02-26-2018, 02:56 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-26-2018, 02:57 AM by Eric the Green.)
(02-25-2018, 12:43 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(02-24-2018, 07:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: This philosophy of self-reliance in what we now call red states and red counties did not used to interfere with sensible notions of government acting to help and protect the people. They voted for Democrats like FDR to fix the economy and the eroded land, and bring energy to the Tennessee Valley, and they appreciated them. They supported JFK and LBJ when they acted to help reduce poverty in Appalachia, and brought good lighting and plumbing to the rural people. Gun control was accepted, and so was the qualifications clause of the 2nd in the Courts that were appointed by the presidents they voted for...
Well, I was in many ways with Eric. One difference is that he does not acknowledge what he calls the qualification clause as a justifications clause. In this, I close to follow the label and intent of Professor Volokh of UCLA from "The Commonplace Second Amendment", one of the many Standard Model articles. There were many Jim Crow Supreme Court cases that removed many aspects of the Bill of Rights after the Reconstruction ended. Most Jim Crow rulings were annulled by Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP during the middle of the 20th century. Volokh finds other examples of rights with justification clauses used during the Founding Era. What is common is an absurd results manifesting if you go with Jim Crow, and an interpretation never touched by the courts in the other cases.
And, yes, the I am very much blue on many issues. As a crisis approaches, it is common for one party to cling to the past. They clung to things like slavery during the Civil War era, and Laissez Faire economics during the Gilded Age. Much that was clung to is best left in the past, where Lincoln and FDR left it.
But this does not mean accepting bad law or abandoning the meaning to be found in the Constitution. It was easy if morally bankrupt in the 19th century to pretend or believe that slaves deserved exemption from the Whig quest for equality under law. It was easy if morally bankrupt to push reprehensible working conditions during the Gilded Age on workers who had no real choice but to accept. It is morally bankrupt to pretend or believe we are not warming the globe, destroying what future generations will very much covet.
But it also means you don't have to demonize those who think and live differently than you. As crisis approaches, it is natural to demonize. Eric provides a good example. I do not see the red as evil, insane, twisted or other. They are clinging to an old culture that fits well with their environment. I sympathize with them a lot. It is easy to see Washington DC as corrupt, as following the corporations rather than the People. It is easy to see them wishing just to be left alone, if blue folks from far away don't tell them what to do. They are in many ways understandable.
You don't have to demonize to understand. In this the red are correct when they say the blue are not listening.
Eric sure isn't.
But they want, and they vote for Washington DC to follow the corporations rather than the people. That's what they vote for over and over again. That is their fondest wish, and they elect people to do exactly that. They are clinging desperately to laissez faire today. It is past time for the reds to stop listening to their demons. We do all have demons within us and around us. Runaway cravings and thoughts and worries, and also people in elite society dominated by these demons who rip us off and keep us shackled and poor, or try to. Sympathizing with demons does not work; we have to see them for what they are and say no to them. If you say that what the reds do is morally bankrupt, as you did above, then I don't see any difference there from what I am saying.