that the head of the KKK chewed a woman to death in my home state of Indiana. I told them there was a good chance my relatives were part of the KKK. That the Knights of the Golden Circle existed before the Civil War and there was a desire back than to ring the Caribbean with slave states. That a portion of the reason the Mexican American War was fought was that the Mexicans had outlawed slavery, and winning sewed the seeds for the Civil War.

Several of my friends are amateur historians, some published. I get entertained regularly with pieces on Austronesian languages and the flow begins at Taiwan and spreads across the Pacific.

I can have these types of adult conversations with my friends Mike. And no, I need no upbraiding about your hurts about what you perceive is going on. My friends would consider your responses too defensive, change the subject, and it would be your loss, Mike.
So yes, it is whining about a perceived injury because you appear to not be able to have these kind of adult conversations. We just had the BLM demonstrations during a summer and there were many places where people took their cars into the crowd. Our racism is flashed around the world Mike. I have pride in my country Mike, I served in the 82d Airborne when called, and there's a history in my family of serving going back to before it was a country. I'm a member of the SAR, Sons of the American Revolution.

I's sorry you can't have these conversations and be frankly honest that we are a racist country, and it's always there, just below the surface, and bubbles up at times - in riots, long hot summers, small skirmishes such as Charlottesville, and demagogues like George Wallace or Trump. And we haven't talked about the Indians at all so far. Some of my Filipino friends know American history better than Americans - but not my wife. so I need not try anything Mike. But, in my opinion, you need to not jump to conclusions, upbraid people about things you know nothing about, learn how to treat people respectfully in this area, and be able to have adult conversations about these subjects. We have a lot of racism in our history and there's a lot of racism still in our country. We have made lurching, painful, and bloody strides.

"I've found it interesting over the years that the anti-2A set chooses to focus on the first part of the amendment while ignoring the last." - Dope1

As usual Dope gets it exactly backwards.

He and his ilk (yes ilk) pick and choose which parts of the 2nd Amendment they want while ignoring that which doesn't work for them. Willful ignorance.

I mean after all, he has been asked numerous times on both these boards and the old TMF boards what the first part of the 2nd Amendment means to him. He has never answered because he can't. He just ignores that part.

How would you define your terms? Individual vs collective rights, specifically.

I think of the individual right as just that. The individual has the right. The collective right belongs to the State, so as in the case of the 2A the state can designate the militia, and the "right of the people" is referring to a collective right wielded by the state for the people collectively. So the state can make the determination as to who can keep and bear arms, and who is in the militia. But it could be different than that. Make sense?

That which you dismiss as whining is simply me expressing pride in our great country and with what we have accomplished so far. You should try it.

It's important to understand our nation's true history, the good and the bad. Whitewashing is not constructive.

It was easy for me to grow up without a clue about our countries history of racism. Even in high school it was possible for me to think that was mostly over with the end of the Civil War. That's not a good thing but it is what the right is pushing now. A false patriotism based on burying the past. Better to confront the reality and strive to make America a better country, not deny history.

Ok Mike, you need to f off

There's that famous lib civility and ability to stick to the debate in action, folks!

It was easy for me to grow up without a clue about our countries history of racism. Even in high school it was possible for me to think that was mostly over with the end of the Civil War. That's not a good thing but it is what the right is pushing now. A false patriotism based on burying the past. Better to confront the reality and strive to make America a better country, not deny history.

And that;s the way I grew up. I did find out some things bit by bit. I remember my father sitting me down and talking to me about antisemitism, but no similar talk about blacks other than to let me know when I was a kid that a black Doctor stayed up all night to watch me when I had a fever. It was a courtesy that Doctors paid other Doctors back then.

I went to four different high schools due to turbulence in my father's career and always felt there were gaps in my understanding of history.

There's that famous lib civility and ability to stick to the debate in action, folks!

One line out of a lengthy post. Did you even read the rest of it? That one line was off-putting, but the rest of his post was civil and to the point. I didn't rec it because of the outburst, but it was worth a read.

Kinda tricky since the government is a collection of individuals. But I think I see what you were saying based on how you defined your terms. The state has the collective right to organize a militia, and given that, the individuals have the right to bear arms. I think that's a restatement of what I have been saying, and at least partially what Hamilton was saying. But the organized/regulated militia is the key bit. If there is no militia, there is no right of individuals to bear arms. Any given state may allow it anyway, but it isn't a right. The prefatory clause is a conditional. Though McDonald ruled the other way (I think erroneously).

