NationStates Jolt Archive

See, there's a way of thinking I just can't get my head around :
Britain is essentially a democratic country. The government is elected by the people. Yet some posters will always claim that "the government" will do its utmost to opress, rob, incapacitate, disenfranchise and otherwise mistreat "the people".

Now, if they were talking about some totalitarian regime, I could understand the sentiment. But in a country like the UK? Odd.

Heh yeah I know what you mean. It's not great country to live in (but which country is), y'know we also have our problems here, but it's okay.

I enjoy the freedom to do what I wish within the law, yes I disagree with the whole ID cards thing, but lets just vote the fucker out if he dares mention it again.

Right! So... has the UK yet banned fertilizer and backpacks so those bombs cannot be made again? (ZING!!)
No, you banned planes so you don't get another 9/11? ZING!

See how stupid that is?

The act of carrying a weapon (especially concealed) infringes no one unless they're displayed in a hostile manner. Otherwise, the carrying of lighters or matches becomes illegal as they're a threat for arson, and driving a car/motorbike becomes illegal for vehicular manslaugter.

Yes, I agree with the rest, it's a basic societal issue. But your government is doing you no favors by outlawing things and trying to turn you into "sheeple".

Right! So... has the UK yet banned fertilizer and backpacks so those bombs cannot be made again? (ZING!!)
Gawd, but you don't half trot out some alarmist rubbish, I swear.

It strikes me that you're assuming that the Government is attempting to take away things that people in the UK want to keep their hands on - they're not. The reason why knives are under question is that teenagers and stuff are carting the things around when they shouldn't be - if you've got a decent enough reason to carry around damn near anything, then you'll be allowed to do so. I'll be able to carry about my damn Swiss Army knife, as it's under the legal length. The fact that I don't carry around the damn thing is because I don't want to be armed.

Yes, you'll probably claim that makes me more likely to be unable to defend myself, but the fact is I do have common sense and so can usually avoid such situations. The only two times I've had any trouble in and about the areas of my home city I frequent, one of them was brought upon myself because me and my mates were acting like tits when really pissed and the second they outnumbered us by about four to one and so had we attempted to do anything, they'd have laid the boot in anyways. Thankfully that time my elder brother knew one of their elder brothers, so we got off, but that's a no matter for this.

Argh, I can't believe windows did an update and restarted while I was typing this...
Ah, but that persecution is then ILLEGAL. For example, the US apology (and reparations) for the internment of Japanese in WW2 or the jailing of Klan members.
And again, I agree, persecution does happen. But I'm still harping that barring the Chinese Exclusion Acts, the US didn't have laws on the books for persecution, unlike the UK. Ergo, the point you're trying to make falls a bit short.
There were statutes allowing slavery in the USA for longer than the UK.

However, that doesn't really matter. Persecution in its various forms is illegal in most countries, but that doesn't stop it happening. Neither does it make it any more or less morally wrong or the persecuted any freer or less. Whether the United States had or hadn't have statutes banning persecution or not, it happened and states were prepared, to an extent, to turn a blind eye to it. What happens is what matters, not whether there is a piece of peper saying whether it should happen or not.

I'll repeat myself again. The United States was much freer than any other country on Earth in 1787, and remained so for quite some time (and arguably into today). Just because I'm pointing out that the United Kingdom treated people badly in the past does NOT mean that the United States was sinless from the outset.
The USA and the UK governments were doing, for the most part, exactly the same thing, albeit to different groups of people.

You can point to all sorts of American inequalities and infringements on liberties, but I'm not the one claiming that the United States was a utopia from the outset. Unlike you, I am aware that my country was free for a great many people two hundred years ago. Pointing fingers at the prejudices of the past does not a sensible read make. :)
And the United Kingdom was free for a great many people at the time as well. However, that doesn't make the entire society free.

Never going to happen. My whole POV is based upon the ideal that American was free from the outset for the enfranchised (all free men), and then those freedoms were extended to others as HUMAN SOCIETY changed. It wasn't like the US was founded to keep women down, contrary to whatever Gloria Steinem might say. :D
You can say exactly the same about the foundation of the UK in 1800. Therefore, we were free from the outset, correct? Furthermore, will you therefore admit that the people who weren't free white men weren't free?

