Who will McCain choose for vice president?

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Well, it is about a militia comparable to an armed forces. Sure, why not?

If the invaders did have nukes, then the notion of a military in general would be pointless.

Shall not be infringed. Let's just have weapons and weapons and weapons.

This isn't quite a militia, ... but it is still awesome: http://www.commemorativeairforce.org/

The right to free speech is infringed - one cannot yell 'fire!' in a crowded theatre (when there isn't a fire) and expect one's first amendment rights to protect the act.

You seem to think that capital accumulation by those with the means to invest is a benefit to society as a whole. I don't see how this follows. If you wish to drive spending, and increase the consumer throughput of goods in our society, the best method of doing so is reducing interest rates on borrowed money and reducing sales tax. This drives purchasing and makes the individual dollar go farther, which in turn generates more production and drives the money up. The flow of cash still ends up in the same location, but the individual has more to show for their efforts.




While I agree that there is an appeal to simplifying the tax system, a flat tax is simply overly burdensome on the lower and middle classes.



I highly doubt that the current rich will be able to maintain order and pay for their own security if society breaks down and money no longer has value. The military and police maintain order which allows for the uninterrupted continuation of these lifestyles. Private security is likely to capture the resources for itself without the rule of law in place to protect the owner.




The society allowed them that freedom, so without the maintenance of the society, that growth is no longer possible, and their own position crumbles. They have reaped the benefits of the society, granted through their own hard work within the rules of the society, but it is their responsibility to maintain the system that keeps them in a place of luxury.



It's not just their children that matter. By not funding public education and giving it the resources it requires to reach these children, it perpetuates the cycle of poverty and locks the poor into low paying jobs generation after generation. Going beyond that, we need to teach critical thinking, not rote memorization, and this is where our school systems fail. We jam their heads full of the information thats a keyclick away instead of training their minds to evaluate that information and synthesize it into something new.

Money should never be the determining factor in whether a person gets access to the medical care they require to thrive and survive. How does one judge the worth of an individual? Is the artist who creates beauty and/or illuminates and teaches the public through controversial work, worth saving? Is the gadfly not an important part of a healthy society?



The concentration of wealth in the upper 1% has gotten progressively worse in the last 28 years since reaganomics has become policy. The middle class is slowly shrinking, and with it, the American dream disappears.

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatu ... s_20060621

Just one example of the divide.

Well, that doesn't fall under the government's jurisdiction, unless there is a literal federal law that states "One cannot yell "fire" in crowded theatres". And such a law would be quite unnecessary as theatres belong to other people, and these other people have the right to allow or disallow certain things to be said. But yes, if there were such a law, then that would be a violation of the 1st Amendment, however, if you look at the text, there is no right to free speech, there is just no lawful ability for government to impede speech.

"Congress shall make no law .... or abridging the freedom of speech"

You assume that I don't believe in carrying handguns.

I just believe carrying them in concealment should be illegal.

In addition to registering the weapon for purchase, there should be a test in order to be licensed to carry it in public.

As LKL has already pointed out, in order for a militia to overthrow our government, we'd have to allow tanks, urban assault vehicles and heavy artillery as well as smart bombs in order for them to stand a chance.



We don't need to overthrow the government violently, we just need to wait 4 years and vote the bastards out of power. It is ridiculous to assume that the militia groups camping out in the swamps of the south are ever going to save the country or overthrow a tyrant.

How much less crime would we have if people were visibly armed?

It's the concealment I object to. If you have a legal right to carry the gun, then you don't need to conceal it, and it's presence is a likely deterrent for crime.



Barring shooting them for fun on a firing range, there is no legitimate or lawful reason for any of them to be in the hands of a private citizen.



Fair enough



Then the only point we disagree on is registration. The only point to opposing registration is if you plan to hold out and conceal weapon purchases, or not turn in a gun if it is deemed inappropriate for public usage. If someone who owns weapons commits a crime, is it not a good idea to take away his weapons?



They could be used in armed insurrection, and they can be used in crimes, and there is simply too much firepower at the hands of a civilian for me to be comfortable with the concept. The reason they are rarely used in crime is because they aren't easily concealed, or obtained, and they are expensive.



Where shall we deliver your urban assault vehicle and blackhawk?



I think a shotgun would be sufficient deterrent for would be looters, and is more then enough for defending your property.

The issue is that spending is not what increased GDP, increases in capital and labor are what increase GDP. Increasing GDP can be assumed as having high benefits to society. If we assume that Y = C + I + G + NX, that the latter 2 are constant, and that this is a relatively long-term model, and we want to increase I(investment), then we ultimately should attempt to decrease C(consumption) as every dollar that goes towards consuming goods takes away resources from investing. We are holding Y constant though because we are going to assume at a given point, the amount of available resources is at a set amount.


