Is this what our politics has become? Really? And what’s worse — that an actual major candidate for the Senate could threaten violence if she doesn’t win, or that the mainstream media doesn’t even find this unusual?
[via Crooks & Liars]
Interestingly, I agree with Sharon Angle on most of her points. The second amendment to our constitution was put there so that people could overthrow their government if it became tyrannical. But the second amendment was definitely not put into the constitution so that a radical minority (especially a religious minority) could impose their will by violence. That would NOT be democracy. But democracy is a concept that some of these people don’t seem to understand.
26 Comments
This is becoming horrifying.
You know, sane people are welcome in Canada. Just in case anyone ever decided they wanted to save themselves …
Hmmmmmmm, I’m thinking the second amendment was put there because the founding fathers did not want a standing army. History will back me up on that, Washington was encouraged to take control of the new nation by his staff but he declined which made him, according to King George, the most powerful (or greatest)man in the world. This armed insurrection thing is BS. Why would they include the invasion or rebellion clause to suspend Habeas Corpus? Jefferson was in France when the Constitution was drafted, and he was talking about things like the Civil Rights Movement. Besides, “We the (actual) People” really don’t own the government anymore since the court handed the reins over to “money” in the “Citizens” case. We don’t even have the right to know who is paying for the TV time.
My backup plan is Australia. I actually had my bags packed before the 2008 elections.
Seriously, what is wrong with the people in Nevada? This election should be a blow out in Reid’s favor simply because of how crazy angle is.
Being from one of the white-est states in the union, and having a majority of the population being card-carrying members of the NRA, I have seen how some are taking the second amendment as the eleventh commandment: Thou shalt carry a weapon at all times to protect oneself from a big government and drunken neighbors.
Can you imagine how the congressional process might be different if various politicians started “alternative negotiation tactics” to get support for bills? Things may get done faster, but they’d certainly be more bloody.
Cheney, Jones and all the Religious Christian zealots are not followers of Christ. I do not know what their adgenda is, but Christ would never condone violence.
And I want to know why Jones of Florida can’t be removed on the mental health law or terrorist laws? He can then rant and rave about his right to free speech.
While Michael Bloomberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bloomberg stands for everything I espouse, Sharron Angle holds the antithesis of my values. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharron_Angle Read at the bottom where she states her values.
The real tragedy is that anyone is paying attention to what Angle is saying at all. I hate to have to point this out, but Maddow it seems is just using this to feed the flames of the conservative stereotype war that’s been waged by the left for years: that all Republicans represent are gun-toting redneck retards.
Maddow’s closing remarks are the most revealing. Notice how she quickly associates the views of one woman with now suddenly being the possible view of everyone in her party by asking just one question “Is this considered a mainstream position now?”
Honestly: if this woman beats out Harry Reid, she’s going to ultimately do her party so much more harm than good. She’ll wind up being a Democrat punching bag, and deservedly so.
I know it’s tempting to leave the country, but if the sane people leave, then we could all lose.
Regarding the second ammendment, it starts with the statement “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…” The ‘well regulated militia’ part always seems to be forgotten. A person in his house is not a well regulated militia. In colonial times, he was.
I just had to write a paper about Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. In Book 3, he talks about courage and lists 5 types. The first two, the citizen soldier and the professional soldier, are the most courageous, but the professional soldier, he says, will turn at the first sign of defeat. The citizen soldier, however, will fight to the death. But nowadays, our citizen soldiers do not exist; they have merged with the professional soldier. So what attributes do THEY have?
My point being here is that we now have two distinct classes: the citizen who is NOT a soldier and the citizen who BECOMES a soldier. There is no idea of a middle ground (militia) because we don’t need them anymore: our professional military has that covered. And that’s most likely why people forget that small little note “a well regulated Militia”
Ebdoug – I agree on those spiriual values, haters and advocates of violence et al. are not spiritual just hypocrites who try to artificially inflate their own sense self worth through the hatred of others.
ChinaGreenElvis – very insightful and your right on both counts.
Jeff – It would be intersting though if they brought back dueling though. Remember the big fight on the house floor between Weiner and King a month ago?…Nancy hears a call for a motion to retire to the dueling hall where Weiner and King stand back to back. The Speaker starts the pace count 1….2….3..(they could use paint ball guns).
