Your constant appeasment to the socialists in the false hope of keeping your rights "a little while longer". Well the dividends are finally coming in on your failed plans. It has resulted in the dilution of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to the point that people are actually AGAINST the ideals the Founding Fathers and countless millions gave their lives for. You have no more excuses. No more "but if candidate x got in things would be worse", well your candidates even got in and it still is worse. The fabian socialists have won and you can thank yourselves for it.

July 4 festival-goers
                    lukewarm about Bill
                             of Rights


                      Only 11 of 232 recognized the
                   document they were asked to support

                 By Warren Bluhm
                 News-Chronicle

[url]www.greenbaynewschron.com/page.html?article=108692[/url]

                 Americans celebrated the nation's 225th birthday on
                 Wednesday without apparently having a firm grasp on
                 what we were celebrating.

                 In a survey taken during Green Bay's Celebrate
                 Americafest by the Libertarian Party of Northeast
                 Wisconsin, slightly less than 60 percent said they were
                 unwilling to support what the pollsters called the
                 Constitutional Rights Clarification Amendment.

                 The problem is that the "amendment" has already been
                 passed - more precisely, the 10 amendments of the Bill
                 of Rights, which were printed verbatim on the petition.

                 Eric Christianson, vice chairman of the local party, said
                 that only 11 of the 232 people who were surveyed
                 realized they were reading the amendments that
                 recognize freedom of religion, speech and the press,
                 the right to bear arms, protection against unreasonable
                 search and seizure, protection against
                 self-incrimination, and the other tenets of the Bill of
                 Rights.

                 Some people signed or declined without reviewing the
                 document very carefully, but most took the time to read
                 it through and ask questions about some of the issues,
                 he said.

                 "My favorite response is from the guy who declined to
                 sign saying, 'This would interfere with the judicial
                 system because there's a vagueness inherent to the
                 Constitution and this would make it black and white,'"
                 Christianson said.

(continued)

                 [B]The response that Christianson said was either the
                 scariest or the funniest was from a man who identified
                 himself as an off-duty police officer.

                 "He said he knows all about the Constitution because
                 he works with it every day," he said. "But then he
                 handed it back and said, 'I can't sign this - there are
                 portions of this with which I disagree.'" [/B]

                 Bob Collison, chairman of the Libertarian Party of
                 Wisconsin, said the results reflect his belief that
                 Americans are not very well-informed about what is
                 happening in politics.

                 "They'll parade in the name of freedom, but ask them
                 about these issues and they really don't come down on
                 the side of freedom," Collison said. "When you come
                 down to it, even during the Revolutionary War a
                 minority of people were involved in the fighting. It's
                 always a minority that makes the changes."

                 The Libertarian Party supports limited government,
                 personal responsibility and tolerance. The Northeast
                 Wisconsin chapter was organized recently; Its next
                 monthly meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday at
                 Gallagher's, 330 Reid St., De Pere.

Let's see this document the people were handed. Was it some piece of confusing drivel or was it the Bill of Rights word for word?


[IMG]http://www.mpz.co.uk/cwm/contrib/drowned/argue.gif[/IMG]

Already trying to make excuses????

Unfortunately, crying would be more appropriate. How about another revolution?

Haha another revolution? If the "lesser of 2 evils" crowd were in charge at Lexington Green, they would have offered to hand over all of the cannon to the British, as a "compromise" to let them keep their muskets a "little while longer".

As anyone that has been here very long knows I'm a retired police officers. But the off duty officer, if in fact he really was an officer, needs to be fired. There is no way to do the job without knowing and recognizing the BofR's when you see it.
I have serious reservations if he really was an officer. Most officer do not simply volunteer to a stranger in a crowd that they are a cop when they are off duty. When pressed I would tell people I was an insurance salesman and ask if they would like to buy a life policy. That would get rid of them every time.;)

IMB - you seriously need to GET SOME!

[bounce]

Maybe the reason Imbrog|io is right most all the time is because he is [b]NOT[/b] getting any...

Imbrog, I'm not quite sure what your point is.  It seems to be that we should vote libertarian.  If that is the case, you are right.

