Post by: tng27 on June 27, 2008, 08:16:31 AM
"We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to...."
Since their stated reason for failing to support the 2nd amendment is now gone, what will they do now?
Post by: K Frame on June 27, 2008, 08:17:41 AM
Post by: charby on June 27, 2008, 08:19:11 AM
Post by: El Tejon on June 27, 2008, 08:23:03 AM
Post by: K Frame on June 27, 2008, 08:26:13 AM
Freedoms United - American Civil Liberties Union.
FU ACLU.
No mistaking that!
Post by: charby on June 27, 2008, 08:34:42 AM
Post by: Werewolf on June 27, 2008, 09:39:04 AM
This is a quote from the FAQ section of the ACLU website:
"We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to...."
Since their stated reason for failing to support the 2nd amendment is now gone, what will they do now?
"We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to...."
Since their stated reason for failing to support the 2nd amendment is now gone, what will they do now?
They'll simply ammend their position to read:
Quote
We disagree with the Supreme Court's position that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to...."
They will not have to change the way they do business at all.
Post by: Perd Hapley on June 27, 2008, 12:28:41 PM
Post by: Pb on June 30, 2008, 01:27:42 PM
Post by: taurusowner on June 30, 2008, 01:29:38 PM
Post by: Balog on June 30, 2008, 01:40:22 PM
They have actually replied to heller. They were obviously annoyed by the ruling, and just as obviously will NOT support the second.
You have a link?
Post by: freakazoid on June 30, 2008, 07:01:23 PM
Quote
Continue their work to destroy the Constitution and the USA.
What do you mean? Besides there belief in what the 2A is supposed to mean they still fight to protect the others. And I have read that they are slowly coming to accept it for what it truly means, read about it in one of my copies of the Reason magazine.
Post by: Pb on July 01, 2008, 03:49:52 AM
The Right To Bear Arms
The Second Amendment has not been the subject of much Supreme Court discussion through the years. To the extent it has been discussed, the Court has described the Second Amendment as designed to protect the ability of the states to preserve their own sovereignty against a new and potentially overreaching national government. Based on that understanding, the Court has historically construed the Second Amendment as a collective right connected to the concept of a "well-regulated militia" rather than an individual right to possess guns for private purposes.
In Heller, the Court reinterpreted
the Second Amendment as a source of individual rights. Washington D.C.'s gun control law, which bans the private possession of handguns and was widely considered the most restrictive such law in the country, became a victim of that reinterpretation. The Court was careful to note that the right to bear arms is not absolute and can be subject to reasonable regulation. Yet, by concluding that D.C.'s gun control law was unreasonable and thus invalid, the Court placed a constitutional limit on gun control legislation that had not existed prior to its decision in Heller. It is too early to know how much of a constitutional straitjacket ;/the new rule will create.
Post by: xavier fremboe on July 01, 2008, 04:26:08 AM
Post by: coppertales on July 01, 2008, 06:15:56 AM
Post by: nico on July 01, 2008, 06:28:14 AM
Has anyone stopped to think how stupid it is for anyone to interpret 2a as ensuring the right of the government to arm itself?
I have, but based on firsthand experience, not many people who advocate that position have.
The mental gymnastics to believe that "the people" really means "the states" in the 2A, when it clearly means "the people" in the rest of the Bill of Rights, and that the 2A "gives" (also misunderstanding that the BOR only acknowledges rights that the government can't violate) a right to the states, while the rest of the BOR gives rights to the people must make one very tired.
Post by: longeyes on July 01, 2008, 06:41:19 AM
Then the ACLU might be interested.
Post by: roo_ster on July 01, 2008, 08:50:15 AM
Quote
Continue their work to destroy the Constitution and the USA.
What do you mean? Besides there belief in what the 2A is supposed to mean they still fight to protect the others. And I have read that they are slowly coming to accept it for what it truly means, read about it in one of my copies of the Reason magazine.
