What's wrong with "reasonable restrictions" on a constitutional right?

[Little-Acorn]

Can you imagine the reaction if someone was forbidden to become a Catholic or Baptist or what have you, unless he first paid a fee to the government and waited for them to grant him permission to do so?

What if a Federal law were passed saying that you would be thrown in jail if you printed up a bunch of pamphlets saying that Bill Clinton or George W. Bush did a lousy job as President and started handing them out... unless you first applied to the govt for permission to print them up and waited for the OK to come back from Washington DC? Or from your state government?

Might that person worry that, once we grant government the power to restrict us a little, govt might start doing it more and more? Maybe using its power to restrict one side (the side that the party in power doesn't like) from doing its normal publicizing, fundraising, and speechmaking? Have we seen any sign that the government might do such a thing?

The same people who would scream bloody murder over any suggestion of such laws, are fine with similar laws forbidding you to own a gun or carry it in your pocket, unless you first pay a fee to the govt, fill out a bunch of forms, jump thru other hoops, and then wait for permission to come back from the government. If you carry the gun in your pocket without doing all that, you can be thrown in jail, stuck with LARGE fines, and/or have the govt's "permission" to own and carry, permanently revoked.

BTW, as for the guy who has to get govt permission before publishing and handing out his pamphlet... would he be OK with it if the government permanently DENIED him permission to publish it, because they found out that, thirty years ago, he'd been busted for going on a joyride with some friends in a car that one of them had stolen during a drunken spree in college way back then? Nobody got hurt. But no publishing pamphlets complaining about government for you, buddy... EVER. And no typing in C-D forum about that same subject, either. And if you even try, we'll know, through our contacts in the NSA.

These are merely "reasonable restrictions" on your freedom of religion, and of the press... no worse than the "reasonable restrictions" on that other explicitly guaranteed Constitutional right, to keep and bear arms. How can you object to any of them?

 

[nodoginnafight]

reasonable restrictions also mean stuff like - yeah, you can hold your parade, but you have to get a permit first.

Yeah, you can be a Baptist - but we might not let you baptize people in the city pool at noon on Wednesday.

You can print up your anti-whatever pamphlets, but you can't scatter 25,000 of them from an airplane that's flying over Chicogo at 1,500 feet.

Time, place, and manner restrictions are in place - and have been in place - for quite some time. I consider most of them reasonable.

I consider it unreasonable to expect that you should be able to exercise your Constitutional rights whatever, wherever, whenever, however ...

I respect the fact that constant vigilance is required to make sure "reasonable" restrictions don't become unreasonable - but different people are going to have different opinions about where to draw the line. I favor drawing that line at "as little restriction as possible." But I do not favor doing away with the line altogether.

 

[Little-Acorn]

So far we have one guy who says it's OK to throw people in jail if they haven't properly applied to government for permission to become Catholic, or applied for permission to criticize that government.

Anyone else?

 

[nodoginnafight]

So far we have one guy who says it's OK to throw people in jail if they haven't properly applied to government for permission to become Catholic,

who was that?

 

[blackhawk]

Define reasonable I doubt very few would define it ghe same way.

 

[Little-Acorn]

Now the one guy who said reasonable restreictions are OK, is backing out.

Anyone else?

 

[Little-Acorn]

Define reasonable I doubt very few would define it ghe same way.

I gave examples.

Do you support such "reasonable restrictions"?

 

[nodoginnafight]

Dude, if all you want to do is twist what people say into something they didn't ... do it by yourself.

 

[National Socialist]

I don't support any. The constitution is the law of the land for now so it needs to be STRICTLY obeyed.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Can you imagine the reaction if someone was forbidden to become a Catholic or Baptist or what have you, unless he first paid a fee to the government and waited for them to grant him permission to do so?

What if a Federal law were passed saying that you would be thrown in jail if you printed up a bunch of pamphlets saying that Bill Clinton or George W. Bush did a lousy job as President and started handing them out... unless you first applied to the govt for permission to print them up and waited for the OK to come back from Washington DC? Or from your state government?