Also on the Jones issue, he’s recanted, beaten and won’t push things. He tried for his 1 week of fame, but is not a national player like others in the mix. They brought the hammer down on him (i think Gates called him) and if the Sec of Def calling you doesn’t scare you then your on the level of weakileaks’ Julian As. (but I guess he’s feeling the heat too now). And they say Cheney and the right and are the only ones who can play hard ball.
Actually the fire department is going to stand by. Jones has no burn permit. What a wonderful YouTube Video. That the first spark, Jones is doused completely. Can’t wait to see it.
Dan and Falkelord have hit the nail on the head. The 2nd amendment is directly tied to maintenance of a militia – not giving the citizenry the means to rebel against their government. There is no “2nd Amendment remedy” and those that speak of such are seriously twisting the intent of the amendment.
There also seems to be a wrapping of the amendment in the words penned by Jefferson in a couple of private letters after Shay’s Rebellion in 1786/87. Although Jefferson may have felt, at the time, that an occasional rebellion was a good thing, it’s a very serious stretch to think those who cooperated to write the Ten Amendments held the same view.
I like Falkelord’s comments re Aristotle, too. Very interesting.
Falkelord-
Concerning our citizen Soldiers, we are still here. The National Guard is and has been our citizen Soldiers for 400 years. They have performed bravely and magnificently over the last 20 years fullfilling roles traditionally held by the regular army. It’s not quite their fault that we cut the defense budget and asked our armed forces to fight 2 ten year wars and man outposts in a dozen countries around the world. As you walk down a street, or get in an elevator you’ll see our citizen Soldiers, their everywhere. Even our all volunteer military is in fact citizen Soldiers. Many do their time and melt back into society and end up as Dr’s, lawyers, politicians and teachers.
If we needed them you can bet they would answer the call.
And I agree on the 2nd amendment to a point. The well regulated militia is our Guard, however I do believe individuals have the right (within reason and regulation) to own firearms.
I don’t think that the National Guard would fall under Aristotle’s definition of citizen soldier. The National Guard was federalized in 1903. The Army National Guard is essentially the reserve unit of the US Army, while the Air National Guard is the reserve unit of the US Air Force. In addition, National Guard members undergo training to ensure readiness for deployment.
As I understand it, during Aristotle’s time (and throughout the Middle Ages), a citizen soldier was a person that was not part of any standing army and completely untrained in fighting or battle.
They do perform bravely and are often shafted both during and after their national service. I know the DSS for the CA Air National Guard. She can tell you all kinds of stories of fighting to get the VA to provide required medical treatment to Guard soldiers upon returning from overseas duty. They also have to fight harder to get their GI benefits. It’s just a disgrace that we’ve treated them this way, considering the burden they and their families carry with these wars.
I actually believe (based on research of writings from the time the second amendment was drafted) that the founders really did intend that people should have the capability to rise up against their government if the need arose. And they really did intend for normal citizens (which at the time meant landowners, primarily) should own guns. In some colonies, owning a gun was mandatory even.
Times do change, of course, which is why we amend the constitution, but I don’t think arguing about the intentions of the framers will be fruitful in modifying gun rights.
But the idea that the second amendment would be a way for a radical minority to overturn an election — that’s just nuts.
For Starluna, you bring out a very subtle but good difference. The Guard was originally the local militia in our country when it began and was that through the development of our current military up to it’s federalization. During the early times it was called up by a local officer and the men would come in to the meeting place to volunteer into service and often had no training. It is still owned by each individual state, but at the direction of the President only can be “called” into federal service. It still focuses on 2 missions it’s domestic and war time mission. While the Army Reserve was intended to be the backfill for the Reg Army it is inadequate for the task and has mainly support type units ie, logistics and medical. The Guard is also the only military branch that can at the direction of the Gov or President suspend posse comitatus and detain, search or arrest US Citizens. Which is why after 911 the Guard was placed at high value US targets like airports where the likelyhood of interaction with US citizens could occur. Thats also why only they can be used at the border, because of the likelyhood of encountering our own citizens.
Sorry for the lesson, but I have been proud to be a Guardsman and Reg Army Soldier for nearly 20 years.
