On the meaning of the militia clause, and its interpretation in Heller...

We've been asked to move this discussion from this thread to a new one. This is the new thread. I'm going to simply continue the discussion from where it left off.

Brooklyn said:

Just not true.. as a matter of plain logic the militia clause does not need to distribute over the entire set of arms.

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Nor am I arguing that it does. However, one cannot argue that it does not add to the set of arms that the 2nd Amendment protects. It most certainly does. Namely, it adds those arms which are necessary for the militia to be "well regulated" (i.e., operating properly, which of necessity must mean capable of performing its function, which is to prevail against a government gone rogue).

If they did not even bother to set a standard of review you can be assured that these musing are very preliminary and mostly intended to show that no contradiction currently exists.. The court really could read the militia clause out of the Constitution, by deciding that it is not an operational clause ( like the preamble ) or it could find that it protects the right to form militias ( which as I said MD law explicitly prohibits ) .

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My argument here is that the wording in Heller all but directly says they are reading the clause out of the Constitution. Why else directly claim that the fit between the prefatory clause and the commandment clause can legitimately be "poor"?

To ignore these possibilities and declare that a contradiction exists, or must exists is way over-broad. At best the court might contradict itself , or it could read the militia clause as a non operational clause. Yes they really can do that.

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Not only can they do that (read the militia clause as a non operational clause), my argument is that they already have.

I have now, twice, given not one but two real reasons for the militia clause, which are still valid even given a standing army. -- " the right form militias and to train in group tactics" which presently is infringed my at least the state of MD, thereby validating the founders concerns,independent of the concerns over a standing army.

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You cannot make this claim without simultaneously claiming that the founders were not capable of saying what they meant. If the founders wanted to directly protect the right to form militias without also protecting its right to the arms needed to prevail against a government gone rogue, they would have explicitly protected such a right separately.

No, the militia clause exists as part of the 2nd Amendment. It is inseparable from it. Hence, reading it in such a way as to yield no protection of arms is to render its effects null, for its effects are in the context of the protection of arms.

Your claim that the court must give operational weight to non operational clauses is suspect,the more so given you view of the court, as shall we say a "sub-logical " committee that does whatever it pleases. That you expect the court to itself to such a high standard is , to barrow a term "startling".

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That claim is not mine, it is that of Marbury v Madison. All clauses in the Constitution must be given operational weight by the courts unless the text itself requires otherwise. That is directly what Marbury v Madison said.

Marbury v Madison said more than that. I urge you to read that decision. It talks about the reasons for treating the Constitution in that manner, among other things.

All in need to counter your claim is show in addition to the manifest fact that court can an will do as it pleases , is point out that they are no where near done, and that there is at least one way to give operational weight to the Militia clause tht does not force a contradiction, let alone one that the court would be troubled by .

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But you cannot do so without breaking apart the 2nd Amendment, and thus defying the intent of its authors.

Here you claim far too much. The founders were not logical either, and the original text is full of real contradictions and unfinished work -- to argue that they achieved perfection and we blew it is plain foolish.

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Oh, believe me, I do not argue that they achieved perfection. Not by a long shot, and if you've read what I've written in the past, you'd know that I have major bones to pick with them about what they've set up.

Nor do I argue that they were terribly faithful in adhering to the very instrument they created (else, we would not have seen the Alien and Sedition Acts).

Rewrite the constitution in first order logic -- have you tried? -- I claim it can't be done. Apply game theory to " checks and balances " -- does it satisfy the constraint of preventing accumulation of power -- how ? I claim the Constitution was always broken and we are only now suffering from its faults.

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I haven't tried that, but I'm awfully tempted, as it sounds like an interesting exercise if nothing else.

Start writing your own-- we will need to do a lot of fixing at the con con -- assuming we do not just crash and burn.. I summit that no nation faced with the challenge of the cold war, would have fared any better ---

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That is certainly a possibility.

Start working on the solutions -- knowing the weak spots , and armed with game theory, we may do better this time -- or not..

