Originally Posted by Marinerhodes

In closing I will ay this:

You can not literally interpret the Constitution. It was not intended to be interpreted literally. It is as much a rule book as it is guidelines to govern by.

You still have not told me why you feel it is better for a convicted felon to be killed or imprisoned for life for using a firearm rather than take away that right for a convicted felon to own one. We are talking convicted felons here. Not your every day Joe Schmoe. I am not talking about the rights of the law abiding citizen to own a firearm.

Do you feel that way about the 2nd Amendment, 4th Amendment, 5th, 6th, 7th, or maybe you think the 8th is "just a guideline"?

I say it is you should be able to torture people screw the 8th amendment

What enforcement powers does the Constitution have? When's the last time a piece of paper ever actually enforced anything or granted anything?? REALITY CHECK, the only "rights" you have are the ones the person or persons with power over you extend to you. If the government decides to revoke any right what exactly can you do? The Patriot Act stripped people of a myriad of rights and what did people do? They swallowed it. A bunch of impotent wailing and swallowing. And what did the Constitution do? It sat in its glass case and continued to decompose at a techonologically restricted rate... ie NOTHING. When the government decides you no longer have a right it doesnt matter what you or I think or what the Constitution says. The American people love to wail and bitch and moan and complain but fall short of ever doing anything about ANYTHING. The status quo is maintained by the power of the government and the people, fat and content in their debt and suburban lifestyle, drop trou and grab ankle. There is a ton of crap going on very clearly unConstitutional, the IRS for example. People bitch and moan about it every year but no one does anything about it... oh its April... BOHICA!

Someone pissed in someone's cereal

Yes I had a big bowl of Truth and Reality Crunch, shite flavoured.

Originally Posted by Gator

That you view Firearm ownership by the Civilian population of the United States of America as a privilege extended by the Federal Government and not a Right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States is, once again, all I was after.

Once again you did not comprehend my argument. Re-read it. Better yet get a few friends to read it with you and perhaps they can see what I was saying.

You keep saying I am referring to the population at large. Open your eyes and look at where I tie that statement to Convicted Felons and the power of the Judiciary Branch.

I do not see anything wrong with taking the right to own a firearm away from a conviced felon. According to the preamble that is the job of the government "to insure domestic tranquility"

I do not want the 2nd amendment right to be infringed upon by the government in regards to your average,everyday, law-abiding citizen that has no felony record. Perhaps that will make it a bit more clear for you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Marinerhodes
In closing I will ay this:

You can not literally interpret the Constitution. It was not intended to be interpreted literally. It is as much a rule book as it is guidelines to govern by.

You still have not told me why you feel it is better for a convicted felon to be killed or imprisoned for life for using a firearm rather than take away that right for a convicted felon to own one. We are talking convicted felons here. Not your every day Joe Schmoe. I am not talking about the rights of the law abiding citizen to own a firearm.

Originally Posted by Donkey

Do you feel that way about the 2nd Amendment, 4th Amendment, 5th, 6th, 7th, or maybe you think the 8th is "just a guideline"?

I say it is you should be able to torture people screw the 8th amendment

Donkey: Your newest post is not an argument but a series of seemingly rhetorical questions that are inflammatory to say the least.

Also Donkey: You took part of my post out of context to make your own arguments seemingly valid. Try to include the entire post to save others the time of having to scroll up and change pages just to realize how silly your rebuttal sounds.

Perhaps more later, I have to get to work.

Originally Posted by Marinerhodes

Once again you did not comprehend my argument. Re-read it. Better yet get a few friends to read it with you and perhaps they can see what I was saying.

You keep saying I am referring to the population at large. Open your eyes and look at where I tie that statement to Convicted Felons and the power of the Judiciary Branch.

I do not see anything wrong with taking the right to own a firearm away from a conviced felon. According to the preamble that is the job of the government "to insure domestic tranquility"

I do not want the 2nd amendment right to be infringed upon by the government in regards to your average,everyday, law-abiding citizen that has no felony record. Perhaps that will make it a bit more clear for you.

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Donkey: Your newest post is not an argument but a series of seemingly rhetorical questions that are inflammatory to say the least.

Also Donkey: You took part of my post out of context to make your own arguments seemingly valid. Try to include the entire post to save others the time of having to scroll up and change pages just to realize how silly your rebuttal sounds.

Perhaps more later, I have to get to work.

Silly it sounds, you said the Constitution was not to be taken literally and I simply asked if you thought that for the entire post or not, if anyone is twisting what they say it is you my friend for I can not see how I twisted what you said about using the constitution as a guideline. Furthermore how did I take your post out of context when I took your entire conclusion?

It seems apparent that you only feel it should be taken literally on everything except the 2nd Amendment.

Originally Posted by Donkey

Silly it sounds, you said the Constitution was not to be taken literally and I simply asked if you thought that for the entire post or not, if anyone is twisting what they say it is you my friend for I can not see how I twisted what you said about using the constitution as a guideline. Furthermore how did I take your post out of context when I took your entire conclusion?

It seems apparent that you only feel it should be taken literally on everything except the 2nd Amendment.

Any way that you want to look at it, any way you wish to skew my words to suit your purposes, the fact remains that the Supreme Court has the final say on how to interpret and apply the Constitution and what laws to set forth that may or may not be deemed unsconstitutional without having to ratify an entirely new amendment. This is supported many times over by cases presented to the Supreme Court over the past couple hundred years.

Do some research of your own and bring some facts from reputable sources to the discussion table to refute what I say instead of trying to interpret my ideas and/or beliefs to suit what you want other to think I am trying to say.

As for taking my post out of context you did not include the statements that I referenced in previous posts and included only half of the entire post.

