From Comments Come A Post

From HERE, which you all should be reading daily:

This comment caught my attention:

Why is it, exactly, that if I disagree with you as to how to interpret the Constitution and various related documents, I somehow don't understand them? Is your interpretation the right one and anyone who doesn't agree with you somehow either ignorant or corrupt?...I want everyone to take a step back and consider that the founding fathers may have been wrong on some things. Is that such a terrible thing? Does admitting that they have flaws make me somehow dead-set against this nation? Is it possible that the comments about the consistent need for bloodshed ("The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants") were made at a time when Jefferson was enraged over the treatment of the colonies?... Mayor- if you truly believe that the government has no role in protecting its citizens, do an experiment. For the next 12 months, suspend all police activity in your town. If, a year from now, your citizens are safe, happy, and prosperous, perhaps you're right. If, instead, violent gangs are present, burglaries are omnipresent, and the murder rate has ballooned, perhaps government has some duty to protect its citizens? I'm anxious to learn the results.

To which I replied with:

The argument, at least mine, over the Constitution being living is over the existing amendments interpretation. They say what they say, period. Most that were added were IMHO unnecessary clarification. Equal rights are established in the preamble and the DOI. The separation between today and the times of the founding is our desire to say everything so that it is so clear, that we get laws/bills that are not read and then passed covering every possible detail that they can imagine.Sadly the imagination is lacking in a lot of cases. The conventions of the 1770's and 1780's debated every word, ensuring it said was was needed and nothing more. We only debate party support or PORK trade offs now. Before anyone says it, ALL PARTIES are guilty of this, and no it is not specific to our current or most recent admins. Our representatives are struggling for power and sound bites, not liberty for individual citizens. I personally find no fault with the original document, only the way its reading has been butchered in the past 100 years. And no the country cannot simply come for our guns without removing the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 10th. That is not adaptation, but disintegration. Besides the 2A argument is not about "guns" only, it is about the right of self defense, the right to remove consent of the governed, the ultimate check and balance the equalizer between predator and prey. As for the idea of "For the next 12 months, suspend all police activity in your town"... Would you be willing to grant me and a small group the "privileges" of LEO's? I would love that opportunity, and it would be truly transparent. Look at Chi-town, NYC, DC... do the Police really make you safer? Why would you not be willing to step up in the defense of YOUR community? Read Warren v. District of Columbia, or "Domestic Violence -- When Do Police Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect?" Special Agent Daniel L. Schofield, S.J.D., then look at the past of BOTH recent cop murdering scat of these past few weeks. Rehab does not work for child molesters or "violent" criminals. As the old saying goes "I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy," or "911, when seconds count Police are only minutes away," if you prefer.

The retort-

The ratification of the Constitution was far from unanimous - in fact, it barely happened. If the founding fathers themselves could not agree that the document was pure, flawless, why do you assume it to be so?Jason - no, I do not want to give you the power of law enforcement officials. I never claimed that you could do the same job as the police. The mayor suggested that government control of citizens was not necessary. I just want him to put into action his rhetoric. And, despite how horrible our inner cities are, they are in a better condition than if there was no police presence at all. Jason, I understand that you want to protect yourself from the child molesters and violent criminals. But what happens when they protect themselves from you? And you then protect in return? If we allow a police force, a force that keeps us from destroying each other, we can all survive. If that police force has problems keeping order, that does not mean that they are evil or trying to eliminate you. Perhaps they don't have the resources they need? Perhaps we are having a problem with society that we can address with better education and improved social support (which is far from new - such problems have occurred every few decades for about as long as there have been societies). Taking the law into our own hands solves nothing - in fact, it exacerbates the problem.

My final comments on this particular essay:

Thank you for some reasonable and intelligent discussion about topics that can quickly become emotional. I believe the central core of our few but important disagreements is that you recognize and support the "power of the state" while I believe the state should have NO rights greater than her citizens. I agree that with the laws of "today" the Mayor could not survive without the resources of his local PD. But that is the problem with a gov't that has subservient citizens. We have lost the ideals of true civil service. We do not need a police "force" with full time SWAT teams, the charge to stop Charles Whitman was lead by citizens. Police are not held to the call of "protect and serve", that is fine, but do not restrict me from protecting. That is my crux so to speak. For my entire life I have been no threat. If I was in possession of fully automatic firearms and/or a shotgun with a less than 18" barrel that will not change. It is an education and a way of life, raised on hero worship, honor codes and the way of the warrior. Police officers come from the general populace, (as we both agree I believe carries the good, bad and ugly)my main question/point is: why do they get the "right" to have a fully automatic M16, carry concealed without a permit in some states, or carry on an airline? I am trained, safe and responsible, more so than some officers. I am not trying to besmugde law enforcement, but their "title" makes them no better or qualified than I. In closing I believe you illustrated my point rather than disputed it by citing the portion you did. I am not saying compromise is bad, IF it is compromise. We as citizens are instead force fed 2 choices a GOP of high taxes/low liberty, or the current progressive DEM platform of high taxes/low liberty. Yet the arguments of modern elections are STATE not Federal issues. We have moved to a very federalist country that is empowering the exec. branch with more power than we have ever seen before. I for one cannot cite when that power has been returned to the people without following Jeffersonian ideals, his most radical ones at that. I realized before the first key stroke that at the end we would have to agree to disagree, so once again thank you all who took place in this discussion, H/T to you Mr.Martin for starting it, it was a pleasurable discourse.

Jason

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I re post these here because I feel that it was a pleasant discussion of opposing sides without resorting to crap like this the following day:

That's right tea partiers. The Soros-Kos-Acorn-Lefties are plotting to infiltrate your mad-hatter festivities.You people are so demented it transcends parody. I hope you are all shaking in your boots and tin-foil hats. BOOO!

To which bait I bit:

"I hope you are all shaking in your boots and tin-foil hats. BOOO!" Yeah, unless you forgot, we got the guns. We are all blood thirsty, racist rednecks who want blood to run down the streets. Or is that analogy to last year for the always cool minded liberals. Yes we independent members of the community who openly speak of the possibility of our role in a VIOLENT overthrow of government, we are afraid of some liberal professor, or union rep who has no scars. Think again. What we are concerned about is one of you a**hats causing trouble and disrupting a peaceful, Constitutionally protected right to free assembly.

Let's try to keep it civil, yet get our points across.

Jason

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