No offense, Imbrog|io, but who we do or do not vote for has no bearing on the subject of the article.  What the article proves is what I've been saying all along - we who understand what the Founding Fathers meant are too tiny a minority to affect any real change.  The populace of this country has become so dumbed-down, so apathetic, and so ignorant that anything we do to try to get them to understand what being an American is [blue]supposed[/blue] to be is met with scorn, disdain, ridicule, or simply ignored.  

[b]IT DOES NOT MATTER WHO WE VOTE FOR[/b].  Any candidate we would actively support [blue]cannot win[/blue] because what he or she would stand for would scare the pi** out of the media and the mindless drones who call themselves citizens.  So, we're left with trying to at least [i]slow[/i] the rate at which everything goes to hell in a handbasket.  At that, you must admit, Bush is a slightly better choice than Gore.

It took at least 50 years for the public to reach this level of imbecility.  That means it isn't only MY fault - it goes back to at least my parent's generation, if not before.  

Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" did indeed live through the Depression and W.W.II, but they also actively supported Social Security, Medicare, and (by and large) Equal Opportunity (which is merely discrimination by another name).  And they created the succeeding generations who believed that Uncle Sugar was the source of all solutions, rather than the source of most problems.

Who our President is would have no effect on the problem, either.  Even if we could, by some divine miracle, get a staunch advocate of the BoR elected President, Congress and the Supremes would hold him firmly in check.  You want to fix the system?  Fix it from the bottom up - and the mass of the public is the bottom rung.

And you just illustrated that the bottom rung is broken, too.

It was bad enough for the colonists to revolt againist a sorta hated King and England.

Now try revolting against a government you grew up with.

Ahhhh Chaingun, the British government was what the revolting colonist grew up with and many had even been born in jolly ol' England. But I do see your point.

[url]http://www.lewrockwell.com/dmccarthy/dmccarthy15.html[/url]

Conservative Anarchism

Even that is illegal now.
[url]www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2385.html[/url]

So would we be guilty of treason, sedition, and other subversive activities because of our opinions?

If so then were are still a far cry from the FF's.

It has been said that the American Revolution was never supported by more than one-third of the American colonists at any one time. The remaining two-thirds were equally divided between Tories and those timid souls waiting on the sidelines to see which other side would ultimately win.

Aren't you glad that the one-third of people who actually supported the Revolutionaries were not divided into the Hamilton Revolutionaries, the Adams Revolutionaries, the Washington Revolutionaries, and so forth??? Each such group pursuing their own objectives, with no common plan of action? 'Cause if they had been divided in such a manner, let's face it, we'd still be sending our Pounds and Crowns to London to be divied up by Parliament and the Queen.

So the Founding Fathers, in a phrase by Ben Franklin so well loved here, knew that they must hang together, or most assuredly, they would hang separately.

Not us, Baby!  We'd break off into separate parties at the first hint of setback. There would be no way we'd make concessions that might lead to cohesion and clarity of purpose
in our Revolution, it would be either our way or the highway! F*** compromise.

We worship at their shrines and unabashedly proclaim that if we had been then and there, we would have joined our beloved Washington at Valley Forge and endured that lonely, cold, and desolate Winter with him, without complaint one.

Bullsh|t, I say, a third of us would likely be selling our distilled grain alcohol to the British Quartermaster in Philadelphia. Others would be complaining that the Continental Congress was full of elite Virginians who did not know the worth of a honest day's work due to their peculiar institution of slavery. Still others would say that Gen. Washington is not much of a commander and that when he was gotten rid of, then and only then would we join up to serve our Country.

You can see all the parallels between the rifts back in those days and the rifts that are present in the RKBA movement today.

We have Libertarians, libertarian Republicans, conservative Democrats, Constitutionalists, Reform Party folks, and on and on, each claiming to be the true party, the last great hope of gunowners, the pure in spirit, the uncompromising, [i]ad nauseum[/i].