"Ok Mike, you need to f off"

Dope: There's that famous lib civility and ability to stick to the debate in action, folks!

Translation: " Gosh, BigFatMike. Nobody is buying our bullsh!t. "

I did find out some things bit by bit. I remember my father sitting me down and talking to me about antisemitism

My father went from fleeing Nazi occupied Austria, to the US Army, to a VA hospital where he stayed for the next 40 years.

In the late 1950's he explained that an associate Doctor invited him to attend a John Birch Society meeting at their home, perhaps not realizing that my father and his brothers had been active in anti-Nazi activities in the years prior to Krystallnacht.

My father also steered me away from the bigoted youth group that wore militaristic uniforms that reminded him of the Nazi Youth.

The increase in Nazi propaganda being distributed in America is a blatant reminder that bigots and racists continue to fester and plot, seeking any opportunity to spread their hatred.

The increase in Nazi propaganda being distributed in America is a blatant reminder that bigots and racists continue to fester and plot, seeking any opportunity to spread their hatred.

Which is a problem. As BHM said, it resides in the hearts of men. Difficult to change that.

But the systemic racism, and/or legacy racism that affected peoples' lives and put them and their descendants where they are today, that we can change more easily. And we've made great strides. In some ways, it may be a good thing that a lot of people now say "what racism?", because we have come so far that it isn't always obvious anymore. We need to point out "that racism right there" when asked that question, and then tackle that issue.

I was a Boy Scout. In adulthood I made the connection to the Hitler youth. At the time, even though I was interested in WWII even at that age, it was mostly the battles. Not the politics. So I didn't make the connection. I got more into the politics in my mid-late teens, and was out of the Scouts by then. To be fair, what stuck with me was appreciating the outdoors, doing "good turns" (i.e. be nice to people), and a few things like that. But maybe that was just me.

A quick check...they have declined a lot. They had 4M youth in 1973 (when the population was a lot smaller). They have 700K+ today with a much more populous country. Basically, it's dying. COVID hit them hard, and they aren't recovering.

We need to point out "that racism right there" when asked that question, and then tackle that issue.

Sure. But a lot of this is terminology.

To some progressives, any institutional framework that has some of "that racism right there" can be labelled as "racist." That's the Kendi formulation - everything is either anti-racist or it's racist. Which means that the U.S. is a racist country. The U.S. has always been a racist country. The U.S. will always be a racist country. Tons and tons of things are "racist" even though they completely lack any racial animus.

The problem is that most people don't use the term "racist" that way. To most people, people or institutions are "racist" if they are specifically acting on and motivated by an intentional effort to deliberately harm a racial minority. If a college offers a boost for admissions of the children of faculty, that's not "racist" to most people - but it would certainly be to some progressives.

So people talk past each other. Certain progressives label an institutional practice as "racist," and the 'normies' think that they're saying that the institutional practice is motivated by current intentional racial animus. That's not what they're saying, but that's what most people think they're saying. Then the 'normies' push back and say that they don't want their kids being told that certain things are "racist," and the progressives think that they're arguing that no racial inequities exist in those things and are thus denying history. Which, again, is not what the 'normies' are saying - they're just saying that there is no current intentional racial animus in those things.

So people talk past each other. Certain progressives label an institutional practice as "racist," and the 'normies' think that they're saying that the institutional practice is motivated by current intentional racial animus. That's not what they're saying, but that's what most people think they're saying. Then the 'normies' push back and say that they don't want their kids being told that certain things are "racist," and the progressives think that they're arguing that no racial inequities exist in those things and are thus denying history. Which, again, is not what the 'normies' are saying - they're just saying that there is no current intentional racial animus in those things.

Thanks. An excellent summary in 1 paragraph.

"They have 700K+ today with a much more populous country. Basically, it's dying. COVID hit them hard, and they aren't recovering."

That sex abuse thingie on top of the anti-gay bigotry didn't do much for the BSA image.

2/16/2024 " U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday temporarily halted the Boy Scouts of America's $2.46 billion settlement of decades of sex abuse claims, which is being appealed by a group of 144 abuse claimants.

