Who Can Beat Trump?

[Eric the Green]

(09-09-2018, 01:08 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-09-2018, 11:32 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: A society that needs to rely on private guns to feel safe, is not the beneficiary of progress, but a victim of regression.

I mostly agree, but find in that sentience that your confusion of a right with regression is telling.  A right limits the power of government, is not an indication of too powerful a government if it is only enforcing the right.  There you are thinking upside down, acting the extremist, doing double think.  You are confusing an Enlightenment progressive right with regression.

You say that gun rights are progressive Enlightenment rights. It is in the Bill of Rights, it's true. But I don't think the enlightenment, mainly a European movement, focused on gun rights. It was the right of free speech and press, or assembly, even property rights, right of religious freedom, tolerance of dissidents rather than political prisoners, right to have a government that has the consent of the governed. That's the positive heritage of the Enlightenment; not gun rights--- which is an American-only aspect of enlightenment rights.

The Enlightenment has devolved since then. This is the regression of today. The Uranus meme*, which triumphed and expanded explosively just as the planet was discovered in 1781, has been transformed into today's libertarian ideology. "Freedom" now means the free market, and the "right" of companies to exploit workers, to pay them as little as they can, to pollute with impunity, to escape regulations against unsafe products, to send jobs overseas in the name of free trade, to buy out and speculate rather than produce and innovate, to discriminate against certain groups, and so on. Today's "gun rights" belongs in the same class with this so-called libertarian "freedom" that really destroys rights, despite their slogans. It's the "right" to have the personal means to kill other people.

The libertarian extremists of today, the followers of Bush, Palin, Cruz and Trump, tout guns as the only way our rights mean anything, as if we did not live in a society of laws, but an anarchy of whoever is the best shot rules. In reality, only respect for the rights of others and for the law guarantees freedom, not your gun.

I don't believe in gun rights, but the majority of Americans still do, and the second amendment still exists. It is constitutional and has precedent. It is outdated, because guns are no longer muskets but assault rifles which kill dozens within seconds, and because we now have police, armies and national guards that didn't exist in 1791. Gun control laws are still constitutional, according to Heller. We'll see what Kavanaugh does; how far he can destroy our rights even as he protects this regressive, outdated one, and the other phony rights of the libertarian free-market extremists. The second amendment will still exist into the future, although that future could be cut short if the gun fanatics push their agenda too far even as massacres and protests against them continue and as younger generations elect politicians intent on gun control. And if the fanatics violently rebel against increased gun control in the 2020s, as seems quite possible, then gun control and confiscation could get considerably more severe in response.

*Uranus is the revolutionary, awakener and non-conformist. Discovered in 1781, the year the United States won its independence on the eve of the French Revolution, Uranus is the planet of liberty and freedom, and the champion of individual rights and progress. It thus represents the power of the Middle Class or Bourgeoisie unleashed by the revolutions both political and industrial, and its competitive individualism and self-reliance, but also of all those who continue to rebel against established authorities-- even those who were once the revolutionaries themselves. This fact is what gave Hegel his idea about conflict and synthesis through history, which was passed on to Karl Marx. Uranus is inventive, investigates both science and the occult, and looks outside the boxes and boundaries set by Saturn. He represents the unexpected and overturns lots of applecarts. Uranus is the inner light of discovery. It is equivalent in meaning to Rahu in Vedic astrology.
http://philosopherswheel.com/planetarydynamics.html