Might that person worry that, once we grant government the power to restrict us a little, govt might start doing it more and more? Maybe using its power to restrict one side (the side that the party in power doesn't like) from doing its normal publicizing, fundraising, and speechmaking? Have we seen any sign that the government might do such a thing?

The same people who would scream bloody murder over any suggestion of such laws, are fine with similar laws forbidding you to own a gun or carry it in your pocket, unless you first pay a fee to the govt, fill out a bunch of forms, jump thru other hoops, and then wait for permission to come back from the government. If you carry the gun in your pocket without doing all that, you can be thrown in jail, stuck with LARGE fines, and/or have the govt's "permission" to own and carry, permanently revoked.

BTW, as for the guy who has to get govt permission before publishing and handing out his pamphlet... would he be OK with it if the government permanently DENIED him permission to publish it, because they found out that, thirty years ago, he'd been busted for going on a joyride with some friends in a car that one of them had stolen during a drunken spree in college way back then? Nobody got hurt. But no publishing pamphlets complaining about government for you, buddy... EVER. And no typing in C-D forum about that same subject, either. And if you even try, we'll know, through our contacts in the NSA.

These are merely "reasonable restrictions" on your freedom of religion, and of the press... no worse than the "reasonable restrictions" on that other explicitly guaranteed Constitutional right, to keep and bear arms. How can you object to any of them?

What's the reasonable procedure for deciding what's a reasonable restriction and what isn't?

 

[BlindBoo]

Can you imagine the reaction if someone was forbidden to become a Catholic or Baptist or what have you, unless he first paid a fee to the government and waited for them to grant him permission to do so?

What if a Federal law were passed saying that you would be thrown in jail if you printed up a bunch of pamphlets saying that Bill Clinton or George W. Bush did a lousy job as President and started handing them out... unless you first applied to the govt for permission to print them up and waited for the OK to come back from Washington DC? Or from your state government?

Might that person worry that, once we grant government the power to restrict us a little, govt might start doing it more and more? Maybe using its power to restrict one side (the side that the party in power doesn't like) from doing its normal publicizing, fundraising, and speechmaking? Have we seen any sign that the government might do such a thing?

The same people who would scream bloody murder over any suggestion of such laws, are fine with similar laws forbidding you to own a gun or carry it in your pocket, unless you first pay a fee to the govt, fill out a bunch of forms, jump thru other hoops, and then wait for permission to come back from the government. If you carry the gun in your pocket without doing all that, you can be thrown in jail, stuck with LARGE fines, and/or have the govt's "permission" to own and carry, permanently revoked.

BTW, as for the guy who has to get govt permission before publishing and handing out his pamphlet... would he be OK with it if the government permanently DENIED him permission to publish it, because they found out that, thirty years ago, he'd been busted for going on a joyride with some friends in a car that one of them had stolen during a drunken spree in college way back then? Nobody got hurt. But no publishing pamphlets complaining about government for you, buddy... EVER. And no typing in C-D forum about that same subject, either. And if you even try, we'll know, through our contacts in the NSA.

These are merely "reasonable restrictions" on your freedom of religion, and of the press... no worse than the "reasonable restrictions" on that other explicitly guaranteed Constitutional right, to keep and bear arms. How can you object to any of them?

Well I suppose you'd have a point if someone could take their choice of religion, or a political pamphlet they printed into a school or other public area and easily pop off a few hundred rounds and kill a bunch of people.

Is it reasonable to restrict sales of .50 caliber machine guns?

 

[National Socialist]

Can you imagine the reaction if someone was forbidden to become a Catholic or Baptist or what have you, unless he first paid a fee to the government and waited for them to grant him permission to do so?

What if a Federal law were passed saying that you would be thrown in jail if you printed up a bunch of pamphlets saying that Bill Clinton or George W. Bush did a lousy job as President and started handing them out... unless you first applied to the govt for permission to print them up and waited for the OK to come back from Washington DC? Or from your state government?

Might that person worry that, once we grant government the power to restrict us a little, govt might start doing it more and more? Maybe using its power to restrict one side (the side that the party in power doesn't like) from doing its normal publicizing, fundraising, and speechmaking? Have we seen any sign that the government might do such a thing?

