Message from @Beemann
Discord ID: 531712831012470794
It’s been more hands off than it otherwise would have been
Without the constitution as a road block we would’ve been Canada in 1777
Look at it this way. Canada set the bar almost at the floor, and basically nudged it slightly lower
America has set the bar high, and has been dropping year by year, in incredibly significant ways
@amlam Why In The World Would Anyone Need An Assault Butter Knife! We need more conman sense knife control!
Again, the constition doesn't do that, the populace does
and you're heading into an era where the public, the average American, does not care to protect their rights
We need an actual rapist on the Supreme Court
Then all of this will be solved
This phony rapist, Kavanaugh isn’t cutting the non-consenting mustard
Alrighty bois. I’m going to bed. It’s been real and it’s been fun. But it ain’t been real fun.
Has it been feal run though?
@Beemann You might be confusing the ideal with what we have "allowed", and no its not just the 2A that matters in our constitution, it all matters. Most are not more important then the other (unless we decide to change something, its all important).
Humans have, and will always want to change things "for the better" without understanding the value of what that change will bring about. This means we always have to fight over and over what we hold to be truly beneficial for everyone, not just our own short sighted life. And yes we will lose things, yes we have lost some freedoms, but we have also allowed it to be peaceful. We still have are foundations in place that allows us to either rebuild or keep the ever looming risks of losing more at bay. All that matters is how far people are willing to risk the backlash of encroaching on even more freedoms.
None of the other rights listed in the constitution are worth anything without enforcement. Ultimately, any political power you can wield is force, whether by action or by threat. There is no real way around this. In the United States, the force the government can exert is counteracted by the force the people can exert against it. This counterbalance is enshrined in the core ideals of the nation. Without 2A, there is ultimately no constitution. Without threat of enforcement, the government is free to "reinterpret" your "rights" in whatever way they please. They can, and have, been able to play people's selfish desires against the integrity of the system they claim to serve and uphold. They have managed to do this at a rather alarming rate over the course of the 20th and, so far, the 21st centuries. Your citizen's militia has been undermined, your private conversations surveilled without warrant, and the power of your state has been drained in favour of an ever-growing federal mess. The ability to keep your rights is not being utilized. It likely will continue to not be utilized, given that people are actively supporting the erosion of their freedoms via your electoral process. Not even Trump, Mr Wildcard himself, has truly pushed back against the steady stifling of freedom
So, normal human behavior?
That "normal human behaviour" is the slow death of your rights, m8, but you havent addressed the main (and initial) point
If you were on an island with 5 other people, an administrator and 4 "citizens" and I gave you the option between a piece of paper with your "rights" written on it, and a firearm, which would you consider more important?
If you stack every other right in the constitution against 2A, 2A still wins. Nothing surpasses self defense, as an extension of self ownership. From this, all else is derived
Yes, things are bad, but they are also good. I don't overlook one because of the other. I don't fight for utopia, i fight for what are constitutions upholds even if Humans can fail to live up to them all the time. That doesn't mean i give up on the whole system.
What system am I giving up on?
I didn't say you were, just what i'm arguing.
Well, to be more clear, you were giving up on the constitution earlier, believing citizens shouldn't vote without service. And with your newer post, it seems you want to throw away the systems we have now, because we aren't keeping to it perfectly, but maybe i'm wrong about that.
So, i wonder what we should do instead.
No, my argument is that 2A needs to be upheld, people need to push back against it, but that voting is a privilege with attached responsibility being treated as a right (but only circumstantially, oddly)
The idea behind public service as a precursor to franchise is that ultimately you are weeding out the people who dont actually want it, or the people who dont actually value it might be a better way of explaining it
you're not basing it on IQ, any particular arbitrary set of characteristics, etc
Only on one's willingness to serve the public, and the nation, as should be the purpose of one in public office, and as should be the goal of any system of arbitration based around the nation's continuance
Ya, that goes against the constitution....
Tho i don't disagree with you about holding the 2A (like i uphold every other one).
Then I expect to see you taking steps to bring state powers back, pretty much demolish the NSA as it stands currently, and yeet just about all firearms legislation, because those also go against the constitution. At what point does the pushback happen?
And again, 2A is not like the other ones. It's the most important one
There is a time and place to push back, have we passed it yet? Are we still waiting for it? These are all good questions, we will wait to find out.
If you were determined to uphold the constitution, it's well past the time to push back lol
you dont get to do this "voting is for everyone because the constitution says" and then go all relativist on me for every other constitutional violation over the past ~100 years
I can.
There is a big difference between, not taking someones human rights away (creating a tier system to vote).
And allowing a process that has always happened and will continue to happen till its time to stop it.
Sorry, but if your core source of rights is the constitution, you dont get to ignore violations of the constitution when it suits you
that's not how it works
You can have what you want to happen, and what you are willing to allow to happen before stepping in to change it.
either the constitution is *not* the basis for your rights, in which case, my voting change cannot be met with "but muh constituion" *or* you now have to care about all the violations that have continued to go on
I'm talking about your level of consistency - or rather, your lack thereof
Its wholly consistent to understand what is happening in the world, and make smart choices about what you choose to go to war about.
lol no
Again
You dont get to use the constitution as the basis for what is and isn't allowable, when you dont care about violations of the constitution
I dont get to say "You're restricted to even numbers" and then throw a 7 in there just because I feel like it