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Musicmystery -> RE: Well regulated? (11/14/2008 7:31:33 PM)
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quote:
Depends on what you consider America to be. The framers believed that the absolute sovereignty belonged with the people, and not the government. So if the government of the US were to impose a tyranny that the people felt they needed to rebel and destroy, then that would not destroy America but fulfill it's ideals.
Hi Orion,
Really, please rethink this.
Ideally, the people are the government. If there's a power struggle, it's between the states and the Federal government. And anyone who thinks they have the right to try to overthrow the government based on the Constitution should try to take that case to even this extremely Conservative Supreme Court.
And I believe even the States issue came up under Lincoln.
I'm still asking about the language of the 2nd Amendment. People are still fantasizing about being Rambo, despite the reality that any true conflict between Joe Q. Citizen and His Militia Neighbors and the U.S. Military would be over before it started.
Even weakened under the last eight years, the U.S. military is just damn fucking good at what it does. If we ever had a military coup, we'd all know it the day after. Rambo would never get a chance or a target.
And again, what does "regulated" mean? Who decides what's in order? The people or the government?
For example, explain to the Secret Service that you're just practicing your Second Amendment rights. Tell me how it goes.
Live well, friend.
Tim
P.S. Incidentally, Shay's Rebellion helped STRENGTH the resolve for a strong Federal government:
(1786–87)
After the Revolutionary War, soldiers of the Continental army were demobilized with little or no pay; whatever “Continental notes” they received could be exchanged only at an enormous discount, and the very states that had approved their issue did not accept them as payment of taxes. Officers eventually received compensation, including land in the Ohio Territory, but by 1786 the plight of the former soldiery was dire, especially in rural Massachusetts, where veterans and farmers suffered most from both the postwar depression and the radical deficit reduction plan of the conservative new governor, James Bowdoin. That year, in western Massachusetts, where many believed they had lost significant political representation under the state constitution of 1780, scores of rural towns petitioned for relief but received none.
In September 1786, a movement called “the Regulation” began across western Massachusetts: whenever the circuit courts were scheduled to meet, between 500 and 2,000 men gathered and marched in a military manner on each court, with the stated aim of postponing the seizure of properties until after the next gubernatorial election. Over the next five months, under an indeterminate, changing leadership, the “Regulators,” armed with clubs and muskets, converged upon Northampton, Springfield, Worcester, and other towns where the courts were scheduled to sit, surrounding the courthouses to keep them closed. Until the last of these protests, there were no casualties.
This widespread movement resembled traditional protests, but those who wanted to establish a national constitution depicted it as anarchy. Gen. Henry Knox, Massachusetts‐born secretary of war for the Continental Congress, traveled to Springfield after the first Regulation to consider the safety of the weapons stored there in the undefended Continental Arsenal. It was Knox, writing to Congress, who first declared that this “rebellion” was led by former Capt. Daniel Shays. Knox, like other nationalists, welcomed an opportunity to demonstrate the necessity of a federal government and a permanent standing army; he proclaimed to Congress and to his mentor, Gen. George Washington, that the “rebels”' goal was to share all private property as “the common property of all,” “to annihilate all debts, public and private,” and to foment a “civil war.” Since the treasuries of both Massachusetts and Congress were empty, Knox helped Bowdoin solicit wealthy Boston merchants to finance an expeditionary force of 4,400 volunteers led by Gen. Benjamin Lincoln to quell the “rebellion.” At the Springfield Arsenal on 24–25 January 1787, Lincoln's forces overwhelmed some 1,500 Regulators, led by Captains Daniel Shays, Luke Day, and Eli Parsons. With the first cannon fired, three Regulators were killed and the rest fled. In pursuit, Lincoln captured a number of Regulators for trial; later, two were hanged.
These mostly peaceable protests provoked alarm that the movement could spread across the thirteen states. This concern helped persuade the states to send delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in May 1787, and to create a central U.S. government better equipped to deal with similar economic and social problems.
--U.S. Military History Companion
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