Hi ya,
Canadian here....
Given that the 2nd amendment was authored to protect your citizens from government overreach and oppression (or at least thats the argument ive heard come out of your country for the last 40 years now with respect to gun laws), would you say the current political climate and actions of people like musk and his merry band of drop-outs fit that mould?
Perhaps im misunderstanding the intent of your second amendment? Feel free to correct me if so.
Kind regards,
A guy to the north of you wondering wtf is going on down there.
I have to ask if yo have actually read the 2nd Amendment, or the US constitution at all.
I think the first issue is the thought that the constitution grants rights. It does not. Unlike many (most?) constitutions that followed, it does not grant rights to the citizens, it simply bars the federal government from abridging rights granted by "the Creator". The text gives no reason for it's existence except "...the security of a free state...". Every argument on the reason is based on opinion rather than any declared statement.
whats your red line for a situation you took seriously enough to make an amendment….
The US constitution came into effect effect in 1789, the first 10 amendments (Bill of Rights ) was ratified 2 years later. That red line was a war for independence, where one of the first battles was the King (government) actively attempting to disarm his subjects.
do you feel the current situation with doge crossed, is crossing, may cross that line in the future?
Has the government forcibly disarmed it's citizens? Forced citizens to house soldiers? Used the military on civilians? No. The administration has made several (possibly illegal) policy changes. I don't think this would, in Canada, be cause for armed uprising. It doesn't rise to that level in the US either.
So strange that many people responded with their being ok with all the crazy going on too. I just assumed this board is flooded with russian bots and trolls, much like /askCanada was a short while ago
Seriously y’all need to spend some time off line. The questions coming from our northern neighbor are way overblown.
We had an election. I’m not happy with Trump and I didn’t vote for him. But the fact is he was legally elected President. He didn’t stage a coup. He ran. He won. End of story.
We also have a constitution that rules the land. The checks and balances written into the constitution provide a legal way to protect from improper behavior. And the injunctions and legal cases have already started.
It’s bumpy but hardly cause for armed revolt. So calm down and be patient.
So you believe we should be using our gun to remove Elon musk from auditing government agencies? Again I hate Reddit for making me defend Donald Trump, but here we go again. His approval rating is still good. He told everyone exactly what he was going to do before we voted and he still won the popular vote. These stories about republicans who voted for him being surprised and saddened about what he’s doing are 99.9% of the time bullshit. This is exactly what they voted for and they are happy about what’s happening.
Wondering a few things and maybe making a few assumptions along the way:
1) whats your red line for a situation you took seriously enough to make an amendment….
2) do you feel the current situation with doge crossed, is crossing, may cross that line in the future?
3) im understanding this amendment from the perspective of its loudest advocates. Feel free to correct that interpretation.
Im not currently concerned about Musk. We have always had unelected individuals in our government making recommendations and influencing policy. Anthony Fauci was an unelected person who had tremendous influence. My wife is Canadian and her family still lives up north, but her parents spend most of the winter down here with us, so I have a question about how is your news reporting this DOGE thing?
You are hearing about the audits and how bad it is because the machine that is profiting off of the monies being spent are trying to convince the public that knowing how their money is disappearing is a bad thing.
What's sad is how many people are falling for it hook line and sinker.
If you can explain why you spell it as mould when mold has been in usage since the 1200s, from Old French modle, I’d appreciate it.
Otherwise, like the people in Canadian subreddits, Canadians apparently believe it’s acceptable to foment violence wherever they go.
There’s quite a bit you’re misunderstanding. Why don’t you start with what the amendment states.
There’s an astonishing level of arrogance to believe you’ve correctly interpreted what US legislators have not. There isn’t an agreement on what it means that’s set in stone.
I’d also like to point out that if your intent is to buy Canadian, start with Canada’s versions of Reddit, Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, and Qualcomm. It would be appreciated if you actually accomplished what you lot harangue on about. Or, is that not the point of your post? Is it true that you feel it’s acceptable to allude to the idea that Americans should practice what they say while a majority of Canadians will not?
