The Unabridged Second Amendment

I'm not joking when I say that there is an unabridged version of the Second Amendment, that no gun nut cites because not only does it make it all too clear what the 2A is for, but the similar wording leaves no doubt that the 2A was hacked out of it.   

The on-air shooting in Virginia has more outrage over our country's lax and getting-laxer gun laws. Again, there are going to be calls to limit guns in some ways, and again, the gun industry is going to marshal its goons . First there's the paranoid division, for spotting evidence that entire shooting was staged by Obama. Because as we all know, no gun nut would ever commit such an atrocity. They're such humanitarians.

Then you'll have Cold-Dead-Handers, who will swear who will get their surgically implanted in their hands to make sure the government can never take them. Never mind that the government has never come close to doing that. In my home city, the state legislature has forbidden police from getting guns off the streets. As a result the number of murders have spiked horribly even though overall crime is down.

They're also forgetting the government has drones and nuclear weapons, and soldiers with body armor. The weapons people are arming themselves with are handguns and rifles that are too light and obsolete for any serious war. 

Then you'll have the Rambo Revolutionaries. These are the ones who swear the whole purpose the Founders had in mind for the Second Amendment was written to keep people prepared rebel against the inevitable tyranny that's predicted in the Bible, somewhere. A tyranny would be any government that does away with the Second Amendment. They're not too concerned about the other Amendments though. Like the Oaf Kreepers weren't too concerned with police launching chemical weapons into a crowd practicing the First Amendment. They also seem rather doubtful on Amendments 13-15.

So, what is the Second Amendment for, and why does it guarantee us an armed population? You would think it would tell you that. Unfortunately, this is what it says. 

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. - See more at: http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendments.html#sthash.ULMHQaRU.dpuf

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

One thing that strikes you from reading it with the rest of the Bill of Rights is it's the only Amendment that tries to explain what it's for. The rest are pretty self-explanatory. "Congress shall make no law . . ." "No soldier shall . . ." The rights of the people . . . shall not be infringed."


Except it's not too good an explanation. Write a sentence like that in English class, and your teacher would probably gouge your eye out. Passive voice with the noun at the end? Is that Latin or Germanic syntax? How is the militia to be regulated, especially if it's a militia to overthrow the tyranny? Does the tyranny do the regulating? If not, who does? In what capacity is an armed populace necessary to security of a "free state?" Nations like Libya or Somalia, where everybody is armed, don't look particularly free on the surface. Other states that have overthrown their governments with the help of arms don't seem to end up better or free. Ukraine, with its Nazi problem, being the prime example.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. - See more at: http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendments.html#sthash.ULMHQaRU.dpuf

So, what are its garbled phrases really about?

It just so happens we have the unabridged version, and it survives in the laws of one of the original states. Before the what became the US even won the Revolution, the Constitution of the Common Wealth Virginia was enacted at the same time as the Declaration of Independence. One of the two principle writers of the document was James Madison, who was also later the principal writer of the US Constitution.

Section 13 concerns what we call gun rights, or the right to keep and bear arms. I've put in bold the parts that are word-for-word in the Second Amendment. Here's what it says: 

"That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."
 
Therefore, the purpose of the Second Amendment was to provide for state or national defense without having a standing army. Any questions?

We've already stomped over and spit on the Second Amendment by having the biggest standing army in history!!

It's insane to think a government would give, in its own founding document, a means of the people to destroy it once it goes bad. The Founders were trying to form a "more perfect union," remember? 

Therefore, the Second Amendment has nothing to do with individuals owning guns, whatsoever. They're not patriots, nothing about owning a gun makes you more patriotic. They're just consumers. If it's not a "well-regulated militia" the Second Amendment doesn't apply.

However, by having a huge, standing military, we've completely destroyed any context in which the Second Amendment can be applied. We've evolved into a nation where the need for the right to keep and bear arms is dead.

Oddly enough, the size of the military doesn't seem to worry gun nuts very much. Nor does the militarization of police.

Again, gun advocates aren't patriots, they're a niche market that's been shaped by the merchants selling to it.   

The Oaf Kreepers Bluff

The Oath Keepers Oaf Kreepers are miffed that the Chief of Police told them to play Rambo in some other movie, but not in Ferguson's Burning. Now the Oaf Kreepers are saying they're going to arm fifty protesters and surround them with an impenetrable shield of Whites so police don't shoot them.


And that would prove what? That under Whites' protection, Blacks can also open-carry? That misses the point. Blacks don't generally have White guys on call for when police decide to shoot. And police have a 24 hour cycle. They could always delay retaliation for when the OK's go back home, as they eventually have to. I would think most the protesters see Second Amendment Rights as not being their problem.    

Oaf Kreepers have fifty AR-15's lying around? They brought this arsenal with them into Missouri? AR-15's cost $600-$900 each, not counting the ammunition. (I'm supposing having them unloaded would defeat the whole purpose of making cops trigger-happy and making people feel safer.) Second, have they run this plan by any protesters? You know, the people who have no reason to like, trust or even respect the Oaf Kreepers? The people who the Oaf Kreepers showed up to enact freelance martial law against? Or did the Kreeper leader just pull this plan out of his ass and expect if a White massa has a plan, it would be a snap to get fifty Blacks to follow it? I guess the OK leader assumes Blacks just love rifles.

