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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Every single word of this is "if it can't be perfect don't try." Many homes where children accessed guns had no safe place to put those guns - requiring that space makes it at least possible it would be used. I said we can REDUCE gun theft, and I'd think even you could understand how something lying out in the open is easier to steal than something in a locked case. Similarly a gun that's locked away requires more forethought to use than one in easy grabbing distance. We can't eliminate shootings, but we can decrease them.  Do you even read what you type? The law already required them to purchase or acquire a way to safely store their guns. For whatever reason, they didn't, and you want to make it double illegal? Why? Their child is literally dead, if that possibility didn't motivate them, do you really think the threat of a few more years in jail and a larger fine will?Your proposals won't measurably reduce theft, and can't legally provide a realistic barrier to homicide and suicide. I explained why. I don't particularly want to play the legal equivalent of "just the tip" because you think any restriction on gun ownership is good and want to try them all out. Infinite Karma posted:The second amendment isn't a constitutionally "protected" right, it's a constitutionally created right. No modern philosophy of human rights and dignities includes the category of "freedom to own dangerous poo poo" as an inherent part of human existence. -Troika- posted:The guns used in the recent shooting in San Bernardino were already illegal in California. Clearly what we need is more laws that will absolutely prevent mass shootings this time, no, really! VitalSigns posted:All four of the firearms were legally purchased, though it's not yet clear how the couple got them., so I guess you're complaining that gun control is too lax. deadly_pudding posted:Well, yeah, but that calls into question the actual effectiveness of those laws. If those guns made it into the state, anyway, that's a failure of authorities to enforce that policy, not an endorsement of a hamfisted "if guns are illegal, only outlaws will have guns" thing.
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Dec 4, 2015 20:55
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The obsession with jurisprudence in discussions about firearms reminds me of similar levels of pettiness in legal codes throughout history. "Do not boil a kid goat in its mother's milk" becoming a prohibition on cheeseburgers, deducting the fine for minor injuries from the fine for killing someone's bees if you got stung, the exception of the clergy... But sadly, nobody at all seems to recognize any ridiculousness in it. People seem to take it entirely seriously, this endless argument.
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Dec 4, 2015 21:30
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I think it's cool that the canned response to pointing out that a proposed law might not be very effective is a sarcastic "WELL I GUESS WE SHOULDN'T HAVE ANY LAWS THEN HUH"
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Dec 4, 2015 22:07
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Fister Roboto posted:"WELL I GUESS WE SHOULDN'T HAVE ANY LAWS THEN HUH" WHY DON'T YOU BAN SWIMMING POOLS?!
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Dec 4, 2015 22:53
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Fister Roboto posted:I think it's cool that the canned response to pointing out that a proposed law might not be very effective is a sarcastic "WELL I GUESS WE SHOULDN'T HAVE ANY LAWS THEN HUH" And the response to everything else is one of three political cartoons.
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Dec 4, 2015 23:19
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SedanChair posted:And the response to everything else is one of three political cartoons. You can only expend so much effort screaming at brick walls before you realize the futility of engaging with them.
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Dec 4, 2015 23:28
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Fister Roboto posted:I think it's cool that the canned response to pointing out that a proposed law might not be very effective is a sarcastic "WELL I GUESS WE SHOULDN'T HAVE ANY LAWS THEN HUH" This is also a canned sarcastic response.
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Dec 4, 2015 23:47
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Dead Reckoning posted:
Shootings by children, poo poo-for-brains.
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Dec 5, 2015 00:31
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Dead Reckoning posted:The right to self-defense has been an established concept since long before the American revolution. The right to the means of exercise is part and parcel with that. Also, it's not a "created" right. Governments can't create rights. They can curtail certain rights, and act as the guarantor of certain rights, and provide services, but they can't create rights. Government is a collective decision to surrender certain rights in exchange for the benefits it brings. Sure, the right to self-defense is justified. Put that in the constitution. But clearly guns aren't the means to exercise your self-defense except as a lucky accident. On the other hand, guns are used to assault people all the loving time. That's pretty much all they're used for.** A government that was good at its job would take everybody's guns away and make self-defense that much easier. It'd be a pretty sweet benefit if my (already low) chances of being shot were reduced by 75% because guns were restricted. **I'm not counting the military or police or people who carry guns as a part of their job, that's obvious. Recreational and hunting uses are stupid, but plenty of places with gun bans have niches for those activities, too, and they just happen to not require people to keep handguns and ammo in their houses for private use whenever the hell they want.