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The main problem is that "doing better" requires that those who are tasked with implementing what is in the Constitution (be it the current one or the future one) be in some way faithful to it. But in the end, it really is just a piece of paper, one that conveys ideas. It is on those who read it to faithfully implement those ideas. I can write the most explicit instruction manual in the world, but only the desire to see the outcome the instructions were intended to generate can compel an individual reader to actually follow those instructions faithfully.

I still get a kick out of people who believe that the 2A simply recognizes a Citizen's Natural, God-given Right to keep and bear arms...in the service of a militia...for the purpose of exactly what? Protecting the Government?

I don't think that God put us on this Earth to protect our Government, but Liberals seem to think so.

Rule #1 should be to stop labeling the left as "liberal". The only thing they are liberal about is recklessly spending other people's money.

I had this argument with someone on facebook. Many liberals refuse to recognize even grammer.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." (this version is the one that is preserved in the national archives)

Look at the grammar specifically. The second amendment is saying

A well regulated militia AND (the comma) being necessary to the security of a free State AND (the comma) the right of the people to keep and bear Arms , (END COMMA) shall not be infringed

The grammar alone shows that the "militia clause" is a bunch of crap. The end portion (shall not...) is the same thing like me saying

Jonathan, the guy with the III logo, is a really cool guy.

Grammatically it is saying all of this is included in the sentence.

Its very simple, I do not understand how it can be argued even by a grammatical stand point.

The other version which was ratified by the state is even more clear

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

IMHO, I think you are all missing the point by arguing semantics. Gun owners are viewed as a potential danger to the federal bureaucracy, insofar as they provide a, however minor, threat in case of civil unrest. And it doesn't matter what is right, what it really says in the COTUS or what the founders really intended. The bureaucracy that is the federal gov't, will, with any type of verbal or mental gymnastics no matter how extreme, find a way to justify the authority to do what it really wants to do, which is anything and everything to protect itself.

The way the interstate commerce clause in the Constitution is used by the legislative branch and approved by the SCOTUS goes far beyond any real intent. It just goes to show how the Govt can and will jump through any hoops necessary to justify doing what it really wants to do anyway.

Rob

I just lost my detailed response...damn phone.

Short version logic and law never meet. Can't be done.

I gave you several ways to give the militia clause operational force any one of which could represent the mythical intent of the founders whose minds even if we could poll them today would likely not be unanimous ., nor even less likely the legislatures of the several states.

And the court should it be so troubled as to care, assuming it even has the logical skill to notice any contradiction it will happily explain them away. Our job is help them do so in away most favorable to us.

That is the definition of victory, thats all we get.

Want more -- roll the dice for a con con....but know we may do worse.

Our generation of. the lawyering class are even less skilled in logic.

We don't need nor want a constitutional convention. There's nothing wrong with the one we have now. We just need to follow it. What happens if we get a convention is the media saturates everything and then we end up worse than what we have now.

Brooklyn said:

I just lost my detailed response...damn phone.

Short version logic and law never meet. Can't be done.

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Oh yes it can. To claim otherwise is to claim that no legal decisions are ever logical, a claim which is oft contradicted.

No, the problem is quite simply that logic is not mandatory for use in crafting legal decisions (or the law itself, for that matter). The legal system is really nothing more than another form of the exercise of power, and those within it are no different than their legislative counterparts in their desire to exercise power even if doing so comes at the expense of the citizenry (indeed, I would argue that most exercises of power come at the expense of the citizenry by definition, as the exercise of power means exerting control over others, which by definition means usurping their liberty).

I gave you several ways to give the militia clause operational force any one of which could represent the mythical intent of the founders whose minds even if we could poll them today would likely not be unanimous ., nor even less likely the legislatures of the several states.

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But none of those ways have a connection to the commandment clause. They are void in the context of the 2nd Amendment.

And the court should it be so troubled as to care, assuming it even has the logical skill to notice any contradiction it will happily explain them away. Our job is help them do so in away most favorable to us.

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The evidence is quite clear that the court rules the way it wishes to, any "help" from any parties be damned.

