What you don't seem to realize is that your characterization of your opposition in stereotypical terms (yes, I understand the attempt at humor, too, but you are making a point) is just a more comfortable way for you to dismiss their views.

And it speaks a lot more about the way that YOU think than "they" do.

You seem content to live in your Red and Blue State world, neatly divided up into well-defined camps, and you have lots of company. Too bad the world is a lot more complicated than that.

You're not the only one to paint anyone left of your own political views as a member of a monolithic, group-thinking block with a penchant for hate for right thinking patriots such as yourself. It is amusing to see your own hate on such obvious display as you dismiss "these haters."

A couple of miles from my house, a young adult (age 20 or so) walked from his house to the nearby elementary school one night. He torched a car with gasoline and walked back home. Unfortunately for him, it was snowing that night. The police followed his tracks back to his house. The mother allowed them to enter the house to talk to the boy. When they entered his bedroom, he opened fire on them with an AK-47. He critically wounded both officers at the scene but before he could finish them off, the officers returned fire and killed the criminal.

In the large city I live near, the fourth of July fireworks display attracts over a million people. This last fourth of July, some guy opened fire on a crowd with a handgun. Eight people were shot.

I know plenty of hunters but I don't know a single one who hunts with a AK-47 or a handgun. I'd like you to explain to the two policemen who had their near death experience why any Joe in some trailer court should be allowed to own AK-47's.

These issues aren't emotional. They involve common sense. The gun companies are dumping millions of cheap handguns on our society. The sole purpose of a handgun is kill another human either in self-defense or in predatory offense. The same can be said for military assault weapons.

I don't have a problem if a guy has a hobby of shooting handguns. I don't have problem with people who need to carry a handgun (e.g. business people who carry cash in high crime areas). The government needs to regulate that weapon. The gun companies need to be forced to implement technology to ensure that a gun doesn't change hands. This dumping of handguns on our society is stupidity.

When you guys overthrow the government, you'll just have to make due with hunting rifles and molotov cocktails. Perhaps you can break into a National Guard armory?

I'm not trying to marginalize you or call you trailer trash. I am saying that in a civilized society, we need to control military weaponry. It has no place in civilized society. There is nothing hateful about this concept. If you desire to carry military weaponry, I'd advise you to join the military. If you don't want to do that, go live in Iraq. Last I heard, you could get AK-47's and rocket propelled grenade launchers cheap and there aren't any police around to stop you from carrying them around.

Not to beliitle the horrible crimes mentioned by Ralph in the first comment, but when you consider the amount of guns in this country and the normal people who use them regularly without going psycho and killing people, these types of crimes are an exception rather than the rule.
How is more legislation by the government going to help anything?I think that many Lefties have a panicked reaction to violence rather than a rational one.

Howard, I appreciate your rational response. Most of the time, I get mispelled, curse-filled, idiotic diatribes from illiterate socialists. They are deleted, as they provide no input. I disagree with everything you've said, but at least you are thinking about it, and presenting a rational, coherent, and polite discourse.

I am not trying to get other people to change society to the way I think, I am trying to prevent the "new ideas" from the Left from taking sway and changing the way Americans think. What new ideas?

Let's try:

1. Sexualizing children at an early age by exposing them to crass, phony baloney, materialistic messages in pop culture, music, and other media.
2. Exposing children to ever-increasing violence in movies and TV at an early age.
3. Telling Americans that their forefathers were a bunch of slave-oppressing white men (why would anyone hate someone 'cause they're white? Could it be a racist tendency rearing its head?) instead of intelligent liberators and heros who made this country a great place for freedom to take root.
4. Normalizing behaviors and ideas that are proven to be detrimental to society, like the public support of criminals and misbehavors in society (gangsta rappers, Mayor Marion Barry of D.C., Bill Clinton's lying under oath being OK because it was about sex, Dennis Kozlowski and CO getting off with Tyco investor's millions while Martha goes to jail for a moment of weakness, scumbag oil profiteers scoring record bank because they manufactured an oil shortage, and their buddies in Congress are doing nothing about it - I can go on for two hours).

These are all things that I believe are a detriment to society in America, and they have all occurred because the Left encourages deconstructionism. The old radicalism from the sixties is like a vampire from the grave; only the brightest light of day reveals its inherent weakness - yet people like you shut your eyes to it.

Can't you see that there are forces working to tear this country apart? People right here in this country hate it because they have not been able to remake it in their own image, so they are trying to change that image in the minds of young people so that their agenda can be furthered down the road. I rail against such change - not because I am close minded to valuable change, but because I am unwilling to change things away from ideas that work to adopt "new ideas" that have already been tried before and have been proven TO FAIL!