Much/most of what the ACLU agitates for is not found in the COTUS and many of their positions are in direct opposition to the principles of the COTUS.
The listing of categories on their own website is illustrative:
Criminal Justice
Death Penalty: Obviously constitutional, since it is mentioned in the COTUS several places.
Quote
The Capital Punishment Project (CPP) challenges the unfairness and arbitrariness of capital punishment while working toward the ultimate goal of abolishing the death penalty.
Disability Rights: Show me where in the COTUS.
Quote
Despite ample evidence that the ADA is working, people with disabilities are still, far too often, treated as second class citizens, shunned and segregated by physical barriers and social stereotypes. They are discriminated against in employment, schools, and housing, robbed of their personal autonomy, sometimes even hidden away and forgotten by the larger society. Many people with disabilities continue to be excluded from the American dream.
Drug Policy
Free Speech: I wasn't aware that a security clearance was guaranteed in the COTUS:
PITTSBURGH - The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit today on behalf of Dr. Moniem El-Ganayni, a nuclear physicist and naturalized American citizen whose security clearance was improperly revoked earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In an unprecedented move, the government counter to its own policy has denied El-Ganayni the chance to contest the revocation and refused to divulge the reasons behind it, citing "national security."
HIV/AIDS: These illnesses in particular or illness in general were mentioned in the COTUS?
Quote
No one should be deprived of their basic constitutional protections of equality, privacy or free expression because they have HIV or AIDS. The AIDS Project fights to eliminate discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS in all aspects of society, including employment, housing and public accommodations. We also work to ensure that people can make informed decisions about HIV testing and treatment, and to challenge government responses to HIV that reflect prejudice rather than scientific principles.
Human Rights: 17YO volunteers in US military service are now, "child soldiers?"
The United States is shirking its commitments under an international agreement and failing to protect the rights of vulnerable young people. In a report to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, the ACLU charges that the U.S. isn't upholding its obligations under the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict that it ratified in 2002. The report focuses on the U.S. military's recruiting tactics that target youth under 17 and low-income youth and students of color, and the U.S. government's failure to protect the rights of foreign child soldiers such as Guantánamo detainees Omar Khadr and Mohammed Jawad.
Immigrants' Rights: Yeah, illegal aliens are the highest form of American the same way that dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
...
I could go on, but I am tired of pointing out the ACLU's essentially anti-COTUS and hence anti-American advocacy.
National Security
Police Practices
Prisoners' Rights
Privacy & Technology
Racial Justice
Religion & Belief
Reproductive Freedom
Rights of the Poor
Safe and Free
StandUp/Youth
Voting Rights
Women's Rights
Post by: Headless Thompson Gunner on July 01, 2008, 11:00:39 AM
Post by: El Tejon on July 01, 2008, 11:17:23 AM
Quote
What do you mean? Besides there belief in what the 2A is supposed to mean they still fight to protect the others. And I have read that they are slowly coming to accept it for what it truly means, read about it in one of my copies of the Reason magazine.
The ACLU fights to destroy America. The people they "protect" are merely stalking horses to advance their destructive radical agenda.
THE ACLU will never accept an individual right to arms as this along is the bulwark against their radical society. Remember what Lenin said about peasants with guns and what must happen to them--the ACLU believes this as well.
Post by: Marvin Dao on July 01, 2008, 11:44:00 AM
Has anyone stopped to think how stupid it is for anyone to interpret 2a as ensuring the right of the government to arm itself?
A logical case can be made for it as long as you don't get too deep in the historical details.
1) The right of free men to keep and bear arms for personal use is a natural and unalienable right.
1a) This right was already present in the colonies from English Common Law.
1b) That the right existed was so evident that no one sane would argue otherwise.
1c) The Constitution does not address this right or any other previously existing right.
1d) Anything the constitution does not address is off limits for the Fed.Gov.
1e) Since the Fed.Gov can't affect this right, it is not addressed in the Bill of Rights.
2) States at the time wanted to protect their right to an independent militia.