I tend to doubt that, most proposals have a set amount that is untaxed, which helps the poor, and I still think that the middle class will not suffer too much. Even if what you say is true, the efficiency gains would likely be worth it, as tax-based services are a very big industry that would constitute waste under the current system.


Who said that there would be no money? Money is not purely a government invention, heck, that is why some people hoard gold, because if the current dollar fails, then they see gold as the successor. I mean, I would just say up front, that in any change, the rich are going to outsmart that change and come out ahead as they have the most resources to do so. Private security is not likely to do that, otherwise who would buy the private security? I think a simple notion that long-term interdependence provides more than short-term looting is pretty straightforward, especially given that if one employs multiple individuals, all that is necessary is adjustments of the mechanisms controlling those individuals.



The society didn't deny them that freedom. It is foolish to say that freedom does not exist without people to get in the way of it, and it defies our principles of justice to claim that allowing something is an important characteristic. Not only that, but if most of the expenditures are not necessary for the maintenance of a governmental order, then why should they pay for that? How is there a responsibility of the rich towards your favorite social programs? If this is a matter of the rich's responsibility towards their own welfare, then why can't they set up the system as to how they'd want to do it?


I didn't say anything about their children. I said "voucher system". Also, why should the perpetuity of poverty be included in the responsibility of the rich? Right, the current school system is not that good.


Why not? One judges the worth of an individual based upon how much other people value them. Maybe not. Are you willing to front any money for his life? Is he? If you think he is, then you bring your cash for him, but why should I pay for these people? Beauty is subjective, so why should I pay for a person who brings ugliness? Are all critics that valuable? If I think the man is a fool, then why should I support his folly?


Right, part of that is the income tax changes, part of that is also the fact that some people removed their taxes from accounts that escaped taxation, and part of that reflects the economic changes that have occurred due to technology and globalization, and part of your specific graph is simply that firm size has increased and thus the marginal benefits of CEOs has thus increased, and partially that competition for top executives has increased as well.

As for the middle class, part of the issue has nothing to do with governmental policy and rather labor market changes, and that cannot be dealt with until the middle class adapts to the new demands for labor.

Ok, cool. We could also cut back the military to make it fairer. Not only that, but conventional militaries suck at guerrilla warfare anyway, so just as the turban heads in Iraq give our forces problems already despite less tech, so could any revolutionary militia.


Sure we do, if you haven't noticed, the nature of our political system is to conserve. This means that if the government has been getting out of hand for a while, and large-scale corruption started to show itself, that would mean we would need to overthrow it. Not only that, but the presidential system existed in the time of the Constitution, they still wanted the ability to overthrow the government. Whether or not it is ridiculous or not, they clearly have a constitutional right to have the power to do this.

This one cuts both ways. Yes, criminals are less likely to attack people with guns visibly on their hips, but in a situation that goes violent those people are going to be the first to be targeted. Concealed carry also has the advantage of no one knowing who may have a gun, and if it was widespread enough criminals would have to treat every possible victim as if they may be armed, making the argument for efficiency.



If you had any idea of the difficulty of legally obtaining a Class 3 weapon... To date, there has only been ONE murder EVER committed with a legally owned machine gun in this country, and the owner was a cop. Of all the types of gun out there, these are the ones you should spend the least time worrying about.



That is not why I oppose registration. Historically, whenever guns have been registered it has been the first step towards total government confiscation. It would also be an impossible task in this country, with the millions of guns and the ease of changing markings, it would just be another cross for legitimate gun owners to bear. Trust me, it would serve no useful purpose other than if the government wanted to start confiscation, the day it happens is the day I start burying my gear. BTW, when someone commits a felony they already have to sell or transfer all of their firearms, that's already law.



They could and they can, but they aren't, at least not often. This is a poor rational for taking a rights away from someone, because you're not "comfortable" with them having an object that could be used for nefarious purposes, except for some notable drawbacks that have previously been mentioned. You admit that they aren't practical for crime, but want to ban them anyways why? And you think the law will keep them out of the hands of lawbreakers why?



Citizens don't need to be able to take on a modern army head on to provide a deterrent, look at our current misadventures in Mesopotamia, or 40 years ago in Indochina. Our armed populace is a hell of a deterrent to anyone thinking of imposing martial law on this country, foreign or domestic, you simply could not move troops around this country. That is what the framers of the 2nd Amendment intended, a deterrent to tyranny.