Imperial Russia was an absolute monarchy, and that was your comparison, yeah? Please re-read, I was talking on your point about the Russian Revolution and early Bolshevism.
I was comparing the the UK, which didn't have universal suffrage in the 1920s, the the USSR, which did.

The State legislatures were hardly national governments.
During the Confederation it could be argued that they had attributes of national governments. I'm not going to debate that bit of historical pedantry though.

Simply, as stated above: since there was no widespread concept/movement FOR universal suffrage or emancipation, the people of a time cannot be held on that account. It'd be like complaining that Newton didn't come up with Special Relativity: there was just no way to get there. Ergo, the US was free by the society norms of the time -- and moreso.
You've missed my point. You've been claiming that the USA can claim to be free nonwithstanding slavery and various other societal norms, but that the UK was not free from the outset, even though these societal norms were also there in the UK. You can't have one standard for the United States and another for the United Kingdom. (Although both countries actually did have these concepts/movements)

Of course not! But your examples are those of repression of ideals (freedom of religion, life, liberty, et al) that have been around for centuries.
And?

A better example here would be gay rights. There is a movement for it, but most governments frown on it or condemn it outright. (Compare San Francisco to Tehran, for example.)
Now consider if we were to have this same debate in 30 years or so, and you'd lob gay rights into the mix with women's rights and slavery for the 18th century! Society has changed (at least, I hope it has by 2038!), so our prism changed, and we'd be horrified that gays were dragged to death behind pickup trucks in the 1990s or put in stocks in the 1700s!
And gays from 2090 or whatever, assuming that the world hasn't collapsed in and on itself by then, would likely claim that American society was for them unfree.

I wholly agree. Which is why I've been keeping my point up about the US being free far earlier and to a greater extent than any gov't on Earth. QED.
No. you've been claiming that the USA was free from the outset. Not 'freer' or 'relatively free'. Using the term unqualified infers absolute freedom. Not that the United Sates was freer than the UK, of course.

Nope, it does not make it okay. It's makes it HISTORY, it took decades to break slavery, and even then it was a secondary cause in a Civil War. I hear they took a few years to build the rockets to go to the moon, too. That we see things now that were not widely held beliefs then is progress.
I agree. We have progressed to a society where blacks enjoy the same freedoms as whites. This is a good thing.

All of these Amendments were post US Civil War.
Here:http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html
If you mean the original right to vote? You'll want Article I, Section 2 and Section 3 (hit the hyperlink, as Amendment XVII edits that).
As for the Jim Crow laws (disenfrancisement of blacks in the South):
[urlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws[/url]
It was an very unfortunate regional issue that took basically 1945-1965 to wipe out. You'll note that the Crow laws didn't actually ban black voting, they just set the bar so high that it made it mostly impossible.

The US constitution most certainatly does grant the right to vote, as shown above..

I know about the Jim Crow Laws and the US constitution. Which was exactly my point. The amendments don't give a right to vote. The prevent using colour, gender or age over 18 as a condition for voting, but they do not require the states to allow everybody to vote. hence why they, as you said, set the bar so high that it made it mostly impossible. If everybody could have pointed at the constitution and said to a polling station in the South and said 'I have a right to vote', how could they do that? And how can the right to vote be denied to prisoners and felons in some states?

Yes, exactly so. I'm happy to admit that, and say that American society is free today despite that. Funny how we made the same point there, eh? :) Actually, I used the British/Irish arguement only to show that "recent" is a relative term.
Although, in the future, people may well look into our society and say that both British and American societies weren't free.

BINGO!! I most certainly say that the United States was 'free from the outset' by the standards of THE TIME. As said above, holding the past to modern societal norms is a sophistry or a deceit.
I don't disagree with that. If as a result of oil running out or some other catastrophe we end up with a load of military dictatorships instead of liberal democracies a country like Cuba might be free for the time too.

