Posted on 03/27/2009 5:59:02 AM PDT by marktwain
There are any number of natural and/or God-given rights. None of them has the least legal status unless some legislature and/or court affirms it. Hobbes tells me that, having been sentenced to death for, say, blowing up an orphanage, I have a perfectly natural right to kill my jailers (or anyone else) in order to escape execution. Shall we conservatives stand on the sidelines and cheer as killers exercise their natural rights in such circumstances? I hope not. That’s part of what it means to live under a government of laws, not of men.
While your correction IS technically and essentially accurate, Jefferson’s writings contain numerous references to the PRINCIPLE summarized in the cited utterances, to wit:
(From the University of Virginia)
The Right to Bear Arms
In a nation governed by the people themselves, the possession of arms to defend their nation against usurpers within and without was deemed absolutely necessary. This right is protected by the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. A gun was an everyday implement in early American society, and Jefferson recommended its use. “A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks.” —Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785. ME 5:85, Papers 8:407
“The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.” —Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:45
“One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.” —Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1796. ME 9:341
“I learn with great concern that [one] portion of our frontier so interesting, so important, and so exposed, should be so entirely unprovided with common fire-arms. I did not suppose any part of the United States so destitute of what is considered as among the first necessaries of a farm-house.” —Thomas Jefferson to Jacob J. Brown, 1808. ME 11:432
“No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms (within his own lands or tenements).” —Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution (with his note added), 1776. Papers 1:353
“None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.” —Thomas Jefferson to -——, 1803. ME 10:365
Couple THOSE expressions with this
“What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” —Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers 12:356
and Mr. Jefferson’s meaning becomes clear enough to warrant its condensation into the expressions which you were kind enough to point out as likely apocryphal.
I rather doubt he thought, given the actions during the Revolution, “...the blood of...tyrants...” and USURPERS (a term that makes ME go “hmmmmm?) is best spilled with hay forks, hoes (the steel and wood kind) or shovels.
Lying and dissembling by the NYT?
I’m shocked!
If we accept that all our God-given rights are subject to the affirmation of some court, then we have lost. I want to win.
I want to win, too. But I care very much how I win and what kind of a country I have in the end. In our civil society, the only way to check on which of those God-given rights are in force is to check with the Constitution and with the courts. Otherwise I have you over here telling me about your God-given right to bear arms and some lady over there telling me about her God-given right to do whatever she wishes with her body, including abortion or marrying her girlfriend. I suppose that if I shoot the lady, I win. After a fashion.
That last is a ridiculous statement, and seems like the sort of thing a newbie disruptor might post.
Newbie disruptor, huh? I’ll take the newbie, but I navigated over here via Instapundit, one of my regular sites, because of a longstanding interest in 2nd Amendment issues. I got my first NRA membership in 1961. You?
So now that we’re all on the same webpage, how about a little more than crying “ridiculous,” without giving saying why? To make it perfectly plain: please tell me how you know this or that right is God-given and some other one is not.
That wasn’t your last statement, and was not what I was commenting about.
I’m guessing you mean the last 2 sentences of my last statement? In which case I plead to comic extravagance based on a genuine point: reliance on a divine charter of rights can justify all sorts of unfortunate actions. In the most extreme instance, both Ted Kaczinsky (sp?) and Timothy McVeigh thought they were defending their God-given rights. I myself prefer to limit my own defending to those rights given legally enforcible enactment.
Yes, in that regrettable case, you would win. Next.
Sure. Next for those of us in the great state of NY is to figure out how Heller could conceivably be used to challenge local ordinances. If you have any idea what it takes to register a rifle in NYC you know the meaning of righteous frustration.
I can’t give you relief from your frustration except to say that registration and licensing of firearms and owners are contrary to the Constitution. It is quite clear. If your local politicians disagree, then you should either act accordingly or move. It’s warmer down here in the South.
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