[ExI] ccp struggles

[John Clark]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 10:33 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*> The second amendment is about the militia, not about defending homes,
> farms, hunting, crime, any of that.*


Then the second amendment isn't about much. The only real militias are the
National Guard and the Navy militia, the others are just a gaggle of white
supremacist nut jobs marching around and pretending to be soldiers. And
just because some jerkwater politician writes a law that says every male
between 17 and 45 is a member of a militia does not make that a reality,
most males between 17 and 45 have never even heard of a militia much less
think they're in one.


> >…I asked this before but maybe this time you'll give me an answer, do you
> think the second amendment has limits or do you think making machine guns
> illegal is unconstitutional?
>
>
>
> *> States can do that legally, ja. *
>

So does that mean the Constitution is NOT the law of the land and states
are free to ignore it, or does it mean the word "arms" in the second
amendment is not a synonym for "anything that can kill lots of people"?


> *> The second amendment refers to what the Fed can do.  Militias do not
> need machine guns.*
>

Why not? The US Army needs machine guns and has them, if militias don't and
are on the same side then they can't help the army much, and if they're on
different sides the professional army could push militias out of the way
pretty easily.

>> So we're right back to the retail sale of H-Bombs question which you
>> refuse to answer…
>
>
>
> *> I don’t refuse to answer: anyone with those kinds of resources has the
> option of buying an island in international waters and going ahead with it.
> On US soil they would need to get the state government to buy in*,
>

So before the Second Amendment can go into effect a state must put their
seal of approval on it? Does that work for the First Amendment too, would
it be OK with the Constitution if California put anyone in jail who said
something unflattering about their Democratic governor? If so then the Bill
of Rights isn't worth much.


> *> They would likely need to deal with the international courts on the
> island, but we are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars to get one
> of these in any case,*
>

If the nuclear industry were starting from zero that would be true but it
isn't. And the beauty of the Teller–Ulam H-Bomb design and the reason the
number of thermonuclear warheads increased enormously in the late 1950's
and early 60's is it allowed you to make multi megaton weapons very
cheaply, you only needed a small amount of relatively expensive Plutonium
and and a even smaller amount of Tritium, most of the bomb is made of cheap
U238, deuterium, and Lithium. And these days Plutonium is cheaper than it
has ever been because commercial power reactors crank out the stuff by the
ton as a byproduct of operation. I imagine you could make a 10 megaton bomb
for about a million dollars, less if you started mass producing the damn
things. And because of this it's not just megatons that are cheap,
megadeath is dirt cheap too, just pennies per death. But if H-Bombs are
"arms" and we follow the Constitution I guess that's the way we have to go.

> *John are you worried someone is going to do this? *
>

I'm worried that somebody is crazy enough to think retail sales of H-Bombs
is not a crazy idea because his belief system is inflexible and remains
static regardless of what new information is received.


> >>…an individual state could ignore it and abolish freedom of the press,
>> or decree that any sort of firearm is illegal even flintlocks, or
>> reintroduce slavery, or make their governor king, or do anything else they
>> wanted…
>>
>
>
> *> In a sense all of these things are possible. *
>

Then the Constitution is a joke, and a joke in very poor taste. But
retail sales
of H-bombs is an even worse joke and there is something fundamentally wrong
with any political philosophy that rates it as a good idea.


> *> This is the beauty of our system: we have 50 competing laboratories for
> government. *
>

But there were ethical concerns so limits were placed on how human
laboratory specimens could be treated. The first 3 words of the
Constitution are "We the people" not "We the states", and it claims to
grant those people certain unalienable Rights. If it can't do that then the
Constitution is a fraud.


> >> does the second amendment demand that retail sales of H-bombs be
>> allowed or does it not? This only requires a yes or no answer…
>
>
>
> *> OK sure.  A person can own an H-bomb legally, *
>

Wow! If your political philosophy leads you to this point then it's time to
reassess your political philosophy.

*> John for some time, some of us here have suspected that your posts are
> all part of an elaborate false-flag attack on liberals.  You present
> yourself as one,*
>

No, I present myself as a small l libertarian, not to be confused with a
very silly American political party with a similar sounding name. I'm
probably the most libertarian member of this list, I say that because I
seem to be the one most upset that the most ferociously anti-libertarian
president in American history is now leading the nation. But as much as I
love libertarianism I fully admit I love the scientific method even more.


> > your bitter, arrogant and often apparently unhinged screeds
>

If I'm being unhinged I don't see why that would offend you, after all your
Commander In Chief has done unhinged things every single day for the last
three and a half years and that doesn't seem to bother you one bit; the
latest example is defunding the World Health Organization in the middle of
the largest global pandemic seen in a century. Idiocy of that colossal
magnitude would have once been the talk of the land, but it's so common now
it's hardly worth mentioning. Stupidity and monumental incompetence is the
new normal.

> *your attempts at influencing others have been an epic fail.*
>

I say what I think, that's the only skill I have and I know it doesn't work
very well. Politicians are more successful because they never say what they
think, they say what people want to hear, but I don't have that skill.

>> …And on a whim the Constitution gives some votes 66.7 times as much
>> power as other votes…
>
>
> *>So move to one of those states. *
>

Why should I have to move because of a idiotic whim that makes no sense?
And besides if California and Wyoming swapped populations you'd end up in
the exact same ridiculous situation. And why on earth should that even be
necessary, why should some citizens be given more rights than others to
begin with? What is the rationale for believing a Wyoming voter is 66.7
times wiser than a California voter?

John K Clark
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