OFF: Reefer Madness?

[M Holmes]

Jonathan Jarrett writes:


> > > someone I believe it was Malcolm X), put our government  into an interesting
> > > perspective, would you like to be eaten by the lion or the wolf??  I don't
> > > trust anyone with that much power.

> > Neither did the Founders of the US, who had a very great distust of
> > authority.  That's why there are sundry Constitutional limits on the
> > powers of politicians and judges and, because you always need a backup
> > plan, that's why US citizens have the right to bear arms. 

> 	It's not, is it? That's certainly how it's spun now by the gun 
> lobby but that provision of the Constitution originates in the need to 
> maintain a militia to deal with the possibility of reconquest from the 
> UK. 

Nope. If you have a look at what the Founders wrote on the issue, they
certainly thought that government needed reining in every so often by
gunplay if necessary.

> So I imagine that the Founding Fathers envisaged those arms-bearing 
> citizens doing so under the aegis of the government, not against it... 

Unless the government turned tyrannical, which the Founders though
government was wont to do.

FoFP