If we had the military genius of Lee & Jackson, we may be able to get away with dividing our forces in the face of a superior enemy, as they did at Chancellorsville, to the everlasting dismay of Hooker.  But even that greatness was lost that day in a misplaced volley by their own men.  [b]Jackson lost his left arm and ultimately his life; Lee lost his 'right arm' and ultimately the war.[/b]

What Lee & Jackson may have been able to do on that day by a division of their forces is a far cry from what we will be able to do by dividing our own forces in the face of an overwhelming and implaccable enemy that is just as dedicated to our destruction as Hooker's Army of the Potomac was for Lee's.

So go on and vote Libertarian, and divide our forces in the face of a great and common enemy.

I will continue to vote Republican, as long as that Party gives me a speck of hope that it is on the right path to safeguarding our freedoms.

Marse Robert may forgive me, if I've done wrong in supporting his former enemy, but millions of future Americans, deprived of their essential freedoms, might not.

Eric The(Come,LetUsReasonTogether)Hun[>]:)]  

i am definly not one of those lesser of 2 evil people evil is evil ure gonna get F*CKED either way so u might as well fight em

Post by Sweep -

I have a suspicion that Paul was simply being facetious with that remark about their dope policy.

I don't know about 'all those hemp fields' that the Founding Fathers were cultivating, but I will admit that drugs of any sort were simply NOT A PROBLEM in either Colonial America, or in the United States, for a long, long time.

Meriwether Lewis obtained ALL of the medicines he could from Dr. Benjamin Rush in Philadelphia
prior to embarking upon his expedition with Capt. Clark.  There were so few drugs and medicines available back then that the entirety of this 'pharmacy' was contained in a small traveling cabinet.  Opiates were the principal medicine in use in those days for a wide range of ailments, so the drugs available were pretty
stout, to say the least.

So if George Washington found some time to grow hemp, which, as all we know, is not necessarily
[i]Cannabis sativa[/i], but may just as likely be [i]Cannabis indica[/i], between fighting a civil war against a great power, presiding over a Constitutional Congress which blessed us with a Constitution such as ours, and serving as the President of the resulting nation, and to smoke that 'pernicious weed' for whatever purpose, I will be the last to criticize him for that.

If my children can do anything that approaches what Washington did during his lifetime, Hell, I'll buy them some pot, if they desire.

It's simply not an issue that pervades my thoughts or dictates my political pursuits.  If it does someone else's, then they should base their thoughts, desires, actions, philosophies, and life choices on that issue.  Live and let live, as they say.

But do you think for a moment that the Founding Fathers, if faced with the choices set before us, would necessarily choose legalization?

I simply don't know.  And I certainly don't know what it means for the Republic to have a future generation of children who are as zonked out as the current one seems to be.

Eric The('Course,That'sJustMyOpinion)Hun[>]:)]

Uh, Imbroglio, with all due respect and deference to your seniority in this forum.

Did you read AG John Ashcroft's Letter to the NRA?  If you haven't, please do. You may feel slightly better. He agrees with us 100% on the 2nd Ammendment. Contrast him with Janet Reno.

How can you say "your candidate got in and it still got worse"

We will get Constitutional Surpreme court Justices nominated.

It took 60 years or more for our country to slide this far into the $hitter, its not going to get better overnight.

BTW, I like the Liberterian platform, but you must agree that they could not have won in 2000.

So we must use all peaceful means at our disposal to defend the constitution now, rather than defending it by other means later.

In short, WE THE PEOPLE, have won a small battle.  Like Washington's victory over the Hessions, it will turn the tide if enough people are inspired to carry on the fight.  

Hope I havent pontificated out of turn, but I had to say something.

United We Stand

WE need to get politicians to "clean up thier act" before any serious change/reform can take place........washington has been corrupt so long, this will not likely ever happen...barring some major event such as a war or ACTUAL revolutionary action!

[center][/center]

Those that vote for the lesser of two evils are, IMHO, giving up liberty for the safety of not having to fight a war now, but hoping future generations will fight it for them.

[center][/center]

I just don't understand!  and I guess alot of others don't either.  This post is very disturbing to me.

What is being taught in schools today?  What was taught when you were in school?   Did they go over the Declaration and Constitution?  

