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To: Anitius Severinus Boethius
He is right in that an armed uprising would be a rebellion to be put down by the military. The rebels would be the enemy of the Constitution at that point.

Then what was the purpose of the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution?
Just to have a standing militia for the government to use?

It's my understanding that the 2nd amendment of the constitution was put there so that if the government became unbearable, and tried to use force to stay in power, that the people would be able to remove that government by force if it became necessary.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

560 posted on 03/28/2010 11:16:31 AM PDT by Just another Joe (Warning: FReeping can be addictive and helpful to your mental health)
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To: Just another Joe
You're wrong on your first premise and correct on your second. If you had read my post in it's entirety, you would have seen that I agree.

The 2nd amendment was not about making sure that people could just overthrow the government when they weren't getting their way.

The 2nd amendment was about making sure that the government couldn't overthrow the bounds of the Constitution.

While there is still Constitutional recourse to political change, any rebellion that takes place is a rebellion against the Constitution. We are still well within that level of governmental malfeasance.

563 posted on 03/28/2010 11:23:20 AM PDT by Anitius Severinus Boethius
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To: Just another Joe
You're absolutely right. The Second Amendment is the emergency reset button to be pressed when all other attempts to prevent despotism and tyranny have failed.

The Declaration of Independence in instructive on this point:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

The last bolded clause is especially instructive: it is not merely our right but our DUTY to throw off such government.

The challenge lies in knowing WHEN the tipping point has been reached.

565 posted on 03/28/2010 11:40:06 AM PDT by behzinlea
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