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Clayton Cramer on the listserv debate re sophisticated collective rights
Clayton's take is here. He draws attention to one contributor's proclamation that the primary weapon against tyranny today is the IED, which of course equates our troops to the servants of tyranny.
The debate is indicative of how far the supporters of sophisticated collective right theory have to push the historical record. Apparently one of their claims is that the 1776 PA declaration of rights ("That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state...") is SCR, since it uses "themselves" instead of, I'd guess, "himself or herself".
That'd be awkward wording, of course. And a look at the 1776 PA Declaration shows that the framers regularly used "people," "they" and "their" to describe clearly individual rights:
"II. That all men have a natural and unalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences and understanding...
XII. That the people have a right to freedom of speech, and of writing, and publishing their sentiments...
XV. That all men have a natural inherent right to emigrate from one state to another that will receive them, or to form a new state in vacant countries, or in such countries as they can purchase, whenever they think that thereby they may promote their own happiness.
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"How is such a moral and logical inversion possible without causing an anti-matter explosion?"
It is contained by intense fields of stupidity and asininity.
Talk to any competent grammarian, and they will tell you that using the third person plural is a common and acceptable construction when gender is unknown. Talk about greaping at straws!
Again, an airhead blowing out hot stuff. Fewer automatic weapons on the streets? He knows nothing about gun laws or guns. The whole IED comment is ridiculous. 2A protects your right to arms, not to use them criminally. I could care less if my neighbor has an IED as long as it isn't used criminally and doesn't pose a threat to my life. Both are reasonable restrictions on his right to arms just like shouting fire in a theater is reasonable restriction on my 1A
Thanks, Mr. Hardy, for keeping us armed with the info we need to undermine these idiot concepts when we encounter them.
Shouting "FIRE" in a crowded theater is only proscribed by law when there is no fire, because it is forseeable that doing so will cause harm to others. It is your duty to do so if their is a fire.
Holmes was wrong when he didn't explain that. Yeah, OWH made a mistake.
While I do believe Holmes erred elsewhere, his only real mistake here was in not foreseeing that future generations would grab onto this single line of dicta, rip it entirely from its context, and hold it up as if it justified every sort of prior restraint imaginable.
In the sedition prosecutions, the government was obsessed with German propaganda, the principle characteristic of which (according to propaganda studies)was its "falsity." A major imagery in the sedition decsions was of the firebrand setting fire to reason with false emotional appeals. Falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater was less metaphor and more a literal expression of how the Court viewed propaganda in that social context.
What Mr. Cornell is doing is nothing other than attempting to pull off the old collegiate "If-you-can't-dazzle-them-with-brilliance-baffle- them-with-bullshit" ploy. His explications of the second amendment can't withstand the smell test - or any other application of common sense. He is the worst type of sophist. As with Bellesiles (who?) none will remember his name in ten years.
Absolutely, Ken. Had he been more explicit under what conditions one cannot yell "fire", his stupid statement would not have lent itself so easily to misinterpretation as government having the power to exercise prior restraint.
>>To the degree that the Bill of Rights guarantees individual rights,
then it is undemocratic and abets tyranny.
(!!!)
How is such a moral and logical inversion possible without causing an anti-matter explosion?