Matt,

My original post merely used the First and Second Amendments as examples of how peoples' interpretations on them can differ. I only further expanded on my first amendment comments in response to JB(the 'Is this on Earth 2?' question was his.)

I have no intention of hijacking this or any other thread.

I never the said the government prohibits the free exercise of religion.

However, I have problems with society being either too religious, or too secular.

I think Michael ended at least part of this argument!


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Dream on, Rey. Dream on.

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Come on, to argue against your point further would be spitting in the face of reason at this point!

...Well, seems some people have made a hobby out of that...

"Perhaps I should re-post one tidbit of my earlier, longer post.

The Second Amendment was not adopted with individual rights in mind, and establishes no right to possess a firearm apart from the role possession of the gun might play in maintaining a state militia.

This is not an opinion. This is fact and this is the law.

JB is not misreading anything in any way."

Michael, with but one exception, I've--almost strenuously--avoided this tact in my arguments.  On the one hand, such arguments are ultimately moot in light of the distinction of Federal and State questions briefly outlined in your previous post.  While, on the other, the contradictions offered may sometimes serve only to muddy the waters of, perhaps, more weighty issues.  The one exception was in deference to a point raised by Keith Elder.  And, since Todd's argument doesn't stray appreciably, while bearing on my own...

Michael, your representation of the "collectivist" arguments as fact and law over the "standard" model in Second Amendment construction is hardly settled.  And, purposely so, as you're aware.  Putting aside the semantics offered by the terms fact and law, it simply isn't anywhere near as conclusive as you've stated to Todd.  For every mention of something along the lines of the Ninth Circuit's findings in Silveira v. Lockyer, one may legitimately respond with reference to my own Fifth Circuit's ruling in United States v Emerson.  I grant, Michael, if I'm only citing lower courts, I'd be citing the Fifth Circuit almost no end. ;)  It doesn't change the fact of the Fifth Circuit's standing.

More importantly for our purposes, the opinion of the Supreme Court regarding a clear preference for the standard model over the collectivist model in mention of the Second Amendment's construction, often only tangentially, is nonetheless made plain in several cases.  Among them:  Planned Parenthood v. Casey; Moore v. City of East Cleveland; Robertson v. Baldwin; and Scott v.Sandford.  We can keep going, here. 

Miller is no guidepost--of no surprise--yet that Supreme Court clearly acknowledged that the militia was comprised of the general populace of males of a fit age and that these men were expected to possess privately owned arms.  In this regard of further clarification and in deference to the States question, the Supreme Court has assumed almost a second job in working to avoid the matter.  As for something like Salinas, is that really something you'd care to hang your hat on, Michael?  And so, it goes.

Quoting from United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, the majority concluded that:

"...Contrary to the suggestion of amici curiae that the Framers used this phrase "simply to avoid [an] awkward rhetorical redundancy," Brief for American Civil Liberties Union et al. as Amici Curiae 12, n. 4, "the people" seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained and established by "the people of the United States." The Second Amendment protects "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are retained by and reserved to "the people." See also U.S. Const., Amdt. 1 ("Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble") (emphasis added); Art. I, 2, cl. 1 ("The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the people of the several States") (emphasis added). While this textual exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that "the people" protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community."

And think about what we are suggesting.  Would any American, here, willingly undertake the cause of arguing that the other Amendments enumerated in the Bill of Rights should be interpreted in a strictly collectivist light?  The First Amendment?  The Fourth?  And yet, with a gasp of near panic, I'm reading that many support just that proposition of working to undermine a substantive guarantee...knowingly or unknowingly.

I'll take vanilla. 

Smiling. 

There you go, Rey.

And also pranced around in a German television show with his monkey.