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i wasn't actually suggesting that the amendment be ignored--i was just thinking about it as i wrote the post--bouncing off the scalia decision to some extent--this notion of "original meaning" and such.
i do wonder about the question of time-boundedness of this amendment, though--that it speaks to a very specific situation that has been erased in all ways but for the amendement itself. part of the logic of a precedent-based system would be to move to generate new fits for elements in the starting document, until that element is eliminated (if it is).
the principle that runs against this is basically what you raised--that to eliminate it would be to also say that the state cannot become oppressive--personally, i don't think that a bunch of people having guns are any more or less able to react coherently to that situation than a bunch of people who do not have them, because the reaction itself is political--and guns are simply one of a number of possible instruments that can be used in the context of a project that is oriented by a political view/position--they are no in themselves a politics--any more than a toaster is. they're just things.
so for example, say that we are in a soft-authoritarian system at the moment--arguably we are in many respects culturally, and politically---
i don't see much in the way of coherent responses to that--hell, the issue isn't even framed as an issue--and there is no relation between people having guns around and any possibility of being able to even name the present system, much less fashion responses to it. worse still, most of the folk who are REALLY committed to confusing having a gun-commodity and "being free" tend to be politically on the right. so i don't see it--having a gun as a guarantor of anything--if anything, it is now part of an illusion.
i am thinking about the two of us as part of an unorganized militia. everybody is part of this i take it.
is unorganized militia another way of referring to the citizenry?
or are we part of it because we are alive?
does militia mean anything in that case?
when does it become organized?
can we appoint ourselves to positions within this unorganized militia?
and we both be generals?
do we get badges and hats?
where is my hat?
did you get one?
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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