Re: CAN THE STATE MILITIAS EVER BE ABOLISHED?

Diogenes wrote:
> 
> The Lone Weasel wrote:
> > Robert S. Baron <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
> >
> >
> >>The Lone Weasel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 29 Nov
> >>2003 18:27:30 GMT Message-ID:
> >><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >>
> >>>Peter H. Proctor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
> >>>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
> >>>
> >>>>On 28 Nov 2003 19:46:56 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>>>(Leif Rakur) wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>>When the Second Amendment was written, the states already
> >>>>>had their militias.  The amendment was about protecting
> >>>>>the people in their right to continue their state militia
> >>>>>systems of security without infringement from the federal
> >>>>>government.
> >>>>
> >>>>     Actually,  it was protecting the "Right of the
> >>>>     People" separate
> >>>>from the states.   Otherwise,  it would have said
> >>>>"states" as in the 10th amendment.
> >>>
> >>>"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security
> >>>of a free state..."
> >>>
> >>>You boys have a real problem with that part of the Second
> >>>Amendment.  How can you just delete the states from the
> >>>Second Amendment then insert "individuals" for "the
> >>>people"?
> >>
> >>  RSB: The 'security of a free state' is not referring to
> >>  state security, it is referring to the continuing liberty
> >>  of the people. How can you ignore that the concept of
> >>  freedom applies to individuals?
> >
> >
> > The two are synonymous according to the Second Amendment.
> > Maybe that's where you're confused.
> >
> >
> >>>I know that you do it, I just wonder how you believe it.
> >>
> >>  RSB: Because the 2dAm guarantees "the right of the
> >>  people..."  That is the same "We the People..." in the
> >>  preamble to the constitution, the people being equivalent
> >>  to freemen.  Refer to the Bouvier Law Dictionary (Sixth
> >>  Edition, 1856) entry for freeman:
> >
> >
> > People in the collective sense.  Glad you agree.
> 
> There are no 'collective' rights independent of, or separate from, the
> rights of the individual for they are simply the sum of individual rights.

So you opine. Citing ONE person out of context doesn't prove
this.
> 
> "What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them
> all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum
> of the rights of the individuals."
>   --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:455, Papers 15:393

That may or may not have been HIS opinion at a particular time
(context, please?), but it wasn't a law or the definition that
the lawyers used, was it? Then it isn't the basis for the
interpretation of law and what the legal terms mean.

TJ was ONE man, NOT "OUR founding fatherS"! THEY had so many
diametrically opposing positions and beliefs that some of them
KILLED others in duels over them! UNLESS THIS belief and opinion
was directed specifically to a particular law or article, any
"insight" it gives is speculative. WHAT was he talking about
specifically? WHAT was the reason for THIS particular comment?
WHAT led to it?

First, this cite is out of context. Second, it is a logical
fallacy to draw a conclusion from it that what is true of the
part is true of the whole, therefore what is true of the whole
must be true of the part.

For example: 

THE PEOPLE can indict, try, convict, sentence, and punish
another citizen as a collective process of justice. But NO ONE
individual OF the PEOPLE class can do that on his own! THOSE
collective rights OF THE PEOPLE are NOT distributive to each
individual member at individual discretion! ONLY an authorized
representative OF THE PEOPLE, the DA or equivalent, can indict;
only the legally established courts can try; only the sworn jury
or judge can convict; only the judge can sentence; only the
society, through fines or prison, can punish.

The collective right of THE PEOPLE is to elect representatives
and hold elections; individual members of the CLASS known as THE
PEOPLE, i.e., the enfranchised body politic, have the right to
VOTE... one vote each. NO ONE person can "hold" an election or
elect the representatives! THAT is the collective right! THAT
right isn't distributive. One member can only share in those
distributive rights to the extent one is able and allowed.