2a) States at the time were independent from the Fed.Gov.
2b) States at the time wanted effective militias.
2c) Militiamen at the time often used personal firearms for militia duty.
2d) The Constitution does address the arming, training, and disciplining of militias by the Fed.Gov.
2e) States at the time feared that Fed.Gov could cripple militias with those powers by disarming the militia.
2f) 2nd Amendment is written to protect state militias by removing the Fed.Gov's ability to affect the arming of state militias.
There you go, a mostly logical Second Amendment interpretation where the purpose of the Second is to protect the right of the states to have properly armed militias.
Post by: Headless Thompson Gunner on July 01, 2008, 01:37:03 PM
Post by: Marvin Dao on July 01, 2008, 04:55:20 PM
"Mostly logical" only if you've never actually read the 2nd Amendment. It clearly says "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms...". It does NOT say "..the right of the militia to keep and bear arms..." or "the right of the states to keep and bear arms...".
There isn't an inconsistency between the viewpoint I presented and the text of the Second Amendment. In that viewpoint, the reason why the Second Amendment existed was to preserve the capability of the state militias. The method they used was to prevent the federal government from infringing on the people's right to keep and bear arms. Since the Bill of Rights was not incorporated against the states at this time, there was nothing in the Second that prevented the states from infringing on the right of its people to keep and bear arms.
End result for this viewpoint is that all the Second Amendment does is protect the right of the state to arm it's militias by ensuring the federal government could not legally disarm the state's citizens. It does not create nor recognize an uninfringable right for the people to keep and bear arms as the states could freely attempt to impose restrictions on their populations if they wanted to.
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 02, 2008, 12:29:44 AM
Quote
What do you mean? Besides there belief in what the 2A is supposed to mean they still fight to protect the others. And I have read that they are slowly coming to accept it for what it truly means, read about it in one of my copies of the Reason magazine.
The ACLU fights to destroy America. The people they "protect" are merely stalking horses to advance their destructive radical agenda.
Elaborate, please.
Post by: Dannyboy on July 02, 2008, 03:53:56 AM
Quote
A logical case can be made for it as long as you don't get too deep in the historical details.
It's not logical when you look at the use of the phrase, "the people." How can this phrase be used to mean "the government" in the 2nd Amendment but actually mean the people in the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 10th Amendments? It's not logical in any way, shape, form or fashion. Just because people were able to make that argument work doesn't make it a good one.
Post by: Manedwolf on July 02, 2008, 05:04:49 AM
Quote
What do you mean? Besides there belief in what the 2A is supposed to mean they still fight to protect the others. And I have read that they are slowly coming to accept it for what it truly means, read about it in one of my copies of the Reason magazine.
The ACLU fights to destroy America. The people they "protect" are merely stalking horses to advance their destructive radical agenda.
Elaborate, please.
They refuse to touch Second Amendment rights, but jump to the defense of execrable slime like NAMBLA.
Post by: roo_ster on July 02, 2008, 05:25:28 AM
Quote
What do you mean? Besides there belief in what the 2A is supposed to mean they still fight to protect the others. And I have read that they are slowly coming to accept it for what it truly means, read about it in one of my copies of the Reason magazine.
The ACLU fights to destroy America. The people they "protect" are merely stalking horses to advance their destructive radical agenda.
Elaborate, please.
The ACLU is a leftist organization that projects a liberty-minded false-front (See "popular front" as used in Stalinist doctrine).
Roger Baldwin, the a founder and first executive director of the ACLU said:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roger_Nash_Baldwin
I have continued directing the unpopular fight for the rights of agitation, as director of the American Civil Liberties Union.... I am for socialism, disarmament and ultimately for abolishing the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is, of course, the goal.