The same people who would scream bloody murder over any suggestion of such laws, are fine with similar laws forbidding you to own a gun or carry it in your pocket, unless you first pay a fee to the govt, fill out a bunch of forms, jump thru other hoops, and then wait for permission to come back from the government. If you carry the gun in your pocket without doing all that, you can be thrown in jail, stuck with LARGE fines, and/or have the govt's "permission" to own and carry, permanently revoked.

BTW, as for the guy who has to get govt permission before publishing and handing out his pamphlet... would he be OK with it if the government permanently DENIED him permission to publish it, because they found out that, thirty years ago, he'd been busted for going on a joyride with some friends in a car that one of them had stolen during a drunken spree in college way back then? Nobody got hurt. But no publishing pamphlets complaining about government for you, buddy... EVER. And no typing in C-D forum about that same subject, either. And if you even try, we'll know, through our contacts in the NSA.

These are merely "reasonable restrictions" on your freedom of religion, and of the press... no worse than the "reasonable restrictions" on that other explicitly guaranteed Constitutional right, to keep and bear arms. How can you object to any of them?

Well I suppose you'd have a point if someone could take their choice of religion, or a political pamphlet they printed into a school or other public area and easily pop off a few hundred rounds and kill a bunch of people.

Is it reasonable to restrict sales of .50 caliber machine guns?

No. Just because an idiot uses a tool to harm people doesn't mean we ban or restrict the tool...I can give you examples of mothers murdering their children because "god" told them to...should we ban the bible? As much as I would love to I say no.

 

[RDD_1210]

So far we have one guy who says it's OK to throw people in jail if they haven't properly applied to government for permission to become Catholic, or applied for permission to criticize that government.

Anyone else?

Is this actually happening? No...

The fact that you can't separate issues and voice an opinion on each based on its own merits doesn't say very much for you.

 

[RDD_1210]

I don't support any. The constitution is the law of the land for now so it needs to be STRICTLY obeyed.

Disband the air force and destroy all nuclear weapons immediately!

 

[RDD_1210]

Can you imagine the reaction if someone was forbidden to become a Catholic or Baptist or what have you, unless he first paid a fee to the government and waited for them to grant him permission to do so?

What if a Federal law were passed saying that you would be thrown in jail if you printed up a bunch of pamphlets saying that Bill Clinton or George W. Bush did a lousy job as President and started handing them out... unless you first applied to the govt for permission to print them up and waited for the OK to come back from Washington DC? Or from your state government?

Might that person worry that, once we grant government the power to restrict us a little, govt might start doing it more and more? Maybe using its power to restrict one side (the side that the party in power doesn't like) from doing its normal publicizing, fundraising, and speechmaking? Have we seen any sign that the government might do such a thing?

The same people who would scream bloody murder over any suggestion of such laws, are fine with similar laws forbidding you to own a gun or carry it in your pocket, unless you first pay a fee to the govt, fill out a bunch of forms, jump thru other hoops, and then wait for permission to come back from the government. If you carry the gun in your pocket without doing all that, you can be thrown in jail, stuck with LARGE fines, and/or have the govt's "permission" to own and carry, permanently revoked.

BTW, as for the guy who has to get govt permission before publishing and handing out his pamphlet... would he be OK with it if the government permanently DENIED him permission to publish it, because they found out that, thirty years ago, he'd been busted for going on a joyride with some friends in a car that one of them had stolen during a drunken spree in college way back then? Nobody got hurt. But no publishing pamphlets complaining about government for you, buddy... EVER. And no typing in C-D forum about that same subject, either. And if you even try, we'll know, through our contacts in the NSA.

These are merely "reasonable restrictions" on your freedom of religion, and of the press... no worse than the "reasonable restrictions" on that other explicitly guaranteed Constitutional right, to keep and bear arms. How can you object to any of them?

So you must be in favor of everyone being able to own their own biological and nuclear weapons.

 

[PredFan]

The problem with "reasonable restrictions" is who decides what is reasonable? Restrictions on guns have already progressed to unreasonable, free speech is going to be more and more restricted, and we're seeing right now that our right to be innocent until proven guilty is under attack.

