Paul Begala complains about the fact that the 2nd Amendment was also intended to provide a check by the people against a tyrannical government. He then says, This notion -- that the Second Amendment gives citizens the right to fire upon federal officials, or their local police, or sheriffs or even U.S. military personnel -- is common among right wingers. It was common among the Founding Fathers - who initiated a revolution, who precisely shot at British officials, local police, and British military personnel in order to gain freedom from the yoke of the King. The actions of these men was summed up by Jefferson: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. It is true, that from a purely legalistic perspective, the Constitution doesnt say its ok to shoot the feds. It doesnt have to - everyone had the underpinning of the Declaration, and it in turn rested on a hundred years of development of the concepts of Natural Law. I am not encouraging anyone to start a war. But for leftists who so love the government, they have to understand that there does come a point where a great many people might think actions up to and including a shooting war are justifiable self-defense against a government that has aggrandized far more power to itself, that more routinely violates the rights of its citizens, than the King ever did. cnn/2014/10/24/opinion/begala-joni-ernst-gun-remark/index.html
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 04:26:18 +0000
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