And if that wasn't enough, his article in Soviet Russia Today has some gems (emphasis in original):
http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/blog/baldwin.pdf
* I believe in non-violent methods of struggle as most effective in the long run for building up successful working class power. Where they cannot be followed or where they are not even permitted by the ruling class, obviously only violent tactics remain. I champion civil liberty as the best of the non-violent means of building the power on which workers rule must be based. If I aid the reactionaries to get free speech now and then, if I go outside the class struggle to fight against censorship, it is only because those liberties help to create a more hospitable atmosphere for working class liberties. The class struggle is the central conflict of the world; all others are incidental.
* When that power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatever. Dictatorship is the obvious means in a world of enemies at home and abroad. I dislike it in principle as dangerous to its own objects. But the Soviet Union has already created liberties far greater than exist elsewhere in the world. They are liberties that most closely affect the lives of the people power in the trade unions, in peasant organizations, in the cultural life of nationalities, freedom of women in public and private life, and a tremendous development of education for adults and children.
* I saw in the Soviet Union many opponents of the regime. I visited a dozen prisons the political sections among them. I saw considerable of the work of the OGPU. I heard a good many stories of severity, even of brutality, and many of them from the victims. While I sympathized with personal distress I just could not bring myself to get excited over the suppression of opposition when I stacked it up against what I saw of fresh, vigorous expressions of free living by workers and peasants all over the land. And further, no champion of a socialist society could fail to see that some suppression was necessary to achieve it. It could not all be done by persuasion.
* If American champions of civil liberty could all think in terms of economic freedom as the goal of their labors, they too would accept "workers' democracy" as far superior to what the capitalist world offers to any but a small minority. Yes, and they would accept regretfully, of course the necessity of dictatorship while the job of reorganizing society on a socialist basis is being done.
I could go on, but it is more text-based fellatio on the shades of Marx and on the very real, contemporary, USSR of Lenin and Stalin.
Eugene Volokh discusses RNB a bit in the folowing post:
http://www.volokh.com/posts/1126720462.shtml
To sum up, RNB founded the ACLU to be a liberal false-front for communists and communist aims.
He admired, supported, and defended the USSR & Stalin all through the bloody revolution, the general oppression, the show trials, the Ukraine terror-famine, and whatnot. He only stopped blowing kisses to Stalin after the Molotov-Ribentropp pact.
The ACLU is not an organization to admire or to associate with.
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 02, 2008, 06:04:13 AM
Now, of course, I am well aware of the fact the founders of the ACLU have been communists and socialists, and that many of its modern funders are (to borrow Manedwolf's catchphrase) post-American leftoids.
That however does not answer my questions.
The current ACLU concentrates its activities (to the best of my knowledge) on pursuing lawsuits in favor of 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Amendment freedoms, even to the point of extreme radicalism (supporting the free speech rights of hentai publishers, Nazis, and NAMBLA, or demanding that Gitmo prisoners be allowed access to trials by jury).
They also put a load of money into 1st Amendment wall of separation suits, which they also take to what I consider an unadvisable extreme.
However, these activities are not per se anti-American, unless I missed a clue somewhere.
Post by: Manedwolf on July 02, 2008, 06:13:20 AM
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 02, 2008, 06:13:56 AM
Check the ratio of leftist 1A suits they file vs. conservative or religious 1A suits.
Yes, but the precedent set is good for everyone. 1A suits are 1A suits, they're not "unAmerican", I'd think. And they've made an excellent job with "Busted".
Post by: Manedwolf on July 02, 2008, 06:57:26 AM
Quote
The Right To Bear Arms
The Second Amendment has not been the subject of much Supreme Court discussion through the years. To the extent it has been discussed, the Court has described the Second Amendment as designed to protect the ability of the states to preserve their own sovereignty against a new and potentially overreaching national government. Based on that understanding, the Court has historically construed the Second Amendment as a collective right connected to the concept of a "well-regulated militia" rather than an individual right to possess guns for private purposes.
In Heller, the Court reinterpreted the Second Amendment as a source of individual rights. Washington D.C.'s gun control law, which bans the private possession of handguns and was widely considered the most restrictive such law in the country, became a victim of that reinterpretation.
