Questions for people like Judge Andrew Napolitano who say the Second Amendment means that people can assassinate tyrannical politicians
Questions
for people like Judge Andrew Napolitano who say the Second Amendment
means that people can assassinate tyrannical politicians:
"Then, was John Wilkes Booth within his right to have assassinated
Lincoln given that he said "sic semper tyrannus"? In other words,
Lincoln was a tyrant in Booth's opinion--was that legal justification
enough to have placed the Assassination within his Second Amendment
right?
Furthermore, does that make assassination a part of the
Second Amendment right? So that when anyone believes a politician to be
a "tyrant", they are justified in assassinating them?
How does that fit into a scheme of establishing justice as well as promoting domestic tranquility and the general Welfare?"
Pooch, how about posting what judge Napolitano actually said.
ReplyDeleteorlin sellers
But Orlin, Straw man arguments are so much more FUN!
Delete"The historical reality of the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms is not that it protects the right to shoot deer. It protects the right to shoot tyrants, and it protects the right to shoot at them effectively, with the same instruments they would use upon us. If the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto had had the firepower and ammunition that the Nazis had, some of Poland might have stayed free and more persons would have survived the Holocaust."
DeleteHmm, it seems my question appears to be a valid one.
You two are morons who like to talk, but basically have no concept of what your blather actually means.
Please try to answer the question and not make idiots of yourselves.
What in the hell does that have to do with Lincoln or Booth?
DeleteBut, to answer your question, Lincoln was Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces while the fighting continued, making him a legitimate military target.
There is absolutely nothing you can disprove about Napolitano's statement. Had the Poles been evenly matched with the same weapons
"SOME of Poland MIGHT HAVE stayed free and MORE persons would have survived the Holocaust." Prove that that is not true.
Aye yi yi.
orlin sellers
The Bielsky Partisans proved the judge's point regarding people being similarly armed. They used captured weapons and managed to preserve the lives of many jews by rescuing them, ambushing Nazis, and helping the rescued jews hide in the forests. Had they had more arms at the beginning, they would likely have saved more innocent lives and killed more Nazis.
DeleteAs for the questions you posed, I would first suggest we pick an easier case: Would you say that there would be a moral right for a German living under the Nazi Regime to assassinate Hitler even though he rose to power, at least in part, democratically?
If you don't think so, then by all means, say that the judge is full of crap. However, if you agree that it would be morally right to assassinate someone we can all agree is a true tyrant, then the only question that remains is one of the proper application of the principle.
Were you wanting to have that discussion? Or were you wanting to pick an example you knew nobody would argue for as a way of turning people against the idea that there could be a legitimate use of force against tyranny?
Tennessean engages in some really bad historical revisionism.
DeleteContrary to his belief, the Bielsky partisans weren't an offensive force. They were essentially fleeing the Nazis and as such wweren't really on the Nazis radar.
BTW, the Bielskis aligned themselves with the Soviets and actually ended up disarming Polish partisans fighting against Soviet domination.
Jade,
DeleteIf you look at my description, it mentions offensive and defensive actions. There was a little of both. And while they were not a large military force that made a huge difference in the outcome of the war, they were certainly on the Germans' radar--enough so that there were prices on their heads.
Your accusation regarding their helping the Soviets disarm Poles, and the related claims of their taking part in a massacre, may well be true. There are claims from both sides going both ways.
Were they foolish to join with the Soviets? Tactically? No. Morally? Yes. This is a flaw that we share with them--all the way to the point of selling out the Poles for a generation.
Were they wrong to help the Soviets massacre Poles? If they did take part in the massacre, then yes, unquestionably it was a terrible thing.
Regardless of their flaws, they and other partisans demonstrate that the judge was correct that if more people had possessed access to better arms, they might have done better against the Nazis.
What about the other question I asked, Jade? Would you agree that it would have been proper for Germans to fight back against the Nazis, up to the point of even trying to assassinate Hitler? Or was the regime correct to execute all of the participants in the plots against him?
Tyranny is in the eye of the beholder. Obama's Victory=Tyranny of the Moochers and Leftists ergo Conservatives are justified in taking up arms.
ReplyDeleteGold star for you!
DeleteYou seem to be the only person who is getting the point of this post.
Would you mind explaining it to the three morons who love to demonstrate the excessive level of ignorance?
Freedom is indeed dependent on the eye of the beholder. Some Americans cling furiously to the simian notion that the freedom to arm oneself precludes the right to live in a safe community. They ignore the Right to Civilian Disarmament inherent in any civilized society, and implicit in the U.S. constitution.
DeleteBut as always, you cannot underestimate the predictability of idiocy.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. … God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion; what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.“ — Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787
DeleteThat shows you how out of touch with the big picture the slave-owning misogynist Jefferson was.
DeleteMikeb, Jefferson had great ideas. That he didn't live up to them in every part of his life shows that he was human. The fact that you have no respect for what he did do shows that you are mean-spirited.
DeleteNot unlike Obama and his all whitey cabinet, I mean damn can't he get one brother on the entire cabinet....
Deletehttp://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/white-house-trots-out-women-advisors-latest-pic_694966.html
What a self loathing black man.....
