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Old March 3, 2009, 01:41 AM   #85
Tennessee Gentleman
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Join Date: March 31, 2005
Location: Tennessee
Posts: 1,775
Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
The decision of the court in both cases was predicated upon the notion that the Second Amendment only guarantees the collective right of the States to raise a militia.
I think you should read the facts of the cases cited. Heller did not reverse them and the quote you provide is dicta.

Now, the facts of the first case would be familiar to you based on some of our previous debates about NFA weapons. A man possessed an unregistered NFA weapon and claimed that he was able to have it because he was a "member of the militia" and therefore based on Miller had a constitutional right to have it. He lost.

Were say, you for instance, try to own an unregistered NFA weapon and upon arrest by the BATFE claim that your "status" in the "unorganized militia" gave you a constitutional right to have it, do you think Heller would save you from jail? I like how the court in Warin referred to the militia as "the sedentary militia" Heller did not rule on the militia question rather decoupled correctly the right to keep and bear arms from service in the militia.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
it would seem that members of the Unorganized Militia are still members of the Militia as a whole.
With no rights, duties or responsibilities. In other words meaningless and without purpose.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
If we have not had significant difficulty, why do we remain engaged there for nearly six years now?
Good question and makes my point perfectly. The reason is because Iraq has no democratic institutions to guarantee the rights of it citizens and as a result has a very weak government that we have chosen for strategic reasons (not that I agree with them!) to assist until Iraq can police itself. BTW, plenty of arms there and yet still no freedom and safety. Beginning to see a pattern Webley? No political safeguards no peace in spite of a proliferation of firearms. The difficulty in Iraq is not
Quote:
because a large segment of the population, though their arms and organization are inferior to our own, opposes us.
but because (as I saw first hand in Somalia) you cannot build democratic society overnight with no foundations to support to build them from. The problem is political not military.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
So if the NVA was not difficult to defeat, why did we lose the war?
In short, because the American People and thus their government lost the will to continue the fight because no viable strategy was in place to win it. Once again, the problem was political and had nothing to do with the effectiveness of the VC or the NVA (which were really the same).

An important side note here Webley. I would recommend some more reading on guerrilla warfare and perhaps watch a show on the Military Channel or two. Successfuul insurgencies are not waged by disorganized, poorly armed partisans as the gun culture may lead you to believe. It requires extensive training, leadership, planning, help from an outside source or country and luck to win such a war. The real lesson here is that a mob with guns tend to do more harm than good and when faced by a trained force they normally are slaughtered. I would leave the John Ross books alone.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
The age of a law has nothing to do with it's validity or purpose.
In this case it does because the idea was outmoded from the beginning and virtually abandoned within two decades of it's ratification.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
Remember, checks and balances were outlined in the body of the Constitution (which was ratified simultaneously with the Second Amendment) so it cannot be argued that such institutions evolved later.
Actually, those institutions did evolve. Remember Marbury vs. Madison?
How about in 1962 with "one man one vote" in Baker vs Carr These institutions and branches were brand new and the Founders couldn't be sure they would work as this was a government never before tried in the world. The reason that the Dr. Strangelove scenarios today are insulting is because we know better after 230 years which the Founders could not know. I have read writings from some of them where they expressed grave doubts about howit would all turn out. They were far from sure. As to the military oaths, no Army before ours answered to the people and the Founders fear was that a large standing Army might pose a threat to their liberty. We have a standing Army today and know better.

You see Webley, things change and evolve as we learn. That's why the COTUS was amended 27 times. As I posted a quote in post #80 the Founders had a republican ideal (which btw did not include an unorganized militia) that every able citizen would be armed and by obligation stand up and defend when necessary the state. This was not an option but an obligation. This ideal did take care of the fear of a standing army in that the Founders believed that if the defense of the nation lay mostly in the hands of state militias that no standing army could be a threat to the liberty of all. Al Norris in his post above lays out some good quotes to illustrate this republican ideal. I agree that the COUTUS was written with that ideal in mind. However, the "unorganized militia" that you keep hangin your hat on from 1903 was NOT that ideal.
Nevertheless, it didn't work!

