Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
My intent was to demonstrate that the framers did not march in idealogical lockstep and had differing views in politics, religion and culture.
Iberals and libertarians have much in common. They both believe in the primacy of the individual and the promotion of individual rights. The major distinction is that liberals believe the governemnt is the best way to promote and protect individual rights, while libertarians believe that the government is the biggest threat to individual rights... They have more in common with each other than liberals have with progressives and libertarians have with conservatives.
The reason the Founding Fathers REJECTED government intervention was because the EVIDENCE showed that governments through out the ages murdered, maimed and tortured its citizens.
.
Herein lies your problem...our founding fathers DIDN'T reject government intervention.
They had NO problem shutting down any corporation that swindled We, the People.
Herein lies your problem...our founding fathers DIDN'T reject government intervention.
They had NO problem shutting down any corporation that swindled We, the People.
I believe you are FUBR.
Have a good life.
Hold on to your bullshit concepts. Just so you know no matter what the Obama-Feinstein Axis of Evil decide , Americans will hold on to their assault rifles and high capacity magazines.
.
The Founding Fathers were Classical Liberals - unfortunately , the word is used nowadays to identify politicians who support the welfare state.
.
Oh bullshit.
There ain't no welfare state anywhere near here. ?
HUH?
Are you on PCP?
HHS BUDGET 941 Billion in Outlays
.
The Founding Fathers were Classical Liberals - unfortunately , the word is used nowadays to identify politicians who support the welfare state.
.
The fact is that the concept of the state as presented in some modern libertarian writing owes much more to 19th century German ideas than to the 18th century Anglo-American legacy. In 18th century Britain, the question of whether ministers owed obedience to the king or to Parliament was a blurry and uncertain one. In 19th century Germany and Austro-Hungary, the question was clear: ministers obeyed the monarch. Period. The state as experienced by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek was something outside civil society, something that society could not reliably control, and therefore had to be contained. A John Adams might think of the king of England that way, but thats not how hed think of the legislature of the commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Libertarian psychology would have been even more indigestible to the 18th century mind than libertarian politics. Libertarianism argues that each individual should enjoy the widest possible scope to live as he or she thinks best. Its an attractive ideal, one widely shared by 21st century people. Modern liberals share the libertarian commitment to autonomy, as this ideal is generally called they just disagree about the institutions needed to support autonomy.
But to an American of the Founding generation, the ideal of autonomy would have contradicted four of the most fundamental physical and psychic facts of life:
Latinity
Calvinism
material scarcity and
slaveholding
Lets take them in turn
Elite Americans of the Founding generation were deeply shaped not literally by Roman ideas, but by the 18th century understanding of Roman ideas. Heres a perfect example: George Washingtons favorite play was Joseph Addisons Cato, published in 1713. Washington adapted words from that play in his famous speech quelling the Newburgh mutiny in 1783. Patrick Henrys give me liberty or give me death was likewise a paraphrase of a speech from Addisons play. Ditto Nathan Hales I only regret I have but one life to give for my country. So influential, right?
And what was the message of that play? That the most precious thing in life is honor. And what is honor? It is the esteem of the wise and the good. Better to die in a way that earns the admiration of others than to live without that admiration. It is hard to imagine a more radical antipode to Ayn Rands formula, I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Less elite Americans of the Founding generation were shaped less by Addison and the Latin classics than by religious traditions heavily tinged by Calvinism.
If ever a religious tradition emphasized the danger of giving scope to the individual will, Calvinism was that tradition:
Man, having been corrupted by his fall, sins voluntarily, not with reluctance or constraint; with the strongest propensity of disposition, not with violent coercion; with the bias of his own passions, and not with external compulsion: yet such is the depravity of his nature that he cannot be excited and biased to anything but what is evil (From Institutes of the Christian Religion).
It would be hard to imagine a mental outlook less conducive to the libertarian celebration of individual choice than that bequeathed by Calvinism not only to New England Puritanism but also to the hardshell Baptists of the South such as for example the parents of Abraham Lincoln.