So you also know, benefits are improving and most of the reg army now looks at the guard with much more respect then at the beginning of the conflicts. I work closely with my states TAG to insure our Soldiers get what they deserve.
Post 17: I see no where in your post about the guard being sent to Iraq. I thought that was a travesty. As you said, you aren’t trained for that. It was devestating to the guard to go over for a Faux War. Were they only logistics and medical?
EBDoug – That is part of the travesty of the use of the National Guard. While everyone undergoes combat training, most units are, or have been, trained to be support oriented and, frankly, domestically focused. But through these wars, they have been used in direct combat roles. As a consequence, the incidence of PTSD is significantly higher among returning National Guard members than among active duty military personnel. And, until very recently, access to medical care was very poor. And continues to be poor in many parts of the country, despite laws that were recently passed to equalize access to care. Some states do better than others but overall access, at least in the research that I’ve seen, to mental health care in particular has been difficult to come by.
Morning Ebdoug: Actually, after the Army transformed from its large linear division based force (fight the soviets) to it’s more modular (plug n play)Brigade Combat Teams (BCT)structure in the early part of this century the Guard got many of the BCT’s and the Reserves got larger support units like Combat Support Hospitals (CSH) and Coprs level logistics elements. Understanding that States own Guard units and the Feds own Reserve units. The BCT’s are self contained units with 2500-3k troops capable of supporting themselves independently. There are different types; infantry, armor, mechanized, surveillance/intel, etc. Our Army today is the most flexible, adaptable and ready force period. The Army, realizing that Guard units are not afforded the same training time throughout the year intiated the mobilization (MOB)process shortly after the start of the wars, which is improving and adapting to units needs much better then earlier on. Basically, when a Guard unit is “activated” it now gets notified a minimum of 1 year out( usually 2). This allows it to develop a training plan to accomplish it’s mission. Leading up to the “MOB” the unit conducts it’s own or assisted training events. The MOB starts approx. 45 days before the actual deployment and the entire unit goes to an Army post where it must pass a long laundry list of training tasks before being certified to deploy. This is a time consuming process, but absolutely necessary for our “part time” units to get up to spead. The typical Guard or reserve unit has only 45-50 days per year to plan, train, maintain equipment and personnel, admin, etc., which really isn’t all that much.
So to finally answer your question, in the begginning the Guard units were not prepared as well and were mostly placed under reg army units. However after 2005, Guard combat units were trained, proficient and relevent to the war. The Soldiers themselves really step up when deployed and now you can’t really tell the difference between reg and guard. In fact, many of the reg army commanders I worked with liked the guard units better, because of the diversity, non-combat skills and maturity of those units. Remember, these citizen Soldiers are also police officers, IT Techs, home builders, gov workers, teachers back home etc. who bring a whole lot of skills and experience that fresh out of HS army troops don’t have yet. The avg age of Guardsman is also much higher and units tend to have more cohesion because (like in my units) many Soldiers have known each other for 5, 10, 15 years and more. Reg Army units rotate you every 2 years, which is why I went back to the Guard and prefer them. That and the Generals in charge of my state now were young LT’s or Captains when I was a SGT training them, so they still listen to and seek out the Sergeant Major’s advice and guidance.
Today is the anniversary of 9/11. My very first visit ever to NYC – an excruciatingly beautiful and vibrant city – happened to coincide with the date of that more infamous 9/11. I spent the day stranded on Staten Island in a state of shock watching the detritus of the day roll by. I could tell you stories from that day. It was a day of many vignettes, many individual memories. A day that will always remain embedded, not only for the tragedy that happened, but also for the ongoing tragedy, the wedge, or virus if you will, that was unleashed by Americas own right wing at the same time that first tragedy occurred. A right wing who is ruthlessly using that tragedy as a catalyst and bandwagon for their own cause. A virus that is slowly spreading hatred and intolerance throughout America of a kind that has not been seen since the civil war gave slaves their freedom. If ever there really were some kind of bizarre plot to overthrow America, it seems to be derived from Americas own right wing radicals. Ever since Iraq was invaded by George W, I have worried that that war was only the opening salvo in what will become a long running tragedy. Did Bush and Cheney not say that they estimated the war would take 25 years? Which war? America is a young nation who seems to need to go through some growing pains, or perhaps it still needs to heal itself of the horrors in its own past. I realize that this is an emotional plea, but I increasingly fear that something horrific must happen to snap us out of and change us from the current path we are on. Bearing in mind the definition of a coincidence, where a coincidence does not prove a relationship, but related events may be expected to have a higher index of coincidence, the Sharron Angles and Pastor Jones of the world do not help to allay my fears. Are there any calming voices out there who can shed some educated insight? Is the USA heading towards another civil war? If it is, how can we diffuse the situation? Where does the healing begin?