Put another way, the arguments we put forth in front of the court are necessary only to cover the (perhaps rare) case where the court is actually interested in hearing those arguments, as opposed to having made up its mind in advance.

That is the definition of victory, thats all we get.

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Well, then, in that event I think we can indeed legitimately claim that the republic is dead and buried for good, because that form of "victory" merely slows our advance towards tyranny.

Want more -- roll the dice for a con con....but know we may do worse.

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That goes without saying. Indeed, I would take it further, and say that not only may we do worse, but we are likely to do worse. But "worse" is already the direction we're heading, even with the "victories" we're getting. Meaning, "worse" is a certainty if we do not employ a con con.

Hence, if we're to actually reverse the course, we have to do more than merely get an occasional "victory", and hence, as the only remaining peaceful option available, rolling the dice via a con con is not only a possible means of achieving that, it is a necessary means of achieving it. Fail that, and all that's left is civil war, and that has an even lower chance of success than a con con.


It is not without damned good reason that I believe we are reverting to the historical mean as regards liberty, and that the odds of avoiding the abyss of tyranny are slim indeed. This is almost certainly going to hurt, and bad, for a really long time (centuries).

Our generation of. the lawyering class are even less skilled in logic.

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That much is quite clear.

Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski on TownHall.com -

Liberal Supreme Court Justice Talks Candidly about Rewriting the Constitution

{Retired} Justice Stevens dissented from both the {Heller and McDonald SCOTUS} decisions, and would add these words about the militia to create the opposite result.

“the right of the people to keep and bear arms when serving in the militia shall not be infringed.”

But what is the militia anyways? The Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. What did the American people think it referred to regarding the militia?

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As the Supreme Court explained in Heller, the reference to a “militia” is called a “prefatory clause,” which helps explain the meaning of what comes later (called the “operative clause”), but never narrows the reach of the later clause. The operative clause in the Second Amendment is “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

So the “militia” reference does not narrow the scope of the right to bear arms. Not only that, but the Supreme Court also explored all the other terms, explaining that this clause refers to the ability of an armed citizenry able to protect the nation against both foreign invaders and a tyrannical federal government, if any president would attempt to use the military to take over the whole nation. “Well regulated” in 1791 meant well-armed and proficient. The “militia” was the full body of law-abiding citizens. And “necessary to the security of a free state” meant that having such a well-armed citizenry was necessary to keep America free.

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In each of these issues when he {Stevens} lost, the majority opinion spent many pages exploring the original meaning of those constitutional provisions, and the justices ruled the way they did because it was clearly what the Framers meant. For example, private gun ownership was clearly regarded as a fundamental right in 1791, and organizations had unlimited rights to speak out on candidates and issues during elections.

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Stevens' six changes would grant unlimited power to the state as opposed to the purpose of LIMITING it's power for which the Bill of Rights (including 2A) was created ... even limits on freedom of speech, but ...

Wordy posts, wordy thread...

It was my understanding reading Heller that the militia=the people, and the people=the entire citizenry.

kcbrown said:

Oh yes it can. To claim otherwise is to claim that no legal decisions are ever logical, a claim which is oft contradicted.

No, the problem is quite simply that logic is not mandatory for use in crafting legal decisions (or the law itself, for that matter). The legal system is really nothing more than another form of the exercise of power, and those within it are no different than their legislative counterparts in their desire to exercise power even if doing so comes at the expense of the citizenry (indeed, I would argue that most exercises of power come at the expense of the citizenry by definition, as the exercise of power means exerting control over others, which by definition means usurping their liberty).


But none of those ways have a connection to the commandment clause. They are void in the context of the 2nd Amendment.


The evidence is quite clear that the court rules the way it wishes to, any "help" from any parties be damned.

Put another way, the arguments we put forth in front of the court are necessary only to cover the (perhaps rare) case where the court is actually interested in hearing those arguments, as opposed to having made up its mind in advance.


Well, then, in that event I think we can indeed legitimately claim that the republic is dead and buried for good, because that form of "victory" merely slows our advance towards tyranny.