Ralph:

You're just plain WRONG on this one, dude. It ain't about hunting. It's about owning the same guns as the Army does, so that if we do have to fight a revolution, the citizenry won't be armed with pointed sticks while the jackboots are armed with F-22 Raptors.

I'm sorry that your elitist mentality has some problem with "some Joe in a trailer court" owning a gun - would you have a problem with him voting on your school council's decisions 'cause he's black? How about if he's a Fundamentalist Christian or a Buddhist?

Gun companies don't "dump" millions of handguns on society. People pay fair market value for them, go for a background check, and if they pass, are permitted to EXERCISE THEIR RIGHTS AS AMERICANS.

It's ridiculous, I know, that people (who are apparently unworthy to possess the means to resist forceful rape, robbery, and murder over 2 million times a year without your beloved, regulating government assisting them) are permitted to own such dangerous implements.

There are over 235 million guns in the U.S. Were you planning on collecting them? How, mechanically, will this be done?

OK, so you know that it can't. How can you regulate their use? Wait - I've got it - let's make it illegal to use an AK-47 to shoot at police officers, and we can make it illegal to use a firearm to shoot at a crowd of people.

Oh, wait, we already did that.

Hmmm. Now what? Let's complain about it, hector legal gun owners, sue manufacturers with fraudulent cases, and bitch about our powerlessness in the face of reality.

Or we can simply address the real reason why some chimp feels compelled to shoot at cops - wholesale rejection of ethical values by elitist scumbuckets who wish to manipulate our minds by appealing to our base natures so that we can Buy More Things and not think about true happiness. When society adopts this kind of ethic, then we start degrading all that is sacred.

That is something we can actually do something about.

Did controlling military weapons in society help Mother Russia when her government collapsed? There was super-super strict gun control the former U.S.S.R., now, Russia has 30,000 murders a year, according to Newsmax.com. Why? they tolerate mafia running their society.

You're just off by a country mile on this one, Ralphie.

Where do we draw the line? Bazookas, M-1 tanks, personal nuclear bombs? Where's the line in the sand? I don't see any practical value for military weapons in civilized society.

Millions of handguns are stolen each year. With all the protection these guns provide, why are they stolen at such high rates. These handguns end up in criminals' hands.

Why are these guns so cheap? Why aren't these guns manufactured with fingerprint technology? Baby toys have more technology than the average handgun has. The reason is profits. Gun companies dump cheap handguns on America and millions end up in the hands of criminals.

You've been sold a bill of goods. You've bought the gun industry's message of fear and you don't care that they are arming criminals who have no qualms about walking the streets armed with an illegal weapons. This certainly makes us all safer.

What do people think that the Second Amendment is about? Apparently the belief is that it is to allow hunters and hobbyists to own firearms. If that is the point then everything today is appropriate.

But the Founding Fathers had three thoughts going on, which they made clear in their writings on the topic, when they wrote the Second Amendment.

1. A country whose militia encompassed all citizens of age to serve in the military would be secure because no one would want to attack that country. Their intent was that all citizens not serving in the standing military would form the militia and would be armed in a reasonable fashion to serve as an infantryman. This would remove the need for a large permanent Army, which they considered a grave threat to liberty and freedom (rightly so, look at the changes in this country since we have gone to a permanent, large, standing military).

2. In the event that the government were to abrograte our freedoms and take them unto themselves the people would have a means to overthrow the tyrant.

3. No people who are not armed and capable of defending themselves can be considered free.

There is still a federal law on the books that places all citizens of age to serve in the military and who are not serving in the military in the national militia. All members of the militia are required, at their own personal expense, to maintain a suitable (i.e. military) weapon at home and be proficient in its use. If you don't have an AK-47 or M-16 at home and aren't capable of using it you are breaking the law! :-)

You answered your own question. The 2nd amendment is about maintaining state militias. I've never read anything about mandatory service in the state militia. Furthermore, the 2nd amendment has limitiations about age and other things in regards to participation. I'll say it again, if you want to carry military weapons, join the National Guard or some other military organization. That's what is outlined in the 2nd amendment.

Ralph, the National Guard is not the militia. Read the Federalist Papers and the Constitution.

And yes Ralph, I answered my question, but it is clear you didn't understand the answer.

The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is three fold. Provide for a militia (which is not the National Guard, that would have been considered an Army by the Founders), provide the citizens with the ability to resist the tyranny of the government and recognize that political power is retained by the citizens unless they choose to grant that political power to the government.

