Write a Constitution

[myth]

Trust me when I say that my display of calculated contempt is well-deserved.

I didn't say your contempt was unwarranted in the general sense, only that it was not necessary in this specific case. I'm just asking you to reconsider.

If you wish to continue your counter-productive behavior, then by all means, make yourself feel better at the expense of the general quality of discussion in this forum.

[Meh Gerbil]

Due to the really really dubious legal process called Incorporation, the restrictions on the federal government in the constitution have been gradually reapplied over time by the judiciary to state governments, so now (very recently, as of 2008/2010) the 2nd amendment that originally literally gave the state governments power to "regulate" firearms has been creatively re-interpreted by the judiciary as meaning that state governments can't ban firearms in the same way that the federal government can't ban firearms.

This would be the other side of the coin for the point I made about the establishment clause.
The states should be able to regulate guns any way they please - but thanks to a total misapplication of the Constitution we get the current mess.

I think we should split the difference and go back to the rule of law.

[Darth Executor]

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."

Not only does that not give the states power to regulate militias to begin with, a militia is not a firearm. That clause simply explains why the right to bear arms exists. It makes no demands of anybody.

Furthermore, the second amendment is a blanket prohibition of interfering with someone's right to bear arms. It is not aimed strictly at the federal government to begin with.

[Starlight]

Not only does that not give the states power to regulate militias to begin with, a militia is not a firearm.

For anyone seriously interested in the historical background of the second amendment and its changing judicial interpretation, there's a really good but really long piece here, or a shorter summary here.

[NorrinRadd]

I pretty much like our Constitution as is. I just wish they would not keep trying to "reinterpret" it to mean things it doesn't say.

Yes.

I guess my wish would be that the Founding Fathers would have foreseen this problem and explained what they meant in an unequivocal manner.

Yes! But of course the problem is that the Constitution is supposed to be a framework on which the actual detailed laws are built, so we can't address every detail in the Constitution itself.

Oh and term limits for congress and for the judiciary, including the supreme court. 10 years max.

Or at least *some* way to limit the power of the judiciary.

[Mountain Man]

I didn't say your contempt was unwarranted in the general sense, only that it was not necessary in this specific case. I'm just asking you to reconsider.

If you wish to continue your counter-productive behavior, then by all means, make yourself feel better at the expense of the general quality of discussion in this forum.

Is it irony or hypocrisy that you're attempting to use calculated contempt to shame me into changing my behavior?

[Jedidiah]

In my callow youth I attempted to produce a constitution for a form of government I called "Constitutional Anarchy." It was basically an extremely limited minarchy with the final call for every case resting with the individual. I gave up when it became evident that no constitution would rule any state that did not fully accept that constitution. Very much as our forefathers said that only a state submitted to Christ could last.

[rogue06]

For anyone seriously interested in the historical background of the second amendment and its changing judicial interpretation, there's a really good but really long piece here, or a shorter summary here.

The history of the second amendment is that it is a right provided to the people although in the 20th century certain groups tried to interpret it as a state (i.e., government) right but that was finally slapped down by SCOTUS.

[Joel]

If you could write your own Constitution what would it contain?

It depends on whether we are talking about a federal constitution or a state constitution.

My idea for a federal constitution is that the federal government's domestic powers would be restricted to only prohibiting states from violating the rights of the people (probably according to rights guaranteed in the constitution) or violating equal protection of the law. It follows then, that the federal government would be forbidden from having any domestic legislation binding on citizens. Can't compel or prohibit anything for citizens. Nor may it otherwise compel or incentivize the states to pass any particular laws. One consequence of this is that the federal government would not be able to tax the citizens directly. Its funding would have to come from billing the states. And those funds cannot be used for anything but its two purposes: foreign policy, and preventing states from violating the rights of the people.

[Sparko]

It depends on whether we are talking about a federal constitution or a state constitution.

My idea for a federal constitution is that the federal government's domestic powers would be restricted to only prohibiting states from violating the rights of the people (probably according to rights guaranteed in the constitution) or violating equal protection of the law. It follows then, that the federal government would be forbidden from having any domestic legislation binding on citizens. Can't compel or prohibit anything for citizens. Nor may it otherwise compel or incentivize the states to pass any particular laws. One consequence of this is that the federal government would not be able to tax the citizens directly. Its funding would have to come from billing the states. And those funds cannot be used for anything but its two purposes: foreign policy, and preventing states from violating the rights of the people.

We would cease to be a nation at that point and just be a loose union of states, like the EU.

[Darth Executor]

For anyone seriously interested in the historical background of the second amendment and its changing judicial interpretation, there's a really good but really long piece here, or a shorter summary here.

For anyone interested in what it says rather than what scam courts have legislated according to Politico and the New Yorker, read the amendment itself.

BTW I'm not sure why libertards are even pushing for a mandatory militia interpretation. For it to defend against an oppressive state it would have to be independent of the government. You morons would practically mandate the creation of far right paramilitary units.

[Sparko]

For anyone interested in what it says rather than what scam courts have legislated according to Politico and the New Yorker, read the amendment itself.

BTW I'm not sure why libertards are even pushing for a mandatory militia interpretation. For it to defend against an oppressive state it would have to be independent of the government. You morons would practically mandate the creation of far right paramilitary units.

yup.

[Joel]

I think if I were to write a constitution it would be close to our current version with the following additions:

1: Judges are not granted the power to change the meaning of words.
2: Judges are not allowed to find rights not explicating stated in this document.
3: Judges cannot take statement in this document and interpret to mean the exact opposite.

So you aren't a fan of the 9th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution?

[Joel]

We would cease to be a nation at that point and just be a loose union of states, like the EU.

That's okay. For the first hundred years or so of the U.S. that was a dominant view of the U.S.

[Starlight]

For anyone interested in what it says rather than what scam courts have legislated according to Politico and the New Yorker, read the amendment itself.

What is it with crazy right wingers thinking they should just read the constitution itself outside of any historical and legal knowledge of it, and them believing that the True interpretation of it will magically come to them by some sort of divine inspiration?

BTW I'm not sure why libertards are even pushing for a mandatory militia interpretation.

I think it raises an interesting question of "what should a reasonable judge rule regarding a section of a constitution that appears to have expired?"

The amendment's own specified precondition for its relevance is the clause "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...", which as I've mentioned was something necessary during the slave era, and as Joel has mentioned was a reflection of the fact that in the pre-civil war era the US was more an EU-like collection of states than a single country in the modern sense. Now that the US is a unified country with a powerful federal government whose military is the most powerful in all the world's history, and now that states don't need their militias to keep the slaves from escaping, the statement in the second amendment that a well-regulated Militia is necessary for the security of the States appears to be false.

So it seems to me that if a judge were to simply rule "this clause appears to have expired, because a well regulated Militia is, objectively speaking, no longer necessary to the security of a free State, so I deem the second amendment effectively null and void since its stated precondition no longer holds" that would strike me as reasonable. Another interpretation that strikes me as possible and reasonable is to say that modern policemen are the evolutionary development from the ancient militia, and fulfill the same general function of keeping the peace, and thus that the reasonable modern interpretation of the 2nd amendment is that the federal government is not allowed to (a) ban the states from fielding police forces; nor (b) prohibit state police forces from being armed.

And Meh Gerbil, if you're still reading this, I think this example speaks to the problematic nature of unchanging constitutional documents and the awkward things that happen in practice once sections of the constitution pass their best-before date and become obsolete.