Ask yourself this, can you remember the Bill of Rights from memory?  

Take a little poll yourself.  Go to your family, Mother, Father etc and see how many of the first 10 Amendments they can remember.  

It starts and ends with education.  

Well said, 7.

IMO, the public school system is the problem. In fact, it accounts for ALOT of the problems we face today.

But to blame Bush voters for the widespread ignorance of Americas founding principles is a bit shortsighted, IMO.

FYI - I DID NOT vote for Bush.

Post from Garandman -

I have always enjoyed and appreciated your views on all matters concerning our faith, and I understand that there must of been lots(?) of conscientious Christians who, for one reason of the other, chose not to vote for Mr. Bush.

Personally, however, it is a matter of faith for me.  I can't even imagine sufficient reasons for my not voting for a candidate that (1) could actually win, and (2) would sign a partial birth abortion ban as soon as it hits his/her desk.

Since Mr. Bush was the only candidate that fit these requirements, he got my vote and my family's votes.  BTW, he was my SECOND choice -
Alan Keyes was my FIRST!

Especially more so because of the flak that Mr. Bush took for making the statement that Jesus was the individual who made the greatest impact on his personal philosophy.    

We have been called upon to be as 'wise as serpents' in this present life, and told that 'he that is not against us is for us.'

In the matter of abortion, we don't need a Constitutional Amendment to ban abortion, it's already been banned for those who are Believers, anyway. We don't need more laws on this subject at all, for it has already been pronounced that 'anyone who offends one of these little ones....', well, you know the rest.

A house is on fire.  There are ten children trapped inside the house. You know that if you act, you will be able to save five of the children, but the remaining children will die. You fail to do anything, rationalizing that if you can't save all ten, you won't just save the five.

Well, our house is on fire. We don't have any candidates we agree with 100% on all issues.

We have some with whom we agree 95%, but they cannot, mathematically, be elected. Others are running with whom we agree on only 90% of the issues and they can win the election.

But since we can't have the 100%, or even the 95%, we either sit home, go fishing, or vote in such a manner that the opposing candidates, with whom we agree with on maybe 10% of the issues, will win.

If a politician comes up to me and says 'I'll vote pro-gun on every single issue that comes before Congress, I'll introduce legislation to repeal the 1986 Machine Gun Ban, the 1994 AW Ban, even the 1934 NFA!, but I won't support a constitutional amednment to ban abortion.'

I'd campaign for that weasel in a heartbeat and think that I'm doing the Lord's work.  I'll save the 'come to Jesus' speech for later.    

Ladies and Gentlemen, if we can't agree on a common course of action to prevent what we all know to be the ultimate goal of the anti-gun folks, I think that it very likely, one day, we will all be hanging separately. In the wind.

Eric The(ShowMeTheNumbers,I'llVote...)Hun[>]:)]

Eric my friend, vote your conscience and you shall be set free. Or at least get to wack some of the SOB's a little sooner!!

Eric -

Actually, THIS decision was not 'religious' in nature. Actually, it was logistical. I had JUST moved to SC, and the local registrar told me I hadn't been a resident of SC long enuf to be qualified to vote.

I'm a-wonderin' now if our local registrar is a Democrat. Hmmmmmmmm......

Bush has indeed taken a bold stand for Christ, and on a number of other issues for which I highly commend him.

Prior to the election, I was wondering who to voe for. From what I've seen of Bush thus far, I'll likely vote for hin in 2004.

I disagree with the Libertarian mindset. The battle CANNOT be won in a single election. Until someone as pro-gun as you or I are elected, I WILL take the lesser of two evils.

Militarily, its called a "strategic withdrawal." Some will call that a retreat. That's fine - it's a free country. But after eight years of Clinton, and the Bush Sr. weapons bans, we needed something to stop the bleeding. Shrub will do just fine for that.

In fact, I did NOT like Bush Sr. But Shrub ain't his daddy. Thankfully.

Your illustration with the house on fire is EXACTLY on point.

Ultimately,a  vote FOR Bush is a vote AGAINST the gun grabbers. Unfortunately, we live in an era when choices are not crystal clear when it comes to politics.