That goes without saying. Indeed, I would take it further, and say that not only may we do worse, but we are likely to do worse. But "worse" is already the direction we're heading, even with the "victories" we're getting. Meaning, "worse" is a certainty if we do not employ a con con.

Hence, if we're to actually reverse the course, we have to do more than merely get an occasional "victory", and hence, as the only remaining peaceful option available, rolling the dice via a con con is not only a possible means of achieving that, it is a necessary means of achieving it. Fail that, and all that's left is civil war, and that has an even lower chance of success than a con con.


It is not without damned good reason that I believe we are reverting to the historical mean as regards liberty, and that the odds of avoiding the abyss of tyranny are slim indeed. This is almost certainly going to hurt, and bad, for a really long time (centuries).


That much is quite clear.

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Look logic has a very specific meaning -- it does not mean reasonable -- it means formal logic nothing else can ever achieve the precision necessary to even create a well formed expression.

Also wrong. The structure of the clause in English doe not require any connection at all -- this is a simple fact about English , and one which disqualifies it for use in logical discourse.

1. A fine day, I walked Home.

2. As it was fine day , I walked home.
3. Because it was a fine day, I walked home.

4. I walked home.

The only thing that is true about all these statement is that I walked home.

Only 3 states a reason.

Now consider

1. Bill being a nice guy , I walked home.

2. Bill being an ass, I walked home.

To a logical analysis 1 an 2 are identical. there is simply not enough information to know if there is a causal relationship

This is not opinion -- this is textbook -- its called " informal reasoning " in the discipline of Philosophy -- and before you laugh it Philosophy, that is western Philosophy is the father of every intellectual discipline there is.

Now Any logical analyst of test must follow certain rules. Many are similar to the formal rules of syntactic logic but to use them you must make decision about how to parse English. It is well established that lists such as A and B and C and D are written as A,B,c and D. It follows my substitution postulate that ', ' = and . And is the logical conjunction

thus

Billl was an ass, I walked home. becomes
Bill was an ass and I walked home.

Now

A= "bill was an ass" Predicate
B = "I walked home" predicate

Now A and B is B never = A causes B

Never


To claim otherwise is to violate both English syntax and also the laws of logic in one go.. and gives you at best correlation never causality .


This real is not opinion. , is and it is never because if it were then they would say Because.

The court knowing the history of the natural right got one right ..

Now

using , as and there is no connection, nor should there be as the natural right exists on its own and is in now way dependent on the militia clause or even the constitution.

The desire to find any connection between the clauses is an error, but I concede one the court is likely to insist upon exactly because they really have no training in formal logic.

Now if the only connection is conjunctive no conflict exists.

This is how it actually parses to a logician

3 perdicates
1. Milias are necessary to the security of free state ( premise
2. There exist a natural right of self defense ( premise
3. Militias require an armed population ( definition of militia
4. We desire to protect the security of a free state ( premise )

5. Therefore we wish to specify specifically that the natural right of self defense needs to be protected


Now That really is all that we can derive from the text.. anything else is speculation ,



It is because you are looking to confirm your bias that you insist on ignoring what they actually said ( both the founders and the courts ) and read in what you think they should have said )

Really you are .. As an exercise rewrite the 2a as would want it to read -- see how many additional predicates you need to get it done.

What you see above is the minimal interpretation-- the very least 'reading in' the bedrock -- there may be more -- hell I gave you a fuller interpretation of the Militia clause before .

The court is not require, and is not going to read in more than is there -- unless we convince it -- babbling about some kind of right to revolution will not do.. the Founders gave us the con con process not a push here for civil war button


And while we are having fun can you parse the elastic clause to be anything meaningful... what the hell is "necessary and proper " -- sounds like if you think we forgot anything just got to town -- Constitution what constitution ??

trickg said:

Wordy posts, wordy thread...

It was my understanding reading Heller that the militia=the people, and the people=the entire citizenry.