Alito's brief order freezing the settlement gives the court more time to decide a Feb. 9 request by the abuse claimants to block the settlement from moving forward. They contend that the deal unlawfully stops them from pursuing lawsuits against organizations that are not bankrupt, such as churches that ran scouting programs, local Boy Scouts councils and insurers that provided coverage to the Boy Scouts organization."

Sure. But a lot of this is terminology.

Nazi flyers thrown in our driveways at night, death messages taped to our mailboxes; not terminology.

A POTUS who tells bigots to 'stand back and stand by'; crystal clear support.

Nazi flyers thrown in our driveways at night, death messages taped to our mailboxes; not terminology.

We're talking about two different things.

The people doing that are racist people. They are taking action to injure minorities based upon specific intentional animus towards those minorities. And honestly, that's not really a disputed point in our politics or culture. The folks throwing around racist flyers or making death threats against minorities are pretty widely acknowledged to be racist people.

But whether the country is racist - or whether particular broad scale institutions or organizations are themselves racist - is very much a point of contention. And that I think that the contentiousness is exacerbated by the fact that people are using the term "racist" to mean very different things. Which makes them - or allows them to - misconstrue what the other side is saying.

So while the person with the Nazi flyers is racist under virtually all definitions of racist, there's a lot less precision when someone makes a claim about something different than a person - like, whether the legacy preferences in college admissions is racist. There's no real agreement on what it would mean for that specific admissions policy to be racist or not, and no immediate shared understanding of how the term "racist" is being used between two people who might be arguing that it is, or is not, racist.

The state has the collective right to organize a militia, and given that, the individuals have the right to bear arms.

I'm tried to restate in my terms what I've gleaned the collective approach is to the 2A.

Aside from the Collective approach the Constitution designates Congress to have the most power and the State has the power to appoint officers and train. So that was discussed at the various ratifying conventions and Madison listened to people's worries and promised to address them at the first Congress. He kept his promise. Since that is in the Constitution prior to the passage of the 2A - what was Madison listening to at these conventions?

I haven't read anything about the 2A and these conventions, but one conversation might be something like:
Congress has the greater power over the militia?
That's to provide for the common defense. That's why Congress has the power to call up the militia.
And the state has the power to appoint officers and to train the militia?
Yes, and the state has the power to call up the militia should there be an emergency and a need to keep the peace.
So it's possible for militia to be called up from different states to go into another state if widespread violence can't be contained?
Yes, at the direction of Congress militia may enter other states to help keep the peace.
So might it be possible for the militias to enter another state and disarm that state?
No. It is the State that determines who can be armed within the state
Does it say that in the Constitution?
No, but it isn't in the enumerated powers of the new government,so the government doesn't have that power
Still, we'd like to see it written that the Government doesn't have the power to disarm the people.
That's a good point and I'll take it up at the first Congress.

But who really knows? For most of the life of the nation, the 2A was treated as a collective right I think.

But who really knows? For most of the life of the nation, the 2A was treated as a collective right I think.

I find it interesting - and particular significant - that in the entire Constitution there is only one place where “a reason” is listed.

Nowhere does it say “A well informed populace being necessary for democracy, a free press…”

Or “Because there has been inter-religious strife, Congress shall make no law respecting…”

Or “The King sheltering soldiers in private quarters has caused us to prohibit…”

No, the only cause for an Amendment - or for anything, really, in an otherwise tersely written, constructed, and lucid document, is “ A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” …

Why do you suppose that is?

For most of the life of the nation, the 2A was treated as a collective right I think.


LOL, no.
Were our ancestors vegans? Or did they have weapons around the home for hunting?

And how about law enforcement? Back in the day in say...The Wild West. Was there a Marshall Wyatt Earp on every street corner?

Why do you suppose that is?

Hmmm, let's see.
Was there some kind of nation-defining event going on in the years just prior to the writing of the Constitution? One that might have involved lots of people and lots of guns?

In some ways, it may be a good thing that a lot of people now say "what racism?", because we have come so far that it isn't always obvious anymore. We need to point out "that racism right there"

I haven't noticed people saying "what racism?" I have noticed them saying because of the ubiquity of cell phones and video, videos are now showing racism that got papered over in the past. Like the cop putting his knee on the black fellows neck for 9 minutes, or the three rednecks driving down a black jogger and shooting him in a scuffle. Video'd racist rants. Video'd Karen's making phone calls to police over nothing. The point is, younger generations say, is that this was going on the whole time, but now some of it is being caught on video.