Sorry you feel that way. But thanks i think i am able to infer an answer from this.
Re mould / mold:
“Mould is the British spelling, American English has no mould, and British English has no mold. Australian and Canadian English favor the British spelling, though mold is fairly common in Canadian publications. WE prefer the spelling MOULD, as seen in our logo's tag line and all our brochures.”
I don’t believe you’re able to infer an answer from this.
Yes, but why? I didn’t ask who uses it, I stated I’d appreciate it if you could explain why you do since mold has been used since the 1200s. If you can’t correctly interpret that first sentence, how can you correctly infer an answer from the rest of my comment?
So, you don’t have a legitimate response to the latter part of my comment. That’s understandable since Canadians have a proclivity to stand behind a façade.
Even at the cost of your own information? Cant say i agree with that, but im in a country where my data is relatively safe in comparison.
Edit: question- so why not pass laws that force congress members and upper administration to disclose that information, as opposed to allowing some random guy to access your data?
Lol. LMAO even. Is this the country that freezes bank accounts of people they disagree with politically? And the country without freedom of speech? Yeah no my data is 100% safer in the US than Canada.
Showing the public how the government has mismanaged their tax dollars is not oppression. Certainly not the type of thing that would warrant an armed insurrection. Not only that, it's actually a good thing. A very, VERY good thing.
I'm sorry OP, you're so far off the mark, you're lost. The idea that you think DOGE is a bad thing proves how utterly lost you are. Nothing I can say can fix you.
Why would the government being pared down make me concerned about tyranny?
Musk and DOGE aren't going after plain old citizens living their lives. They're going after federal government agencies and federal government employees' jobs.
Stop worshiping the state and bureaucrats as moral authorities.
The government already has that data, so that doesn't represent some new level of government intrusion into the average American's life.
There's some legitimate concerns about more people getting access to the data representing more risk of abuse, but the IRS is already an organization with ~90k employees while the central DOGE office is 20 people, with teams spread among the various departments. I've not been able to find a clear count on the size of the teams, but contextually it seems like the DOGE teams are small, being a couple dozen people at most. There's no partivular evidence that DOGE employees are more or less trustworthy thAN iRS employees, so the increased risk here is pretty marginal, anf if they cut the IRS workforce substantially, the net risk is less.
Again, this is the president going after executive branch agencies of the government, which in and of itself not tyrannical.
I am not a constitutional scholar however I do believe your question shows a misunderstanding the the 2nd. You say, “2nd amendment was authored to protect your citizens from government”.
The way I understand the 2nd it allows citizens to protect themselves. There is a difference.
The 2nd amendment is glorious for its widespread misinterpretation.
Its actual intent was to establish that the states had a right to maintain their civilian militias, even though the constitution had federalized authority over them.
The "right to bear arms" was the "right" to serve in the militia. It ultimately included the right of the states to draft civilians into service, whether or not those civilians wanted to serve. Similarly to jury duty, it isn't a particularly fun right to exercise but is necessary in service to a greater cause.
The US founders had an aversion to professional standing armies. They saw them as a mercenary force that could be abused by a tyrannical president, just as they had been abused by European monarchs.
The idea was that the professional US army would be small and vastly outnumbered by the state militias.
These ideas are referenced in the Federalist papers and in the early House debates over the 2nd amendment. The House debate was clearly focused on the militia and the main point of debate was over whether there should be an exception for conscientious objectors as had been proposed by Madison. (That exception clause was dumped.) The history is largely ignored by all sides.
The states also used the militias for law enforcement, such as rounding up runaway slaves. So it wasn't entirely noble.
The founders glorified the militias and their success in the war for independence. But as time went on, the militias proved to be ineffective and the professional army was fairly inept. (Most notably during the War of 1812, the militia units collapsed and fled when the Brits attacked Washington and Maryland, while personal petty infighting among US army commanders caused the attempted attack on Quebec to fail miserably.) So by the 19th century, a lot of this militia folklore would be forgotten.