Here are some examples of how the Supreme Court can interpret and set down laws in direct conflict with the Constitution.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/wb...eme_cases.html

Originally Posted by Marinerhodes

Any way that you want to look at it, any way you wish to skew my words to suit your purposes, the fact remains that the Supreme Court has the final say on how to interpret and apply the Constitution and what laws to set forth that may or may not be deemed unsconstitutional without having to ratify an entirely new amendment. This is supported many times over by cases presented to the Supreme Court over the past couple hundred years.

Do some research of your own and bring some facts from reputable sources to the discussion table to refute what I say instead of trying to interpret my ideas and/or beliefs to suit what you want other to think I am trying to say.

As for taking my post out of context you did not include the statements that I referenced in previous posts and included only half of the entire post.

Here are some examples of how the Supreme Court can interpret and set down laws in direct conflict with the Constitution.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/wb...eme_cases.html

I have not skewed any of your posts, perhaps you just dont like what you wrote. So yes let's talk facts let's use reputable sources, how about the Supreme Court:

When the Supreme Court rules on a constitutional issue, that judgment is virtually
final; its decisions can be altered only by the rarely used procedure of constitutional
amendment or by a new ruling of the Court. However, when the Court interprets a statute,
new legislative action can be taken.

They do not have the power to change the Constitution or the ultimate final say (granted what they say is pretty powerful) this would nullify the checks and balances that where put into place, they can only interpret what is brought to them on a case by case process. They can not simply say I want to interpret the 2nd Amendment today. Even when they do interpret it it is only to make sure that current legislation does not violate it, they do not change the Constitution and they most certainly do not produce any laws or as you put it "set down laws".

Have a read through this
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/constitutional.pdf

I simply had a problem with your comment made about how the Constitution was only a guideline and not to be taken literally, you apparently didn't like it when I said then we should not take literally any of the other 10 Amendments that make up the Bill of Rights. Or for that matter the rest of it which describes the branches of government and what powers they, I would say it is far from a guideline.

Finally here is a site that discusses the only 5 cases to ever be brought about involving specifically the interpretation of the Second Amendment:
http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndsup.html

Originally Posted by Marinerhodes

Once again you did not comprehend my argument. Re-read it. Better yet get a few friends to read it with you and perhaps they can see what I was saying.

You keep saying I am referring to the population at large. Open your eyes and look at where I tie that statement to Convicted Felons and the power of the Judiciary Branch.

I do not see anything wrong with taking the right to own a firearm away from a conviced felon. According to the preamble that is the job of the government "to insure domestic tranquility"

I do not want the 2nd amendment right to be infringed upon by the government in regards to your average,everyday, law-abiding citizen that has no felony record. Perhaps that will make it a bit more clear for you

No, I unlike you can read and comprehend, and.... read and comprehend quite well.
You Posted that the US Constitution does not mean what it says......

Originally Posted by Marinerhodes

You can not literally interpret the Constitution. It was not intended to be interpreted literally. It is as much a rule book as it is guidelines to govern by.

....and that the US Supreme Court writes US Law

Originally Posted by Marinerhodes

The Judiciary Branch is part of the United States Government(Supreme Court and all), thus the you have the judiciary power of the Supreme Court to make laws that might conflict with the letter of the Constitution but is in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution. This spirit of the Constitution is represented in the preamble:

but then you also posted that in effect you never knew much about the US Constitution before you started this Thread.

Originally Posted by Marinerhodes

Considering that the Constitution was supposed to be a standalone document I would say 27 is a very large amount.

Originally Posted by Donkey

I have not skewed any of your posts, perhaps you just dont like what you wrote. So yes let's talk facts let's use reputable sources, how about the Supreme Court:

They do not have the power to change the Constitution or the ultimate final say (granted what they say is pretty powerful) this would nullify the checks and balances that where put into place, they can only interpret what is brought to them on a case by case process. They can not simply say I want to interpret the 2nd Amendment today. Even when they do interpret it it is only to make sure that current legislation does not violate it, they do not change the Constitution and they most certainly do not produce any laws or as you put it "set down laws".

Have a read through this
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/constitutional.pdf

I simply had a problem with your comment made about how the Constitution was only a guideline and not to be taken literally, you apparently didn't like it when I said then we should not take literally any of the other 10 Amendments that make up the Bill of Rights. Or for that matter the rest of it which describes the branches of government and what powers they, I would say it is far from a guideline.

Finally here is a site that discusses the only 5 cases to ever be brought about involving specifically the interpretation of the Second Amendment:
http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndsup.html

Ok time to concede a point or two to you. I was not so much ignorant as blinding myself to the fact that Congress makes the law. I was thinking of Roe vs Wade and a few other cases I had read where the Supreme Court made decisions and had not viewed them from the perspective you presented to me in this latest post.

I will agree that the Constitution is not "just" a guideline to go by. But you must admit that if you follow the letter of the constitution as written then you would (in this day and age) have to practically ignore the Preamble when it states "promote the general welfare" and "insure domestic tranquility" if you allow people to do something "Becasue it is a Constitutional Right" when that very same right may be to the detriment of many people.

As for the rest of the bill of rights, at least present arguments to refute my statements instead of submitting, in my opinion, rhetorical and inflammatory questions.

Donkey I thank you for helping edumacate me. I think I am done with this debate. My arguments are as posted above with the exception of my thinking the Supreme Court made law.
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As for you Gator, you can't even stay and finish one debate before you start another. Logic can go in leaps and bounds to come to a conclusion but to make sure all follow your logic and understand your version it is best presented in a linear form.

What you and I have is a difference of opinion. Let us agree to disagree.