quote:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who seems to give a shit that our most basic rights are being violated. Seriously, can you imagine one of the founding fathers at the TSA checkpoint. "Mr. Adams, I will have to feel your breeches for weapons now". "I beg your Pardon, Sir?".

quote:

ORIGINAL: JstAnotherSub

This reply on the TSA search thread by takemeforyourown got me thinking.  I hope she does not mind me using it to start another thread, since I didn't want to hijack that one, or have it get lost amongst the muck there.

I like to think our founding fathers were some of the smartest, most forward thinking gentlemen of their day. 

and those british esquire barflies were way more educated than people are today.  People today cant even read much less law.

I believe they sincerely tried to cover every freedom that they could imagine might be needed, in order for the USA to be, and remain, the best country in the whole damn world.

You mean like freehold?  Or freeman?  meaning attached to the land of the lord? as in a vassal?  Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom?  LOL 

When is freedom not free?  when a barfly a-turn-on-me plays bait and switch.

That said, I can not believe that they had any way of knowing where the world was heading. 

They did not need to, that is the way the lowest common denominator law works, its applicable no matter what the hardware looks like because people are all the same today as they were since the beginning.  nothing new.


Automobiles, airplanes, email, terrorists, guns that fire more rounds per second than they could fire in a minute, the ability for something as massive as 9-11 to be in every home on the planet within minutes, if not seconds.

yeh yeh hardware....  as if that changes people. it does not.

I believe that they did the best they could with the knowledge they had. 

well creating a constitution today would easily fall under an act of terrorism with the knowledge and wisdom of those who would ultimately wind up doing it.

No one voted (as in the population at large) on any constitution of the US or states therein and if you think they did by all means lets see it.

I also believe, had they been given a crystal ball to see down the road a few hundred years, the constitution would have been a totally different document than it is.

no it wouldnt, at least not the first 10, thank you for making my point.

How do we (or should we) make the changes needed to protect us in todays world, while staying true to what our founders vision of what we could and would be?  Can this even be done?  Who decides? Are things grandfathered in or just expanded on?

There are only a couple of the so called founders who promoted freedom as you think the word means.  No dont bother getting dictionary definitions because the meaning can mean both freedom and not freedom at the same time.  again you can think esquires and attorneys protecting kins for their use of syntax terrorism to subvert and control......well everything.

I still believe there is no place I would rather live than right where I am. 

How about on a desert island where chartered quasi-corporations posing as the government leaves you alone instead of selling you services at the end of a barrel of a gun?

I also have no problems with being scanned or searched in order to travel in a way that MIGHT afford me a way to kill many folks in one felled swoop.

Kool good for you!  I think they should do thorough asshole searches too. 

I do not see any way that being searched before boarding a public airplane is any where near the same as coming in to my home for a search.

do you have any clue what the term secure in their personal effects means?  Have you considered doing a bit of real research on the topic before pouring this on a board?

So, if we make changes now, do we leave any way for things to be changed in the future? 

I hate to be rash about it but NO!
No changes for the future until people have ac clue what they are trying to change and the implications in law.

Having watched a lot of History channel on Thanksgiving, shows about the precision of the buildings of the Mayans and pyramids,I am not totally convinced any more that we are alone in the universe.  I am also not sure that we aren't for that matter, but, I guess along with losing my faith, I am questioning many things I have always held as truths.

You should!
Start here in a nice neutral place and work your way forward..

So, changes? No changes? What if, in 300 years, there is really a type of weapon that can make something or someone totally disappear, its matter no longer able to be found or seen? 

Well you better pray because all of teslas "stuff" that people have conducted legitimate experiments on have proven correct and to work.   Tesla had the technology to create a nuclear explosion in thin  air.  (or as it would appear to any onlooker)

Now if you can believe the russians they claimed they had or were close to having a working model of just that.

Thankfull you cant believe them any more than any other organized government.

Will those be legal for hunters (although I see no way they would want to kill Bambi and not be able to cook him in some good chili)?  Will JoeBlow be able to but them and carry them where ever he wants? Military use only? Would that be a violation of our rights to bear arms?

Banning any of it is a violation of the right to own and bear.

We can not see what the future holds, any more than Franklin and Hancock and Jefferson and all of them could imagine what today would hold.

Sorry just nothing new since then except the hardware, still the same mass delusion that people always had.

If the constitution is a living, breathing document, is it time for it to grow up a bit more?  Or is it something that can not be improved on?

Well its not.  Law does not change on whim.  In fact maxims of law never change.

Where shall we start?  What shall we change though shalt not murder to?  LOL

You confuse legislated statutory regulation with law and the only people it seems smart enough to know the difference are in the higher end of government.  Cant show that to people because its to much for them to wrap their minds around.  

Sorry this is so damn long, but believe me when I say it was wayyyyyyyyy longer before I edited-lol.

Thoughts?

quote:

ORIGINAL: AnimusRex

I also think it sadly hilarious when people get raving angry about a TSA patdown, but loudly support the power of the government to read email, tap phones, and search bank accounts of anyone suspected of terrorism, without court order.

