Let me see nations somehow have rights individuals don't.
Even thought the 2A specifically spells out the right of an individual to throw off the nation......hmmmmmm interesting rock and hardplace for those who make the above claim.
To be brief, has anyone in this thread actually stated, categorically, that nations have rights (or governments powers) that individuals do not? A citation is welcomed, but I don't recall reading any such assertion.
Which means you are engaging in a "dishonest debate tactic" by claiming anyone has. Perhaps if you've be honest in quoting the material to which you are responding, a more meaningful discussion would be possible.
Longer musing for those who can take more than tweat of information:
Actually, the 2A does not specifically spell out any right to throw off the nation. The explicit justification to throw off a government is in the Declaration of Independence which speaks of "one people" dissolving the political bands that tie them to another [people]. The DoI also speaks of the "right of the people" to alter or abolish government when it is destructive to the ends for which it was formed, which is to protect individual rights. Nor does the DoI state that individual consent be required for a government to be legitimate.
The 2A speaks of the "security of a free state" and "right of the people to keep and bear arms". From the writings of the framers/federalists it is clear that they viewed the body politic of American society, armed and free to be a great deterrent to government tyranny since the total number of armed citizens would always outnumber the count of professional soldiers a government could maintain. From this, I believe it is fair and accurate to surmise that
one, benefit of the 2A is for the people to remain able to forcefully throw off an oppressive government were that ever needed. More importantly, I think, is the realization that by being capable of such, we were much less likely to ever need to actually do so. How often does the servant rebel against his well armed master?
But in each of these cases, our founding and framing documents speak not of any individual throwing off government, but of "the people" doing so.
The DoI relies upon individual rights, but then shifts to a collective consent and a collective agreement and action to justify throwing off King George. The Constitution starts with "We the People...."
An individual may be criminal, or mad, or just chafe at any rules whatsoever. No one man is to be trusted with such decisions as ending government. Rather, it is the coming to some agreement with our fellow citizens that what is unlawful for the individual, becomes a band of morally justifiable, manly resistance from the whole.
As an example, even at the time of the Revolution with King George declaring the colonists traitors, individual colonial soldiers were not tried and hanged out of practical concerns from the British Army as reported on
Wiki. Had the Colonists lost, we might well expect that officers and signers of the DoI might have been tried and hanged for treason, but probably not massive numbers of rank-and-file soldiers. In modern times, the difference between criminal terrorist/pirate, and soldier entitled to certain protections basically boils down to whether the person acted alone (or in a small group) or whether he was part of a large, organized group recognized to make decisions for the community.
Some, including some I greatly respect, have posited that government has only powers delegated to it by the people and that people cannot delegate any power they do not natively possess. It is all but heresy to question this as the slippery slope questions would be all but insurmountable if a case were made that government had power people did not. But a question might be asked if "the people" gain powers that an individual does not possess. Heresy? Maybe, but consider on an example:
An individual is not generally trusted to track down a criminal and then act as a one man judge, jury, and executioner. But if we entrust one man to investigate crime and make arrests, a different man as a judge, another as prosecutor, provide defense counsel, and then empanel 8 or 10 or 12 regular citizens to act as a jury, we can readily accept the outcome of the trial as just, assuming it is a just law being applied.
If any one of those 16 persons were to act alone and independently to hunt down and execute an accused murderer we'd call that murder or vigilantism. But if we bring them all together, give them differing roles with limited power confined to the role assigned, we accept the verdict and punishment as just.
We say that the power to punish criminals derives from the natural right to self defense. And it certainly must, for from whence else might it come? But self-defense ends when the immediate threat ends, does it not?
Something changes when we bring many impartial persons together and task them to the various roles in a court room.
I'm not ready to say what this is, exactly.
But I do not believe any of the founders or framers, nor the documents they authored and ratified, actually suggest that any individual has a right to rebel. Somehow, the legitimacy of rebellion depends in part on the number who join the rebellion (and of course, on who wins the contest at arms).
Food mostly for myself as I've thought as I've written it.
Charles