Only a very few Americans of the Founding generation enjoyed anything like material security. While most white Americans enjoyed a higher standard of living than European peasants, that comparative abundance was a desperately precarious state. An American who drank too much, who had too many children, who got into a fight and suffered a wound that could be infected in short anyone who did not tightly control his impulses risked disaster not only for himself or herself, but also for his or her loved ones. In such a world, the psychology of modern libertarianism the desire to live unrestrained by any force outside oneself would be seen by most as an invitation to self-destruction.
Libertarianism is very much a movement of post-1945 affluent society America, a society that has developed birth control and drug rehab, antibiotics and antidepressants. We are a society abounding in second chances. 18th century America was a society in which a personal misstep could easily lead to premature and unpleasant death. Self-actualization through self-expression was a concept not imaginable until GDP per capita rose many, many thousands of dollars higher than the level prevailing in 1776.
Fourth and finally: the libertarian ideal was psychologically unavailable to 18th century Americans because 18th century America was a slaveholding society.
Frum Forum
Let me get this straight, you are arguing in favor of Calvinism? Do you have any idea what that means?
You are far more likely to survive2nd Amendement -
The Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey reports that the probability of serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for women offering no resistance than for women resisting with a gun. Men also benefit from using a gun, but the benefits are smaller: offering no
resistance is 1.4 times more likely to result in serious injury than resisting with a gun.
Can we see a link for this study?
U.S. Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Rape Victimization in 26 American Cities, 1979 60
Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey 61
U.S. Department of Justice 62
U.S. Department of Justice 63
British Home Office no a pro-gun organization by any mean
image removed
1) Judge Scalia is NO LIBERAL.
SCOTUS has not heard a case, therefore they have not upheld one.
Hopefully one of these LOWER COURT cases will make it's way to SCOTUS so their idiocy can be overturned.
i have often wondered about
"keep" in the Second amendment
if that refers to more then just light arms
i could certainly keep a tank in my machine shed
i have often wondered about
"keep" in the Second amendment
if that refers to more then just light arms
i could certainly keep a tank in my machine shed
It refers to what you can "bear."
Pick that tank up and sling it on your shoulder.
i have often wondered about
"keep" in the Second amendment
if that refers to more then just light arms
i could certainly keep a tank in my machine shed
i have often wondered about
"keep" in the Second amendment
if that refers to more then just light arms
i could certainly keep a tank in my machine shed
The most likely source of the terminology is the Game Act of 1671 which made it unlawful for persons of limited wealth to keep guns and other "engines of destruction" used in hunting.
The avowed purpose of the law was to to prevent illegal poaching but the law was selectively enforced by James II to disarm his political opponents. This and subsequent abuses led directly to the Glorious Revolution, a bloodless coup in which James II was exiled to France and replaced by William and Mary in 1689. As a condition to the accension to the throne, William and Mary were required to sign off on the English Bill of Rights which included a provision which protected the right to arms.
Following the English Bill of Rights, a series of cases interpreted the right protected. ...
These cases held that the Game Acts did not extend to prohibit a man from keeping a gun for his necessary defence. Rex v. Gardner, 87 Eng. Rep. 1240, 1241 (K.B. 1739); the mere having a gun was no offense . . . for a man may keep a gun for the defense of his house and family . . . Mallock v. Eastley, 87 Eng. Rep. 1370, 1374 (K.B. 1744); .and a gun may be kept for the defense of a mans house.Wingfield v. Stratford, 96 Eng. Rep. 787 (K.B. 1752); accord, The King v. Thompson, 100 Eng. Rep. 10, 12 (K.B. 1787) (it is not an offence to keep or use a gun), and Rex v. Hartley, II Chitty 1178, 1183 (1782) (a gun may be used for other purposes, as the protection of a man's house.)
The first employment of the terminology "keep and bear arms" arises in the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights in 1780. The provision was authored by John Adams who was the most prominent trial lawyer of the period, having defended the British Troops accused of murder in the Boston Massacre and who's statements on the right of self which were made during said trial became quite famous. There is no doubt whatsoever that Adams was familiar with many of the cases above cited when he drafted the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.
Sorry John... an arm at common law was a single man portable and use item of offense or defense intended to be employed in man to man combat. You can not carry a tank around with you... nor is a stinger missle intended to be employed in man to man combat. Body armor qualifies, however.
Rule of thumb:
1.) Things that go bang are ok.
2.) Things that go boom are not ok.
image removed
So you fucknut leftist gun grabbers think Heller was a big win?