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Yes this is inside baseball and a half KCs concern is that the Militia clause, since it can be removed with out changing the meaning, is moot, and under the rules the court normally uses for interpretation that's an error , and thus the court is wrong even though its right..

We are arguing over angles on pinheads -- unless the court really has no clue what they did and suddenly reads kcbrowns post and reverses at the next opportunity


I think we are ok however

EL1227 said:

Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski on TownHall.com -

Liberal Supreme Court Justice Talks Candidly about Rewriting the Constitution







Stevens' six changes would grant unlimited power to the state as opposed to the purpose of LIMITING it's power for which the Bill of Rights (including 2A) was created ... even limits on freedom of speech, but ...

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Stevens is a cluster f,,k . I can say that because Stevens has not yet turned his addled mind to the first amendment.


I am ready for the CON CON -- Stevens is not ..

The militia is not the National Guard. The National Guard is a State entity that ultimately answers to the Federal government, as we have seen them called up so many times for OIF and OEF over the past 13 or so years now. The militia is the collective composition of everyday citizens. John Smith the carpenter on main street, Joe Schmoe the farmer in the country, etc. And so for the militia (us) to be capable, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

moojersey;3286221[B said:

]The militia is not the National Guard. The National Guard is a State entity that ultimately answers to the Federal governmen[/B]t, as we have seen them called up so many times for OIF and OEF over the past 13 or so years now. The militia is the collective composition of everyday citizens. John Smith the carpenter on main street, Joe Schmoe the farmer in the country, etc. And so for the militia (us) to be capable, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

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And how .. its not a state organisation at all


http://www.nationalguard.com/?cid=2014paidmediato95_bn-fy14paidme15691_web_20140210

©2014 UNITED STATES ARMY NATIONAL GUARD

Its a branch of the US army guys --

Exactly...the federal govt deployed national guard to serve in Iraq/ Afghanistan; US Army National Guard. Militia as said is us, we, them as collective citizens within the borders of our states. Every county within a state should have a civilian militia which trains regularly and the collective counties should train bi-annually with no restriction to age or gender. It could be similarly set up the way Emergency Disaster Drills are done.

Brooklyn said:

Look logic has a very specific meaning -- it does not mean reasonable -- it means formal logic nothing else can ever achieve the precision necessary to even create a well formed expression.

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Yes, and that is the meaning I'm using. But the use of formal logic does not require use of formal logic notation, only that its methods are adhered to.

Also wrong. The structure of the clause in English doe not require any connection at all -- this is a simple fact about English , and one which disqualifies it for use in logical discourse.

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That may be strictly true, but remember the context here: an Amendment to the Constitution. To claim, as you implicitly are here, that the prefatory clause is entirely disconnected from the commandment clause is to claim that the authors of the Bill of Rights weren't able or willing to plainly say what they meant.

If you insist that the two clauses have no connection to each other, then you must explain why they were not placed into separate Amendments, or separated by an explicit grammatical structure as was used in the First Amendment.

This real is not opinion. , is and it is never because if it were then they would say Because.

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That is true if they were using modern English. They were not. They were using the language of the period. So you have to analyze the passage in that context, not in the context of modern English.

And even if you were correct here, there's still the pesky fact that if the authors wished to keep protection of militia rights completely separate from the right to keep and bear arms, they would have used a separate Amendment for the purpose, or used a construct like that found in the First Amendment.

This is how it actually parses to a logician

3 perdicates
1. Milias are necessary to the security of free state ( premise
2. There exist a natural right of self defense ( premise
3. Militias require an armed population ( definition of militia
4. We desire to protect the security of a free state ( premise )

5. Therefore we wish to specify specifically that the natural right of self defense needs to be protected


Now That really is all that we can derive from the text.. anything else is speculation ,

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That is correct, but in the above, you are stating the correct predicates in 1-4, and the correct proposition in 5. And that is precisely the correct way to read the 2nd Amendment.

But note that the logical construct here has logical implications, among them being that the right to keep and bear arms cannot properly be limited in such a way as to violate the stated purposes in question.

