Leiter Is Bad At Reading
link
The majority in Heller interpreted the Second Amendment correctly. And that was obvious before Heller. It's absurd to claim that the court's interpretation is "fraudulent."
As for repeal: that's not going to happen in my lifetime, fortunately. But, sadly, we can't rule out the possibility that illiberalism will rule the future, dispensing with both of those first two, extremely pesky, amendments, allowing us to fall in line with the rest of the "civilized" West.
posted by Winston Smith at
11:23 AM
7 Comments:
I don't think that, in general, people's free speech rights in Western Europe are quite as constrained, relative to the First Amendment, as their 'right to bear arms' is constrained, relative to the Second Amendment. And when I say 'I don't think that', I mean 'It's insane to think otherwise'.
And I don't think that the incredulous horror with which pretty much every single person in the West regards the 'pesky' consequences of the current interpretation of the Second Amendment can credibly be stigmatized as civilized with scare quotes.
I agree about your first paragraph...though not sure why you might think I wouldn't. The rest of the West is even worse off with respect to their natural right to keep and bear arms than they are with respect to their natural right to freedom of expression. And that's saying something in our post #Nazipugvideo era.
And, if the rest of the West looks on our refusal to disarm ourselves with horror...well...so much the worse for them, I'd say.
We're not European in the relevant senses...and in my view, that's a good thing.
I don't see how bearing arms is a natural right. What does natural right even mean? Societies have rules agreed upon either collectively, or via governmental means (voting, authoritarian decree, etc). Whether one agrees with the rules or not that's how society works. If one doesn't like the rules, one can work to change them - like they did in Australia to ban assault weapons. People can still have weapons to hunt, just not assault weapons that were designed to kill other humans. If we as Americans don't like their rules, too bad. Their countries, their rules.
First, we typically don't bitch about their rules; they bitch about ours.
Second, if you don't have some analog of natural rights, that means...what? That whatever the faction in power deems impermissible is impermissible? You might say: the majority...but if there's no (roughly) natural right to democratic government, then democracy, too, is merely a choice, neither better nor worse than any other. A right to keep arms is a natural analog of our natural right of self-defense. (Or something analogous to a natural right, anyway.) (But if we find ourselves descending to the level of philosophy, everything goes to hell...)
As for "assault weapons" in particular: reasonable people can disagree on that point. We'll keep ours, thanks. Others can, I reckon, hope for the best if they like. But recent movements by Western governments to control speech (and, thereby, though) don't inspire confidence.
I think that the technological changes between 1799 and the present day means we need to revise our laws concerning these machines of death. The Constitution itself is revisable, but the likelihood of any revisions to it, let alone the first two Amendments, is very small right now.
And I can’t understand the handwringing about free speech in other countries, I can’t see the Dominionists or the unorganized left moving this country away from that. The left couldn’t organize behind a single candidate against Trump in 2016, but one day, they’ll come for free speech.
Yeah, but the majority in this country are also bitching about ours. Why can't we have universal background checks? Why can't we limit the size of magazines? Why can't we...and on and on it goes. The constutition protects the minority from the majority and the majority from itself...but when 75% of Americans want reasonable gun control, why do the five million (out of 330 million or so) in the NRA get to dictate what the hell happens? The 2nd amendment was about militias and the government, not about owning machines of death. Okay, two glasses of wine and not a good time to rant. But it felt good so there.
The rest of the West is even worse off with respect to their natural right to keep and bear arms than they are with respect to their natural right to freedom of expression. And that's saying something in our post #Nazipugvideo era.
And, if the rest of the West looks on our refusal to disarm ourselves with horror...well...so much the worse for them, I'd say.
#nazipugvideo is appalling, and worrying, but it's kind of an outlier and it's hard to overstate how little distance it takes us toward UK = China.
As for the rest... it's only some kind of social conditioning that's making Europeans horrified by US-level school shootings (and a huge amount of other gun-related killing of innocents) and relieved they don't happen in their own countries, instead of seeing the truth that all that death would be a small price to pay for recognition of the 'natural right' to own military rifles? You're kind of floating off into the ideological stratosphere here, Winston. I'm having trouble hearing you.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home