Note to self: time for some new speed reading classes.

Damn private schools.

[grenade]

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.

On page 1 of this topic, a link was presented that brought you to a site where you can read how it is illegal to try to "overthrow" (change? Abolish? Institute new?) the government.  This would seem to be in direct contradiction to the the Declaration of Independence.

Question: Is the Declaration of Independence a codified part of law, or just an expression of an old-fashioned idea?  Does the Declaration had any place in society today?

Just trying to make sense of it all.....

Think of the context of the Dec. of Ind.

They were "throwing off" an abusive gov't. As such, it didn't NEED to be codified law.

The Dec. of Ind. simply RECOGNIZES rights that exist over and above man made laws. Man made laws ONLY gain their power from the "consent of the goverened." When the "governed" no longer "consent" as the said man made gov't is abusing their (and I'll use this phrase) "God-given rights, then they are OBLIGATED to throw off that gov't.

Codification of rights that exist above and beyond man-made laws is REDUNDANT.

The democrats introduce legislation that the Library of Congress be burnt to the ground. The republicans in loud opposition introduce counter legislation phasing it in over 5 years.

Same thing everytime.

OK, another exmple -

Democrats want to execute me post haste.

Republicans want to execute me in five years.

I think I'll be voting Republican. Its called "buying time."

I think few here would argue that Repubs are perfect. I believe MOST here would agree that they are ONLY marginally better.

No offense, but you can keep dreaming of utopia, and we'll keep buying time by voting Republican. In the long run, BOTH approaches may be what is needed to save the Republic.

Just to stir the pot a little, what's the reaction to the US's remarks at the UN today? Could any libertarian (I am one) have stated better why the US would not go along with the UN Arms Proliferation Treaty?  If your'e confused, see the other thread about this very subject.

If Bush hadn't been elected, we would have just signed it.

No offense, but our elected representatives are exactly that.  The are representing the people who elect them.  Unless and until we can get the majority of voters to A)understand the system under which they are [blue]supposed[/blue] to be living, B)be responsible for themselves, and not dependent on Big Government (read: [i]independent[/i]) C)willing to do the [b]right[/b] thing, not the thing that gives them the most advantage....  The list goes on.  

The problem isn't the government, it's the governed.  We [red]let[/red] the government get that way.  We [red]voted[/red] those idiots into office (perhaps Imbrog|io's point).  My point was:  You and I aren't at fault, but you and I aren't the majority, either.  There aren't enough of us to [i]stop[/i] the downward slide.

The problem [b]cannot[/b] be fixed from the top down.  It [b]must[/b] be fixed from the bottom up, but our so-called educational system precludes this, and the social inertia of 50+ years is overwhelming.  Short of a major catastrophe, nothing is going to wake up Jane Q. Average.  And nobody in their right mind WANTS a major catastrophe.

I agree with the majority of whgat you said. personally, I have a litmus test for anyone I vote for - Are they staunchly pro-gun??

If they aren't, I don't care WHAT party they are in, they WILL NOT be getting my vote.




Well said. the solution is NOT readily apparent, and certainly will NOT happen in a single election cycle. . So I'll keep buying time....

Then you don't vote much, do you?  I can count the number of "staunchly pro-gun" politicians on one hand with fingers left over.  And NONE of them hold office.  They scare the peons.

I vote in every election.

But NO, I will NOT vote for anyone who is NOT pro-gun. If that means I NEVER vote again, then so be it.

If you are being executed you are a convicted felon and CANNOT VOTE. Is this one of those "if a rooster lays egg on the roof, which side will it roll off?" type of questions?

"Buying time" until the inevitable happens just so you can hand off problems to your children and grandchildren? Can't you see by reading the article what this type of mentality has brought to this country?

There is no such thing as Utopia. The founders never claimed that the limited Constitutional Republic that they created was ever Utopia either.

No my friend, some people can't see the obvious.  They are usually in denial, apathetic, or ignorant.

Do you guys still believe that there are two parties just because they have two names and they bicker?  The jokes on you!  [smoke]