If the OK's have fifty AR-15's they can just loan out, or give away, there's somebody wealthy financing them. Yet, even if that's the case, if I were the Chief of Police Jon Belmar, I would just laugh in their faces about this. Even if it's not a bluff, it's a stupid idea. The protesters know it's a stupid idea, and I believe they wouldn't appreciate being used as pawns, or the suggestion it would be that easy. 

Of all that's happened since Michael Brown was murdered, this has to be the most bizarre episode yet. But things are going to get even stranger as this war drags out.

And yes, it is a war.

About Christianity and Slavery

This comes from FB in a thread about ISIS taking sex slaves. The question came up as to why the Muslims, if they really object, haven't been stopping ISIS. Here's my answer.

Why didn't Christians stop slavery in the Americas for 370 years? Or the genocide of the American Indian? If you ask me, Christians were slow and/or complicit and non-responsive in both atrocities. Does it say anything about the Christian religion? Not really. Though it might say something about the effectiveness of morality based on monotheistic scriptures in general.

 ISIS is not Islam. It's a militant political movement marketed (yes marketed) to people raised in the Sunni Muslim culture. It's similar to the way White Supremacy is aimed at people raised in a Christian culture, where some even identifying themselves as churches, the Christian Identity movement.

ISIS calling themselves Islamic is really most meant as a recruiting tool. It has nothing to do with getting Muslim souls to heaven. Neither did slavery for Christian Southerners, BTW.

Why aren't Muslims stopping it? One question is who wants to step into that crumbling ruin of a clusterfuck we left in Iraq? The only nations with the power to do anything substantial are three that hate and/or distrust each other: Israel, Turkey and Iran. All of them would look at unilateral action by one another with suspicion. Syria would be happy just to push ISIS out of Syria. Muslims do denounce Islamic radicals quite regularly if you Google it you'll see that. Murder is the most egregious sin in Islam. https://www.facebook.com/newshour/posts/10153557663793675?comment_id=10153558469288675"

Then somebody said slavery was eradicated in Europe after Christianity.

No it wasn't. The Europeans took slaves, such as in the crusades, all the time. If it's not mentioned in history books, it was because if was considered no big thing. I challenge you to find any historical evidence of any emancipation by Christians before the 19th century.

When the Spanish took South and Central American Indians into slavery there was no outcry the rest of Europe because it was considered standard operating procedure. And for one plain reason: there is no call in the Bible to free slaves. If anything, the Bible gives regulations for keeping slaves, such as it says a man should be punished if he kills his slave (but not if the slave dies of his injuries after a certain time). But the Old and New Testaments have no renounciation of slavery. None. Zilch.

The closest thing the Abolitionists in the Bible could find to a call to end slavery was the story of Exodus. But the issue there wasn't owning slaves, it was having the Chosen People as slaves. In the Bible thereafter, the Hebrews owned slaves, both of their own people (who were treated differently) and others. There's also plenty of passages where God himself tells His people to take residents of conquered cities as slaves, especially the women. In other words, God in the Bible approves of sex slavery.

Therefore, when the Southerners argued that there was nothing in the Bible against slavery they had a solid argument. The only way the Abolitionists could find anything was by reading the scriptures with rose colored glasses. They cited the humanitarian violations slavery presented as a matter of course.

In Europe slavery of Christians was also institutionalized. They were called serfs. The Lord of the land by the way, could take any of the women of his hold as a sex slave. This is a matter of historical fact. The institution was handled differently, than the Americanized one, but it was there all the time.

The fact is, historians are still trying to figure out why slavery was considered right and commonly practiced for all of human history and suddenly was considered morally wrong in the 19th century. It definitely wasn't Christianity that did it.

https://www.facebook.com/newshour/posts/10153557663793675?comment_id=10153558469288675"

I know I should cite sources, but this is what I've been able to glean in various reading, mostly Norman Davies' thick book: Europe. 

The Decline of Science

In so many ways capitalism isn't working out the way it should on paper. One way is in the way science is now being corrupted and killed off. It's one case where the government should, and must step in. But it won't. Money making industries, including publishing, want science corrupted and dysfunctional.

http://www.cracked.com/article_22712_6-ways-modern-science-has-turned-into-giant-scam.html



Okay, I know I'm linking to a comedy website for information, but the blog right now is just off-the-cuff commentary. The problems cited there are mostly things I already noticed about the trend.  When I do some disciplined research on a topic, I'll say it.

However, I this system can't continue. Problem is what can possibly replace it? Socialism in the form of Bolshevism crashed and burned already. The Left would be politically much more active, but the brutality and eventual fall of the Soviet Union destroyed the Left's confidence. 

So capitalism continues to fester while it's adherents pretend its problems are features, or don't matter in light of the money to be made.