8 ms·

So, in other words, "the beatings will continue until you come around to our views"?

lisper 11y ago
No, the beatings will continue for as long as you fail to respect the law. If you want to forbid gay marriage, it's very simple: repeal the fourteenth amendment. (Good luck with that.) It's like I tell my liberal friends: if you want to regulate guns, it's very simple: repeal the second amendment.
- defen 11y ago
  So according to this ruling, the right for two men to marry has been "lurking" in the Constitution since 1868, right? But we just now discovered it? What I mean is that if someone had brought this case before the Supreme Court in 1870, the legally correct decision would have been to allow gay marriage? Things like that make me wonder what other "rights" (scare quotes because they are things that would not be considered rights today) are hidden in the Constitution, that will be discovered 150 years hence but would shock the conscience of nearly everyone alive today.
  - lisper 11y ago
    > So according to this ruling, the right for two men to marry has been "lurking" in the Constitution since 1868, right? Yep. Just as the right to marry someone of a different race than you was lurking there but was not discovered until 1967.
- zzzeek 11y ago
  the word "regulated" is the third word of the second amendment.
  - lisper 11y ago
    That's true, but it doesn't mean what you think it means. In context (both textual and historical) it means "well-functioning", not "constrained." i.e. it means "In order to have a well-function militia, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." And the Supreme Court has (correctly IMHO) upheld this interpretation. I'm all for repealing the Second Amendment. I am vehemently opposed to trying to do end-runs around it.
    - zzzeek 11y ago
      how are the rights of 8 year olds protected that they can't go to a gunshop unattended and buy a gun? or a convicted felon? how can something be a "right" if it's revocable? how is the word "arms" defined? Why can't I purchase a grenade launcher (after all, if you really want to build a "militia" capable of defending against the British re-invading, you're going to need them)? The 2nd amendment in practice is subject to tremendous levels of regulation. The kinds of regulations most Americans want, e.g. simple waiting periods to allow background checks, are a tiny frill of a regulation compared to how heavily regulated "the right to bear arms" already is.
      - lisper 11y ago
        > Why can't I purchase a grenade launcher Because the second amendment isn't really taken seriously by anyone, not even the gun nuts. If it were taken seriously, it would become immediately obvious to everyone that it has become horribly dated by the advent of modern weapons technology and it needs to be changed. And then we could have an honest debate about where we ought to draw the line between weapons that people not in the military ought to be allowed to have, because everyone agrees the line needs to be drawn somewhere, even if it's just at WMDs. But no one seems to want to actually have that debate.
        zzzeek 11y ago
        > Because the second amendment isn't really taken seriously by anyone, not even the gun nuts. check out this article / video: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/texas-guns-poncho-nevarez-panic-buttons http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/texas-guns-poncho-neva... - the "constitution" is the entire rationale that open carriers use to call congresspeople "traitors" and threaten them inside their offices.
        lisper 11y ago
        Sure, but I don't hear anyone -- not even the open carry folks -- calling for the legalization of personal nukes.
- intopieces 11y ago
  >repeal the second amendment. Alright, I'll bite: Historically, the second Amendment was meant to to refer to guns being allowed inside of a well-regulated militia. This is accomplished by the states' National Guards. It was not intended to mean that each person gets to have a gun. This, according to America's Constitution: A Biography by Akhail Reed Amar. Great read, it walks the reader in a novel-type way through each part of the Constitution. But, we've expanded the 'meaning' of the Constitution several times in ways the founders would have never anticipated. This in like with the 'living document' aspect, and a direct result of our veneration of document that is quite short.
  - lisper 11y ago
    > It was not intended to mean that each person gets to have a gun. Actually, that is exactly what it was intended to mean. And that's exactly what it does mean according to the Supreme Court. The whole point of the second amendment is that The People do not need permission from the government to have arms. (Don't forget, the country was founded on the basis of a violent revolution against the then-exitisting government!) It's unfortunate the that founders confused the issue by putting some of their rationale into the text of the amendment. But the operative language of the amendment is clear: the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Full stop. Back then there were technological limits to how much damage one crazy person could do even if they did have a gun (and economic limits too -- guns were expensive. Only the rich could afford them.) It's unfortunate that the founders did not have the prescience to foresee the day when these limits would go away and a single crazy person could do an awful lot of damage. But for better or worse, that's our legacy.
    - intopieces 11y ago
      Let's keep in mind that the Supreme Court, though we rely on them to interpret the Constitution, very often does so against what the founders had intended: take the example in my other comment, Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S., where the court unanimously decided that the state can force a business to serve black people under the Interstate Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment allows people not members of militias to own guns. This was not the intention of the Amendment. My objection to your comment is that it betrays an attitude that whatever we do with the Constitution is what was Meant To Have Been Said, when in fact the Constitution is a living, breathing document that is constantly re-interpreted to meet our current needs. Also, I do not find your dual argument -- that the Founders made their intention clear and also convoluted their intention -- particularly convincing. The Founders made quite a few mistakes when they drafted the Constitution[0], so their veneration as authors of the document seems quite overblown. [0] Ackerman, Bruce. "The Failure of the Founding Fathers: Jefferson, Marshall, and the Rise of Presidential Democracy"