Only if you realize we're arguing two slightly different perspectives.
I know. It's actually developed into two different arguments. Firstly, hether the unqualified term free means 'free by today's standards' or 'free by the standards of he time in question.' Secondly, whether there was a difference between the USA and the UK at the time in question. My answer to the first has been 'free by today's standards', bit I'm only arguing that as a pointof semantics to be contrary, and no to the second, which is the more important one.

The fact that I don't carry around the damn thing is because I don't want to be armed.
I think this is the point most gun-carrying Americans don't understand.

The act of carrying a weapon (especially concealed) infringes no one unless they're displayed in a hostile manner. Otherwise, the carrying of lighters or matches becomes illegal as they're a threat for arson, and driving a car/motorbike becomes illegal for vehicular manslaugter.
Not quite, as carrying a concealed weapon most probably means you think you'll need to use a gun at some point. Now here's the rub: I don't think carrying a weapon is equatable to carrying a lighter for the reasons given above in your (rather flimsy) 'tool argument'. We're going to get into an argument about this, I know, but I don't think everyone carrying a gun makes everyone safer; quite the contrary in fact.

Especially as not everyone will carry a gun, leaving a certain proportion of the population holding a power over the rest of the population.

Not quite, as carrying a concealed weapon most probably means you think you'll need to use a gun at some point. Now here's the rub: I don't think carrying a weapon is equatable to carrying a lighter for the reasons given above in your (rather flimsy) 'tool argument'. We're going to get into an argument about this, I know, but I don't think everyone carrying a gun makes everyone safer; quite the contrary in fact.


There are many situations in which a firearm(or several)m has actually ended a situation that could have been a lot worse, and therefore made it safer.

The sniper situation at Texas University. Civilians actually provided cover fire so that police could move in towards the shooter's location.

The unidentified man in Winamucca, Nevada recently who shot a gunman in a restaurant ending the gunman's killing spree

The boy who shot two intruders who were attempting to steal his mother's morphine(she had cancer).

The assistant principal of a school in Pearl, Mississippi. He complied with the law and kept his weapon in his vehicle and parked a quarter mile from the school. A gunman came in, and the AP retrieved his weapon, subdued the perpetrator, and waited for the police.

Just to name four in which a firearm used responsibly by carrying civilians has ended a threat and made the situation safer. I challenge you to name just two incidents in which a legally carried firearm was used to commit an illegal action or in the accidental death of a bystander during the attempted prevention of an illegal action(a violently illegal action obviously, I don't approve of shooting unarmed car thieves.)

Especially as not everyone will carry a gun, leaving a certain proportion of the population holding a power over the rest of the population.


And actually, that inequality is the fault of the individuals who choose not to carry. They are leaving themselves susceptible to a violent criminal who may choose, regardless of the law, to carry a firearm, so allowing the criminal's possible victim the opportunity to carry is more of an equalizer. Those who carry legally are very, very rarely involved in committing a crime. More often than not, they're instrumental in ending it.

Ah. So it's for the judges, not for the common man? Thanks, MY POINT STANDS!

What is your point? If you're trying to compare the Human Rights Act to the US constitution/Bill of Rights then it's a poor comparison. The Human Rights Act is essentially an explanatory note to explain how the ECHR works in British law, rather than actually guaranteeing the freedoms itself. And the ECHR is pretty simple to understand.


Yes, RADAR watched for planes. And the LDV (later Home Guard) did too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Home_Guard ...though I'm sure you're already aware of this. And that they were armed, albeit only by 1943.
Very much a guard the wasp sort of job really. They contributed more clearing rubble etc than actual military tasks. They weren't entrusted anything military until the Generals were damn sure they weren't going to be needed to do anything important.

There are many situations in which a firearm(or several)m has actually ended a situation that could have been a lot worse, and therefore made it safer.

Anecdotal evidence is relatively useless from a general point of view. Especially since we can't properly quantify when someone's been shot in anger because the shooter had a gun to hand compared to if they hadn't.

