Turtles all the way down

The most widely known version appears in Stephen Hawking's 1988 book A Brief History of Time, which starts:

A well-known scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever", said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

OK, I'll have to admit to intellectual laziness since I learned about this from the first season of QI instead of reading Stephen Hawking. Where I picked it up isn't as important as the concept of knowledge and myth.

For some reason some ancient beliefs and superstitions have not given way to logic and science. The popular imagination holds a belief, yet refuses to shed it to fact. Ignorance keeps hold even though knowledge has tried to explain facts.

"But it's turtles all the way down!"

The argumentum ad populum. Someting is true because many or all people believe it. There is a converse to this the argumentum ad verecundiam, the argument from authority or appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative.

But, if the people or the authority is wrong, then that does not make the proposition true. So, even if 5 out of 4 of the Supreme Court justices rule that someting is the law, that does not make it proper law.

I have to admit, that any legal scholar if pressed would say that if something is not mentioned in a law, that it is not applicable, yet the argument in DC v. Heller was given court time.

The question is how does one educate the people that the popular beliefs about the Second Amendment, in particular it's being an "individual right" are The Emperor's New Clothes. There really isn't anything there. Heller was pure partisan politics which is the only reason that piece of intellectual dishonesty could have been written.

Everyone who has read the decision has found it wanting, with the exception of some gun control groups who are happy that it allows for reasonable restrictions and the "me too" crowd of Second Amendment "Scholars"--of couse. I have to admit that it is a harbinger of ill when I think of this in light of Cass Sunstein: "The Second Amendment: The Constitution's Most Mysterious Right", but I am not sure how the ill will come about.

The problem is that it is difficult dealing with ignorance as the quote at the beginning points out.

So, it is a chore to deal with it whether the ignorance comes from the people or those in power

Yet another funny RKBA quote

From Is there Contrary Evidence of an Individual Right?

Historian Garry Wills has made an attempt at claiming the above. An online article, from the gun control group Join Together, reports Wills as writing "any claims that the Constitution ensures an armed citizenry as a bulwark against the potential tyranny of government is a myth. 'You can't read the amendment apart from the body of the Constitution,' he wrote, 'and the body of the Constitution defines taking up arms against the United States as treason.' " [quoting Wills from his book, A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government (1999)]

A myth? Not according to Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (appointed by James Madison in 1811)--at least in the Guncite article author's opinion

No myth

Article III, Section 3.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.

Treason is the only crime mentioned in the Constitution. Actaully, one should read and quote the relevant section in Story's Commentaries, which are those relating to Article III, Section iii.

Somehow, I don't see Story's quote in the guncite article as contradicting the US Constution: do you?

Anyway and again, the whole passage from Joseph Story-Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, vol. 3 at pp. 746-747 (1833):

"§ 1889. The next amendment is "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

"§ 1890. The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. [FN1] And yet, thought this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How is it practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights. [FN2]

"§ 1891. A similar provision in favour of protestants (for to them it is confined) is to be found in the [English] Bill of Rights of 1688, it being declared, "that the subjects, which are protestants, may have arms for their defence suitable to their condition, and as allowed by law." [FN3] But under various pretences the effect of this provision has been greatly narrowed; and it is at present in England more nominal than real, as a defensive privilege."

Note that Story is talking about the institution of the Militia in relation to the Second Amendment, not personal ownership of firearms, lamenting "How is it practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization". The problem is that the Militia was pretty much dead at the time Story was writing, which he mourns in this passage. In fact, the militia was a still birth.

I mean if the Second Amendment were truly vibrant, there wouldn't be the large military budget since:

It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people.

Again, from Story's Commentaries regarding Article III, Section iii of Constitution:

§ 1292. The propriety of investing the national government with authority to punish the crime of treason against the United States could never become a question with any persons, who deemed the national government worthy of creation, or preservation. If the power had not been expressly granted, it must have been implied, unless all the powers of the national government might be put at defiance, and prostrated with impunity. Two motives, probably, concurred in introducing it, as an express power. One was, not to leave it open to implication, whether it was to be exclusively punishable with death according to the known rule of the common law, and with the barbarous accompaniments pointed out by it; but to confide the punishment to the discretion of congress. The other was, to impose some limitation upon the nature and extent of the punishment, so that it should not work corruption of blood or forfeiture beyond the life of the offender.

Another point, Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951) puts paid to the insurrectionist theory:

The obvious purpose of the statute is to protect existing Government, not from change by peaceable, lawful and constitutional means, but from change by violence, revolution and terrorism. That it is within the power of the Congress to protect the Government of the United States from armed rebellion is a proposition which requires little discussion. Whatever theoretical merit there may be to the argument that there is a "right" to rebellion against dictatorial governments is without force where the existing structure of the government provides for peaceful and orderly change. We reject any principle of governmental helplessness in the face of preparation for revolution, which principle, carried to its logical conclusion, must lead to anarchy. No one could conceive that it is not within the power of Congress to prohibit acts intended to overthrow the Government by force and violence. The question with which we are concerned here is not whether Congress has such power, but whether the means which it has employed conflict with the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.

What? No mention of the Second Amendment in that passage??? Again, the Second Amendment cannot be construed as allowing treason or "change by violence, revolution and terrorism" since armed revolt is unconstitutional under Article III, Section iii.

Funny Second Amendment Quotes

The second amendment does not mention self-defense. This is no more than a play on words. Why then would a person have the right to arm themselves? For show and tell? Another Liberal spin to fit their own agenda.

Q: Why then would a person have the right to arm themselves?

How about "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" being the reason why.

Are those words mere surplusage? (Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (Cranch 1) 137 (1803)) Are they there for "show and tell"? Are they "just window dressing"?

Sorry, it's not a liberal spin, but a perfectly sound legal interpretation, as well as a very conservative opinion. This is in opposition to popular misconceptions held by the public. The popular misconception has been granted official sanction by, of all people, Antonin Scalia. To justify this interpretation, Scalia has had to violate every principle he claims to believe in (see my posts tagged Scalia)

I see it (the term self-defense) in the words of the Second Amendment

Then, I suggest you pull out your braille edition and get a better feel of the text --because it ain't there!

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Your hallucinations aside, chum, the phrase "self-defence" does not exist in the words of the Second Amendment.

Of course, people who don't mind finding words in laws where they don't exist end up with no legal system.