We have come a long ways, but we aren't carrying the torch anymore, they are.

The Boy Scouts got taken over by religionists and isn't what it used to be.

The increase in Nazi propaganda being distributed in America is a blatant reminder that bigots and racists continue to fester and plot, seeking any opportunity to spread their hatred.

I've seen samples over on redditt. Terrible stuff. Replacement theory is almost mainstream now.

ALSo people talk past each other. Certain progressives label an institutional practice as "racist," and the 'normies' think that they're saying that the institutional practice is motivated by current intentional racial animus. That's not what they're saying, but that's what most people think they're saying. Then the 'normies' push back and say that they don't want their kids being told that certain things are "racist," and the progressives think that they're arguing that no racial inequities exist in those things and are thus denying history. Which, again, is not what the 'normies' are saying - they're just saying that there is no current intentional racial animus in those things

You can't get too abstract about racism - it loses credulity. It's OK if you have an academic exercise, but not to base policy on it. You can point to a statistic and say racism. But you're much better off to do some investigatory work to see why that statistic exists, and if it gets too abstract, or is indeterminable, publish and move on. Loren Cobb could comment on this. I see Goofyhoofy is back in town. :)

No, the only cause for an Amendment - or for anything, really, in an otherwise tersely written, constructed, and lucid document, is “ A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” …

Why do you suppose that is?

One paper I read looked at the acceptance of prefatory clause as just introductions without any legal force. It found that the movement to make it just an introduction with no legal effect started in England about 10 years before the Constitution and slowly moved around until finally hitting the US fully about 50 years after the Constitution. The paper quoted Judge Story (Amistad) writing about looking to prefatory clauses to illuminate further the meaning of the law. So it looks as if it was intended to have an effect but now has no effect.

Since the Constitution says the States are in charge of training the militia, it seems to say: Your State security is served by a trained and disciplined Militia, and we have no power to disarm your populace.

Also, infringe back then meant to break, or violate, not encroach as it means today.

"Still where? This is what pisses me off the most, where exactly does this racism live? I will tell you where, in the hearts of men, of many men, of far too many men. But that is entirely different than labeling our beloved country itself as racist. The fact is the United States makes continuous improvements as it moves farther and farther away from a racist past. There are racist individuals, and some are in government but that still does not make us a racist country."

Wrong. Utterly ignorantly wrong. Despicably wrong.

The racism in this country is systematic, not just in the hearts of men.

I am sure you want to feel good about yourself and just pretend that racism is only a bunch of yahoos with swastikas tattooed on their bodies that nobody really likes and conservatives only tolerate because they vote for people you like. That isn't the way it really is though. That type of racism is rare and easy to deal with because it is so obvious and so dumb that even sympathetic people like you cannot ignore it. Racism is deeper than that though. Way deeper.

Some recent (i.e. post civil rights era) examples of systemic racism include:

- In the 1980's drastic mandatory sentences were given out for users of crack cocaine as opposed to more lenient flexible sentences of users of regular cocaine despite them being essentially the same drug. The difference was that crack was a low-income, inner-city drug while regular cocaine was used by a higher income, whiter clientele. As a result, hundreds of thousands of black men were thrown in prison and had their (and their families) lives destroyed while most white folks with the same addiction problems were given probation, more lenient sentences (such as probation or rehab), or just had law enforcement look the other way. That was literal systemic racism. That was your country, your justice system acting in a racist manner. It wasn't just one judge or one police officer acting with racism in their hearts.

- In one of his last acts as a State Senator from Illinois before becoming a U.S. Senator, Barrack Obama helped push through a bill that required police to fill out select information about police stops when it involved searching the vehicle for drugs. Basically, the police had to list the race of the driver, whether or not the car was searched, and whether or not drugs were found. This information was collected and tabulated. What was found was that police disproportionally stopped more black people than white people. Black people disproportionally had their cars searched more than white people. The real kicker though was that white people were more disproportionally found to have drugs in the car than black people were. I.E. if there was a bias, it should have been to stop and search cars with white drivers, not black ones. That is a perfect example of systemic racism. It wasn't just one racist cop or one racist judge. It was literally your country, your justice system acting in a racist manner.

- we could look at any numerous controlled studies done of hiring and salary discrimination based upon the race of the applicant. Another example of systemic racism. Again it isn't just one racist person, it is the whole system. That is your country.

