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scaredyclassic
Participantdriving has some social utility.
shooting a fucking gun in an open area has zero social utility.
therefore, the term guntard more aptly applies.
well, i suppose shooting int he open area does have some social utility if those were actually maneuvers designed to attack federal agents in the event that there is some sort of oppressive move to enslave the US population with drones.
I am being sarcastic.
those particularly guntards messed up my day.
somehow i think the NRA would say I was being a big baby.
when driving on the freeway, we also accept that there is risk, and that there will be a range of driving skills, and we can take some measures to protect ourselves from flaming assholes on the freeway, say by staying to the right, being observant, alert, allowing people to pass.
there is no social agreement that while out having an adventure on some rocks in open space that i am going to be subject to a gaggle of nitwits with weaponry shooting in unspecified directions in our general direction.
FUCKING GUNTARDS! that’s what id liek to ehar some pro-gun, NRA type say….that this is so unacceptable those tards should lose their privilege to ever touch a gun again.
from my perspective, admittedly biased, your equating the risk borne by driving with the risk of these guntards shooting irresponsible toward our vicinity is an example of…well…sorry, but guntardedness…
ParticipantIt might be best to start teaching schoolkids now how to create IEDs to disable govt vehicles approaching their homes per the 2nd amendment. why isn’t that in the curriculum?
Participantif cocaine was available over the counter, coke use would be way higher. marijuana use would be higher. heroin use would be higher. hmmm.. meth use would be higher. LSD use would probably be a bit higher. I cannot think of a drug which would decrease in use from legalization.
I think alcohol use might decrease very slightly if all other drugs were legalized
Participantbut if you do have to lift, get a lower back like this guy.
oh man, this photo gets me excited…
http://www.ironmind-store.com/Backs-Are-to-Lifters-Poster/productinfo/PS-BATL/
ParticipantRan into some guntards in a local open area. We were Rick climbing. Some were shooting relatively responsible toward other rock.
But then these guntards were just wandering around shooting in no particular fucking pattern. We had to crawl over contact their buddy and get them to fucking knock it off do we could get out
Fucking tards!!!! I truly hope they shot each other or selves….
They perceived themselves as responsible as they weren’t shooting at us, but only in our general direction. I really do hope they have a gun cleaning accident. I’m still pissed.
Participant[quote=Huckleberry]the power of america’s stable institutions have a heck of a lot more to do with the stability of the govt[/quote]
Wow squat, you REALLY are naive…[/quote]
perhaps. although it might also be naive to think a little piece of paper would stop an actual dictator…
when i talk to most people about the constitution it kinda ends up like this…
http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-passionate-defender-of-what-he-imagines-c,2849/
ParticipantI’m heavier now than ive ever been and I feel better. More rooted.
ParticipantFood for thought. Con law prof arguing against the constitution in my times this week:
andyrNYT.
AS the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.Consider, for example, the assertion by the Senate minority leader last week that the House could not take up a plan by Senate Democrats to extend tax cuts on households making $250,000 or less because the Constitution requires that revenue measures originate in the lower chamber. Why should anyone care? Why should a lame-duck House, 27 members of which were defeated for re-election, have a stranglehold on our economy? Why does a grotesquely malapportioned Senate get to decide the nation’s fate?
Our obsession with the Constitution has saddled us with a dysfunctional political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues and inflamed our public discourse. Instead of arguing about what is to be done, we argue about what James Madison might have wanted done 225 years ago.
As someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years, I am ashamed it took me so long to see how bizarre all this is. Imagine that after careful study a government official — say, the president or one of the party leaders in Congress — reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country. Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?
Constitutional disobedience may seem radical, but it is as old as the Republic. In fact, the Constitution itself was born of constitutional disobedience. When George Washington and the other framers went to Philadelphia in 1787, they were instructed to suggest amendments to the Articles of Confederation, which would have had to be ratified by the legislatures of all 13 states. Instead, in violation of their mandate, they abandoned the Articles, wrote a new Constitution and provided that it would take effect after ratification by only nine states, and by conventions in those states rather than the state legislatures.
No sooner was the Constitution in place than our leaders began ignoring it. John Adams supported the Alien and Sedition Acts, which violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. Thomas Jefferson thought every constitution should expire after a single generation. He believed the most consequential act of his presidency — the purchase of the Louisiana Territory — exceeded his constitutional powers.
Before the Civil War, abolitionists like Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison conceded that the Constitution protected slavery, but denounced it as a pact with the devil that should be ignored. When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation — 150 years ago tomorrow — he justified it as a military necessity under his power as commander in chief. Eventually, though, he embraced the freeing of slaves as a central war aim, though nearly everyone conceded that the federal government lacked the constitutional power to disrupt slavery where it already existed. Moreover, when the law finally caught up with the facts on the ground through passage of the 13th Amendment, ratification was achieved in a manner at odds with constitutional requirements. (The Southern states were denied representation in Congress on the theory that they had left the Union, yet their reconstructed legislatures later provided the crucial votes to ratify the amendment.)