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Dec 5, 2015 03:46
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Infinite Karma posted:That's the point. The right to bear arms is a masturbatory turn of phrase, not an moral ideal being protected by folk hero A bunch of law dudes in black bathrobes disagree with you unfortunately.
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Dec 5, 2015 05:09
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Dead Reckoning posted:Also, it's not a "created" right. Governments can't create rights. They can curtail certain rights, and act as the guarantor of certain rights, and provide services, but they can't create rights. Government is a collective decision to surrender certain rights in exchange for the benefits it brings. Governments do, in fact, create rights, and it's one of their primary purposes; creating and enforcing the rights of its citizens. Rights are not inherent, you will not find a single atom of Free Speech and the text of the 2nd amendment is not written into your genetic code. You have rights because society says you do and takes steps to ensure that you can exercise them, because if you cannot demonstrate a right then you don't actually have it. A prisoner does not have a right to freedom of movement because he cannot leave. A citizen of the DPRK does not have a right to free speech because he cannot express himself freely without censorship or punishment. Now, the prisoner and the North Korean citizen (but I repeat myself) can physically try and leave the prisoner or criticize the government, that is something they are technically capable of, but it'll almost certainly get them killed for doing so, and so they cannot be said to have the right to do so. Things you can physically do are not the same thing as rights, although a lot of people mistake them as such. So appealing to some mystical, mythical "right" like its the Force from Star Wars is retarded. Learn how your society works so that you can better interact with it.
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Dec 5, 2015 05:55
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Who What Now posted:Governments do, in fact, create rights, and it's one of their primary purposes; creating and enforcing the rights of its citizens. Rights are not inherent, you will not find a single atom of Free Speech and the text of the 2nd amendment is not written into your genetic code. You have rights because society says you do and takes steps to ensure that you can exercise them, because if you cannot demonstrate a right then you don't actually have it. A prisoner does not have a right to freedom of movement because he cannot leave. A citizen of the DPRK does not have a right to free speech because he cannot express himself freely without censorship or punishment. Now, the prisoner and the North Korean citizen (but I repeat myself) can physically try and leave the prisoner or criticize the government, that is something they are technically capable of, but it'll almost certainly get them killed for doing so, and so they cannot be said to have the right to do so. Things you can physically do are not the same thing as rights, although a lot of people mistake them as such. So you're saying the idea of "unalienable" is based in the purely intellectual realm. Gotcha. But you're also saying that pragmatically rights are ultimately, finally guaranteed by having enough firepower to dissuade the other side from trying poo poo. Hm.
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Dec 5, 2015 06:13
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This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!
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DeusExMachinima posted:So you're saying the idea of "unalienable" is based in the purely intellectual realm. Gotcha. But you're also saying that pragmatically rights are ultimately, finally guaranteed by having enough firepower to dissuade the other side from trying poo poo. Hm.
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Dec 5, 2015 06:37
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Infinite Karma posted:[Governments] can't create rights. Who What Now posted:Governments do, in fact, create rights... Y'all have taken exact opposite tacks on this one, so you'll have to excuse me if my response is a little disjointed. Hi, I'm Dead Reckoning, and I'm a natural rights adherent. WWN, I disagree with your position, because the logical end-point of rights being merely what the government and society deign to grant you is that a liberal, democratic society like the United States is morally no different from a Stalinist dictatorship like North Korea. IK, I agree with that proposition, but in that case you have to explain why free speech and free religion aren't created rights but owning property (including guns) is. You referenced a "philosophy of human rights and dignities" in your first post, so clearly you think there is a certain category of inherently superior rights. The thing is, even in a natural rights philosophy, it's hard to argue that abolition of gun ownership in the home serves any legitimate purpose, because your neighbors having guns doesn't affect your rights in a meaningful way. If you want to argue it from a general utility perspective ("the mere fact that people can own guns makes life statistically more dangerous") you have to be willing to apply that same utility argument to everything else, and it gets real ugly real fast. Unfortunately, freedom by definition includes the freedom to take a course of action other than the most optimal for other people.
