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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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I want to live in the state the founders designed, which was a libertarian state
There never has been and never will be a Libertarian state, the founders created a libertarian-based Federal government in an attempt to achieve unity between thirteen emphatically non-libertarian states. That attempt failed violently within 80 years. The civil war settled the ability of the Federal government to operate as it currently does, certainly that was not how the founders intended, but it has lasted longer, and far more people got to vote on the fourteenth amendment than ever voted for the first ten.
TE
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Ahh... so because "perfection" (by your narrow definition, because the 13 states emphatically WERE libertarian... so much so that it was the BASIS of the anti-federalist papers!) did not get achieved, then we should just continue to pitch off the cliff until we are in a free-fall of pure pre-crime nanny-statism?
Sorry. No. THAT I will fight!
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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far more people got to vote on the fourteenth amendment than ever voted for the first ten.
And that's a GOOD thing?
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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"No truer words have been spoken here JRig.."
"Plus 1!!!!"
Are you guys one & the same? Or just hoping that it will happen one day?
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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And that's a GOOD thing?
That's a subject for reasonable debate, but claiming that the laws of any of the 13 original United States in 1776 or 1789 weren't regularly infringing on what we would all agree now are inalienable rights, is not.
TE
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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infringing on what we would all agree now are inalienable rights
I'd be really curious to know what you think those are. I seriously doubt that we would "all" agree on many. In fact, one thing that has become painfully clear to me on the taco stand is that most people here don't even understand the most basic differences in rights, such as negative and positive rights.
So, long before we could talk about the 13 original states violation any of those "inalienable rights," we would have to come to a much more basic agreement, and that's one I honestly don't believe is possible here.
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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You are presumably a white, educated, property owning, christian male. Your demographic has lost freedoms since 1789, primarily the "freedom" to determine the course of the lives of the remaining ~80% of the population. Change any one of those adjectives and consider how much your freedom of self-determination has increased.
Slavery is only part of it. Female suffrage, universal suffrage, freedom of religion for non-monotheists, anti-discrimination laws, the right to hold public office...
Name any freedom you have lost that is greater than what they have gained?
TE
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Local news here that may have larger implications:
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Officer-Brad-Fox-Lawsuit-Filed-Against-Gun-Dealer-Straw-Purchase-Brady-Center-274332761.html
The widow of slain Plymouth Township Police Officer Brad Fox is suing the Montgomery County gun dealer who sold the gun that wound up being used to kill her husband in 2012.
This suit alleges that despite passing background checks, the straw purchase had so many "red-flags" that the dealer was negligent in completing the sale.
This murder has already significantly changed Pennsylvania law on straw purchases, which previously only carried a serious penalty after a second conviction, a technical impossibility. The first sentence under the new law was handed down last week, a woman received the mandatory minimum of five years for buying two guns for her boyfriend.
We'll see.
TE
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Did you attempt to stall him and call the police? If yes, thanks, if not, then you are as much part of the problem as the attempted buyer.
Two attempts in one weekend in one store in one small city. Think of how many that is nationwide each week. And those are the ones you recognized. Think how many smarter crooks you didn't spot, especially some of those women buying guns you are so happy about.
TE
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Name any freedom you have lost that is greater than what they have gained?
Your whole post from which I take this quote is confused. You use the word "freedom" as synonymous with "power," and that is not what liberty nor rights are about.
First, there is no continuum or balance of freedom as you imply. It's NOT the case that I must give up some freedom in one arena in order to get "paid back" some freedom in some other arena. I'm not forced to say: "Gee, I lost 23.7% of my voting freedom, but I gained back 34.87% of freedom to buy exactly the steak I was yearning for." (Or something like that; I honestly cannot make ANY sense of your sentence that I quoted.)
You and others like you perpetually conflate negative and positive liberties and rights, and that alone so muddies the waters that it is impossible to have a productive conversation on the subject.
Just in my lifetime, the infringement of so many negative rights has become so commonplace that people have literally, and I mean literally, lost the sense of what they once had!
I could give countless examples, but let's summarize just a few:
* The right to my own property: stolen via the social security system that I was signed up for before I ever had an adult say in the matter. I will never see (close to) as much out of that system as I have been forced to pay into it. It is government-mandated theft, plain and simple. It is the biggest Ponzi scheme in human history, and I was forced to become a part of it upon birth. Before I even had earning capacity, I was set up to have my earning capacity significantly reduced.
* The right to my own property: stolen via income taxes that have been forcibly redistributed to "needy" individuals that I would not have chosen to help, nor agreed with their "need," had I had the liberty to choose how to distribute my own property. I have NO problem with taxes being taken to sustain this nation in accordance with the actual powers granted to the federal government. But wealth redistribution really started shortly before I was born and has only accelerated during my lifetime. The constitution NEVER granted the feds the right to wealth redistribution, yet that sort of theft is literally taken for granted and even widely supported now.
On that point, there is a great quote: "Rob Peter to pay Paul, and you will always have the support of Paul."
* The right to self-defense: appropriate point in this very thread, as the feds continually take stabs at the second amendment, as though that amendment is what GIVES me the right to keep and bear arms. Government neither grants that right, nor can government take it away. The second amendment presumes that right, just as the constitution presumes the right of private property.
* The right to my own property: stolen via big-banking corruption, which is something the feds actually ARE mandated to oversee, and which the feds systematically and intentionally have not.
* The right to my own property: stolen via the corrupt monetary system overseen by "the fed." Paper "money" (unlinked from actual capital assets) was roundly condemned in Federalist 10 and others, and free-floating paper "money" has done more to transfer the assets of the average person to the ultra-wealthy than any other scheme in human history (which is precisely why it was adopted).