Here:
Quote:
By the time Jefferson left office as governor of Virginia, the ineffectiveness of the militia had left him deeply disillusioned. Painfully humiliated by – and criticized for – the rout of the Virginia militia that forced him to abandon Monticello just hours ahead of British raiders, he had long been frustrated by the lack of commitment to martial obligations in the state. He had witnessed the difficulties of raising effective forces since his appointment to the Virginia Convention’s militia committee THOMAS JEFFERSON’S ARMED CITIZENRY AND THE REPUBLICAN MILITIA Albany Law Review David Thomas Konig
So, as I posted earlier the grand idea of the citizen republican militia didn't work (George Washington didn't like them either) and so the Militia of the 2A went away over time and today we have a large standing army. Jefferson wouldn't like it if he saw it today at first. But once he understood how the world had changed he would see the need.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
An editorial in the New York Times proves nothing as newspapers, that one included, have quite often published editorials in favor of measures that are unconstitutional.
OK, how about Teddy Roosevelt who at his first State of the Union declared the militia law to be "obsolete and worthless". My point is that even 100 years ago the militia was a dead letter and it is even deader today.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Webelymkv
You see, COTUS does not grant the government the ability to conscript the people into the military; it only grants the ability to call forth the militia.
The SCOTUS says otherwise. See Arver v. United States in which the court says:
Quote:
The power ... was clearly an unmixed federal power dealing with the subject from the sphere of the authority given to Congress to raise armies and not from the sphere of the right to deal with the militia as such, whether organized or unorganized.
The draft authority comes from Article One Section Eight. Congress has the right to raise armies. The militia of the 2A referred to the states. When we are called to active duty by a draft by congressional law it is through Article One Section Eight and not the 1903 Militia Act.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
To say that laws forbiding such an occurence and the morality of the military in and of themselves are sufficient to prevent a miitary coup is a notion that is not supported by history.
No other nation in the history you mention has had our government or our democratic institutions either. History is fine but you need to consider it in context before you draw too many modern day proofs from it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
To say that concern over a situtation that could be perpetrated by a large and powerful military, which we certainly posess, which posesses inherent human faults, which soldiers certainly do, equates with concern over defence from things which cannot be proven to even exist is a weak attempt to discredit a legitimate argument.
Human weakness is not the issue or the problem. It is power and who has it and can they be checked. In our system government no one has the type of power to do what you have suggested regardless of the "human frailty of soldiers". I really think Webley you don't understand the military and how it functions either and that is why I have warned you against believing the Dr. Strangelove scenarios, they aren't real and are as plausible as martians. Checks and balances acutally assume that power corrupts (human frailty) and that no one person or group should have too much of it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
Thusly, because the people are still legally considered to be the militia and because the Miller decision specifically defined the purpose of the Second Amendment as ensuring that the Militia can be equipped to defend the country, it must be concluded that, legally at least, the Second Amendment's purpose is to guarantee that the people are able to be equipped in order to defend the country.
I don't think Miller says any such thing as you conclude. I think you should reread it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Webleymkv
that you subscibe to what I refer to the sheep/sheepdog/shepherd mentality.
How wrong you are my friend. I despise the sheep/wolf/dog/shepard crap I read posted about. To my mind it is nothing more than romantic hollywood superhero garbage. What I believe in is first; our democratic institutions, a free press, free elections, an independent judiaciary and respect for the rule of law protect us against tyranny. No dogs or sheep involved. I secondly believe that our professional military protects us from enemies foreign and domestic and our police generally protect us from criminality but that we as citizens have a personal right to self defense and that means the keeping and bearing of arms.

I further believe there is no more militia and the people you describe "who wish to be armed in order to "defend liberty" and refuse to join the ranks of the military or police" otherwise known as the modern militia, are nothing more than unauthorized paramilitary organizations who answer to no one and who could be an even greater real danger than any stnding army could ever be. I am beginning to think that your belief that the militia still exists stems from your support of these extralegal entities and I would warn you again about the dangers of:



They keep nobody free and might be dangerous to your liberties if you got on the wrong side of them.
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Last edited by Tennessee Gentleman; March 3, 2009 at 10:01 AM. Reason: spelling
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