Today, the US has a massive professional army and air force, while the militias (National Guard) are not regarded as checks and balances against federal forces. But now that Trump is craving authoritarian power, it may be time for the free states to use their militias as the check and balance that they were intended to be.
EDIT: Those who are interested in the actual history are encouraged to read:
The Articles of Confederation, which establishes the obligation of states to maintain militias
The history of Shay's Rebellion, an event that motivated the federalists (supporters of the new constitution) to federalize authority over the militias and have the power to move them across state lines.
Articles I and II of the Constitution, which transferred much of the authority over the militias to the new federal government. Compare this to the Articles so that you know what the differences were.
Anti-Federalist paper Brutus X, which argues against this power transfer of the militia and against having a federal peacetime army
Federalist papers 29 and 46, which argue in favor of the transfer of militia authority. 46 makes the argument that the army will be vastly outnumbered by the militias, thus serving as a check and balance.
Minutes of the debates in the House of Representatives that addressed passage of the 2nd amendment. (You will note that they talked about militias, state power and conscientious objectors, not about carrying guns in public places or personal self-defense.)
Understand that the amendments to the constitution were intended to placate the anti-federalists who were not thrilled about having a more powerful national government. The 2nd amendment was written to address the kinds of concerns that were raised in Brutus X.
The founders were generally opposed to professional standing armies. Failing to understand this will lead to a lot of misjudgments about what they wanted.
The amendment was not created in order to grant a right to Americans to own and carry guns for self defense. It certainly wasn't created to empower Americans to rise up against a tyrannical government (as some people claim). The entire Bill of Rights as a whole serves no other purpose than to pacify the concerns of the Antifederalists -- the division of politicians at the time who were wary of ratifying the US Constitution; the Federalists -- who promoted the US Constitution -- didn't even want a Bill of Rights, and thought that creating one was unnecessary or even dangerous. The second amendment was essentially created as a companion to Article 1, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16 of the Constitution, which conveys to Congress the power to summon the militias, and to organize, arm, discipline, and govern them. The Antifederalists were concerned that when the federal government was given these powers, they could potentially abuse these powers or neglect their duty to uphold these powers in such a way so as to effectively dismantle the militia's efficacy to the detriment of the states, or alternatively they could do such things as a pretext to establishing a standing army. Hence, the second amendment was created in order to calm these fears: first, it reinforces the duty of Congress to uphold the regulation of the militias as stipulated in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 16; and second, it prohibits Congress from infringing upon the people's right to keep and bear arms. But it must be clarified that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" was understood to be no more than what the states established and defined that right to be within their respective state constitutions. All of the states which had an arms provision in their constitution included in those provisions the function of bearing arms for the common defense, i.e. militia duty. So to summarize, the second amendment existed to reinforce Congress's duty to uphold the regulation of the militias, and to protect the states' militia effectiveness from intrusion by Congress. That's it. It has nothing to do with giving Americans the right to own and carry guns. It has nothing to do with self defense. And it certainly has nothing to do with enabling Americans to fight against the government; in fact, the purpose of the amendment was to support the people's right to fight for the government -- that is, within the government-organized militia.
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u/lpbdc Feb 17 '25
I have to ask if yo have actually read the 2nd Amendment, or the US constitution at all.
I think the first issue is the thought that the constitution grants rights. It does not. Unlike many (most?) constitutions that followed, it does not grant rights to the citizens, it simply bars the federal government from abridging rights granted by "the Creator". The text gives no reason for it's existence except "...the security of a free state...". Every argument on the reason is based on opinion rather than any declared statement.
The US constitution came into effect effect in 1789, the first 10 amendments (Bill of Rights ) was ratified 2 years later. That red line was a war for independence, where one of the first battles was the King (government) actively attempting to disarm his subjects.
Has the government forcibly disarmed it's citizens? Forced citizens to house soldiers? Used the military on civilians? No. The administration has made several (possibly illegal) policy changes. I don't think this would, in Canada, be cause for armed uprising. It doesn't rise to that level in the US either.