Off the top of my head Tony Martin, shot two burglars in the back as they ran away from his house. One died, other crippled I believe.

I wasn't aware that it was. We have no gun culture here, so it being harder to get agun is fine, we have not outlawed them, you just need a bloody good reason to have one.

Knives are not outlawed either but if you are found carrying on on the street you are rightly getting into trouble.

There is no such a thing as gun culture. That that's even a phrase shows how brainwashed people are against firearms. Or do you think that every American city and town is like "The Untouchables" or "Tombstone"?

They will be, just like guns and swords are outlawed. The idea that anyone must say why they want to buy something and justify it is Nannystate.

See, there's a way of thinking I just can't get my head around :
Britain is essentially a democratic country. The government is elected by the people. Yet some posters will always claim that "the government" will do its utmost to opress, rob, incapacitate, disenfranchise and otherwise mistreat "the people".

Now, if they were talking about some totalitarian regime, I could understand the sentiment. But in a country like the UK? Odd.

Barring disenfrancisement, I agree wholly with you.

No, you banned planes so you don't get another 9/11? ZING!

See how stupid that is?

YES!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
You just argued for my position: banning something is pointless and won't solve anything. QED.

Gawd, but you don't half trot out some alarmist rubbish, I swear.

It strikes me that you're assuming that the Government is attempting to take away things that people in the UK want to keep their hands on - they're not. The reason why knives are under question is that teenagers and stuff are carting the things around when they shouldn't be - if you've got a decent enough reason to carry around damn near anything, then you'll be allowed to do so. I'll be able to carry about my damn Swiss Army knife, as it's under the legal length. The fact that I don't carry around the damn thing is because I don't want to be armed.

Yes, you'll probably claim that makes me more likely to be unable to defend myself, but the fact is I do have common sense and so can usually avoid such situations. The only two times I've had any trouble in and about the areas of my home city I frequent, one of them was brought upon myself because me and my mates were acting like tits when really pissed and the second they outnumbered us by about four to one and so had we attempted to do anything, they'd have laid the boot in anyways. Thankfully that time my elder brother knew one of their elder brothers, so we got off, but that's a no matter for this.

And you're a bit of a ducky yourself, eh what? You gonna have a sit down fronta the telly, have a cuppa n' watch Ab Fab?
Ah, the joys of being snarky. And there was NOTHING in my post that was alarmist, unless you want to tell me what it is. Because I wrote it, and I certainly didn't see anything in it being alarmist!


<BANGS HEAD AGAINST THE WALL... AS I'M EXPLAINING IT FOR THE NTH TIME>
Are you telling me that 100% of Britain is happy with the way the country is run? I call shennanigans. I don't care what your excuse is, banning any material good is pointless and a removal of a right/liberty of the people.

Exactly, it doesn't matter a whit. I'm talking basic legal rights in a free society, you're advocating governmental control over something. And that's all that it comes down to: you want to be less free than I do. Fine, that's your right, but I think you're a looney on that point.

anything can be a weapon. In my home of Australia as i suspect all over the world car crashes are near the top of fatalities by non natural causes. Should we therefor ban cars too? I suspect any politician foolish enough to push that idea forwards will be the only one for it and never win his seat again.

Sadly I think it can be all summed up by the NRA slogan. BLANKs dont kill people. People kill people.

anything can be a weapon. In my home of Australia as i suspect all over the world car crashes are near the top of fatalities by non natural causes. Should we therefor ban cars too? I suspect any politician foolish enough to push that idea forwards will be the only one for it and never win his seat again.

Sadly I think it can be all summed up by the NRA slogan. BLANKs dont kill people. People kill people.

If you did ban cars yes there wouldn't be any deaths caused by them. If you said that more cars would reduce the number of deaths then you would be taking the NRA position on guns.

Argh, I can't believe windows did an update and restarted while I was typing this...

There were statutes allowing slavery in the USA for longer than the UK.