You apparently don't really understand the underlying political principles of our form of government, which is why I recommend you read the Federalist Papers and the Constitution, then get back to me.

As for the law forming the militia it is the Militia Act of 1798, signed into law by George Washington. There was no end date on the law and it has never been repealed.

*grins* and it should be pointed out that ignorance of the law is not a defense in our legal system. Just because you don't know about the Militia Act doesn't mean it doesn't exist and isn't a law.

State xyz National Guard is a state militia. It does everything you describe and more. Furthermore, there are no laws requiring mandatory service in state militias. You need to bone up on your 2nd amendment as well. There are age limitations.

Ralph, state "militias" were considered organized military forces by the Founding Fathers. I don't know how many more times I can tell you this before you might believe me. Go read Patrick Henry, George Washington, Madison. You might try Publius while you're at it.

So why isn't my National Guard a state militia? Go to your state website and check it out.

www.yourstate.gov

Ralph, the Guard is a "state militia" and the Reserves are a "federal militia", but neither is what the people writing the Second Amendment meant. They considered militias organized by the government to be standing armies that could be used by the government to oppress the people. The militia they were talking about is the people themselves, armed and able to resist government tyranny. Since you appear to be a big government liberal I don't expect you to understand this idea, and even if you do, I don't think you will like it.

Ralph - Check this out from 1788:

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
---Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788. "

Richard Henry Lee, Guaranteed (tm) Forefather and granduncle to Robert E. Lee: "[W]hereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it.
---Richard Henry Lee, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788."

George Mason - had a university named after him: "[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually...I ask, who are the militia? They consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor...
---George Mason"

Check this one out: "The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals...[I]t establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.
---Albert Gallatin to Alexander Addison, Oct 7, 1789, MS. in N.Y. Hist. Soc.-A.G. Papers, 2."

OK, we've firmly established that it means US, not some mythical army.

So, what was your argument again?

Here's a good link for you.

http://www.militia-watchdog.org/faq3.asp

You tell me what right some crack dealer has to own and carry a weapon of war (i.e. a handgun). Why not hand grenades? Why is the government not allowing me to buy a hand grenade at Wal-Mart? If you can't answer this simple question, there is no sense going any further.

Like I said, a well regulated militia is important. People who want to carry such war weaponry should join a government militia to protect the people of the United States. Furthermore, each state should have its own militia in the event that the federal government turns on her own citizenry.

I personally don't have a problem with people owning handguns if they can provide a reason to the government. I gave some examples below (e.g. businessmen and hobbyists). These weapons should be regulated and tracked through licensing and strict laws.

I don't have a problem with the current laws which require a background check for the purchase of hunting weapons. It is common sense.

I am against the government unequivocally banning all firearms.

Back to the little footnote which is my exchange with underwhelmed... it's a shame that you are so wrapped up in being right, as in correct, that you can't see that your own rants are often nothing more than self-aggrandizing diatribes. Hooray for you. Your list of things wrong with America as a result of leftist "deconstructionism" is remarkable in its incoherence.

It's too bad that your apparently pro-American stance doesn't allow for people to choose to live and believe differently than you do. We may even agree on some of the things going wrong in America, but we disagree about their causes and solutions. That makes me part of the vast left-wing conspiracy which is leading the country to the dogs.

You'd interpret the Constitution to give you the freedoms that you want, and take away those that I want.

No thanks. This is America, remember?

"Self-aggrandizing diatribes?" Really? Oh, okay.

You said, "You'd interpret the Constitution to give you the freedoms that you want, and take away those that I want. "

What? Where am I taking away anyone's rights? Please, kindly list the actual TEXT of what I have said to this effect. The day you find me "taking away anyone's right" (yeeeessss, even your beloved right to kill defenseless children in the womb - the 3rd-And-A-Half Amendment, "Roe vs. Wade, or whatever deconstructionists like to think of such a non-enumerated "right") is the day you'll find me eating my hat. You won't find it, 'cause I'm not threatened by people like you to be compelled try to take anything away from you.

The only people that want to take away anyone's rights are LIBERAL UTOPIANISTS, who envision a perfect world where THEY - the obvious wielders of superior intellect, create the orderly society they are being obstructed from creating by stupid white militaristic idiots like me, and then stumble bravely forward with their uncourageous agenda of World Socialism. All outcomes will be regulated by a "fair" government, and the world will be forever saved from the perils of competition and of the need to excel in any field of human endeavor. A dreary existence indeed!

