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There Is No Constitutional Mandate for Fascism
(www.theatlantic.com)
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this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
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politics
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The 2nd amendment is not and was never meant to be a permission slip to use against the sitting US government, tyrannical or otherwise. This is a rhetoric, a myth, a deliberate misinterpretation that has spread far, but holds no basis is reality. It is absurd on the face of it.
The idea you are proporting is that there is a legal window for insurrection in the constitution so long as it is used in defense of a "free state" against a supposedly tyrannical administration. If such a legal window exists, it would mean that A) there are such times that violent overthrow of the government is sanctioned by said government, B) that any old member of a violent coup gets to determine that their actions are legal by their intent to secure a free state, and C) that if any semblance of the original government survives the coup attempt, that their hands are bound by the constitution and the attempted violent overthrowers can face no legal consequences. What's more, this supposed right will be upheld by the government that is, again, so tyrranical as to make it legal to destroy it at gunpoint. This is just patently foolish to believe.
Make no mistake. If you or anyone else attempts to or does use violent force against ANY form of the US government, you will be violently resisted, arrested or killed by that government. You will not be given any protection from the 2nd amendment for this, ESPECIALLY under a tyrranical administration. If you choose to take such action, just know that you do so under no protection under the law and you will either win, die trying, or spend the remainder of your life in prison. Those are the only outcomes. You will be inciting a civil war. Also if you do win, good luck creating a new stable government in a politically divided nation after a violent overthrow.
You do realize that the people who wrote the Second Amendment had literally just finished violently overthrowing their "rightful" government (the British monarchy), right?
And they did so illegally, as would anyone else that tries it now. I'm not saying there is no imaginable situation where insurrection isnt warranted, righteous, and even necessary. But it will never be legal. If you disagree, please explain how you imagine the 2nd amendment would protect insurrectionists that kill government officials, police, or soldiers.
So? The person upthread never claimed the Second Amendment makes insurrection "legal," only that it makes it possible by keeping the populace armed. Why are you making a strawman argument?
They are arguing that the fundamental purpose 2nd amendment is to allow the overthrow the sitting government. To make it a legally protected right of the citizenry to take back a supposedly tyrannical government by lethal force and war. That is false.
He never said anything like that. You're reading your own interpretation into it and then objecting to that.
How do you interpret all that if not that the 2nd amendment exists to overthrow/incite war with a tyrranical government?
It does exist to do that. To make it possible. But you kept arguing that it existed to make it "a legally protected right," which is a different thing.
How many times do I have to explain to you that "possible" and "legal" are not equivalent before you finally get it?
What is the purpose of the bill of rights in the constitution? To establish a set of legally protected rights. If the 2nd amendment exists, as they said, for this exact purpose, then it exists to give people that right. It doesn't. It was to allow small trained militias to be formed to protect the homefront from outside threats. Not to destroy the nation they had literally just formed.
Thank you. There was no real professional army when the 2nd Amendment and the Bill of Rights was drafted. The Continental Army was disbanded and the militias were where most of our fighting forces came from in the War for Independence. "You will find a gun behind every blade of grass". That is why the 2nd Amendment was drafted. "Well regulated" ment trained and prepared to fight.