It is because you are looking to confirm your bias that you insist on ignoring what they actually said ( both the founders and the courts ) and read in what you think they should have said )

Really you are .. As an exercise rewrite the 2a as would want it to read -- see how many additional predicates you need to get it done.

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Oh, that's actually fairly straightforward.

"Especially (but not exclusively) because a properly functioning and effective militia is a necessary prerequisite for keeping the liberty of the people secure against all who might trample upon their liberty, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".

The court is not require, and is not going to read in more than is there -- unless we convince it -- babbling about some kind of right to revolution will not do.. the Founders gave us the con con process not a push here for civil war button

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The explain why the militia clause says "the security of a free state".

Furthermore, explain why they would have neglected such an important check on the power of government when they were writing the 2nd Amendment immediately following their armed revolt against the sitting government. Do you really think the authors of the Bill of Rights to be so thoughtless as to neglect to enshrine in the founding document of the country the protection of that which was necessary for them to prevail against the tyrannical government they opposed?

And while we are having fun can you parse the elastic clause to be anything meaningful... what the hell is "necessary and proper " -- sounds like if you think we forgot anything just got to town -- Constitution what constitution ??

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Heh.

The clause reads:

United States Constitution said:

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

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There's a book on the subject, The Origins of the Necessary and Proper Clause. I don't have it. It would be interesting to see what it says on this topic.

I expect that a reasonable interpretation might be as follows:

"Necessary" means, clearly, that the laws in question must be ones that, without them, the government would not be able to exercise the previously enumerated powers.

"Proper" means that the laws in question must be consistent with the principles upon which the country was founded (hence, they cannot be onerous and suffocating, as a primary founding principle of the country was the preservation and protection of liberty, as per the preamble to the Constitution).

That may be strictly true, but remember the context here: an Amendment to the Constitution. To claim, as you implicitly are here, that the prefatory clause is entirely disconnected from the commandment clause is to claim that the authors of the Bill of Rights weren't able or willing to plainly say what they meant.

If you insist that the two clauses have no connection to each other, then you must explain why they were not placed into separate Amendments, or separated by an explicit grammatical structure as was used in the First Amendment.

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I have done so. Several times.

First the claim that no connection need exist based on the minimal reading of the text is not the claim that no such reading can exist, so i actually bear not such burden. Nevertheless I have shown and the court has shown that the question presented do not require us to assume any connection between the clauses. That is more than sufficient to carry the burden.

Moreover the court, esp the conservatives will not , in general, and are never required to to, commit to give voice of meaning to parts other text , beyond the necessity of supporting the courts decision in the current question . This to is not my opinion it is the way the court works.

Especially (but not exclusively) because a properly functioning and effective militia is a necessary prerequisite for keeping the liberty of the people secure against all who might trample upon their liberty, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".

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This is not predicate form.
Nor does it change in any way the courts analysis or mine. The reasons for the right have no bearing whatsoever on its scope and the longer version does nothing tom change that. In Formal logic we have the concept of functional meaning -- the functional meaning of a statement is the set of all logical inferences that can be derived from that statement. The predicate form of a compound statement is just the set of all predicates in that set.

So jack and jill went up the hill. ( compound subject simple predicate ) wold become ( distribution law )

Jack went up the Hill And Jill went up the Hill . ( compound statement ) this in turn becomes

1. Jack went up the Hill
2. Jill went up the Hill

Now when you claim

Yes, and that is the meaning I'm using. But the use of formal logic does not require use of formal logic notation, only that its methods are adhered to.

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You ignore the fact that the operations of formal logic are no defined on the terms of informal language. This is not minor point-- it leads to gibberish more times than not ( see kant ) Your terms must be clearly defined, excluded middle law must be respected, and you must not sift you meanings and leverage connotations .

Kant is a prime example of this But here is a clean one and a joke.. goes back to the greeks its a syllogism gone honorably wrong

1. That dog is a father.
2. That is his dog.
3. That dog is his father 1,3, substitution.

As you can see its nonsense -- Father is a binary relation and it was tossed about as a simple predicate

Notation was not invented just to piss of school children F(x,y) = x is the father of y
B(x,y) = x belongs to y

Now x and y are names not predates and certainly not binary predicates thus the syllogism is not statically valid -- but English is not rich enough in syntax to encode it, information is lost and 'valid' inference rules are no longer truth preserving.

