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Old 12-11-2008, 08:28 PM   #253 (permalink)
filtherton
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Location: In the land of ice and snow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Walter Sobchak View Post
You'll have to forgive me for waxing philosophic but Im in the middle studying Shari'a Law for a final tomorrow. Im finding the use of intended language so as to allow for interpretation to be facinating. Please forgive the following bullshit:
I understand, I'm right in the middle of writing a paper that is ostensibly about data anlysis re:biofuel viscosity, and is expected to be about data analysis re:biofuel viscosity, but actually needs to be about winter temperature distributions in Minnesota. It is ironic that my professor could be so damningly vague in how he explained this assignment; a large portion of the grade will be based on its clarity and coherence. Perhaps I'm just pissed off at vague people with power over me...

Quote:
Perhaps the founding fathers deliberately penned the amendment to be vague so as to allow its effect to be timeless; it can be interpretted and reinterpretted endlessly to best suit the needs of the society at any given time, while still emphasizing the importance of maintaining an armed public.

The founding fathers were smart enough to know that they could not predict the future and so left it up to us to adapt the basic idea of the amendment to our ever evolving nation without losing sight of the overall goal - to allow the people a means of personal protection and, ultimately, for revolution when all else has failed.
I won't disagree with this idea. Their questionable comma placement just screams "Go ahead, try and figure out what the fuck we're talking about." I think it is foolish to assume that it is even possible to interpret what the constitution should mean in the context of right now with any sort of objectivity.

For many folks the constitution is this mythical thing, you know, not just the supreme law of the land, but like, the god of laws. That's the wrong way to look at it. I understand that it seems nice that there be just one way to interpret it, but being the wishy-washy deliberative motherfucker that I am, I just can't imagine that being the case.

With the issue of gun control, I'm not guided so much by the constitution, because the second amendment is less than useless. I am more inclined to think that the framers were reasonable folks and that if we are attempting to follow in their footsteps we just ought to be reasonable. I realize that this is naive, but the magnitude of that naivete is dampened by my awareness of it.

In short, I don't think that there are any good solutions. I do think that the loudest elements on both sides are self serving and full of shit.
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