American Patriots are once again resisting an oppressive government.
Join the Resistance! Resist like it's 1776!
No American president since Ronald Reagan has understood and espoused the founding fathers' principles of limited government and even he GREW the government. With the bailouts and stimulus packages of Bush, Obama and Congress the camel's back has been broken. The American people have had enough! Tea party protesters are fighting back against 100 years of degradation of America's limited government foundation as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
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GUN RIGHTS
Did you know that many of the founding fathers argued AGAINST the Bill of Rights?
The Federalists, who were in favor of a strong federal government (ugh!), argued that the Bill of Rights was not necessary because the Constitution did not require the suspension of any rights. This idea has it's roots in the Declaration of Independence which asserts that all people, regardless of what country they happened to be born into, possessed certain rights "...among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". The right to life includes, among other things, the right to be safe in your person. This means that you have the right to defend yourself from harm. And that only just governments recognize those "unalienable" rights, of which the U.S. with it's Constitution was one, of course.
The Anti-Federalists, proponents of limited government (yeah!), won the argument and the list was pared down from 47 rights to the 10 in the Bill. One of the compromises they agreed upon was the inclusion of the ninth amendment which says simply, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." In other words, just because the Bill of Rights says you have a certain right, that doesn't mean that you don't possess OTHER rights which are not spelled out. Why is that important?
Because they wanted to make sure that the Bill of Rights was never interpreted to be the ONLY rights possessed by the people. Well then why have the Bill of Rights at all? Because the Bill of Rights was written, not to ensure the people had certain rights, but to ensure that the GOVERNMENT could never excercise power over the most important rights of the people! It was insisted upon, remember, by the ANTI-federalists - the ones who favored a LIMITED government.
The Bill of Rights limits the power of the government,
it does NOT grant rights to the people!
This is a concept that is mostly lost on people who wish to protect gun ownership. So many people cling to the idea that the Second Amendment grants them the right to carry a gun. The NRA gets it right on their website home page when they say, "...the inalienable right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment." The Second Amendment, like others in the Bill of Rights, is to be guarded and cherished, not for what it grants citizens, but for how it limits the government.
There are many other issues surrounding the Second Amendment, of course. Among these are: citizen's right to arms as a defense from tyranny, assault weapons, arguments for/against gun ownership from a crime perspective, hunting and recreational use, etc. One good resource for further study of other Second Amendment issues is the Second Amendment Foundation. Resources for other gun issues include A Human Right, Gun Facts, and Keep and Bear Arms which includes a daily log of legal guns used in self-defense. For an in depth discussion of why the 2nd Amendment isn't necessary to secure the right to bear arms read The Flawed Second Amendment Debate.
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