In his Constitution Day speech in 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt professed devotion to the document, but as a statement of aspirations rather than obligations. This reading no doubt contributed to his willingness to extend federal power beyond anything the framers imagined, and to threaten the Supreme Court when it stood in the way of his New Deal legislation. In 1954, when the court decided Brown v. Board of Education, Justice Robert H. Jackson said he was voting for it as a moral and political necessity although he thought it had no basis in the Constitution. The list goes on and on.
Let’s Give Up on the Constitution
Published: December 30, 2012
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(Page 2 of 2)The fact that dissenting justices regularly, publicly and vociferously assert that their colleagues have ignored the Constitution — in landmark cases from Miranda v. Arizona to Roe v. Wade to Romer v. Evans to Bush v. Gore — should give us pause. The two main rival interpretive methods, “originalism” (divining the framers’ intent) and “living constitutionalism” (reinterpreting the text in light of modern demands), cannot be reconciled. Some decisions have been grounded in one school of thought, and some in the other. Whichever your philosophy, many of the results — by definition — must be wrong.
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IN the face of this long history of disobedience, it is hard to take seriously the claim by the Constitution’s defenders that we would be reduced to a Hobbesian state of nature if we asserted our freedom from this ancient text. Our sometimes flagrant disregard of the Constitution has not produced chaos or totalitarianism; on the contrary, it has helped us to grow and prosper.This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.
Nor should we have a debate about, for instance, how long the president’s term should last or whether Congress should consist of two houses. Some matters are better left settled, even if not in exactly the way we favor. Nor, finally, should we have an all-powerful president free to do whatever he wants. Even without constitutional fealty, the president would still be checked by Congress and by the states. There is even something to be said for an elite body like the Supreme Court with the power to impose its views of political morality on the country.
What would change is not the existence of these institutions, but the basis on which they claim legitimacy. The president would have to justify military action against Iran solely on the merits, without shutting down the debate with a claim of unchallengeable constitutional power as commander in chief. Congress might well retain the power of the purse, but this power would have to be defended on contemporary policy grounds, not abstruse constitutional doctrine. The Supreme Court could stop pretending that its decisions protecting same-sex intimacy or limiting affirmative action were rooted in constitutional text.
The deep-seated fear that such disobedience would unravel our social fabric is mere superstition. As we have seen, the country has successfully survived numerous examples of constitutional infidelity. And as we see now, the failure of the Congress and the White House to agree has already destabilized the country. Countries like Britain and New Zealand have systems of parliamentary supremacy and no written constitution, but are held together by longstanding traditions, accepted modes of procedure and engaged citizens. We, too, could draw on these resources.
What has preserved our political stability is not a poetic piece of parchment, but entrenched institutions and habits of thought and, most important, the sense that we are one nation and must work out our differences. No one can predict in detail what our system of government would look like if we freed ourselves from the shackles of constitutional obligation, and I harbor no illusions that any of this will happen soon. But even if we can’t kick our constitutional-law addiction, we can soften the habit.
If we acknowledged what should be obvious — that much constitutional language is broad enough to encompass an almost infinitely wide range of positions — we might have a very different attitude about the obligation to obey. It would become apparent that people who disagree with us about the Constitution are not violating a sacred text or our core commitments. Instead, we are all invoking a common vocabulary to express aspirations that, at the broadest level, everyone can embrace. Of course, that does not mean that people agree at the ground level. If we are not to abandon constitutionalism entirely, then we might at least understand it as a place for discussion, a demand that we make a good-faith effort to understand the views of others, rather than as a tool to force others to give up their moral and political judgments.
If even this change is impossible, perhaps the dream of a country ruled by “We the people” is impossibly utopian. If so, we have to give up on the claim that we are a self-governing people who can settle our disagreements through mature and tolerant debate. But before abandoning our heritage of self-government, we ought to try extricating ourselves from constitutional bondage so that we can give real freedom a chance.
ParticipantThey lie.
ParticipantIm sure the owner of the new town guns would e thought insurance was silly as she’d never use them irresponsibly
ParticipantThe constitution is not what holds this nation together.
Participantexpenses on funds matter a lot
Participant[quote=livinincali][quote=squat300]
I truly believe we would all be better off if we were not collectively heavily armed. It’s not based on fact or reason but strictly feelings.[/quote]The bills rights was primarily adopted to prevent tyranny of government. The colonists had just fought a revolution war against perceived acts of tyranny (I.e. taxes without representation). Almost everything in the bill of rights is a check and balance against acts of tyranny by the government. Free speech, rights to bear arms, protection against unwarranted search and seizure, etc. Obviously we’ve been pretty far removed from a tyrannical government but should we really give up those checks and balances because of a small percentage of criminals.
Honestly what’s the first thing you would do if you were a dictator that wanted to push the US to a hard core socialist/communist government? Remove the guns so the producers couldn’t realistically fight back. Then you start removing protections of search and seizure and free speech. Basically everything in the bill of rights would be quickly removed because those are the primary checks and balances to oppose your takeover.[/quote]
the power of america’s stable institutions have a heck of a lot more to do with the stability of the govt that the ak-47 in some dude’s closet with a blood splatter pattern pro gun tshirt
Participantco-equal criminal liability for any crime committed with your gun.
psych testing bi-annually.
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