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Dec 5, 2015 08:24
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The only problem with being a natural rights adherent is keeping your wig powdered
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Dec 5, 2015 08:34
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Dead Reckoning posted:Hahaha "Well, it looks like the extremely strict laws we put in place to prevent things like this failed to prevent it. What we ought to do is And of course. Interesting catch-22 here. "You're just a gun-grabber! Why won't you compromise and let me keep some guns and we can have some gun laws" "Okay I'm fine with that let's compromise so you can keep some guns." "Oh well letting me keep guns makes the law worthless so we can't have gun laws then" I guess you're doing basic Republican governance 101: keep regulations as weak as possible, then use their ineffectiveness as a reason to weaken them more VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 08:42 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 08:40
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VitalSigns posted:Hahahaha California's laws aren't extremely strict. Look at Switzerland or Norway (where people can still get guns) for strict gun laws. Your Catch-22 is interesting only so long as you can redefine "some gun laws" and "compromise" at will, often in the middle of a discussion. Why do you think I should accept an infringement on my rights if it serves no compelling interest? How exactly are you different from people who want voter ID laws in order to prevent non-existent election fraud? And yes, I think laws shouldn't exist unless they, at a minimum, have a rational basis and serve a legitimate interest. I guess that makes me a filthy wrongthinker.
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Dec 5, 2015 09:01
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oops
Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 09:02
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Dead Reckoning posted:California already has universal background checks, registration of all guns, a permit requirement for purchases, waiting periods, safe storage laws, magazine limits, an assault weapons law, a bureau of firearms which decides which pistols you may own, an effective ban on open carry, and a ban on lead ammunition for hunting. What, pray tell, could the state do to make firearms ownership more restrictive save for banning semiautomatic weapons or making owning guns a shall-issue proposition? Dead Reckoning posted:Your Catch-22 is interesting only so long as you can redefine "some gun laws" and "compromise" at will, often in the middle of a discussion. Why do you think I should accept an infringement on my rights if it serves no compelling interest? How exactly are you different from people who want voter ID laws in order to prevent non-existent election fraud? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_by_year Hunh I tried to find a category for mass shootings in Norway, but there don't seem to be enough to make one E: Also unregulated access to your bang-bang toys isn't a constitutional right, that's why we still have the NFA
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Dec 5, 2015 09:08
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I'm just spitballing here, because nobody in human history has effectively determined what metaphysical natural rights are, but the human rights that are typically agreed upon are things that help people cooperate and satisfy extremely basic needs (i.e. biological survival). Freedom of speech and movement, and freedom from violence are pretty much the three most basic human rights. Clearly, guns are intended to secure our freedom from violence. But they are extremely bad at that job, so what's the next justification for owning dangerous things? Societies are usually allowed to strictly regulate things that cause a lot of harm and very little good. Owning a gun doesn't abrogate anyone else's rights, but using one sure as hell does.
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Dec 5, 2015 09:10
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Guns are negative good at the job of keeping us safe, since you or a family member is more likely to be killed by a gun you own than by someone else's gun. They are for recreation. That doesn't mean we should take them all away necessarily, but it does mean we should regulate them the way we regulate all dangerous recreational activities.
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Dec 5, 2015 09:15
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Dead Reckoning posted:Y'all have taken exact opposite tacks on this one, so you'll have to excuse me if my response is a little disjointed. Hi, I'm Dead Reckoning, and I'm a natural rights adherent. Yeah, no, you're going to have to explain this a bit more because this absolutely does not follow any sort of valid logical chain of thinking. EDIT DeusExMachinima posted:So you're saying the idea of "unalienable" is based in the purely intellectual realm. Gotcha. But you're also saying that pragmatically rights are ultimately, finally guaranteed by having enough firepower to dissuade the other side from trying poo poo. Hm. Pretty much. And if you're trying to lead this to some sort of "and therefore I need my guns to protect my right to own guns" then I have some really bad news for you. Who What Now fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 16:51
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VitalSigns posted:Guns are negative good at the job of keeping us safe, since you or a family member is more likely to be killed by a gun you own than by someone else's gun. They are for recreation. Congratulations, we're already there. Guns are pretty regulated.
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Dec 5, 2015 16:54
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Panzeh posted:Congratulations, we're already there. Guns are pretty regulated. And if you wish for more regulation, there are some nice sections in the Constitution on how to amend it. Good luck!
