Title: Does the 2nd Amendment "give citizens the right to bear arms?" Obama White House says so Source:
. URL Source:http://libertyfight.com/2013/obama_says_2A_gives_us_rights.html Published:Jul 24, 2013 Author:. Post Date:2013-07-24 09:43:58 by Artisan Keywords:None Views:315 Comments:4
Perusing the White House website, the Obama Adminstration has a page on The Constitution which contains a strikingly warped view of the 10 Amendments. It lists the Bill of Rights but oddly, doesn't list the actual text of the Amendments but rather a creative 'description' of each of them.
It starts out good, saying that the Constitution "is the source of all government powers, and also provides important limitations on the government that protect the fundamental rights of United States citizens." However, by the time it gets to the 2nd Amendment the text at whitehouse.gov states "The Second Amendment gives citizens the right to bear arms."
In reality, the Constitution doesn't "give us our rights" at all. Our rights are inherent, and the Constitution was intended to restrain government. Thankfully there are a number of well-known writers and pundits who promote a proper view and understanding of the Bill of Rights, to counter the government and establishment media propaganda.
"...the Constitution doesn't give anyone, including Americans, any rights, nor does it purport to. Instead, the purpose of the document is to prohibit the federal government, including the U.S. military, from infringing upon or interfering with people's preexisting rights. In other words, people's rights don't come from government or from documents that bring government into existence. They come from nature and God. They exist independently of government and the Constitution. That is, even if there were no federal government and no Constitution, people would still have their natural, God-given rights. Such rights preexist government."
2004 Libertarian presidential candidate and Constitutional scholar Michael Badnarik, in his book Good to be King, states "I define a right as something you can do without asking for permission. The opposite of a right, therefore, is something you cannot do without asking for permission." Badnarik provides a free download of his chapter 'Rights vs. Privileges', in which he states "The most important concept in this book is the difference between rights and privileges. For that reason, this chapter can be downloaded from my web site at no charge, and may be reproduced and distributed without written permission, as long as it is copied intact and without modification.1 A right is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as "a power, privilege, (sic) faculty, or demand, inherent in one person and incident upon another - the powers of free action." Please note that rights are "inherent" in a person. This means that it is physically impossible for rights to be extracted from a person by any means."
Ron Paul, in his farewell speech to Congress, stated "Our Constitution, which was intended to limit government power and abuse, has failed." The Appendix to Paul's book Liberty Defined lists THE TEN PRINCIPLES OF A FREE SOCIETY, beginning with number one: "Rights belong to individuals, not groups; they derive from our nature and can neither be granted nor taken away by government."
Judge Andrew Napolitano, in his article No More Asking for permission to speak, explains "Our right to exercise the freedom of speech comes from our humanity, not from the government." In Guns and Freedom, Napolitano writes "As we have been created in the image and likeness of God the Father, we are perfectly free just as He is. Thus, the natural law teaches that our freedoms are pre-political and come from our humanity and not from the government, and as our humanity is ultimately divine in origin, the government, even by majority vote, cannot morally take natural rights away from us... The historical reality of the Second Amendment's protection of the right to keep and bear arms is not that it protects the right to shoot deer. It protects the right to shoot tyrants, and it protects the right to shoot at them effectively, thus, with the same instruments they would use upon us."
James Bovard, in his book Freedom In Chains explains "The notion of the citizen's inviolable right to liberty - the underlying principle of the Declaration of Independence - has practically vanished from the American political landscape. Attorney General Janet Reno, in a 1995 speech vindicating federal action at Waco, informed a group of federal law enforcement officers: "You are part of a government that has given its people more freedom... than any other government in the history of the world." Reno's portrayal of freedom as a gift from the government epitomizes the shift in American political thinking away from the individual and towards the State as the fount of all good and all rights. If freedom is a gift from the government to the people, then government can take freedom away at its pleasure."
You can also check out this interesting DailyPaul thread, What is a Right?
One might also quibble about whether the Second Amendment applies only to citizens.
No one may not. The right to pick up a weapon to defend yourself and yours is inherent to all of us. Not some of us based on what a transient government says , but rather a right granted to all human beings by God on high by virtue of our intellect.
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Suspect all media / resist bad propaganda/Learn NLP everyday everyway ;) (It's a more positive message)
"...the Constitution doesn't give anyone, including Americans, any rights, nor does it purport to. Instead, the purpose of the document is to prohibit the federal government, including the U.S. military, from infringing upon or interfering with people's preexisting rights. In other words, people's rights don't come from government or from documents that bring government into existence. They come from nature and God. They exist independently of government and the Constitution. That is, even if there were no federal government and no Constitution, people would still have their natural, God-given rights. Such rights preexist government."
Goes quite well with this and the reasoning cannot be faulted.
"...As in our intercourse with our fellow men, certain principles of morality are assumed to exist without which society would be impossible, so certain inherent rights lie at the foundation of all action and upon a recognition of them alone can free institutions be maintained. These inherent rights have never been more happily expressed than in the declaration of independence, that new evangel of liberty to the people: "We hold these truths to be self-evident" -- that is, so plain that their truth is recognized upon their mere statement -- "that all men are endowed" -- not by edicts of emperors, or decrees of Parliament, or acts of Congress, but "by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" -- that is, rights which cannot be bartered away, or given away, or taken away, except in punishment of crime -- "and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and to secure these" -- not grant them, but secure them -- "governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
"Among these inalienable rights, as proclaimed in that great document, is the right of men to pursue their happiness, by which is meant the right to pursue any lawful business or vocation, in any manner not inconsistent with the equal rights of others, which may increase their prosperity or develop their faculties, so as to give to them their highest enjoyment.
"The common business and callings of life, the ordinary trades and pursuits, which are innocuous in themselves, and have been followed in all communities from time immemorial, must therefore be free in this country to all alike upon the same conditions. The right to pursue them, without let or hindrance, except that which is applied to all persons of the same age, sex, and condition, is a distinguishing privilege of citizens of the United States, and an essential element of that freedom which they claim as their birthright..."
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
Attorney General Janet Reno, in a 1995 speech vindicating federal action at Waco, informed a group of federal law enforcement officers: "You are part of a government that has given its people more freedom... than any other government in the history of the world."
Janet Reno would have to triple her IQ to be considered a moron. Stupid and incredibly evil, a bad combination.
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.