Look at the greater context (for even MORE of it,
http://cooperativeindividualism.org/jefferson_l_01.html):

"The question, whether one generation of men has a right to bind
another, seems never to have been started either on this or our
side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as
not only to merit decision, but place also, among the
fundamental principles of every government. The course of
reflection in which we are immersed here on the elementary
principles of society has presented this question to my mind;
and that no such obligation can be transmitted I think very
capable of proof. I set out on this ground which I suppose to be
self evident, " that the earth belongs in usufruct to the
living;" that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.
The portion occupied by any individual ceases to be his when
himself ceases to be, and reverts to the society. If the society
has formed no rules for the appropriation of its lands in
severalty, it will be taken by the first occupants. These will
generally be the wife and children of the decedent. If they have
formed rules of appropriation, those rules may give it to the
wife and children, or to some one of them, or to the legatee of
the deceased. So they may give it to his creditor. But the
child, the legatee or creditor takes it, not by any natural
right, but by a law of the society of which they are members,
and to which they are subject. Then no man can by natural right
oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who succeed him in
that occupation, to the paiment of debts contracted by him. For
if he could, he might during his own life, eat up the usufruct
of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands
would belong to the dead, and not to the living, which would be
reverse of our principle. What is true of every member of the
society individually, is true of them all collectively, since
the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the
rights of individuals. To keep our ideas clear when applying
them to a multitude, let us suppose a whole generation of men to
be born on the same day, to attain mature age on the same day,
and to die on the same day, leaving a succeeding generation in
the moment of attaining their mature age all together. Let the
ripe age be supposed of 21. years, and their period of life 34.
years more, that being the average term given by the bills of
mortality to persons who have already attained 21. years of age.
..."

So, just WHAT is your point now? The cite YOU apply to one
purpose, seems to be about something totally different! 

What is TJ's point? It would SEEM to be that we don't have to
follow what dead white guys from pre-1800 said! 

The original line, now in context, merely seems to argue the
"tragedy of the commons"! Since no ONE man has the right to use
up all the value in his property in his lifetime, so as to
deprive future inhabitants from enjoying it, EVEN LESS SO do the
WHOLE of men AS INDIVIDUALS (NOT as a collective class!) have
that right, and a "negative" right at that! THAT'S all he's
saying!

This has NOTHING to do with collective rights, rights of THE
People at all! He never MENTIONS THE People as a legal entity or
class! It merely says that what one man can't be allowed to do,
we can't, even more so, allow ALL MEN to do!

So, as usual, your out-of-context snippet, when reinserted into
its actual text, means nothing like you want it to, but
something completely different!

> >>    FREEMAN. One who is in the enjoyment of the right to do
> >>    whatever he pleases, not forbidden by law.  One in the
> >>    possession of the civil rights enjoyed by, the people
> >>    generally.
> >>
> >>  RSB: The right of the people guaranteed by the
> >>  constitution is possessed and enjoyed individually by
> >>  freemen.
> >
> >
> > You just contradicted yourself.
> >
> > ___________________
> >
> >
> > "The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
> > houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
> > and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall
> > issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
> > affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
> > searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
> >
> > That text, by contrast with the Fifth and Sixth Amendments,
> > extends its reach only to "the people." Contrary to the
> > suggestion of amici curiae that the Framers used this phrase
> > "simply to avoid [an] awkward rhetorical redundancy," Brief
> > for American Civil Liberties Union et al. as Amici Curiae
> > 12, n. 4, "the people" seems to have been a term of art
> > employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble
> > declares that the Constitution is ordained and established
> > by "the People of the United States." The Second Amendment
> > protects "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,"
> > and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide that certain
> > rights and powers are retained by and reserved to "the
> > people." See also U. S. Const., Amdt. 1 ("Congress shall
> > make no law ...  abridging ... the right of the people
> > peaceably to assemble") (emphasis added); Art. I, section 2,
> > cl.  I ("The House of Representatives shall be composed of
> > Members chosen every second Year by the People of the
> > several States") (emphasis added).  While this textual
> > exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that "the
> > people" protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First
> > and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are
> > reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a
> > class of persons who are part of a national community or who
> > have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this
> > country to be considered part of that community.
> >
> >
> > UNITED STATES v. VERDUGO-URQUIDEZ, 494 US 259 (1990)
> >
> > CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
> >
> >

-- 
Steven Krulick / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ellenville NY 12428-130727