The explain why the militia clause says "the security of a free state".

Furthermore, explain why they would have neglected such an important check on the power of government when they were writing the 2nd Amendment immediately following their armed revolt against the sitting government. Do you really think the authors of the Bill of Rights to be so thoughtless as to neglect to enshrine in the founding document of the country the protection of that which was necessary for them to prevail against the tyrannical government they opposed?

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Once again the reason for a statement do not change its scope( or its functional meaning as I call it) No more that the preamble of the constitution "promote the common welfare" can be used to justify Obama care.

Moreover t here are far bigger gaps in the constitution-- the lack of a session process for example .. the failure to define " high crimes and misdemeanors" -- that omission by itself and the failure to claim that the impeachment power is plenary to the congress could easily result in an impeached president simply refusing to standown no matter what congress says . My explanation for these omissions -- they were not engineers and scientists, and simply lacked the intellectual disciple to write a decent specification . Even the application of simple game theory leads to all kinds of problems .( my first attempt to prove the constitution unworkable was in grade school ) . -- as I said let lawyers build bridges and our feet get very wet..

Now I have provided other predicates which leverage do the militia clause and I do think they will be used in other cases as I have said many times now.

To infer, as you appear to do ,that what the court has not said yet binds it to reading the milta clause out of the constitution is simply false.

The court has simply not needed to rely on it in the case, and may not need to until the question is presented under which the predicate that we have decode from the text are not sufficient to give the answer. The court will not ans question not asked, but they did leave clues which leads me to believe that the predicate you want will in fact be decoded once that case is presented.

There's a book on the subject, The Origins of the Necessary and Proper Clause. I don't have it. It would be interesting to see what it says on this topic.

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Well if you need a book to define 2 simple words it safe to assume you can not do much formal logic with them as I described above. Formal logic only protects you from error across the domain it was deigned to be used on. I agree with your basic take however -- if only they had just said as much instead of writing poetry .Make no mistake flow and oratory was far more important in the 18th century than precision of thought or economy of expression.

Today we , like yo know , kina have like not of that much ya know.. Or as the big O might say " Folks are worried about stuff and shit -- well I feel ya .. " ( Lincoln eat your heart out )


We are so far beyond any hope of clarity that its fools errand to try -- you must parse the text into a list of simple predicates before attempting to do so.

Brooklyn said:

And how .. its not a state organisation at all


http://www.nationalguard.com/?cid=2014paidmediato95_bn-fy14paidme15691_web_20140210

©2014 UNITED STATES ARMY NATIONAL GUARD

Its a branch of the US army guys --

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Well the National Guard is under the control of the state Governor. But yes they are represented at the federal level, and are part of the total US Army. It is a little gray if you ask me. The point I was trying to get across is that the powers that be would have us believe the Nat'l Guard is what the founding fathers are calling the militia. This could not be further than the truth.

moojersey said:

Well the National Guard is under the control of the state Governor. But yes they are represented at the federal level, and are part of the total US Army. It is a little gray if you ask me. The point I was trying to get across is that the powers that be would have us believe the Nat'l Guard is what the founding fathers are calling the militia. This could not be further than the truth.

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My understanding is that they are "under the command " of the Governor when not called into the service of the US. Its a loan. Its temporary and the Commander in Chief does not need permission of the Governor to call them up.

Not much of a state force now is it? And its not a militia -- its a standing army.


I understand your point, just pointing out how absurd the liberal claim is..

The 2a protects the state national guard, which did not exist at the time , is actually a federal force, not answerable to the states, and is in fact a standing army not a militia .. Hell even in the revolution itself the "continental army " was contrasted with the militia forces.


Never miss a chance to make liberals look foolish and uneducated-- it kills their self worth to be bested by those they think to be inferior to them Its worth the effort