"Sure, read my email, rifle through my bank account, throw me in prison without trial or evidence, even assassinate me, but for God's sake, DON"T TOUCH MY JUNK!!"

quote:

ORIGINAL: lickenforyou

I love it when people say they know what the founding fathers would think about a particular issue.

Hardly I know what the founding so called fathers SAID!   You are the one who is trying to construct what they would THINK!

In the case of TSA searches, I believe Mr Adams would be more concerned

you have NOTHING to draw that conclusion with but your vivid imaginaation

about not shittin his pants because he was about to get on a machine that would take him 30,000 feet in the air and across the country in 5 hours at 600 mph.

And I love it when people talk about the second amendment but only cite the last part of the sentence.

I love it when people misconstrue the second amendment and pretend its only for the purpose of the state.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

From that they somehow conclude that our fore fathers thought that all Americans have the right to keep a nuclear warhead in the basement.

Arms do you think they did not have bombs in those days?  You know bombs are weapons of mass destruction that are classified as ARMS? 

Of course hardware makes a difference and societies do evolve.

No they dont, only the hardware evolves.  To say that is a complete disconnect from the reality of the human nature and merely wishful thinking that you cannot provide any evidence to support and if you feel you can please do as I am very interested in reviewing this sort of phenomena.

quote:

ORIGINAL: TreasureKY
I don't think I've ever seen any examples of that.  Care to share?

quote:

ORIGINAL: JstAnotherSub

I think the state constitutions you posted prove the point of the one you are arguing with.

They all say "defend themselves and the state".  If it was meant to allow anyone to own any weapon they choose, just to defend them selves, wouldn't it read "defend themselves and/or the state or defend themselves or the state"?

In this case it does not matter and the results are the same.

You defend yourself (personally) AND you defend the state in which defending the state is presumed to be also be in the interest or the same as defending yourself. 

Either way you are defending yourself.

It does not limit you to the defense of yourself only as a consequence of the existence of the state. 

Remember a state is nothing more than recognition of a political group by other political groups.  

I own weapons, and, as my daddy used to say, you can take them when you pry them from my cold dead fingers, but I do not think I or anyone else should be allowed to own any "hardware" we can get.

I still find nothing to change my mind about the fact that they (the founding fathers) just had no idea where technology and a touch of supidity among humans would take us, as they wrote their words to govern.

quote:

ORIGINAL: AnimusRex

quote:

ORIGINAL: TreasureKY
I don't think I've ever seen any examples of that.  Care to share?

Delighted to!

The leading examples of the conservative movement relating to national security would be Liz and Dick Cheney, followed by William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer. They have been among the most vocal and consistent in their demands for the enlargement of Presidential power during wartime.

Recall that it was Bush/ Cheney counselors John Yoo and David Addington who created and affirmed the principle of the Unitary Executive, the notion that the Executive can imprison American citizens without a trial, and to conduct "enhanced interrogations" of American citizens without the protection fo court review.

Recall the case of Jose Padilla, and American citizen who was arrested on American soil, and held for years without so much as a court hearing, much less a trial. Cheney and the entire conservative movement cheered this on, and defends it to this day.

Check out this link- Discussing the National Security Agencies secret facility that conducts a dragnet of eavesdropping and surveillance on American citizens, without court review.

The conservative movement- by this, I mean the Limbaugh/ Fox axis of pundits and commentors- has wholeheartedly endorsed the broadened Executive power of eavesdropping and imprisonment, even of American citizens.
Sad to say, the Obama Administration has embraced this as well.

Don't get me wrong- I oppose the TSA practices at airports- but I think its a bit silly to cheer on the enlargement of government power one day, then shriek about it the next.

quote:

ORIGINAL: lickenforyou

In the case of TSA searches, I believe Mr Adams would be more concerned about not shittin his pants because he was about to get on a machine that would take him 30,000 feet in the air and across the country in 5 hours at 600 mph.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aylee

quote:

ORIGINAL: lickenforyou

In the case of TSA searches, I believe Mr Adams would be more concerned about not shittin his pants because he was about to get on a machine that would take him 30,000 feet in the air and across the country in 5 hours at 600 mph.

I disagree with this. 

The founding father's were not a bunch of ignoramuses.  I think he would be amazed.  Feelings of wonderment.  But not freaked out. 

It is not like he would be unable to follow the general science principles involved.

However, I think that he would look at our prison population and say, "Why have you not just hung most of these miscreants?"

quote:

ORIGINAL: takemeforyourown

I am flattered that you began a post surrounding my thoughts. I guess I don't know what Adams would have thought about being sexually molested by the TSA, but this quotation of Benjamin Franklin gives me the feeling that he wouldn't have liked it too much;

"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin

My revulsion at the idea of having strangers touch my genitals just so that I can ride on an airplane has made me think a lot about what it means to live under the Constitution.

If we are going to start changing up the Constitution, then where do we draw the line? For me, the line was drawn when the TSA decided it could stick its hands in my pants.

I would like to know how many airplane terrorists they've caught since they started assaulting Americans. Frankly, we all have to die sometime. I'd rather travel with my dignity intact. Maybe there should be a Take-your-chances Airline. LOL. I'd go for it.