However, that doesn't really matter. Persecution in its various forms is illegal in most countries, but that doesn't stop it happening. Neither does it make it any more or less morally wrong or the persecuted any freer or less. Whether the United States had or hadn't have statutes banning persecution or not, it happened and states were prepared, to an extent, to turn a blind eye to it. What happens is what matters, not whether there is a piece of peper saying whether it should happen or not.


The USA and the UK governments were doing, for the most part, exactly the same thing, albeit to different groups of people.


And the United Kingdom was free for a great many people at the time as well. However, that doesn't make the entire society free.


You can say exactly the same about the foundation of the UK in 1800. Therefore, we were free from the outset, correct? Furthermore, will you therefore admit that the people who weren't free white men weren't free?


I was comparing the the UK, which didn't have universal suffrage in the 1920s, the the USSR, which did.


During the Confederation it could be argued that they had attributes of national governments. I'm not going to debate that bit of historical pedantry though.


You've missed my point. You've been claiming that the USA can claim to be free nonwithstanding slavery and various other societal norms, but that the UK was not free from the outset, even though these societal norms were also there in the UK. You can't have one standard for the United States and another for the United Kingdom. (Although both countries actually did have these concepts/movements)


And?


And gays from 2090 or whatever, assuming that the world hasn't collapsed in and on itself by then, would likely claim that American society was for them unfree.


No. you've been claiming that the USA was free from the outset. Not 'freer' or 'relatively free'. Using the term unqualified infers absolute freedom. Not that the United Sates was freer than the UK, of course.


I agree. We have progressed to a society where blacks enjoy the same freedoms as whites. This is a good thing.



I know about the Jim Crow Laws and the US constitution. Which was exactly my point. The amendments don't give a right to vote. The prevent using colour, gender or age over 18 as a condition for voting, but they do not require the states to allow everybody to vote. hence why they, as you said, set the bar so high that it made it mostly impossible. If everybody could have pointed at the constitution and said to a polling station in the South and said 'I have a right to vote', how could they do that? And how can the right to vote be denied to prisoners and felons in some states?


Although, in the future, people may well look into our society and say that both British and American societies weren't free.


I don't disagree with that. If as a result of oil running out or some other catastrophe we end up with a load of military dictatorships instead of liberal democracies a country like Cuba might be free for the time too.


I know. It's actually developed into two different arguments. Firstly, hether the unqualified term free means 'free by today's standards' or 'free by the standards of he time in question.' Secondly, whether there was a difference between the USA and the UK at the time in question. My answer to the first has been 'free by today's standards', bit I'm only arguing that as a pointof semantics to be contrary, and no to the second, which is the more important one.

Copy & Paste to Word... I learned that it makes long posts doable after I'd lost half a dozen pages due to database errors. (argh!).

Yes, yes there were. And the statues denying the vote to FREEDMEN lasted in the UK much longer than the US.
Agreed, it is getting off topic quite a bit, but persecution is what's happening right now against smokers, gays, (and fox hunters in the UK). BUT I STILL CONTEND that it was not legal persecution in the US, and that makes a difference in my book. Sorry, I think we're at an impasse here.

Not quite, and here I think is the difference, which I made many posts ago: the US Constitution is a LIVING document. It gets changed very slowly and rarely, and is a constant in the lives of every American. It grants the widest arrays of freedoms to its citizens. The UK lacks a written Constitution, and therefore has to keep passing more and more Byzantine laws to maintain itself as a modern state. *That* is why it took longer for the UK to become as free as the US. (Peoples Acts et al).

Sure! If they were property owners, lords, the right religion, etc depending on the time. I consider all that, as it is a very valid point. However, at no time from 1787 forward does one EVER see a greater enfranchisement of the population in the UK than in the US. Sorry, but it's just the case. That's not to say the the UK sucks, or that it's been some hell on Earth. But it has a lesser record of personal freedom than the US. That's why so many of you (and other nation's) immigrants CAME here. We didn't get to 300 million in under 300 years by accident! :)

If the UK was free in 1800, there wouldn't have been need of the People's Acts, especially #4.