I know you want to ignore all of that (how sad that so much or your worldview is based on ignoring thing you find inconvenient). You want to pretend racism is only in the hearts of a few men. You think this only because you choose to ignore all of the evidence that it is systemic. It is your country acting in the racist manner. You aren't going to like to hear it, but you are a big part of the problem. You probably think you don't have a racist bone in your body and that the only racism in this country is reverse racism because two people with the same paper qualifications the black person is more likely to get accepted to college because they are black. You refuse to educate yourself, your inability to even acknowledge the systemic racism in this country is why it persists.

So stop your pathetic whining about how your country is labeled a racist country and get your head out of your bowels and face reality.

"There's that famous lib civility and ability to stick to the debate in action, folks!"

Really? That is what you took from that post. A wall of text with numerous actionable debate items and you couldn't see any of them. How pathetic.

Also, I remembered a debate I watched between two historians and one of them made the comment, "Well you can see them trying to get guns to blacks in the 14th Amendment. I got curious and found a paper with this as the summary conclusionL

The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment and of the civil rights acts of Reconstruction, rather than predicating the right to keep and bear arms on the needs of an organized state militia, based it on the right of the people individually to possess arms for protection against any oppressive force--including racist or political violence by the militia itself or by other state agents such as sheriffs. At the same time, the militia was understood to be the whole body of the people, including blacks. In discussion concerning the Civil Rights Act of 1875, Sen. James A. Alcorn (R., Miss.) defined the militia in these terms: "The citizens of the United States, the Posse comitatus, or the militia if you please, and the colored man composes part of these."[68] Every citizen, in short, was a militiaman. With the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the right and privilege individually to keep and bear arms was protected from both state and federal infringement.[69]

But it was published in the George Mason Law Review, I'll see if I can find another.

https://guncite.com/journals/senrpt/senhal14.html

Hmmm, let's see.
Was there some kind of nation-defining event going on in the years just prior to the writing of the Constitution? One that might have involved lots of people and lots of guns?

Sure, but no more so than the King sheltering his troops in private citizens’ homes (or taking over the homes in toto.) That wasn’t important?

Certainly no more than the King (or his dominions) prohibiting public gathering or speech.

The King or his troops, at the time, could arrest anyone and imprison them without cause. That wasn’t important enough to say “Because….”

Likewise with the right to a speedy trial, the granting of bail, indiscriminate search. None of those met the threshold for having a prefatory clause in explanation?

(Here’s the answer: because the colonists eschewed having a standing army, so having a ready militia was seen as vital to the national defense. But as the need for a private militia faded, so does the need to have a privately armed citizenry - which is not the same as “confiscating all guns”, even though 2nd A advocates position it so in their false arguments.)

Here’s the answer: because the colonists eschewed having a standing army, so having a ready militia was seen as vital to the national defense. But as the need for a private militia faded, so does the need to have a privately armed citizenry - which is not the same as “confiscating all guns”, even though 2nd A advocates position it so in their false arguments.

--------------

Several historians have noted that another lurking motivation at the time of the writing of the Constitution for ensuring the rights of states to operate standing militias and maintain local stocks of weapons and ammunition was (drum roll, wait for it...) to ensure states and local communities had the means to put down feared rebellions of slaves.

So is America a racist country? It's impossible to say with a straight face that the country no longer has a racist bone in our body. Two of the most vexing problems we face -- gun violence/death from a perverted interpretation of the Second Amendment and grossly undemocratic election results and representation stemming from the structure of the Senate and the Electoral College - are DIRECTLY tied to our "original sin" of allowing slavery to exist and expanding it for seventy years before finally eliminating it.


WTH

In the 1980's drastic mandatory sentences were given out for users of crack cocaine as opposed to more lenient flexible sentences of users of regular cocaine despite them being essentially the same drug... The real kicker though was that white people were more disproportionally found to have drugs in the car than black people were. I.E. if there was a bias, it should have been to stop and search cars with white drivers, not black ones.

I worked with a tough skinny black lady from New York who'd had her own construction/clean up crew there and bid jobs, but we were accountants. She told one of her sons not to go out on Halloween, but he did. He got pulled over by a cop and busted for mescaline I think it was. His court dates kept coming up, the cop wouldn't show, the atty would ask for a continuance, and she'd gone to 7 different courts, but at the 8th court she got a black judge. The cop was a no show again. She explained about the seven other no show court dates and how she had to take time off work each time, and mescaline was a white boy drug not a black drug, it was planted, and her son's blood sample had been clean. The judge dismissed the case. Oh no, no racial animus there, no systemic racism. Just a no show cop. Ya know it's different when it's someone you know and you believe them. And that's not all...

