Re: ACLU vs. Demopublican attacks on civil liberties (was: LetMeGet This Straight)

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From: Rodent of Unusual Size (Ken.Coar@Golux.Com)
Date: Mon May 14 2001 - 09:23:30 PDT


Matt Jensen wrote:
>
> Your point seems to be that the Right to Bear Arms (as in your
> interpretation) enables us to defend the Bill of Rights, while
> the Freedom of Speech and the Press does not.

Not at all. It is not the Bill of Rights being defended, but
the rights and liberty -- ALL of them -- of the people. The
protection of the Bill of Rights is not the issue at all, at
least not in my post.

It *is* the issue if the different amendments are permitted to
have situational definitions applied. If that can be done, and
one amendment stripped of its power, then it can be done to
others as well. All must be inviolate, and evaluated in the
same terms.

Many people think the proximate cause of the fighting at
Lexington and Concord was ideological -- 'no taxation without
representation' and the like. Wrong. It was much more prosaic:
it was due to the British attempting to apply gun control and
confiscate the colonists' arms.

Use of revolution as a means of redressing governmental excesses
should certainly not be the first solution -- but the right
to resort to it is guaranteed.

> p.s. - You forgot about "well-regulated." :-)

No, I did not. It is irrelevant. The operative portion of
the amendment is "the right of the people to keep and bear
Arms, shall not be infringed." The foregoing portion is a
statement of one reason *why* it shall not be infringed.

-- 
#ken    P-)}

Ken Coar <http://Golux.Com/coar/> Apache Software Foundation <http://www.apache.org/> "Apache Server for Dummies" <http://Apache-Server.Com/> "Apache Server Unleashed" <http://ApacheUnleashed.Com/>


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