I posted my entry below entitled "Holder: Heller means exactly dick," on Sebastian's site at Snowflakes in Hell and this was his response:
"He’s following the standard gun grabber line on Heller. That’s not to say The courts will bite. At the least, they’ve had to retreat from prohibition and the notion that the second amendment doesn’t mean anything. The lines for the next major court battle have been drawn. It’s not a foredrawn conclusion we’ll lose."
To which I responded:
And that case takes how long? In any event it is decided after the fact of confiscation, so once again you back up in the hope of being restored your natural rights by the black-robed fools. You guys sure get the Chip Diller Prize for masochism. "Thank you, sir! May I have another?"
This isn't "pragmatism" by any definition of the word. It is surrender by degree.
8 comments:
That is one of the reasons I am so unpopular at so many pragmatic places and banned in some, including Snowflake's, (he accused me of threatening him with conversation, no kidding).
That is what I have called "incremental surrender". It seems to piss them off that I can decode their speech.
They just don't like to hear the translation.
"...forget it, Mike, it's prag-town..."
So in 1798 when the Alien and Sedition Acts were signed I bet many thought: “The First Amendment means dick.”
I mean, it was only 7 years after ratification of the Bill of Rights and these clearly unconstitutional laws were passed.
It took around a hundred years for the First Amendment to be fully fleshed out in the courts to get it to the point we have it understood today.
And you want one case to completely define the full scope and breadth of the Second Amendment?
You can live in your fantasy world or you can live in the real world.
My response posted originally over on Snoball's blog:
(Buzzer sounds.) Oh, I’m sorry, wrong answer. Have you never actually read what followed those acts? Jefferson (sometimes secretly) writing the Virginia and Kentucky Resolves, threatening secession and war if the Adamsites didn’t back down? Militias drilling, getting ready for war. Ring a bell? Only Jefferson’s election in a rejection of Adams’ play averted it. What was that about fantasy?
Unfortunately we do not have an election scheduled soon enough to avert armed conflict this time. The only hope, a faint one, is that the opposition may still be playing according to the old political rules — i.e. 1994. Personally, I think they won’t, simply because they think they can split the Elmer Fudds from the Evil Battle Rifle people, with the assistance of the Pragmatists. This scheme will come apart upon the rock of our resistance, hence, war.
Melancton Smith, the Alien and Sedition acts generated plenty of heat, to put it lightly. There was talk about secession and armed conflict after that law was passed.
I think all of the groups in the RKBA community need to stop fighting each other - it's the surest way to failure. Mr. Vanderboegh, sir, please stop posting so much on the pragmatists', however idiotic they may be. Prags, please stop charging us Three percenters as crazy, unrealistic, dangerous-to-the-cause, butt-crack Rambo types who are looking for a fight. None of that is helping. Don't worry about Heller right now. In fact, perhaps the best thing would be to act as if Heller never really happened - don't use Heller in any argument about RKBA. Worry about Holder, and then try to, A) torpedo ALL new legislation that is anti-RKBA, and B) Constantly propose new pro-RKBA laws aimed at repealing earlier laws. That's what pragmatists should be doing.
Prags, III-ers are not hurting the cause. We don't give the rest of you a bad name. Like Mr. Vanderboegh has said before, you need to be warning the lobbyists and the Masters in DC that the III-ers are what await them at the logical conclusion of their plans to disarm. Fear is a very powerful motivator for politicians.
The fact that Judges & "constitutional scholars",(oxymoron in most cases),are even having a discussion about what the 2A means is proof no one is actually reading and studying the history of it. Even with the "live, breathing, document theory. Proof of it's utility is overwhelming in the the extreme.I'm sorry Mr.&Mrs.Prag. Their's an agenda behind these attacks on 2A. An unlawful one. And you folks just can't seem to admit that. We don't need a constitution wrote,By the people, For the people, That only nine people can understand. There is NO LEGAL aurgument against our human right to defend ourselves, codified in 2A. mthead
My point was, the laws were passed by a Congress and signed by a President that surely understood what they only recently ratified.
I believe the sedition law was never repealed, but allowed to expire in a rather pragmatic political act. Not unlike Clinton's pseudo-AWB.
I can't speak for the 'fudds', but I think you are mistaken with respect to the 'prags'. We have pragmatically defeated repeated attempts to institute an AWB here in IL, one of the toughest gun control states in the union.
Rush's retread of his 2007 AWB, granted a pretty nasty bill, is a squib not worth breaking cover for. Every co-sponsor foolish enough to sign on will get the usual First Amendment barrage, don't worry.
Melancton Smith said:
"It took around a hundred years for the First Amendment to be fully fleshed out in the courts to get it to the point we have it understood today."
Point well taken, but the problem is, as Mike said, we simply do not have the safety valve of another "Revolution of 1800" coming in the foreseeable future. What would have happened if the Federalists in 1800 had managed to stay in power, such that only a handful of states went with Jefferson? Secession may well have happened, since, as Jefferson correctly pointed out in the Kentucky Resolves, the federal government had violated the charter set by the people.
Well, we are in a similar situation. Heller doesn't mean dick in the short term, and that means it doesn't mean dick when it comes to resolving this issue, which is the match in the powder room. AWB I was bad enough, and many Americans have no resolved to not even go back to that, let alone to worse.
As Alex said, you and other prags should be giving sincere, heartfelt warnings to the gun grabbers to let them know this is not going to be politics as usual, and they most certainly will be lighting the fuse to the next American Revolution/civil war.
Whether you like it or not, there it is.
Post a Comment