The Court was careful to note that the right to bear arms is not absolute and can be subject to reasonable regulation. Yet, by concluding that D.C.'s gun control law was unreasonable and thus invalid, the Court placed a constitutional limit on gun control legislation that had not existed prior to its decision in Heller. It is too early to know how much of a constitutional straitjacket the new rule will create.
The Second Amendment has not been the subject of much Supreme Court discussion through the years. To the extent it has been discussed, the Court has described the Second Amendment as designed to protect the ability of the states to preserve their own sovereignty against a new and potentially overreaching national government. Based on that understanding, the Court has historically construed the Second Amendment as a collective right connected to the concept of a "well-regulated militia" rather than an individual right to possess guns for private purposes.
In Heller, the Court reinterpreted the Second Amendment as a source of individual rights. Washington D.C.'s gun control law, which bans the private possession of handguns and was widely considered the most restrictive such law in the country, became a victim of that reinterpretation.
The Court was careful to note that the right to bear arms is not absolute and can be subject to reasonable regulation. Yet, by concluding that D.C.'s gun control law was unreasonable and thus invalid, the Court placed a constitutional limit on gun control legislation that had not existed prior to its decision in Heller. It is too early to know how much of a constitutional straitjacket the new rule will create.
http://www.aclu.org/scotus/2007term/35797prs20080626.html
Post by: Werewolf on July 02, 2008, 05:33:41 PM
Quote
What do you mean? Besides there belief in what the 2A is supposed to mean they still fight to protect the others. And I have read that they are slowly coming to accept it for what it truly means, read about it in one of my copies of the Reason magazine.
The ACLU fights to destroy America. The people they "protect" are merely stalking horses to advance their destructive radical agenda.
Elaborate, please.
They refuse to touch Second Amendment rights, but jump to the defense of execrable slime like NAMBLA.
Now imagine that the 2nd amendment is accepted, respected and people actually begin to exercise the right to keep and bear arms as was intended. What would the ultimate fate of the dream that is America be.
Which fate do you think that the ACLU prefers?
Post by: longeyes on July 02, 2008, 08:32:12 PM
Post by: Headless Thompson Gunner on July 02, 2008, 08:38:27 PM
the ACLU has two current mad loves--gay rights and anything that subverts Christianity.
True, that.
Post by: freakazoid on July 02, 2008, 09:48:31 PM
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 02, 2008, 10:00:57 PM
Quote
Not so strange a stance by the ACLU. Imagine if you will the ultimate fate of the USA when/if organizations like NAMBLA are main streamed and accepted as perfectly normal by the general population.
You're arguing the ACLU supports the complete elimination of age of consent laws? And concentration camps for the Jews, too?
Seriously, just because they support someone's free speech rights - and yes, advocating the repeal or modification of current law is at the very core of free speech, that's what free speech is for.
Post by: De Selby on July 02, 2008, 10:05:33 PM
Check the ratio of leftist 1A suits they file vs. conservative or religious 1A suits.
Yes, but the precedent set is good for everyone. 1A suits are 1A suits, they're not "unAmerican", I'd think. And they've made an excellent job with "Busted".
This is exactly why the ACLU is actually pretty good overall-they can't jury rig the court systems, so where they succeed, it's good for everybody.
The ACLU's position on firearms rights is irrelevant, because the ACLU doesn't give free legal services in support of laws banning guns. They can believe and spout whatever they want-it's where they focus their legal resources that matters to the rest of us.
There is no question that the ACLU has done excellent work for free speech, freedom of religion, and freedom from government intrusion. As far as I'm concerned, an alien from mars could be doing that work and I'll support it.
As far as its founders-please folks. George Orwell was a communist who went to war with a mission of "shooting a fascist"; Thomas Jefferson was a great admirer of the French revolution, and Ronald Reagan sold guns to theocratic Iran. It's the results of people's actions we should be concerned with, not their dreams.
Post by: roo_ster on July 03, 2008, 05:25:37 AM
Just because David Duke/Hamas/Robert Byrd treat old folks with respect or are nice to kittens does not eliminate the responsibility for past deeds and words.