No thanks. I don't like the people who are defining "reasonable".

 

[National Socialist]

I don't support any. The constitution is the law of the land for now so it needs to be STRICTLY obeyed.

Disband the air force and destroy all nuclear weapons immediately!

OK..sounds like a plan to me. Military budget needs cut anyways...just allow the Navy to use fighter jets etc.The US has done more than enough damage with nukes anyways...

 

[Little-Acorn]

Most people "answering" the OP, strangely, didn't address the issues it brought up. A few did, but some of those rapidly switched their stances. Quite a few changed the subject, brought up irrelevant topics, etc. I wonder why they did that?

Time to get back to the subject:

Who would say these are "reasonable restrictions" to our constitutional rights?

1.) A law-abiding American citizen is forbidden to become a Catholic or Baptist or what have you, unless he first paid a fee to the government and waited for them to grant him permission to do so.

2.) You will be thrown in jail if you print up a bunch of pamphlets saying that Bill Clinton or George W. Bush did a lousy job as President and start handing them out... unless you first apply to the govt for permission to print them up, and wait for the OK to come back from Washington DC. Or from your state government.

3.) If the government finds you had gone on a joyride with some friends in a car that one of them had stolen during a drunken spree in college 30 years ago (nobody got hurt), Government permission to publish pamphlets complaining about Government, will be permanently DENIED. No publishing pamphlets complaining about government for you, buddy... EVER. And no typing in USMB forums about that same subject, either. And if you even try, we'll know, through our contacts in the NSA.

Reasonable restrictions? Why or why not?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Can you imagine the reaction if someone was forbidden to become a Catholic or Baptist or what have you, unless he first paid a fee to the government and waited for them to grant him permission to do so?

What if a Federal law were passed saying that you would be thrown in jail if you printed up a bunch of pamphlets saying that Bill Clinton or George W. Bush did a lousy job as President and started handing them out... unless you first applied to the govt for permission to print them up and waited for the OK to come back from Washington DC? Or from your state government?

Might that person worry that, once we grant government the power to restrict us a little, govt might start doing it more and more? Maybe using its power to restrict one side (the side that the party in power doesn't like) from doing its normal publicizing, fundraising, and speechmaking? Have we seen any sign that the government might do such a thing?

The same people who would scream bloody murder over any suggestion of such laws, are fine with similar laws forbidding you to own a gun or carry it in your pocket, unless you first pay a fee to the govt, fill out a bunch of forms, jump thru other hoops, and then wait for permission to come back from the government. If you carry the gun in your pocket without doing all that, you can be thrown in jail, stuck with LARGE fines, and/or have the govt's "permission" to own and carry, permanently revoked.

BTW, as for the guy who has to get govt permission before publishing and handing out his pamphlet... would he be OK with it if the government permanently DENIED him permission to publish it, because they found out that, thirty years ago, he'd been busted for going on a joyride with some friends in a car that one of them had stolen during a drunken spree in college way back then? Nobody got hurt. But no publishing pamphlets complaining about government for you, buddy... EVER. And no typing in C-D forum about that same subject, either. And if you even try, we'll know, through our contacts in the NSA.

These are merely "reasonable restrictions" on your freedom of religion, and of the press... no worse than the "reasonable restrictions" on that other explicitly guaranteed Constitutional right, to keep and bear arms. How can you object to any of them?

Well I suppose you'd have a point if someone could take their choice of religion, or a political pamphlet they printed into a school or other public area and easily pop off a few hundred rounds and kill a bunch of people.

Is it reasonable to restrict sales of .50 caliber machine guns?

They are restricted. You can not buy one made after 1986 and for those before you need a special permit from the Federal Government except in 17 States where it is illegal to own fully automatic weapons.

Wanna try again?

 

[blackhawk]

Define reasonable I doubt very few would define it ghe same way.

I gave examples.

Do you support such "reasonable restrictions"?

Who gets to decide these reasonable restrictions? I would guess that would the Government or some group appointed by the Government if that is the case then no I would not support them the reason being almost any thing the Government starts has a habit of expanding beyond it's original intent that being the case so called reasonable restrictions could easily turn into unreasonable restrictions.