Well, dude, I certainly realize that this is America - a place which became great NOT because of the power of government, and only partially because of the power of capitalism, but mostly because of RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM, and of the existence of competition creating efficiencies in every human endeavor.

I tolerate (but generally laugh at) people who believe differently than me; I frankly could not give a rat's ass about how you live your screwed-up little life, just so long as you don't clumsily try to force your "wisdom" on me, or take away my freedoms - quit projecting your own Leftist intolerance upon me, please. I'm a Libertarian. This is code for "do whatever you want, just so long as it doesn't affect me." If you start screwing things up around here, it's YOU that's going to have to live with his own mistakes - right up until you start to screw them up for me.

I merely extended your statements about "...I am trying to prevent the "new ideas" from the Left from taking sway and changing the way Americans think...I am unwilling to change things away from ideas that work..." to mean that you would interpret the Constitution differently than I would with respect to rights of citizens in relation to the government. You are right, I cannot point to any statement in which you specifically advocating taking away any rights.

Why is it that you feel the need to resort to overbroad generalizations, pseudo-macho sloganeering and gratuitous insults? It does nothing to support your ludicrous theory that elbow-patch-wearing east coast professors are sexualizing young children, exposing them to violence, engaging in anti-white racism and publicly supporting criminals.

Let's see how you would feel about defendant's rights when a mean, lefty government comes around to arrest you for being a pajama-wearing white man, after having searched your house without a warrant and allegedly found some illegal substances.

You'll find men and women of all political stripes producing AND, even more importantly, CONSUMING the sexual and violent content that you object to.

You know precious little about my life and politics, so if you appreciate civil dialog as you have claimed, kindly refrain from hauling out your rat's ass where I am concerned.

Well boys and girls, I really wish I had not been in the middle of moving into a new house and had no Internet access last week. This looks like fun.

What the "mainstream" of American politics, whether they be Republicans or Democrats or RepubliCrats, fail to understand is that Libertarian means you have the right to do whatever you please right up to the point where you cause another individual harm. Another way of putting this is that I, and I alone, am responsible for my actions. Not the government, not the police, not the UN, not a group of concerned citizens. Me. And this is reality, no matter how much you wish to legislate otherwise. Every day each and every one of us makes decisions almost continuously, mostly without even thinking about it, that require us to be personally responsible. Whether that is how we raise our children, drive our car, do our job, treat our spouse or behave towards our fellow citizens. Once upon a time we used to understand that if we made a bad choice we were responsible for the outcome of that bad choice. Now we seem to think that Uncle Sugar should fix it for us. What you are really asking is that all the other citizens of this country have their rights infringed upon so that you may make an irresponsible decision. Or, worse to my way of thinking, you are going to try and take away my responsibility as an adult, tell me that I'm not capable of making that informed, responsible decision of how to care for and bear a weapon. Apparently our forefathers were a lot smarter and more responsible.

You want to solve problems in this country? Stop asking Uncle to take care of us and start asking the individual citizens to bear responsibility for their actions. Until you do that, nothing will change.

Rational Anarchy sums up the philosophy behind Libertarianism. Don't know what that means? Try this site. Or read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". Or try reading up on what the Founding Fathers of this country thought. I'm sure you won't, but give it a shot, you might learn something.

Howard, you made this statement: "...your ludicrous theory that elbow-patch-wearing east coast professors are sexualizing young children, exposing them to violence, engaging in anti-white racism and publicly supporting criminals."

While there are many disconnects in your argument that I can address, I'll just address this one. I have a life, anyway.

I don't think that it's "elbow-patch college professors" doing this - its amoral, money grubbing big-businessmen, selling whatever appeals to the lowest common denominator in order to make a buck. Aiding and abetting this action are left-leaning Hollywood utopianists, who strive for a new era free from the stifling moralism of the 19th century, yet completely insensitive to the reasons why it came about in the first place - the excesses of Rome occurred 2000 years prior, and this example served adequately for humanity to learn about the effects of unalloyed debauchery upon society.

You can change technology, but you can't change the chimp. Just 'cause we're in a modern age does not mean that the moral values that supported the creation of modern society should be cast aside.

Oh, and I'm not worried about a "mean government" turning me into some sort of victim. I am a productive, honest, and decent citizen who has the means to defend himself peacefully and legally. If your vision of a "righteous America" comes about, and leaders try to take away my rights, I will gladly take up the mantle of "criminality" in defense of them. Hope that's not too "pseudo-macho" for ya.

Remember, the founders all had death sentences issued by King George after signing the Declaration of Independence!