freedom and guns

On another thread someone posted

This has to be one of the most ignorant, stick your head in the sand type of claim the right makes. Take for instance the right of women to vote. What war, what bloodshed was spilt so that women could have the right to vote. Wasn’t that gained by public agitation and legislative action?

What about the freedom that blacks now enjoy. In fact they (the vast majority of blacks) purposely chose to gain their freedoms by non-violent means. It was the conservatives that opposed black equality that turned violent. It was that violence that showed the bigoted south for what it was (is?) and turned the tide to the side of the blacks.

We are now on the verge of legalizing marijuana – that is we will soon have the freedom to consume cannabis products without intervention by the state (the police that is). I just can’t seem to remember when armed pot smokers descended on the capital and demanded their freedom. No it has come about through public education, legislative action, court orders, and the ballot box. No guns needed.

I can get into my car and drive all over the continental United States. Nowhere do I need men with guns to ensure I have the freedom to drive to whatever state I want. And if they were there, what would they do? Who would they have to point their guns at sop I can drive?

The Constitution of the US and those of the several states gives us certain rights and freedoms. I can’t seem to find any mention of the guns used to give us those rights and freedoms. It seems to me that they were all worked out in philosophic discussions. Of course some of you are going to claim that the Revolutionary War gave us freedom though the only freedom “we” got out of that war is the freedom to be independent from England. All other rights and freedoms were got in the national capital and the various statehouses.

The freedom to have an abortion came about because of a court ruling. The guns have been used, just as with blacks, to deny rights and freedoms, not to gain or defend them.

I’m an artist and have a great deal of freedom to create whatever I want. My freedom is only limited by my imagination, the availability of materials, and by my drive. No guns needed.

In fact the only scenarios that I can think of where a gun would be brought would be by someone wishing to deprive me of my rights and freedoms.

To all the gun toting patriots, the question I keep asking is, “Who are you protecting our freedoms from?”

 

All of those you mention were because of the fight for freedom (with guns) and the resulting constitution.

 

Lol every damn freedom you have was giving to you buy a gun. Hell we would all be speaking German by now to put it recent.

 

The suffrage movement was a nonviolent one, but not all civil rights movements were like this.

This was a violent movement against blacks. You forget about the backlash from Southerners against them for the Civil war that led to segregation and Jim Crow laws. Many innocent blacks were beaten up by groups like the KKK and sometimes even entire black communities were destroyed, such as depicted by the movie Rosewood. Martin Luther King jr and Malcolm X were also harassed to no end by people who didn't want to see blacks have their civil rights. So this was not a peaceful movement. These are the things we need a second amendment for.

The possession of firearms is a necessary thing to provide for the freedom of the American people. You can not have freedom without them, for they are the only thing that will hep defend yourself against tyranny.

And the only reason to deny people the right is to establish a tyranny of some sort. Tyrants do not want you to defend yourself.

This an old idea. Aristotle himself says that basic to tyrants is a ‘‘mistrust of the people; hence they deprive them of arms.’’

This was the original intent of the founding fathers, for early philosophers such as John Locke, James Madison, and William Blackstone argued that they were the absolute rights of individuals.

The only reason to deprive people of firearms is to take away their defense against a tyrannical government.

 

What's wrong with speaking German? At least Germans loved Hitler, over half of America believes the current president is a joke.

 

Everything you mentioned can be traced back to the Revolutionar War.

So yes, every freedom we have was won at the barrel of a gun, whether it be directly, through conflict, or indirectly, through the Constitution.

 

Wow how wrong can you get!!! Did a liberal professor tell you this? Did he have a sweater tied around his neck even though its summer?
None of anything you wrote could have happened without having the freedoms given to us in the constitution. Sorry people with guns gave you the freedom to embarrass yourself by exercising your freedom of speech.

 

Which war was it that we fought for freedom. The revolutionary war was fought for independence from England. The constitution came later, after the Articles of Confederation. We won WW2 but I don't recall us getting any more freedoms out of that. We lost the Vietnam war and didn't lose any freedoms. By way of the Patriot Act leading up to the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq put a lot of restrictions on our freedoms. Why is it that all these patriots with guns didn't come out to defend rights and freedoms the day that awful bill was passed.

 

The constitution would not exist if we had not fought for freedom from oppression. Did you miss that in school?

 

This guy thinks that there would be a US Constitution complete with a Bill of Rights without an American Revolution preceding it.

He's wrong on so much that I'm willing to go out on a limb right now and say that he IS, in fact, Oliver.

 

LOL, you seem to hate conservatives, but you can't blame the NDAA and Patriot Act on conservatives. The Democrats were lock step with the R's on those bills, in 2001 the Patriot Act was opposed by only one Senator - Russ Feingold - all the others voted for it. In 2006, 10 Senators opposed it.

And your buddy obama and his "progressive" cronies have done more than anyone to take away our freedoms.

