The GOP Has Been HIJACKED!

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-14-2016, 07:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: You are armed and ready for war. But a civilian government in the jurisdiction that you live, it seems to me, has a right to control who is at war, when, and why.

Not to invoke argument from authority, but Mr. Jefferson just said it so well...

Quote:We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

What values one holds dear enough to fight for is of course a values question. Some would fight for this, others for that, and you aren't apt to find agreement in times of crisis on what is the just enforcement of the law and what is tyranny. Sill, Jefferson definitely has a point. If one's life style and values are sufficiently trampled upon by government, humans are apt to respond with violence and arguably ought to respond with violence.

Me, I don't think we're there yet, but I'm watching the spirals of rhetoric and violence with interest and hopefully some objectivity. We might get there yet. To date, though, more of those who resort to violence are being called 'terrorists' or 'lone nuts' rather than men of principle. While this is perceived of as true and right, the spiral of violence isn't apt to spiral out of control.