The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

Milton Jackson · 04 Jul 2010, 00:06 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: miltonwjackson at gmail.com (Milton Jackson)
Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2010 20:06:19 -0400
Subject: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
In-Reply-To: <4C2FC210.5040606 at io.com>
References: <536855.45031.qm at web58204.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
	<152912.32332.qm at web50703.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<4C2FC210.5040606 at io.com>
Message-ID: <AANLkTild34MiI0fdm-LGB_p5sbCRXIF74gE_r2ke-sVJ at mail.gmail.com>

That would be a legitimate interpretation of the Second Amendment, Lee,
except for two things:

1) The Founders who wrote it that way didn't interpret it that way. I'd
imagine they would know since they wrote the thing.

2) The Bill of Rights was placed in the Constitution for the purpose of
protecting the people's liberties against the encroachments of the
government. It's hard to imagine how people who had just spent seven years
fighting a war largely with weapons they themselves owned would suddenly
say, "Well, you know, the government alone has the power to own weapons now.
You guys who have your own weapons need to hand them over." There's simply a
logical disconnect there.

A deconstruction of the 2nd Amendment's words--to my mind at
least--indicates it says exactly what the Founders meant it to say. A
well-regulated militia is necessary in the United States; hence, we have the
various branches of the armed forces. The right of the people to keep and
bear arms is not to be infringed. In other words, people are allowed to own
weapons. The 4th and 14th Amendments modify this and other rights from being
absolute by saying the government has the right to deprive individual
citizens of rights like life, liberty, and property after due process of
law. Nonetheless, viewed in terms of its wording, the context it was written
under, and the intent and interpretation of the Founders themselves, it
seems quite clear to me the 2nd Amendment is intended to protect the right
to own weapons of the populace fully as much as the 1st Amendment protects
the right to speech, press, peaceable assembly, and religion and the 5th
Amendment protects the right to avoid self-incrimination. All other rights
laid forth in the Bill of Rights are intended to protect individuals'
rights. There's no reason to believe the 2nd Amendment espouses anything
different.

On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 7:04 PM, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> wrote:

> On 7/3/2010 3:49 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
>> From: Marc Aramini<marcaramini at yahoo.com>
>>
>>
>> Of course Wolfe as an exmilitary man at the end of his seventh decade is
>>> going to have an affinity for
>>> weapons.
>>>
>>
> Eighth. While Wolfe was at one time a proto-millitary man in that he was a
> cadet at Texas A&M, he apparently found the jingoism and casual sadism
> sucked more than being a draftee.
>
>
> It's not "of course".  Ex-military people have all kinds of different
>> feelings.
>>
>
> Ditto former Marine and short story writer essay, Andre Dubus. His
> fictional "The Intruder" and nonfictional "Why I Gave Up My Guns" detail his
> ambivalent feelings about weapons.
>
>
> --
> Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
> IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
> < http://ieeetamut.org >
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