The ACLU is/was part of the secular, anti-American, progressive enterprise in the USA. Its efforts have helped to pave the way toward the restrictions, regulations, and general loss of liberty we have experienced in the 20th and 21st centuries.
This is an organization that litigates against the interest of American citizens in favor of illegal aliens and non-citizens. This is an organization that litigates in favor of increased social welfare / socialist policies at the expense of tax-paying citizens.
It is no wonder it is anti-RKBA / Second Amendment. One only has to reference Baldwin's words:
"When that power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatever."
"Yes, and they would accept regretfully, of course the necessity of dictatorship while the job of reorganizing society on a socialist basis is being done."
It is much easier to impose dictatorship and preserve it with violence if the gov't has a monopoly on the most effective implements of violence.
Also, it is easy to see that RNB and his intellectual cohorts do not have a love of country (or at least the country known as "America"). One only has to read their words.
Post by: Manedwolf on July 03, 2008, 05:29:17 AM
Ever wonder why chain gangs went away? A great deterrent, and a great way to get the most unpleasant road work done?
Ever wonder why hardcore violent crime prisoners get things like weight benches, so they can be even more dangerous when they come out?
ACLU.
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 03, 2008, 05:33:19 AM
Quote
Ever wonder why chain gangs went away? A great deterrent, and a great way to get the most unpleasant road work done?
And also known as "slave labor" to most of us.
Post by: Manedwolf on July 03, 2008, 05:35:52 AM
Quote
Ever wonder why chain gangs went away? A great deterrent, and a great way to get the most unpleasant road work done?
And also known as "slave labor" to most of us.
Taking some of the most violent offenders and making them do a shift of road work is slave labor? Your definition is excessive.
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 03, 2008, 05:41:24 AM
Quote
Ever wonder why chain gangs went away? A great deterrent, and a great way to get the most unpleasant road work done?
And also known as "slave labor" to most of us.
Taking some of the most violent offenders and making them do a shift of road work is slave labor? Your definition is excessive.
Look.
Quite possibly, in a society where the people who go into prison are burglars, rapists, arsonists and murderers, I'd accept putting them on the roads, toiling heavily away (though I'd prefer to just lock them up for real, extended periods of time).
But!
In the Western Society you and I share, people who are 'caught' with a piece of metal the wrong shape go into prison, people who grow the wrong plants or have sex with the wrong people go into prison.
It has become way, way too easy to define more and more new things as 'crimes'.
So in this real world in which we both live, I oppose giving the government the ability to also profit from defining more things as crimes.
Post by: Manedwolf on July 03, 2008, 05:48:16 AM
And have you ever looked at the profiles of the sort of people they put on chain gangs?
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 03, 2008, 05:52:53 AM
How is it profiting to have them do road work?
To the extent that you save whatever it would have cost you to hire a separate, free, person, to do the job you get the criminal to do.
[quote
And have you ever looked at the profiles of the sort of people they put on chain gangs?
[/quote]
AFAIK, they put all sorts of people on chain gangs.
Post by: Silver Bullet on July 03, 2008, 05:53:34 AM
Quote
Ever wonder why chain gangs went away?
Not here in Arizona. Sheriff Joe puts prisoners to work in chain gangs, including female chain gangs.
Post by: Manedwolf on July 03, 2008, 05:54:08 AM
How is it profiting to have them do road work?
To the extent that you save whatever it would have cost you to hire a separate, free, person, to do the job you get the criminal to do.
So...it saves taxpayer dollars. And this is somehow bad?
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 03, 2008, 06:01:19 AM
How is it profiting to have them do road work?
To the extent that you save whatever it would have cost you to hire a separate, free, person, to do the job you get the criminal to do.
So...it saves taxpayer dollars. And this is somehow bad?
Yes. It is.
