SCOTUS

[houndawg]

Hmm…well I’m here to be educated. The right to bear arms is a constitutional right. The interpretation of intent from the founders seems to be the contested point.

Similar to the definition of abortion, murder, and what constitutes to life.

Hanging over both decisions is the issue of states rights. It’s literally brought up in the current courts writings.

I too could be snarky and say amend the constitution to fit unmitigated rights to bear all manner of arms in any fashion or STFU but I look for deeper meaning.

So please, enlighten this gun owner.

Dr Naomi Wolf, a self-described liberal, wrote a wonderful piece on the Second Amendment in anticipation of todays SCOTUS ruling. She addresses a number of issues, but I feel her discussion on language is one of the best I’ve every read. She ends the discussion with a translation of the 18th century English of the Second Amendment into modern-day English.

Grammar too was used to make the case against individual gun ownership. Often, commentators in our circles described the phrasing of the Second Amendment as being so twisted and archaic that no one today could never truly confirm the Founders’ intentions regarding gun ownership by individuals.

Indeed, I heard these truisms so often, that when I actually sat down and read the Second Amendment carefully — as I was writing my 2008 book about the decline of democracies, The End of America — I was startled: because the Second Amendment wasn’t unclear at all.

“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.”

Critics on the Left of individual gun rights often described this sentence as being opaque because it has two clauses, and two commas prior to the final clause; so they read the first two sections as relating unclearly to the last assertion.

But if you are familiar with late 18th century rhetoric and sentence construction, the meaning of this sentence is transparent.

The construction of this sentence is typical of late 18th into early 19th century English grammar, in which there can be quite a few dependent clauses, gerunds and commas that come before the verb, and the object of, the sentence.

Thus, the correct way to read the Second Amendment, if you understand 18th century English grammar, is:

“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.”

Or, translated into modern English construction: “Because a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free State, therefore the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/0 ... aomi-wolf/

That's how I've always interpreted it - noting that when they said "the people" they didn't mean everybody -and that since we now have standing armies a well-regulated militia is no longer necessary for the security of our free State.

The 2nd amendment is the Constitution's version of your body's appendix. A long time ago it had a purpose.

[HI54UNI]

Dr Naomi Wolf, a self-described liberal, wrote a wonderful piece on the Second Amendment in anticipation of todays SCOTUS ruling. She addresses a number of issues, but I feel her discussion on language is one of the best I’ve every read. She ends the discussion with a translation of the 18th century English of the Second Amendment into modern-day English.




https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/0 ... aomi-wolf/

That's how I've always interpreted it - noting that when they said "the people" they didn't mean everybody -and that since we now have standing armies a well-regulated militia is no longer necessary for the security of our free State.

The 2nd amendment is the Constitution's version of your body's appendix. A long time ago it had a purpose.

I guess Biden should have appointed you to the Supreme Court and then your interpretation would matter.

[houndawg]

That's how I've always interpreted it - noting that when they said "the people" they didn't mean everybody -and that since we now have standing armies a well-regulated militia is no longer necessary for the security of our free State.

The 2nd amendment is the Constitution's version of your body's appendix. A long time ago it had a purpose.

I guess Biden should have appointed you to the Supreme Court and then your interpretation would matter.

He had his chance

[93henfan]

Roe v Wade overturned.

[BDKJMU]

Left is going ape shit..

[Baldy]

[Pwns]

Look at all these bigoted male incels celebrating the end of women's rights.

[Winterborn]

Roe v Wade overturned.

Pro-lifers should build a statue to Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer.

Could also put RBG in that group.

[Winterborn]

Can you explain your position why not?

In the spirit of openness, I will state I am all for school vouchers and allowing parents to decide to allow their tax dollars to follow their kids.

There's an economy of scale when the public, as a whole, gets together and does something as the public. For schools, for instance, it's not merely the sum of every parent's tax money that results in school funding. Obviously, too, there are plenty of people with no skin in the game (i.e. no kids) who pay the same school tax as well. In my school district, the price per student to educate them is about double what I pay myself in school taxes. I'm getting the benefit of the public deciding that public education is worth the investment since I have multiple kids and I don't pay anything extra for having kids, let along multiple kids, attending public school. And on the whole, public schools work. Can they be better? Of course they can, I don't know of anything that can't be improved upon.

But once people can pull out their money (and they're not pulling out just the money they themselves pay in taxes, they're taking out the per pupil share that the public has decided to spend on them in the public school setting) then the system begins to suffer. The marginal cost to educate one more student is nothing in the existing public school setting - we're already paying for the buildings, the land, the utilities, etc. One more student, or one less student, doesn't change that. But if we were to give out vouchers, at the full per pupil cost to educate, and let people use that for private schools of their choosing, it would disproportionately hurt what's left behind. A family that decides they want their 3 kids to go to private schools, would now get to pull out something close to 6x the amount they pay in taxes (in my case, I pay 1/2 the cost to educate 1 student, but I would be pulling out the cost to educate 3 students while still just paying that 1/2 cost for 1). So they get more than their share and the public school their leaving behind now has less money per student than they did before with no real change to the marginal costs to do business. The more and more people who pull their kids out, the greater the negative impact on what's left behind.

I have no issue with people deciding that they want something different than public school for their kids. I didn't make that choice, the public schools where I live are more than adequate for a K-12 education (and we moved here on purpose because we knew the schools were that way), and when the schools have needed to be improved in some way we've advocated for or, in some cases, directly supported whatever needed to be improved. It's how collective public endeavors work. However, as a tax payer, I don't feel that I should have to financially support someone who chooses to go a route different than the public option, especially when their decision costs more than what they're putting into the game. If you want private school education, then pay for it yourself, don't look for taxpayers to subsidize your individual decision.

And my position is only slightly different for the inner city schools, or something comparable, where the public institutions have failed so spectacularly that now children are actually suffering to have to stay in that setting. In those rare cases, I'm fine with vouchers because you're talking about kids that don't have the luxury of time for the public institutions to be rebuilt and reestablished so that they can provide an adequate education - by the time that happens the current kids will have already lost their opportunity to be educated. But those are rare in the public school model today.

Good and valid points. I really do not disagree with your overarching message at all.

Looking at the data, we are spending more and more on education but receiving poorer and poorer results in students graduating at a remedial level. My question is then (to anybody) is if this is the case, where is that money going to? It sure does not seem to be going towards helping the kids learn and graduate at the appropriate knowledge levels.

My suspicion (based local school board discussions with coworkers and some cousins that are teachers) is that the amount of money coming into the school districts is not funding teachers and students but administrators and buildings. I am not against updating buildings or building new but one of the local schools that I grew up with, has a perfectly good building, in a declining enrollment district, has put forth a ballot measure to build a 10 million dollar school for the last 8 years.

I see vouchers as a way of reigning in the ballooning admin costs that seem to be so prevalent these days. One should not reward wasteful behavior with more and more funding. In the end, both the private and public system exist to teach students and have them graduate with the appropriate skill levels. The kids are what matters. Not admin/districts ego's in who has the biggest or fanciest building and the most people under them.

Toss in the fact that certain teachers would rather preach their beliefs than teach, and I have no issue in allowing parents take their money and kids to a school where they deem it the best environment to learn. In the end we all want educated members of society. As I think we all can agree, that an uneducated society is not good for any civilization.