YES. And I was pointing out that while they had it, it only came about after deposing an Absolute Monarch (Tsar) and a Civil War. So while they got Universal Suffrage before the UK, it was via the end of a gun. The Russians overturned the government in the way the British haven't, which is WHY they got there!

Fair, but the Confederacy was illegal, as is a state leaving the Union. That's what the whole war was about, not so much slavery.

I understand your point. My counter (which I perhaps haven't spelled out until above in this post) is that the UK constantly had more bars on liberty than the US did, as it started out an absolute monarchy that slowly granted the people rights vs. the US, which started out with the greatest enfranchisement for the people and only the number of people grew with the emancipation and universal suffrage.

And? China beating down the Falung Gong is equal to the treatment of women in Afghanistan under the Taleban (or, heck, ANYTHING under the Taleban!). In the modern world (post 1870), the spread of ideas and liberal philosophy means that things like the Spanish Inquistion shouldnt happen.

Yes, exactly, they would/will.

The US was free from the outset. I've been saying that all along, and as you notice by my defintion it's always in comparison to what is considered free for the times.

Erm? I JUST posted 3 Amendments that give the right to vote! And the states must allow it, it wasn't until 1964 (unfortunately) that the laws to ensure that the bar of entry wasn't set so high that it'd be impossible were passed. :(
They could, but given the laws at the time they'd probably just go to jail. Again, it baffles me that it took the Federal governement so long to destroy these obviously illegal state
Actually, only two states (Maine and Vermont) allow prisoners to vote.

Yes, but only not free by the norms of THAT time.

It might happen, but you do know that all of this oil stuff is just hype right? We're seeing a "Green Bubble" right now, and the corporations are raking in the dough on both sides of the fence: green technologies AND energy firms. Carbon footprint? Please. Each coal powerplant that China puts online every two weeks has a bigger footprint than a western city of 100,000.

Basically that's the size of it. And it's been a fine debate too. :)

If you did ban cars yes there wouldn't be any deaths caused by them. If you said that more cars would reduce the number of deaths then you would be taking the NRA position on guns.

Actually it would, at least for all those pedestrians and motorcyclists that get killed because they weren't surrounded by 2-4 tons of material!

Not quite, as carrying a concealed weapon most probably means you think you'll need to use a gun at some point. Now here's the rub: I don't think carrying a weapon is equatable to carrying a lighter for the reasons given above in your (rather flimsy) 'tool argument'. We're going to get into an argument about this, I know, but I don't think everyone carrying a gun makes everyone safer; quite the contrary in fact.

Especially as not everyone will carry a gun, leaving a certain proportion of the population holding a power over the rest of the population.

"Most probably"? Please. That's a hand-wringing idea. I *never* think when I strap on my pistol "oh, I'll be using YOU today". Nor does anyone who is sane. Police and border patrol agents often go LONG periods of time without ever drawing their firearms, because that's an event of LAST resort.

That's fine, and you're free to believe that. Especially since I don't think everyone should carry a gun either (no insane or felons for example).

Power? How? If they're LEGALLY carrying guns, they're not a threat to order! That's like arguing that motorists have power over pedestrians because they can kill them at any time too. In practice, few people choose to drive on sidewalks and enforce their "power".

What is your point? If you're trying to compare the Human Rights Act to the US constitution/Bill of Rights then it's a poor comparison. The Human Rights Act is essentially an explanatory note to explain how the ECHR works in British law, rather than actually guaranteeing the freedoms itself. And the ECHR is pretty simple to understand.

Very much a guard the wasp sort of job really. They contributed more clearing rubble etc than actual military tasks. They weren't entrusted anything military until the Generals were damn sure they weren't going to be needed to do anything important.

_________
Anecdotal evidence is relatively useless from a general point of view. Especially since we can't properly quantify when someone's been shot in anger because the shooter had a gun to hand compared to if they hadn't.

Off the top of my head Tony Martin, shot two burglars in the back as they ran away from his house. One died, other crippled I believe.

If you can't follow the thread, then what's the point of debating with you? My point (going back some pages now) was the the UK lacks a written constitution and that because of it you're less free. And, given this arcane chain of this-document-that-document and the basic unreadability this one "for the judges", I think you've proven it to a fine degree.