I don't want it to be cheaper for society to throw people who've done nobody any harm in prison. Again, too large a proportion of prisoners (not a majority, but still too large) are in there for drug offenses, gun possession, XYZ possession, etc. etc. If society's urge to throw people in prison for such things cannot be moderated by an appeal to the injustice involved, let it at least be moderated by the cost.
Post by: Manedwolf on July 03, 2008, 06:04:29 AM
If someone sells drugs, they should be in jail. Or executed.
So I have no problem at all with chain gangs. We need more people like that Sheriff Joe, who does the chain gangs and pink fatigues. It's a deterrent!
I am sick of coddling criminals. I have never been in trouble with the law, because I do not do anything wrong. It's not hard! Just keep out of trouble, don't violate the rights of others, and don't be stupid. That's too hard?
A society of Law and Order is something we once had, but now we're too worried about how such punishments make vicious animals "feel", so they run all over us.
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 03, 2008, 06:06:53 AM
Quote
Let's see. Here, at least, no license is required to have a gun in your home, and a CCW costs $10 and not being a criminal. So if someone is carrying without that, or is a felon in possession, they should be in jail.
If someone sells drugs, they should be in jail. Or executed.
If someone sells drugs, they should be in jail. Or executed.
So, a person who snaps off a front end off a shotgun should be made to do hard labor to help you pay for imprisoning him?
Post by: Manedwolf on July 03, 2008, 06:07:39 AM
Quote
Let's see. Here, at least, no license is required to have a gun in your home, and a CCW costs $10 and not being a criminal. So if someone is carrying without that, or is a felon in possession, they should be in jail.
If someone sells drugs, they should be in jail. Or executed.
If someone sells drugs, they should be in jail. Or executed.
So, a person who snaps off a front end off a shotgun should be made to do hard labor to help you pay for imprisoning him?
Yup!
Of course, you're still ignoring how many violent criminals end up on chain gangs. But I guess that's convenient to ignore to prop up your argument.
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 03, 2008, 06:09:46 AM
Of course, you're still ignoring how many violent criminals end up on chain gangs. But I guess that's convenient to ignore to prop up your argument.
I'm not ignoring it, I'm genuinely ignorant of it. Further, it is irrelevant to my argument, because my argument is not that innocent people end up on chain gangs now. My argument is that if the practice becomes mainstream again, society will become accepting of throwing all 'felons' into chain gangs.
Quote
Yup!
And you have... absolutely no moral problem with this?
I suggest we should politely agree to disagree here.
Post by: Manedwolf on July 03, 2008, 06:12:04 AM
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 03, 2008, 06:13:26 AM
I think you're forgetting the fact that I cheer for the Marshals whenever the local Free Staters do something asinine, obviously illegal and/or dangerous to make a point and get their asses thrown in jail. Again.
I will only say that this bewilders me. Again.
Post by: Balog on July 03, 2008, 06:15:42 AM
The answer to people being in jail for silly non-crimes is not making prison soft and fluffy.
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 03, 2008, 06:19:52 AM
The issue is not 'making prison soft and fluffy'.
Prison is not a hotel.
It is not supposed to be soft and fluffy.
However:
Quote
I don't want it to be cheaper for society to throw people who've done nobody any harm in prison. Again, too large a proportion of prisoners (not a majority, but still too large) are in there for drug offenses, gun possession, XYZ possession, etc. etc. If society's urge to throw people in prison for such things cannot be moderated by an appeal to the injustice involved, let it at least be moderated by the cost.
Post by: Manedwolf on July 03, 2008, 06:25:18 AM
Fought for cable TV.
Fought for workout equipment.
Fought against work details.
Fought against nutraloaf.
And on and on and on...
Prisoners get it much, much, much nicer than a homeless person in a shelter. Is that right?
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 03, 2008, 06:27:07 AM
No, it's not right. But it's silly to think that this is the cause for crime.
Post by: Manedwolf on July 03, 2008, 06:28:11 AM
What is nutraloaf?
Google is your friend.
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 03, 2008, 06:52:00 AM
Googled. WTFing at everybody involved - the prisoners who sue over it and the people who feed it to them.