Depends on what and who you are defending your property from. If I was a Korean shopkeeper for example and an angry mob was approaching, I'd much rather have 30 rounds in the clip and a fast reload than 4 shells and a limited range.

I've said it on other threads, and I'll say it again here; if your true motive in gun control is saving lives, there are causes much more deserving of your energies. I'd suggest drug policy reform, since so much gun crime is linked to the drug trade. If all the anti-gun people would focus their energy there instead of trying to take away the rights of people like me, they may actually accomplish something, other than wasting everyone's time. They might even save some lives.

Carrying concealed is both a tactically intelligent position and just a polite act to your fellow citizens. Every state I've lived in allows for open-carry, but people choose not to do it, because it's considered impolite to scare your fellow citizens (many will assume you're going to commit a crime/shoot them if you openly carry), and because most police officers don't know that it's legal and will most likely end up tackling and arresting you.

And besides that, it's just plain stupid to carry openly. If you've got a well-determined armed criminal that wants to commit some shenanigans, who's he going to shoot to make sure his plans don't get foiled, an old lady, or the 6'2" athletic guy with a handgun on his hip? Concealed carry gives you politeness to the people around you, and gives you the element of surprise on a-holes hellbent on committing a crime.

Most states currently require you to pass a rigorous background check, with only a few that allow concealed carry without a CCW permit (Alaska included). I will admit, some states' requirements beyond background checks are ridiculously easy, such as in Wyoming, where my dad got his CCW permit in his early 50s with only the hunter's safety card he got in middle school in Oregon 35 years earlier. Personally, for my Oregon CCW permit, I took an 8 hour course, which only included 2.5 hours of range time, with the rest in a classroom being instructed by detectives, SWAT members, and Oregon defense attorneys, having the law hammered into our heads. Even then, when I applied for it at the sheriff's office, he didn't have to let me have the permit, even if my record was completely clean (though some states are Shall-Issue, where if your background's clean, the sheriff can't deny you the permit, regardless of their personal discrimination). I'm not saying the system's perfect, I'm saying that we should let lawful, permitted citizens carry concealed wherever they want, especially in high-crime areas.

sorry, assumed everyone knew about this 1919 SCOTUS case:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
quote:
In the opinion's most famous passage, Justice Holmes sets out the "clear and present danger" standard:

"The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. ...The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."

Well, ok, I have heard about that case, in particular, about the issue of "shouting fire in a theatre" I just regard the interpretation as illegitimate given the actual word of the law and the example as unnecessary given the already defined ownership of a theatre allowing for a person falsely shouting "fire" to be punished in some manner. I also regard the ruling in this case to be illegitimate, as the man was clearly using his freedom of speech and congress cannot abridge that freedom. I mean, the best Constitutional argument would be to ignore the 1st and try to argue that Schenck was aiding US enemies by attacking the draft(an argument still that I might find to be questionable).

The issue of Justice Holmes however, is addressed in an outside article about such a matter, and the position put forward by Holmes was criticized by a fellow Supreme Court member, Hugo Black, who I think has a better position.
http://mises.org/story/2569

I mean, we can argue about the case a bit, however, a major issue here is the manner in which both Holmes and Black tend to interpret the law. Black tends to be a textualist, he goes by what the law actually says. Holmes is a fore-runner of legal realism, they go by what they think the law ought to say. Now, let's just be honest, when there are a set of rules out there that you have to follow, what is the more proper way to follow them? To go by what you think the rules should be, or to actually follow them? The latter assuredly, for if it were the former, then why would these rules need to be set up, and why would there have to be debates on them? You may as well argue that the rules do not so much exist as the arbitrary moods of judges, and well, the reason for a law to examine and criticize is so that it could be followed.

The whole reason the founding leaders of this country set up trials by a jury of one's peers rather than trials by a panel of legal experts was to deliberately introduce context and social mores into the legal system. If it were only ever about the letter of the law, then a panel of legal experts would make far 'better' decisions than a bunch of semi-random citizens.

If the constitution were completely inflexible, it would break over time due to social change.

That said, I don't always think that the SCOTUS judges have their heads on straight, either.

The supreme court is not a jury, so you are really just ignoring the issue I am putting forward. Not only that, but a legal panel has more potential for corruptibility and things of that nature than a random jury that is removed from the rest of society. As well, another reason for the jury is to have a check on unjust laws, so they play a different role than a judge, judges being more along the lines of enforcers of laws and of an internally consistent legal system.


The constitution has flexibility, they are called amendments. And the government has flexibility too, it is called legislation. Frankly though, a constitution is not so much created to have flexibility but rather form a bedrock for future legal decisions.

No, I cannot say they always would.