Comments I’ve posted
The question you should be asking is why don’t Democrats want people to be able to defend themselves. Let’s not forget that there are plenty of Republicans who treat the right of self-defense, as supported by the Second Amendment, as a political football. Heather Wilson, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and both George Bush Sr. and Jr. come to mind here. I am having a hard time diferentiating your views from the views of an anarchist. I’ve been called “anarchist” before perjoratively, and I don’t disown the term. If the only law that you respect is the law of gravity “Anarchy” was never meant by those who coined the term to mean “without rules,” but “without rulers.” i.e. any sort of permanent political class over everyone else. Sort of like what we have now with Obama, Romney, McCain, Wilson, Domenici, et al. then the individual is placed in the position of constantly being a victim to anyone that doesnt follow your views on non-aggression and there are 10s of millions of people that would seek to rule the world and dominate other people. By your standard, those people would be helpless slaves. Exactly how is this different from the status quo? And how are Republicans much better than Democrats on this? For example, I posit that the existing income tax here in the United States should be considered to be a form of slavery. Which Republican official or pundit has proposed getting rid of it? How many Republican politicians have advocated cutting the rates in half? How many Republicans have proposed repeal of the National Firearms Act of 1934? How many Republican officials or pundits have proposed any sort of act of Congress that would overturn Wickard v. Filburn? Forget about pot, cocaine, heroin and meth for now. How many Republicans have proposed the re-legalization of raw milk for those who wish to buy it? How many Republicans have proposed repealing the federal statutes and regulations outlawing unlicensed distilleries (making your own liquor) or growing and selling unlicensed tobacco? Yeah, yeah, I know “you want too much,” “you want to go too far,” “we can’t do this all at once” heard it before. What did Americans do BEFORE these statutes and regulations were enacted? How did we ever survive without Big Brother and Big Sister to make us behave and cut us handout checks? And you truly wonder why Libertarians regard most Republicans as cowards, back-stabbers and half-steppers. For the record, I’ve been “Tea Party” (advocating tax and spending cuts, free markets and return to Constitutional limits on government) since 1997. The ones that crack me up are the ones with a “system” for the scratch-and-win tickets. You are not a Libertarian if you seek the complete elimination of all government and laws. I find it rather amusing that you’re telling me about who is and isn’t a Libertarian when I’ve been a member of the Libertarian Party since August 1994 (member #165784), and have been stumping for the libertarian message in various media since 1997. What are your credentials where libertarianism is concerned? And, while I do not mind having a conversation with you about your views, I must question the sanity of anyone who seriously believes that order can be acheived in any social structure without laws to protect those that cannot protect themselves. So what’s your solution for those when the laws fail to protect those people? Or do you just blow them off with the standard retort of “no system is perfect” ? In your world I see Charles Manson wantabes running around slitting the throats of innocent citizens with impunity. In my version of how the world should be, I see the Manson wannabes being shot by their intended victims on the scene of the crime. Or by their victims’ family or friends. But “what about those unable to handle a weapon, with no friends or family?” First, I never claimed to offer an absolute perfect system. Second, there are people in society today who end up in similar situations – unable to defend themselves, no one there to assist. But they don’t get assaulted, battered, robbed, raped or murdered, because all of those sorts of actions are illegal, correct? There’s a saying in the shooting community – “call a cop and call for a pizza, see which one gets there first.”
You are an anarchist, and that is not a compliment for a reason. True Libertarians acknowledge even if begrudgingly that some form of government and taxation is a necessary evil.
Wickard v. Filburn was insane but keep in mind that this decision was handed down in 1942 during the FDR stacked SCOTUS and just about everything FDR did was insane or misguided. This case was preceded by the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, another misguided FDR era policy. The National Firearms Act of 1934 was another FDR era policy.
You didn’t answer the previous question – What have the Republicans done to reverse Wickard v. Filburn? The Bush II Administration didn’t do squat in that regard – instead, they used it as a precedent in Raich v. Gonzales.
If you look hard enough you will find that most of the really bad decisions and policies have been born by and during Progressive leadership and most, but not all, Progressives have been Democrats. Woodrow Wilson and FDR did more to harm individual liberties than any other single president or pair of presidents and they were both Democrats. Teddy Rosevelt and Richard Nixon, both Republicans also did their fair share to harm individual liberties and increase the size of government but not as much as Jimmy Carter, another Democrat. So while Republicans have done some bad things over the years the Democrats hold the record by far in my book.
So “TR” and Tricky Dick were just Democrats with (R) after their names? Eisenhower didn’t do much to cut down FDR’s “New Deal,” Ford, Reagan and Bush Sr. didn’t do much to shut down LBJ’s “Great Society.” Bush Jr. brought back the farm subsidies phased out by Waco Willie Clinton as part of the “War on Terror.”
In general, Republicans are better for the country and for individual liberties than Democrats, although, not always by a wide margin.
Only when the Democrats are in power, just as the Democrats are “better” when the Republicans are in power.
Even then, the performance of “either side” is rather mediocre in stopping the policy idiocies, evils and insanities of the other. And when the power shifts such that the “other side” gains power, then all of the bad stuff done in years gone by suddenly is “acceptable” because it’s “our people” doing it.
I cite as examples:
Clinton burning Waco in 1993 vs. Bush II burning Rainbow Farm in 2001.
Bush II promising “no nation-building” in, followed by nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama running against the Iraq and Afghanistan Occupations, yet dragging his feet on pulling the troops out.
Obama running against the Gitmo prison in 2007 / 2008, then refusing to shut it down after being inaugurated.
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”
“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, rgetwhich we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”
Thomas Paine, Common Sense
Attending church does not make one a good Christian.
And having an (R) after one’s name gets one a pass when doing things that Republicans object to when done by Democrats.
The fact remains that the bad policy decisions have largely been the invention of Democrats.
Examples to the contrary:
- National Environmental Policy Act of 1970
- Economic Stabilization Act of 1970
- Bank Secrecy Act of 1970
- Controlled Substances Act of 1970
- Organized Crime Control Act of 1970
- Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971
- Endangered Species Act of 1973
- Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974
- National Organ Transplant Act of 1984
- Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986
- Plumbing Products Efficiency Act of 1991
- the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001
- the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
- the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002
- the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act
- the No Child Left Behind Act
- the Homeland Security Act
- Medicare Part D
- the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (helps people too stupid to set up a mail filter in their email client)
- the Energy Policy Act of 2005
- the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005 – yet another Ø1 coin that’s the same size as a quarter.
- the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005
- the Digital Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005
- the Caribbean National Forest Act of 2005
- the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006
“I’ll need to review New Mexico state law on the use of petitions to put on a issue on the ballot, but typically you need signatures equal to 8% of the votes that were cast for the governor. Also, there is a filing feed to put the petition in the works after it has been signed.”
Actually, New Mexico doesn’t have that sort of referendum or initiative process like Arizona does. The closest that New Mexico has is that amendments to the State Constitution can be placed on the ballot if they pass through the Legislature and are signed by the Governor, like any other legislation. Thus, we would need to have someone on the Voting and Elections Committee sponsor it and carry it in the Legislature.
I don’t see the proposed amendment needing to be anything more than this:
Article II, Section 6 of the State Constitution shall be amended to read as follows:
No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes. No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms.
Notes from Life, Etc.
- Still working with MS Windows 2003 Server Edition. What a pain in the ass. Next week, we’re supposed to install Linux as a dual-boot with it.
Listening / Reading / Watching
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