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Dec 5, 2015 17:00
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Fister Roboto posted:I think it's cool that the canned response to pointing out that a proposed law might not be very effective is a sarcastic "WELL I GUESS WE SHOULDN'T HAVE ANY LAWS THEN HUH" That isn't what happens. Here's what happens: Some tragedy with guns occurs somewhere. Gun fanboys barge in threads with smug incoherent idiocies around theme of "look the place this happened had some kind of gun control and it didn't do anything!" Reasonable people point out that no law has a 100% success rate in preventing crime, and by the gun fanboy standard, we should not have laws at all as a result of this. Gun fanboys learn nothing, move onto other smug incoherent jabs. Note that it doesn't really matter what these gun controls are; when Gabby Gifords was shot in Arizona, which has virtually no gun restrictions, the line was that the supermarket's restriction on guns on its property made it a "gun free zone" and thus, lol, it didn't do anything! A good guy with a gun could have stopped it if only they weren't stymied by the largely unenforced policy of the Albertsons corporation
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Dec 5, 2015 20:05
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Panzeh posted:Congratulations, we're already there. Guns are pretty regulated. Not compared to every other developed country, which also happen to have fantastically lower rates of gun violence.
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Dec 5, 2015 21:25
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VitalSigns posted:Not compared to every other developed country, which also happen to have fantastically lower rates of gun violence. But those countries are culturally homogeneous*, unlike America, so their laws won't work here. *Don't bother asking what they mean by this, they'll never give a straight answer, but I'm sure you can use your imagination.
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Dec 5, 2015 21:30
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Panzeh posted:Congratulations, we're already there. Guns are pretty regulated. According to the standard of Afghanistan perhaps
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Dec 5, 2015 21:53
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Gun? More like... bun.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:10
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quote:Gun ownership is restricted in Norway, unless one has officially documented a use for the gun... Rifle and shotgun ownership permission can be given to "sober and responsible" persons 18 years or older. The applicant for the permission must document a need for the weapon. Who What Now posted:Yeah, no, you're going to have to explain this a bit more because this absolutely does not follow any sort of valid logical chain of thinking. Who What Now posted:But those countries are culturally homogeneous*, unlike America, so their laws won't work here. Infinite Karma posted:I'm just spitballing here, because nobody in human history has effectively determined what metaphysical natural rights are, but the human rights that are typically agreed upon are things that help people cooperate and satisfy extremely basic needs (i.e. biological survival). Freedom of speech and movement, and freedom from violence are pretty much the three most basic human rights. Self defense is absolutely part and parcel of being free from violence, because a right that only exists as far as the government chooses to grant it is not a natural right at all. Access to the means to defend yourself ("arms") is part of that right. I'm going to need a citation (a non-Kellerman citation) to support the idea that guns are ineffective as a means of self defense. You're also dropping back to a utility argument here ("societies are usually allowed to strictly regulate things that cause a lot of harm and very little good") but in that case you should either argue that self defense is not a natural right and therefore subject to the same level of scrutiny as parking spaces, or be willing to apply the same utility logic to every other thing in society. Infinite Karma posted:Owning a gun doesn't abrogate anyone else's rights, but using one sure as hell does.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:40
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Dead Reckoning posted:
Is this like when Christians claim that atheists would condone rape and murder as they have no power to answer to and are thus incapable of creating a workable set of morals? Natural rights was a decent Enlightenment Age legal and rhetorical fiction to lend credit to radical challenges to existing authority structures. The concept was custom built to stoke the fires of revolution and neatly solve the problem of divinity and law. Yes, I understand the concept is much older but the modern conception of natural rights is heavily rooted in Enlightenment area thinking; thinking that was advanced for its time but has its limitations, notably in its capitulation to landed gentry (in the US) and its struggle to reconcile its roots with the capitalism and mercantilism of the day. I still speak in terms of inalienable rights, but rights must be enumerated and enforced/protected under the weight of law. Couple that with the range of disagreement among advocates of natural rights and the way it has fallen out of favor as a basis for rights enumeration, and I just don't think concept informs sound modern government (take for instance the divine origin of rights in the US... If we somehow proved the absence of divine authority, I don't think we would scrap the whole thing and return to the British monarchy). That being said I think the term is useful but not prescriptive. And fomenting rights into text is sufficient in many cases to diminish their "natural" power. Coming back to the original assertion, you absolutely can make moralistic distinction between governance in absence of natural rights and I would posit that given how we have had to evolve our understanding of even the inalienable rights that form the foundation of our country, I see little value in appealing to EA natural rights as an inherently moral system.
