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Old 10-31-2007, 11:37 PM   #32
Al Swearengen
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Originally Posted by joepole View Post
1. That is from (I assume) some dictionary, since the Constitution clearly defines treason in article III:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

So "any violation of the Bill Of Rights is treason" is ludicrous. If that were true every single President of the United States (including the current one) would have been executed because every single Presidential administration since at least Lincoln has had at least one Executive action ruled Unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

I ask again, why do you consider it acceptable to personally selectively ignore portions of the Constitution (such as the very specific definition of treason) but when someone else does it (such as the not-court-verified right for an individual to bear arms) you consider it an offense worthy of execution?
The U.S. Constitution is a wonderful document and the men who wrote it were wise and forward-thinking, but it aint perfect, which is why it is from time to time amended. Clearly, an excellent case can be made that it's definition of treason can and should be applied to such heinous crimes against the Republic (defined as the United States, or simply "We The People") as violations of the Bill Of Rights, particularly violations against the Second Amendment. As for the Second Amendment right to bear arms not bein "court verified"...

"during the years of Chief Justice Earl Warren's Court (1953–69), when most of the guarantees of the Bill of Rights were held to apply to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment (1868; "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens").

Gun rights advocates interpret the Second Amendment as a guarantee to individuals of the right to keep and bear arms without any government interference whatsoever. Researcher David B. Kopel of the New York University School of Law concluded that the Supreme Court has generally agreed with this interpretation. In "The Supreme Court's Thirty-Five Other Second Amendment Cases" (St. Louis University Public Law Review, vol. 18, no. 99, 1999) he wrote:

[T]he question whether the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right can be pretty well settled by looking at the thirty-five other Supreme Court cases which quote, cite, or discuss the Second Amendment. These cases suggest that the Justices of the Supreme Court do now and usually have regarded the Second Amendment "right of the people to keep and bear arms" as an individual right, rather than as a right of state governments.

Consider for a moment the spirit or intent of the Second Amendment. The right to bear arms is an "inalienable right", meanin that it is "God given" and as such can be neither given nor taken away by men (the government), provided you've not been convicted of any serious crimes or adjudicated mentally deficient. The Second Amendment holds the distinction of bein our most important inalienable right, as it is the ultimate insurance that our other inalienable rights remain just that...inalienable and inviolate. Violations of this most precious right are a direct threat to our Constitutional Republic, to our way of life, and without a doubt meet the definition of "levying War against the United States" (again defined as "We The People"), and therefore rate the ultimate penalty, lest everything this country stands for be lost.

Simply put, Joe, if you're a legally armed American citizen and your own government disarms ya, they're deprivin ya of your right to "Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit O' Happiness"...in other words, the government becomes the enemy when they wage war on us, and that is treason!

You're poorly served by your penchant for semantics, as it is usually your undoin in these debates. By your logic, the Rosenbergs should never have been executed, since we were not at war with the Soviet Union. You may not have invented "political correctness", but it sure as hell seems to be your guidin philosophy.
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Last edited by Al Swearengen; 11-01-2007 at 01:38 AM.
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