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteDamn it, who let the brother in to O'bambi's rich white guy meeting didn't he get the memo the help stays out they might dirty the carpets!!!!
Deletehttp://m.newsbusters.org/sites/default/files/2012/Obama%20Cabinet%20113.jpg
I don't see anything specific about what a tyrant is, according to Judge Napolitano, so it's difficult to analyze what he means. I suspect that if we ever get to the level of tyranny intended in his comment, we won't have to debate the matter.
ReplyDeleteGreg, I haven't told you what a moron you happen to be.
Delete"There is a ghastly ahistoricity in these complaints against the antiquity of the Second Amendment. What very few understand is the power-relations of the progression of arms in the past five hundred years. In 1789, the flintlock musket was the "assault weapon" of its day. It was every bit as dangerous and menacing then as the AR-15 is now. Anyone who doubts this need only reflect upon the fact that civilians took their weapons into battle against the greatest military power in the world, and prevailed." Billy Beck
DeleteThat kinda proves the point, now doesn't it.
orlin sellers
Laci, you do love to make lots of unsupported statements. What does surprise me is that you came back to comment at all. Now, if you want to discuss the judge's remarks, how about showing us where he defines the term, tyrant.
DeleteHere's mine:
A tyrant is someone who exercises arbitrary and practically unlimited power over a population.
Good enough? If not, provide us your better answer. Then let's discuss what is morally appropriate as a response to tyranny. I don't mean what is tactically or strategically sound. Morality often runs contrary to those.
I'll be shocked again if you actually engage in this conversation, rather than flinging insults.
If you are genuine in your quest for morality, then you must accept that certain restrictions must be imposed on societies ability to inflict self-harm. You must understand that the very concept of freedom infringes on the rights of others and therefore must be extinguished. There is no other morally acceptable alternative to what you define as "tyranny". Morality is a concept that requires one to partake in a recourse appropriate to the given issue and era, a concept alien to the rantings of deranged prophets, bloodthirsty kings, or the words scribbled onto a 225 year old piece of ink-stained sheepskin.
DeleteMorality has to involve choice. If I'm not free to make moral decisions, morality is irrelevant. In a tyranny, there is no morality.
DeleteChoice? What a preposterous notion! That's why We are here.
DeleteWhy you are here? Accomplishing what? You haven't changed my mind. You haven't changed the circumstances of my life. You haven't changed my gun ownership or carry. In other words, you're a wanna-be and a troll. Get back to us when you can do something.
DeleteI think the tough-talking gun owners are already too late. If they won't stand for tyranny of any kind, why do they allow the government to wiretap people without warrants or detain people indefinitely or openly practice torture. Why haven't the true patriots already risen up and put a stop the the abuses?
ReplyDeleteMike,
DeleteThere's many possible answers to that. That they think they should have risen up but didn't from cowardice; that they have an insufficient understanding of liberty to see the true evil of these abuses you list (kinda like the blind spots of the founding fathers toward slavery); that they feel that the time to rise up against a particular abuse would have been when it was rammed through in the past, but that we lost the chance as we acquiesced to it; that they think that the system is still functional enough to keep trying to fight these things from within it rather than seeking to abolish it and set up a new system.
These are just a few answers to your question--I'm sure others could offer other reasons.
As I said above, I'm willing to have a discussion of these ideas, but first I'm curious if we're all even starting at the same point. Would you agree that circumstances exist wherein it is legitimate to use force against a tyrannical government?
"We the People" delegate power to government for the purpose of securing rights and a few other activities like facilitating domestic tranquility. If government uses it's power to harm citizens, then the first step is to hold government accountable through the courts. If the courts fail, then the only option left for "We the People" is to remove bad government with the minimum amount of force necessary.
ReplyDeleteNotice that I clearly stated three prerequisites before the use of force is justifiable.
(1) government is using its power to harm "We the People"
(2) courts did not stop bad government
(3) "We the People" (a large consensus) is necessary to remove bad government.
One person or a group of people who don't like government policy is not a justifiable reason to use force against government. It is justifiable reason to vote out bad government.
The bar for justifiable use of force against government has to be extremely high for several reasons that should be fairly obvious.
Here is some food for thought. Many people believe our government will meet that bar if government criminalizes citizen ownership of most firearms and goes door-to-door to confiscate them. The reasons that such action would meet the bar are:
(1) For government to now criminalize ownership of previously legal firearms is an ex-post facto law which the Constitution forbids.
(2) criminalizing citizen ownership of firearms violates the 2nd Amendment aside from the previous point
(3) government has no authority to confiscate property from people.
(4) door-to-door searches violate the 4th Amendment
(5) these policies would affect 10s of millions of citizens
(6) ... assuming "We the People" went to the courts and courts did nothing.
What I just described is a far cry from some person saying, "government agent Y is a dictator so I can go kill them."
Name calling and a refusal to answer questions is pretty common among people who occupy untenable positions. It is, after all, unpleasant to contemplate the possibility of being wrong.
ReplyDeleteThat's all we ever get from Laci or Dog Gone. They show up to smirk and then leave before the real discussion gets started.
Delete