Her other son was walking home from work at McDonalds late at night and got his head bashed in by a skinhead that was doing an initiation. So her son goes from heading to business college with 3.95 GPA to where he can flip burgers for a living - brain damage. She sues and then has to get tough with her own attorneys so he has something because he's damaged. No racial animus there, we've come such a long way, but it's still there, just below the surface, waiting to bubble up again.

Wanna be a real Patriot and be proud of your country? Don't support a demagogue spewing hate

But whether the country is racist - or whether particular broad scale institutions or organizations are themselves racist - is very much a point of contention.

A 'country" is just a construct. It's the people within the country, the leadership they elect to make and enforce policy, that matter. Of course there's a percentage that support racists and a percentage that do not.

There's no real agreement on what it would mean for that specific admissions policy to be racist or not, and no immediate shared understanding of how the term "racist" is being used between two people who might be arguing that it is, or is not, racist.

That always has been and always will be the case. As economic migration intensifies, the agreements and disagreements wrt everything from admissions to social security, to property trespass will become increasingly tense. (Witness the AZ bill to allow shooting 'trespassers'!!)

Whereas the MAGA republicans support a guy who clearly panders to racists and bigots, they are, in my book, perpetuating racist veins throughout the nation. Clearly the most extreme of those are a minority. The mid-intensity extremists are increasing in numbers as evidenced by the rancor in open public city/county/school board meetings.

All that said, it appears that similar 'circling of the wagons' is occurring all around the globe.

Witness the AZ bill to allow shooting 'trespassers'!!

The AZ bill does not allow shooting trespassers, any more than the current law allows shooting trespassers. All it does is expand the physical area in which their existing Stand Your Ground laws apply from the residential building to the residential property. You still have to be under treat of physical harm before you're allowed to shoot someone, not merely because they're trespassing:

https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/56leg/2R/bills/HB284...

Rep Heap's motivation for the bill is the Kelly trial; ostensibly the bill would protect guys like Kelly is , 'whoops, there were so many of them on the back 40 I was just poppin' off a couple warning shots so they'd stop comin' my way.'

"The George Kelly, faces trial next month on second-degree murder charges in the January 2023 shooting death of Gabriel Cuen-Butimea, who had entered the country illegally and was found dead on Kelly's property. Kelly has pleaded not guilty and said he only fired warning shots."

Brings to mind the fella recently convicted for killing a woman for turning her car into the wrong driveway.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/north-country...

LOL, no.
Were our ancestors vegans? Or did they have weapons around the home for hunting?

And how about law enforcement? Back in the day in say...The Wild West. Was there a Marshall Wyatt Earp on every street corner?

Collective doesn't mean no guns, and Bruen disregarded laws in the Territories as not part of the historical analogue. Your comments come across as gibberish, which is why I ploink you at times.

(Here’s the answer: because the colonists eschewed having a standing army, so having a ready militia was seen as vital to the national defense. But as the need for a private militia faded, so does the need to have a privately armed citizenry - which is not the same as “confiscating all guns”, even though 2nd A advocates position it so in their false arguments.)

Yes, we've discussed that before. I was into trying to think through collective rights and adding Albaby's take. We had a problem in that the Revolution taught the Congress that untrained, undisciplined troops weren't worth the trouble per Washington. Amd yes, we know the successes and Swamp Fox, but the difference between disciplined troops and untrained militia was stark.

So modernly we codified the regulated militia into the National Guard and some Navy, and the unregulated is the draft pool. But in the past we went as far as scuttling Navy boats after wars. (Someone is going to have to explain to me why we didn't just sell them.) I'm sure there;s a good answer there.

Most of the 2A zealots have problems with the dicta in Heller., and don't realize how unworkable Bruen is. If you read Bruen, they want historical analogues and then come up with reasons to toss out the history they don't like. Unworkable.

(Someone is going to have to explain to me why we didn't just sell them.)

Pirates would buy them.

We currently destroy the boats we intercept running drugs and immigrants for a similar reason; they all too easily end up, again, in the service of miscreants.

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-golden-age-of-piracy...

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