IK – per post 16 – not to argue, but please provide some information so that I may learn. Where can I check out some of what you’ve read?
Thanks.
Hmm, I found these clips after writing my last emotional comment. President Obama answers questions at his Sept 10 press conference, and his speech on tolerance on Sept 11. Both worth watching, as is his speech at the Pentagon, you can find that one on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlId8UWLxOo
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11272600
BTW – Love the sound effect of the plane flying overhead as he gives his speech at ground zero.
Don, good question, but unfortunately I don’t have a good answer for you. At least not right now. I did this research a long time ago (believe it or not, before the internet) and I don’t have references to most of the materials. It was mostly a few books that contained lots of material about the second amendment from the time of its drafting.
I’ve been meaning to dig up those references, but I’m in the middle of a big project at work and have been traveling a lot (three long trips in the last month, and just got back from the last one a few hours ago).
This was reading I was doing at the time because I was trying to figure out my own attitude toward the second amendment. My position is a little strange in that I would never own a gun personally, but it seems like the constitution is pretty clear that owning a gun is a protected right. So I wanted to do some research to determine the intent of the framers in this. In particular I was trying to see if the argument that the second amendment is about the military (like the national guard) and not about individuals owning guns, had any merit. Based on my research, I don’t think it is.
So I am a gun owner. I believe the 2nd amendment guarantees law abiding citizens the rights to own firearms. I also believe that the original intent was to protect those same citizens from a tyrannical government.
However, what I believe most strongly is that the majority of the 2nd Amendment backers are living in a complete fantasy land. The problem is that the 2nd Amendment was drafted long, long ago. And that isn’t to say that it is wrong or bad, but simply that the people who wrote it had no idea where we would be at today. They had never seen a tank, or an F-15 fighter plane. They knew nothing of predator drones and carpet bombs.
There is -no- way that the American population, using the small arms that they are entitled to, would be able to win a war against the government. Period. It is no longer musket vs musket. It is now 9mm vs Abrams tank. A while ago I had an online discussion with a ‘government = tyranny’ extremist, and after getting through this part of the discussion he claimed that the government would not use heavy arms on its citizens if it tried to take over. Again, how convenient! This is the delusion they are living in. If they wanted to participate in an armed rebellion against tyranny with the hope of success WITHOUT the backing of a government army, they were born 200 years too late.
After this, the conversation digressed into a comparison with Iraq and Afghanistan. “See,” he said, “a population can have success against our army without heavy weapons.” Yep, and everyone and their brother wants to get to Afghanistan as soon as possible. Everyone wants to live in Iraq right now because of how great it is. It may be true that we will never be officially victorious over…whoever it is we are fighting in those countries. However, it is equally true that they will never be victorious against us. The most they can hope for is a stalemate that will likely destroy the infrastructure of their country. This is a reality, and not a romantic revolutionary war fantasy.
The best we could hope for, if the government turned against its citizens, is that the great people of our Armed Forces had the wisdom and character to stand up and say “No, I will not fight against my own country.” Having had the pleasure of knowing many of them, and talking with my family members who have served, I think that is (at least at the moment) quite likely to happen. And realistically that is the real stumbling block for government tyranny at the moment. Not guys with pistols and rifles trying to wage war against a modern army.
1032 – you are right concerning our military defending Americans and more importantly our constitution. All military members swear an oath uphold the constitution and defend America against all enemies foreign and domestic. That would include a rogue president or general who thought they could coup themselves into power. There are too many patriots and loyalists to the nation former and current to allow themselves to be used in such a way.