* The right to my own values (pursuit of happiness). I would wear a seatbelt anyway, but I am forced to. I will not wear a helmet while climbing, skateboarding, skiing, etc., although many would now think I should be forced to. As the United States has become more and more the nanny-state (we all affect each other, due to the collectivization of wealth and the corresponding reduction of individual responsibility), my most basic liberties IN MY OWN PERSON have been infringed and infringed during my lifetime. If I want to take the risk of splattering my own face against the inside of my own windshield, that is ENTIRELY my own business! Oh, no it's not... because NOW I "affect other people" with that decision. What people do not GET at this point, because we are SO far down the road, is that the very fact that my individual liberty IS infringed in this way should be indicative of how WRONG this whole collectivization approach really is. CLIMBERS especially should GET IT! We are now FAR down that path, and now nothing will stand in the way of liberty-infringing laws that are justified via the grand collectivization model.
I literally could go on and on and on.
YOU confuse negative with positive rights. YOU treat many rights as a zero-sum game, with your classic example being that you treat my voting rights as something I have "lost" or "had reduced" because other demographics have been enabled to vote. But the dilution of the POWER of my vote has literally nothing to do my 100% retention of my RIGHT to vote. Liberty and power are not at all the same thing, yet you treat them that way.
I won't even debate the above points with you (or people like you) because you are so utterly unschooled on the political-philosophy issues in play that your basic confusions make "discussion" an exercise in futility. I post this simply so as not to be entirely unresponsive to your ridiculous line of thinking, as though "there is no good response." But beyond this, I simply won't engage you, because you honestly are not at a level in which productive engagement is possible.
Tragically, we ARE so far down the road now that people like you talk in modus ponens terms when you should realize that modus tollens is the appropriate inferential form for this whole mess!
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
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Behold what gun worship hath wrought.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 10, 2014 - 10:56am PT
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Man, that dood has issues, besides the hirsute and sartorial!
The most obvious is his finger on the trigger after likely excavating a big greasy booger.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Sep 13, 2014 - 09:51pm PT
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I think we've set a record here too for pistol permits and new firearm owners.. The ranges are packed with new people. Haven't seen anything like this is 20+ years. More women than ever as well.
Feels kinda creepy on the other hand, almost like there's this tension in the air. Good people though and everyone seems to be taking the safety training very seriously.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Sep 14, 2014 - 10:06am PT
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One more reason everyone should have the right to own a gun
CLIFTON, Colo. (AP) — A western Colorado woman is accused of pointing a rifle at several children in a neighboring backyard because she was upset that an 11-year-old boy was playing his clarinet outside.
Mesa County sheriff's deputies believe 60-year-old Cheryl Ann Pifer of Clifton had been drinking before allegedly threatening the children Wednesday.
The Daily Sentinel ( http://bit.ly/1CZINu5 ) reports that the boy told Pifer he was practicing the clarinet as part of his homework and couldn't go back inside his grandmother's house because a baby was sleeping.
Several of the other children in the backyard with him reported that Pifer also pointed a gun at them and yelled "Fire in the hole!" as they ran away.
Deputies say Pifer's rifle wasn't loaded.
Pifer declined to comment. She faces possible child abuse and felony menacing charges.
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Sep 15, 2014 - 06:22pm PT
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We had that kind of nut job near here a few months ago, neighbors called police because he would sit on his porch pointing a gun out onto the street, but since he was on his own property, and hadn't been aiming it exactly at anyone, the police said they couldn't do anything. Then one day, he pulled the trigger and an 8 year-old got shot. When weak-willed legislators use the second amendment to defend activities like pointing a loaded gun onto a public street, it's time to change the legislators.
TE
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Sep 15, 2014 - 06:54pm PT
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Pointing a firearm, or something that looks like a firearm into a public area for no reason is a crime anywhere in this country. Brandishing, threatening, negligence, etc...
So "the old guy sitting on his porch" doesn't make any sense. But then again we have known violent gang members robbing people in broad daylight also walking around free. Perhaps the old man ranked low in priority.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Sep 16, 2014 - 04:08pm PT
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Pointing a firearm, or something that looks like a firearm into a public area for no reason is a crime anywhere in this country. How about at Bundyville?
Of course it can get you killed by the cops if it's a BB gun and you're in a WalMart in Ohio
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Sep 16, 2014 - 06:05pm PT
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Pointing a firearm, or something that looks like a firearm into a public area for no reason is a crime anywhere in this country. Brandishing, threatening, negligence, etc..
Anything I can find now only mentions the shooting, not any prior incident, perhaps it was corrected, like the accuracy of climbing accidents, reporters rarely seem to get the most basic facts right. Some consolation is that the kid is fine and the nut job will never legally own a gun again. Unfortunately politicians will insist on making it easy for him to get another illegally. Maybe like the last local gun nut job, he'll be released on bail and put a bullet through his own head.
Back on topic, here in PA, it appears that the recent cop shooting is another gun-nut "patriot" exercising his inalienable right to overthrow the government because he felt that his rights have been infringed. That tea party and gun lobby rhetoric has real consequences. Shame the troopers weren't armed, because then they would have been able to defend themselves. Oh wait...
TE
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crankster
Trad climber
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Sep 18, 2014 - 06:54pm PT
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Mass murder? No problem, got a gun.
BELL, Fla. (AP) — A man killed six of his grandchildren, his adult daughter and himself in a shooting at a home in a small town in North Florida Thursday, a sheriff said.
Gilchrist County Sheriff Robert Schultz at a news conference identified the man as 51-year-old Don Spirit. He said the children ranged in age from 3 months to 10 years old. He would not say if woman killed was the mother of the children.
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