ROFL
{ 1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 253.
(a) The Amendments prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clauses text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 222. }
Moron.
All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in the Constitution or Confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
John Adams, at the Constitutional Convention (1787)]
Does this sound like a man who intended to give corporations, a legal fiction whose life exists only on paper, the right to free and unfettered speech?
(d) The Second Amendment s drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms.
AND I'm sure you don't want this revealed...
2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Courts opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Millers holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those in common use at the time finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.
The fact is that the concept of the state as presented in some modern libertarian writing owes much more to 19th century German ideas than to the 18th century Anglo-American legacy. In 18th century Britain, the question of whether ministers owed obedience to the king or to Parliament was a blurry and uncertain one. In 19th century Germany and Austro-Hungary, the question was clear: ministers obeyed the monarch. Period. The state as experienced by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek was something outside civil society, something that society could not reliably control, and therefore had to be contained. A John Adams might think of the king of England that way, but thats not how hed think of the legislature of the commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Libertarian psychology would have been even more indigestible to the 18th century mind than libertarian politics. Libertarianism argues that each individual should enjoy the widest possible scope to live as he or she thinks best. Its an attractive ideal, one widely shared by 21st century people. Modern liberals share the libertarian commitment to autonomy, as this ideal is generally called they just disagree about the institutions needed to support autonomy.
But to an American of the Founding generation, the ideal of autonomy would have contradicted four of the most fundamental physical and psychic facts of life:
Latinity
Calvinism
material scarcity and
slaveholding
Lets take them in turn
Elite Americans of the Founding generation were deeply shaped not literally by Roman ideas, but by the 18th century understanding of Roman ideas. Heres a perfect example: George Washingtons favorite play was Joseph Addisons Cato, published in 1713. Washington adapted words from that play in his famous speech quelling the Newburgh mutiny in 1783. Patrick Henrys give me liberty or give me death was likewise a paraphrase of a speech from Addisons play. Ditto Nathan Hales I only regret I have but one life to give for my country. So influential, right?
And what was the message of that play? That the most precious thing in life is honor. And what is honor? It is the esteem of the wise and the good. Better to die in a way that earns the admiration of others than to live without that admiration. It is hard to imagine a more radical antipode to Ayn Rands formula, I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Less elite Americans of the Founding generation were shaped less by Addison and the Latin classics than by religious traditions heavily tinged by Calvinism.
If ever a religious tradition emphasized the danger of giving scope to the individual will, Calvinism was that tradition:
Man, having been corrupted by his fall, sins voluntarily, not with reluctance or constraint; with the strongest propensity of disposition, not with violent coercion; with the bias of his own passions, and not with external compulsion: yet such is the depravity of his nature that he cannot be excited and biased to anything but what is evil (From Institutes of the Christian Religion).
It would be hard to imagine a mental outlook less conducive to the libertarian celebration of individual choice than that bequeathed by Calvinism not only to New England Puritanism but also to the hardshell Baptists of the South such as for example the parents of Abraham Lincoln.
Only a very few Americans of the Founding generation enjoyed anything like material security. While most white Americans enjoyed a higher standard of living than European peasants, that comparative abundance was a desperately precarious state. An American who drank too much, who had too many children, who got into a fight and suffered a wound that could be infected in short anyone who did not tightly control his impulses risked disaster not only for himself or herself, but also for his or her loved ones. In such a world, the psychology of modern libertarianism the desire to live unrestrained by any force outside oneself would be seen by most as an invitation to self-destruction.
Libertarianism is very much a movement of post-1945 affluent society America, a society that has developed birth control and drug rehab, antibiotics and antidepressants. We are a society abounding in second chances. 18th century America was a society in which a personal misstep could easily lead to premature and unpleasant death. Self-actualization through self-expression was a concept not imaginable until GDP per capita rose many, many thousands of dollars higher than the level prevailing in 1776.
Fourth and finally: the libertarian ideal was psychologically unavailable to 18th century Americans because 18th century America was a slaveholding society.
Frum Forum
Let me get this straight, you are arguing in favor of Calvinism? Do you have any idea what that means?
I am not arguing in favor of Calvinism. I am arguing that Calvinism played a major role in American society in 1776.