Post by: roo_ster on July 03, 2008, 07:13:33 AM
Post by: Manedwolf on July 03, 2008, 07:22:25 AM
Googled. WTFing at everybody involved - the prisoners who sue over it and the people who feed it to them.
Then what would you feed to the lifers who try to stab guards and themselves with any utensils given to them, even a spoon?
Post by: Werewolf on July 03, 2008, 08:20:08 AM
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Not so strange a stance by the ACLU. Imagine if you will the ultimate fate of the USA when/if organizations like NAMBLA are main streamed and accepted as perfectly normal by the general population.
You're arguing the ACLU supports the complete elimination of age of consent laws? And concentration camps for the Jews, too?
Seriously, just because they support someone's free speech rights - and yes, advocating the repeal or modification of current law is at the very core of free speech, that's what free speech is for.
There is a really big difference. But then I think you know that...
Post by: MicroBalrog on July 03, 2008, 09:21:55 AM
Googled. WTFing at everybody involved - the prisoners who sue over it and the people who feed it to them.
Then what would you feed to the lifers who try to stab guards and themselves with any utensils given to them, even a spoon?
...this is seriously a non-issue, really. I don't care one way or the other what the prisoners eat, though if I were choosing the menu, it'd be something healthy, and yet at least bland rather than deliberately hot or horribly disgusting. And plastic safety spoons exist for a reason. This is the reason.
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No - I'm arguing that the ACLU by it's actions supports NAMBLA and it's actions.
1. Protecting the free speech of someone does not equate supporting the policies they advocate, "no matter how unpopular or wrong-headed." [Quoting Heller here].
2. Are you seriously implying that socialism somehow requires pedophiles running rampant through society?
Post by: De Selby on July 03, 2008, 12:45:17 PM
Ever wonder why habitual pedophile sex offenders aren't locked up for life, but are encouraged to "rejoin the community"? Another was just arrested here, again, for this time running into a yard and grabbing little kids to fondle them.
Ever wonder why chain gangs went away? A great deterrent, and a great way to get the most unpleasant road work done?
Ever wonder why hardcore violent crime prisoners get things like weight benches, so they can be even more dangerous when they come out?
ACLU.
Ever wonder why chain gangs went away? A great deterrent, and a great way to get the most unpleasant road work done?
Ever wonder why hardcore violent crime prisoners get things like weight benches, so they can be even more dangerous when they come out?
ACLU.
Okay, and there are some things that come with this: Due to the ACLU, the government has to prove more and do more to keep you in prison....so it's not as easy to throw people in jail, and the evidentiary rules and standards of proof are not as lax. You got that along with the ACLU arguing that prisoners should not be kept in Turkish-style dungeons.
FYI-chain gangs went away because they were in fact slave labor. Whenever someone needed labor on the cheap, the local force would routinely round up every black person in sight for violating the various vagrancy laws, and then they'd have a new slave force...just like the good old days.
That's why chain gangs were done in, not because we like to be nice to prisoners.
And you can thank groups like the ACLU for doing away with that form of 20th century slavery. Which is exactly what it was, along with the "vagrancy" laws that effectively criminalized being socially unwanted and/or the wrong color.
Post by: Werewolf on July 03, 2008, 02:32:17 PM
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2. Are you seriously implying that socialism somehow requires pedophiles running rampant through society?
What?
You mean it doesn't? 
Post by: xavier fremboe on July 03, 2008, 02:47:52 PM
1. Protecting the free speech of someone does not equate supporting the policies they advocate, "no matter how unpopular or wrong-headed." [Quoting Heller here].
I would argue that actively protecting the free speech of Nazis goes a bit past respecting the rights of wrong-headed individuals. I can agree that Nazis have a 1a right to spew filth, but I won't lift a finger to help them do it. I've nothing to say about NAMBLA members, as this is a polite forum.
Post by: longeyes on July 03, 2008, 09:17:03 PM