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Dec 5, 2015 23:16
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Dead Reckoning posted:Well, if your position is that rights are simply what government and society deign to permit you to do, why is the government of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan not choosing to allow people to worship as they choose any worse than our government not allowing you to park anywhere you want? Because we place more importance on protecting someone's ability to worship as they see fit than someone's ability to park in front of a fire hydrant. But we still place limits on that right, as you cannot claim human sacrifice is part of your right to worship. You might as well ask why committing serial murder will get you life imprisonment but jaywalking doesn't. We give more importance to certain actions and certain rights than we do to others. How is this surprising to you? And you do it too, unless you really do think we need to give the death penalty to anyone caught stealing a pack of gum. quote:I suppose that you can argue that there are certain rights so important and universal that every government must allow them in order to be considered moral, but at that point you've basically wrapped back around to the idea of there being certain inalienable rights that exist outside government. No it doesn't. There definitely are rights that are more important than others and ones a nation should secure and protect in order to be called moral, but those rights can still be alienated. They shouldn't be, but that doesn't make them inalienable. Like, you do know what inalienable means, right? If they were truly inalienable it would be impossible for human rights abuses to occur. quote:Even putting that aside, it's authoritarian and morally toxic because it supposes that citizens should have to justify why they should be allowed to have certain rights, rather than the state having to justify why they shouldn't. It's only morally toxic and authoritarian if the government enforces rights in an immoral and authoritarian manner. And the state is its citizenry, made up of them and is supposed to represent them and their best interests (even if certain immoral states do not). So both approaches should be used. quote:I'm not sure what part of "culturally homogeneous" you are having a hard time understanding. You misunderstand me. I know exactly what it means, and it's not what you wrote.
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Dec 6, 2015 00:36
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I'm not American so I've never really understood this worship of the amendments. It's like a second Bible for you guys. "We can't take away the guns because the words say we can't." That makes about as much sense to me as "You guys can't get married because my book says you can't." VitalSigns posted:Guns are negative good at the job of keeping us safe, since you or a family member is more likely to be killed by a gun you own than by someone else's gun. They are for recreation. If people want to shoot the guns at the fun shooty park then let them store their guns there or rent them but don't let them be taken off the range. That's fair, right? They get their fun time and everybody else gets no guns. In what world does some people's right to a recreational activity trump another person's right to not get shot? I don't care if your words say it America, fix your bloody words. Dead Reckoning posted:I'm not sure what part of "culturally homogeneous" you are having a hard time understanding. European countries (or at least the ones convenient to the gun control argument) tend to have populations which are smaller and more homogeneous in terms of culture, lifestyle, and values. They also tend to have less income inequality and stronger social safety nets. The United States, while somewhat unified linguistically, is extremely diverse culturally. If we look at individual states, you can see that there are states like Vermont (1.1) with homicide rates comparable to the UK and France (1.0), while Louisiana (11.0) is comparable with Angola (10.0), Nicaragua (11.3) or Sudan (11.2) despite being part of the same country. If Vermont had UK-like laws, and the UK had Vermont-like laws, it probably wouldn't cause a significant change in either's homicide rate, because legal access to guns is not what drives violent crime. Maybe the US should just split the states into separate countries. It seems like it would be so much easier for the lot of you. I mean, it's pretty obvious why that's not gonna happen. But with the huge differences between various states it does seem like nothing's ever going to happen when it comes to these larger issues. Off topic now but come to think of it I've never actually heard anyone express that as an opinion before, are there people over there who do think that the states should break up?