 

This must be the standard way that conservatives argue. If I say anything that is out of line with the spiel that they all seem to hold in common they respond, not by rational argument but by claiming that I must have been told what to say by some mythical liberal talking points or that a liberal professor told me, blah… blah… blah… Then the insults, I mean how could I be so dumb not to agree with conservatives?

How do I embarrass myself when I expose ignorance? I’ve read quite about the constitution, where the ideas contained in it came from, the situation surrounding its writing, the failures of the Articles of Confederation and how the constitution was to correct them, the stories surrounding those involved in the writing of the constitution and those who influenced them – reading many of the letters of those involved. No where is there any mention of people using guns. In fact one of the principles that many of the founding father sought was a society where we could carry out our business without having to resort to violence.

 

But you miss the most important part. The revolution and the ideas Americans held when they fought it were not the same as the ideas that eventually ended up in the constitution. They were two different events. Independence from England and the rights and freedoms we enjoy are not the same thing. Canada didn't fight a war of independence from England and they have pretty much the same rights and freedoms as we do. What about Sweden? They don't fight wars and haven't for a long time yet they have perhaps the most rights and freedoms of any country. Look to the countries that are run by people holding guns. Somolia, Chad, Syria, Sudan... where peole have no rights, no freedoms.

 

There is nothing to agree or disagree about. The history of the constitution and the origins of American freedom isn't open to your debate even if you think it is. Also your OP was the origination of insults. I guess you like being able to say what you want but others....not so much. That's a perfect example of why we retain guns.

 

When the anti gun fools have taken all the guns away from criminals, come and we will talk.

 

Where did I write about conservatives or progressives. This thread is about the fallacy that we got our freedoms from guns. When the government put out a bill stepping on our freedoms and rights, which I might add liberals complained about but conservatives seemed to accept, after all we were going to get to kill some Arabs even though most of those killed were not Arabs.

When this was happening where were the patriots with their guns to protect our rights and freedoms. Those that we regained we regained in statehouses and the courts, not on the battlefield. Apparently a good lawyer has more guts and can get more done than Joe Bob with his gun.

 

Apparently you have your opinion as to the history but I doubt it is based on fact. More on lore. How was the OP an insult, unless the truth hurts.

 

That's an absurd statement. The two are inseparable.

 

"That sheep may quietly graze".
Don't let this one bother you. He's a little sheeple who doesn't want to know how things work. He couldn't have his "art" or the peace to practice it with a full belly if not for the fact that he's under the protection of the CONUS.
We know that. He doesn't have to.

 

True, you have not explicitly stated your political position, I inferred it from your posts in this thread. Like the comment you make next:

Very false. The Patriot Act was passed in 2001 with almost total unanimity by the politicians and the population. Very few people spoke out against the Patriot Act, but some of those few were conservatives and I was one of them. I won't post it, but I wrote in 2001 that 20 years in the future (that would be 2021) people would look back and see the Patriot Act as the start of the Police State that the USA becomes. At the time, I was a solid Republican and supporter of Bush, and my fellow Republicans did not take kindly to my opposition.

[Quite a bit of stereotyping in your posts, just another bit that leads me to believe you hate conservatives.]

I think from your first post forwards you have been exaggerating. I would even gamble that the quote that sent you on this OP is taken a bit out of context and that the writer did not mean that guns and only guns were the single means of ensuring every single freedom we enjoy.

Where people in and out of the govt respect the rule of law and the political process, then the legal system can be used to expand and protect freedoms. Its when the rule of law is discarded, the political system is broken, or an external militant threat is faced that more certain means of protecting our freedom is needed. In a real sense, "guns" forms the foundation of our freedoms.

 

Only give up your ability to defend yourselves if you trust your government not to abuse, take advantage of and/or oppress you.

Can anyone actually say they trust the US government to never do any of those things at any point in its existence?

Ergo, the guns must stay. In fact, you can't really get rid of them. If you were to try to, people literally would start shooting back. I've always wondered what the anti-gun lobby proposes doing to all the people who WILL refuse to give up their weapons - kill them all?

 

The Constitution of the United States of America was not written with a gun, or written at the point of a gun.

Belligerence alone does not create a free society.

 

That really isn't the point. The point is, do I trust the government enough that if I give up my gun, they won't turn it around and force me to do whatever they want?

If you trust your government to never ever go bad, then by all means. I'm a bit more realistic than that.

 

The Constitution doesn't give people freedoms. It simply protects them. The Revolution, which was fought with guns, against a tyrannical British government, is what gave people their freedoms.


Which ideas that the Americans fought for didn't end up in the Constitution? The protection against Quartering troops? Unreasonable searches and seizures? Freedom of speech? Cruel and unusual punishment? A representative form of government? What were these "ideas" that the rebels fought for that didn't end up in the Constitution?

 

The only thing this post proves is that the op has no clue what he is talking about. No clue. Period. To channel obama 'I didnt ask for an argument' .. liberals who refuse critical thinking are among the most uninformed people alive.