No, the beatings will continue for as long as you fail to respect the law. If you want to forbid gay marriage, it's very simple: repeal the fourteenth amendment. (Good luck with that.) It's like I tell my liberal friends: if you want to regulate guns, it's very simple: repeal the second amendment.

defen 11y ago
So according to this ruling, the right for two men to marry has been "lurking" in the Constitution since 1868, right? But we just now discovered it? What I mean is that if someone had brought this case before the Supreme Court in 1870, the legally correct decision would have been to allow gay marriage? Things like that make me wonder what other "rights" (scare quotes because they are things that would not be considered rights today) are hidden in the Constitution, that will be discovered 150 years hence but would shock the conscience of nearly everyone alive today.
- lisper 11y ago
  > So according to this ruling, the right for two men to marry has been "lurking" in the Constitution since 1868, right? Yep. Just as the right to marry someone of a different race than you was lurking there but was not discovered until 1967.
zzzeek 11y ago
the word "regulated" is the third word of the second amendment.
- lisper 11y ago
  That's true, but it doesn't mean what you think it means. In context (both textual and historical) it means "well-functioning", not "constrained." i.e. it means "In order to have a well-function militia, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." And the Supreme Court has (correctly IMHO) upheld this interpretation. I'm all for repealing the Second Amendment. I am vehemently opposed to trying to do end-runs around it.
  - zzzeek 11y ago
    how are the rights of 8 year olds protected that they can't go to a gunshop unattended and buy a gun? or a convicted felon? how can something be a "right" if it's revocable? how is the word "arms" defined? Why can't I purchase a grenade launcher (after all, if you really want to build a "militia" capable of defending against the British re-invading, you're going to need them)? The 2nd amendment in practice is subject to tremendous levels of regulation. The kinds of regulations most Americans want, e.g. simple waiting periods to allow background checks, are a tiny frill of a regulation compared to how heavily regulated "the right to bear arms" already is.
    - lisper 11y ago
      > Why can't I purchase a grenade launcher Because the second amendment isn't really taken seriously by anyone, not even the gun nuts. If it were taken seriously, it would become immediately obvious to everyone that it has become horribly dated by the advent of modern weapons technology and it needs to be changed. And then we could have an honest debate about where we ought to draw the line between weapons that people not in the military ought to be allowed to have, because everyone agrees the line needs to be drawn somewhere, even if it's just at WMDs. But no one seems to want to actually have that debate.
      - zzzeek 11y ago
        > Because the second amendment isn't really taken seriously by anyone, not even the gun nuts. check out this article / video: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/texas-guns-poncho-nevarez-panic-buttons http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/texas-guns-poncho-neva... - the "constitution" is the entire rationale that open carriers use to call congresspeople "traitors" and threaten them inside their offices.
        lisper 11y ago
        Sure, but I don't hear anyone -- not even the open carry folks -- calling for the legalization of personal nukes.
intopieces 11y ago
>repeal the second amendment. Alright, I'll bite: Historically, the second Amendment was meant to to refer to guns being allowed inside of a well-regulated militia. This is accomplished by the states' National Guards. It was not intended to mean that each person gets to have a gun. This, according to America's Constitution: A Biography by Akhail Reed Amar. Great read, it walks the reader in a novel-type way through each part of the Constitution. But, we've expanded the 'meaning' of the Constitution several times in ways the founders would have never anticipated. This in like with the 'living document' aspect, and a direct result of our veneration of document that is quite short.
- lisper 11y ago
  > It was not intended to mean that each person gets to have a gun. Actually, that is exactly what it was intended to mean. And that's exactly what it does mean according to the Supreme Court. The whole point of the second amendment is that The People do not need permission from the government to have arms. (Don't forget, the country was founded on the basis of a violent revolution against the then-exitisting government!) It's unfortunate the that founders confused the issue by putting some of their rationale into the text of the amendment. But the operative language of the amendment is clear: the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Full stop. Back then there were technological limits to how much damage one crazy person could do even if they did have a gun (and economic limits too -- guns were expensive. Only the rich could afford them.) It's unfortunate that the founders did not have the prescience to foresee the day when these limits would go away and a single crazy person could do an awful lot of damage. But for better or worse, that's our legacy.
  - intopieces 11y ago
    Let's keep in mind that the Supreme Court, though we rely on them to interpret the Constitution, very often does so against what the founders had intended: take the example in my other comment, Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S., where the court unanimously decided that the state can force a business to serve black people under the Interstate Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment allows people not members of militias to own guns. This was not the intention of the Amendment. My objection to your comment is that it betrays an attitude that whatever we do with the Constitution is what was Meant To Have Been Said, when in fact the Constitution is a living, breathing document that is constantly re-interpreted to meet our current needs. Also, I do not find your dual argument -- that the Founders made their intention clear and also convoluted their intention -- particularly convincing. The Founders made quite a few mistakes when they drafted the Constitution[0], so their veneration as authors of the document seems quite overblown. [0] Ackerman, Bruce. "The Failure of the Founding Fathers: Jefferson, Marshall, and the Rise of Presidential Democracy"