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To: general_re
And my rejoinder is the same - what is the practical value of a fixed meaning if it is essentially unknowable? You keep returning to this notion of fixed meaning of the law, but knowing that there exists such a thing, or even thinking that you know what it is, is useless unless you can persuade others to ride that train along with you. And how is your claim of fixed meaning distinguishable from everyone else's - how is an interested outsider supposed to know whether your notion of fixed meaning is correct or not?

Let's look at an example that hopefully we can agree upon: the 2nd amendment. I think it's likely we can agree that this amendment actually does prohibit the federal government from interfering with people's right to own and carry personal firearms, regardless of whether they belong to the National Guard or whatever the self-serving liberal interpretation is. Not merely that it should do so, but that it actually does do so, as a matter of objective fact. And that furthermore, the federal government has violated and continues to get away with violating this amendment. Agree?

1,199 posted on 08/27/2003 1:29:38 PM PDT by inquest (We are NOT the world)
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To: inquest
Hope springs eternal, they say ;)

I think it's likely we can agree that this amendment actually does prohibit the federal government from interfering with people's right to own and carry personal firearms...

Point of order: the language of the Constitution is not in accordance with your interpretation of it. You say "personal" arms, but I see no textual support for such a position - the Constitution makes reference to a "right to keep and bear arms" without qualification, in absolute terms.

However, because you are a sensible person who recognizes that rights in a society consisting of more than one person cannot possibly be absolute, you have chosen to draw a line across what is essentially an absolute right if read literally, as a means of restricting it. But why "personal" arms? I say that the right to keep and bear arms includes land mines and artillery pieces, albeit not nuclear warheads or anthrax, but you don't include artillery and land mines in your reading of the Second like I do. And there's where the argument starts, and where the Constitution fails to guide us, fixed meaning or not - we both agree that rights cannot be absolute, despite the apparent language of the Constitution, and we both agree that a line must be drawn. But what we disagree about is where exactly that line should be drawn.

And that's the crux of the problem with Roy Moore, and the crux of the problem with the Second Amendment, and where the Constitution utterly fails to guide us. This is, I think, by design on the part of the framers, so that we could evaluate for ourselves where that line should be drawn - they knew they couldn't anticipate every future development, and so they left the language such that we could use it as a guide, not as a rigid menu of options.

There's the real underlying problem, in a nutshell - where do we draw the line, whether with guns or with religion? And that's not a Constitutional question, it's a political one. It can't be a matter resolved solely by referring to the Constitution - the Constitution can't tell us whether the Second means only personal arms, or whether it means tanks and airplanes. So we have to fight amongst ourselves about where the line should be drawn. For now, that fight is over, and Roy Moore is on the wrong side of the line. Perhaps someday the line will shift, but for now, he's out of luck.

1,200 posted on 08/27/2003 9:46:57 PM PDT by general_re (Today is a day for firm decisions! Or is it?)
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