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Dec 6, 2015 01:55
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 The puffiest of derails
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Dec 6, 2015 02:28
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Dead Reckoning posted:OK, so making gun ownership may-issue is what you're arguing for then. Also, no one has argued that gun ownership should be unregulated. If you think regulation ought to be more strict, you ought to provide a valid reason and a least intrusive method of achieving it. The NFA makes certain firearms may-issue and it has been constitutional for eighty years and counting, how do you keep forgetting this. Oh wait I know Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be Dead Reckoning posted:Well, if your position is that rights are simply what government and society deign to permit you to do, why is the government of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan not choosing to allow people to worship as they choose any worse than our government not allowing you to park anywhere you want? I suppose that you can argue that there are certain rights so important and universal that every government must allow them in order to be considered moral, but at that point you've basically wrapped back around to the idea of there being certain inalienable rights that exist outside government. Even putting that aside, it's authoritarian and morally toxic because it supposes that citizens should have to justify why they should be allowed to have certain rights, rather than the state having to justify why they shouldn't. Because fire lanes improve public safety and thus give us a safer and happier society and killing people for changing religions is by definition bad for the people you're killing and their families with no corresponding benefit to anything.But okay, so the argument is that we can't design laws in order to create a better society, reduce deaths, things like that because "better society" is subjective and even Kim Jong Un claims his laws create a better society. If we improve public safety and save a bunch of lives by regulating guns, this is bad because according to you regulating guns is something the government has no right to do. Instead we need to define a series of rights that we decide people have (right to buy whatever guns you want without oversight yes, right to park wherever you want without oversight no) which totally isn't just as arbitrary and subjective because...look over there! E: It's endlessly amusing that your paranoia that Norway's gun laws are a one-way slippery slope to North Korean totalitarian dictatorship and all this rhetoric about your inalienable natural right to own guns free from government interference somehow exists in your brain along with approval of the government's right to roll up and execute anyone they want without warning as long as they think you might have had a gun. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Dec 6, 2015 |
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Dec 6, 2015 02:40
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Laverna posted:I'm not American so I've never really understood this worship of the amendments. It's like a second Bible for you guys. You should look up penumbra. The official position is that the Constitution itself is a living entity that can contain thoughts and meanings not in the literal text. No, I don't mean that the writers intended some meaning that we can extract, but the document itself has its own intentions that the authors were unaware of. Death of the author, but with the fate of the nation.
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Dec 6, 2015 03:08
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A strong belief in the divine/mystical importance of the Constitution as an infallible, future proof blueprint rather than treating it as exactly what the founders made: an evolutionary compromise solution that sought to quickly get a functional government running after previous failures. They assumed, along with the evolution of Enlightenment Era thinking, that people would believe in a rapidly evolving world and incorporate new ideas as they come along, scrapping failures along the way. And there is some validity in seeking strong foundations in your government so as to not get swept up in transient movements and temporary fervor. But as you can see through the history of this country is a lot of reluctance to address change. But we have made a pretty solid run of it all things considered.
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Dec 6, 2015 04:11
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Who What Now posted:Pretty much. And if you're trying to lead this to some sort of "and therefore I need my guns to protect my right to own guns" then I have some really bad news for you. Do you guys selectively remember Iraq and Afghanistan or something? Like when Republicans jerk off over being the world police your type usually points out we didn't pacify poo poo. Then on this it's like, baffling. IDK. We used tactics over there that would never be accepted by our populace or military here (try drone striking some American city's suburbs and see what happens to your approval ratings) and still failed to achieve our goals. And even if those tactics were on the table it wouldn't be a normal war, it'd be an insurgency. Nobody's going to line up Revolutionary war style to get bombed/nuked.
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Dec 6, 2015 19:59
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archangelwar posted:A strong belief in the divine/mystical importance of the Constitution as an infallible, future proof blueprint rather than treating it as exactly what the founders made: an evolutionary compromise solution that sought to quickly get a functional government running after previous failures. They assumed, along with the evolution of Enlightenment Era thinking, that people would believe in a rapidly evolving world and incorporate new ideas as they come along, scrapping failures along the way. I've never actually cared enough to look it up but the Amendments are basically changes people made to the original Constitution, right? I guess after something is old enough it kind of becomes "tradition" which is why people will be more reluctant to change it now than they would have been when it was first created. I wonder what would have to happen for people to change it now. Another civil war?
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Dec 6, 2015 22:08
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Laverna posted:I'm not American so I've never really understood this worship of the amendments. It's like a second Bible for you guys. The US Constitution is the basis on which all government actions are judged. That's how our legal system works. If the government has a power, it is because the courts have agreed that the Constitution grants it that power. If people have a right it is because the courts have agreed that the Constitution limits government power in that respect. Simply ignoring the US Constitution is basically legal anarchy. There are methods for changing the Constitution. The first is to add an amendment to outline new rights and/or powers or to strike previous amendments. The second is a Constitutional Convention in which a wholesale re-write goes down. The first is rather difficult to pass, the second is so terrifying to politicians as to be incomprehensible. Laverna posted:I wonder what would have to happen for people to change it now. Another civil war?
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Dec 6, 2015 22:09
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