BF2S Forums Serious Question about the 2nd Amendment

The First Amendment wouldn't be worth the parchment on which it was written if we didn't have the Second Amendment.

If you couldn't stand up to the government with armed force, they'd be more than happy to break up your assembly, edit your newspapers, and stifle your protests. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but sooner or later if the government boys were the only people with guns they'd tell you that you could take your opinion and shove it up your ass.

The other amendments remain extant only because of the protection afforded by the 2nd amendment.

Yes the First Amendment is in full force.

Do you have the RIGHT to disrupt a meeting at which the President (or anyone else) is speaking? No you do not.

Do you have the right to hold your own meeting, or picket, or march, or print pamphlets, or blog, whatever the hell you want? Yes you do.

The mistake you're making is that you feel that the First Amendment should extend to being the right to disrupt, and it doesn't. You have every right to gather up 500 soldiers and ask them questions about the war and trash the military, the government, and the President. You don't have the right to cram your anti-war soldiers and their anti-war questions down Bush's throat when he's doing his thing. If he wants to have one guy at that meeting who gets on his knees and swears that Bush is Jesus, that's his right, just as much as it's yours to have 500 who swear Bush is Satan.

There's an old saying, "your right to swing your fist ends where the other man's nose begins." Nothing affords you the right to hinder another's freedom of speech. The First Amendment gives you every right to stand off in a corner or across town and protest all the hell you want, but it doesn't give you the right stand in someone's face and shout them down when they're trying to speak.

Last edited by Dersmikner (2007-12-22 10:50:15)

Well, I think the internet will open up communication a little. Those TV stations are trying to make a buck.

BTW, what do you mean the government is limiting coverage of the war? What specifically are they doing?

I remember the casket thing. I think I am okay with them saying "you can't show the casket and say 'this is Captain Jim Smith's body'". I could see that being legit. I can't see how they should have the right to stop anyone from showing the casket if it were unmarked and/or unidentified.

If it happens that they try to use the legal system to limit war coverage for political reasons, I'd be for a fucking revolution.