The bit below the bar is from a totally different poster (read: not me).
And I still hold what I said pages ago that Tony Martin should be made Sherriff of his town and his example emulated. The burglars weren't vicitims, they just paid their "occupational hazzard".

Power? How? If they're LEGALLY carrying guns, they're not a threat to order! That's like arguing that motorists have power over pedestrians because they can kill them at any time too. In practice, few people choose to drive on sidewalks and enforce their "power".

Quite right but that power still exists huh.

anything can be a weapon. In my home of Australia as i suspect all over the world car crashes are near the top of fatalities by non natural causes. Should we therefor ban cars too? I suspect any politician foolish enough to push that idea forwards will be the only one for it and never win his seat again.

Sadly I think it can be all summed up by the NRA slogan. BLANKs dont kill people. People kill people.

Can't remember what TV show I picked that one up, but it stuck :

"You give a monkey a gun and the monkey shoots someone. It's not the monkey's fault. It's the fault of the person who gave the monkey the gun."

Actually it would, at least for all those pedestrians and motorcyclists that get killed because they weren't surrounded by 2-4 tons of material!

Now, that would be an interesting calculation...
How many car crashes (two cars) end deadly, and how many more can we expect with an increase of cars on the roads?
And how many pedestrians and cyclist are killed in car crashes each year?

Power? How? If they're LEGALLY carrying guns, they're not a threat to order! That's like arguing that motorists have power over pedestrians because they can kill them at any time too. In practice, few people choose to drive on sidewalks and enforce their "power".

Yes, but that's mostly due to the heavy enforcement of the highway code. And yes, they DO have power over pedestrians. Ever tried crossing a busy street?

Actually it would, at least for all those pedestrians and motorcyclists that get killed because they weren't surrounded by 2-4 tons of material!

But it would increase the number of collisions between cars.

Right, I’ve decided to mess around with you post so I can make a more coherent argument. I’ll do my best to ensure I address all your points and not to misrepresent them.
Copy & Paste to Word... I learned that it makes long posts doable after I'd lost half a dozen pages due to database errors. (argh!).
You can bet I’m doing that now.;)

Agreed, it is getting off topic quite a bit, but persecution is what's happening right now against smokers, gays, (and fox hunters in the UK). BUT I STILL CONTEND that it was not legal persecution in the US, and that makes a difference in my book. Sorry, I think we're at an impasse here.
It explains quite a lot about why we disagree on this. You put a lot of emphasis on what is written down and codified and take it at, what appears to me, face value. America has a Bill of Rights preventing persecution, thus America is free. Having grown in Britain, having no such codified constitution, I put more emphasis on what happens in fact as much as what happens in law, as that is an important part in British constitutional practice. Of course, whether fox hunters and smokers are persecuted is up to debate and politically contentious.

Yes, yes there were. And the statues denying the vote to FREEDMEN lasted in the UK much longer than the US.
Sure! If they were property owners, lords, the right religion, etc depending on the time. I consider all that, as it is a very valid point. However, at no time from 1787 forward does one EVER see a greater enfranchisement of the population in the UK than in the US. Sorry, but it's just the case. That's not to say the the UK sucks, or that it's been some hell on Earth. But it has a lesser record of personal freedom than the US. That's why so many of you (and other nation's) immigrants CAME here. We didn't get to 300 million in under 300 years by accident! :)
If the UK was free in 1800, there wouldn't have been need of the People's Acts, especially #4.
YES. And I was pointing out that while they had it, it only came about after deposing an Absolute Monarch (Tsar) and a Civil War. So while they got Universal Suffrage before the UK, it was via the end of a gun. The Russians overturned the government in the way the British haven't, which is WHY they got there!
I understand your point. My counter (which I perhaps haven't spelled out until above in this post) is that the UK constantly had more bars on liberty than the US did, as it started out an absolute monarchy that slowly granted the people rights vs. the US, which started out with the greatest enfranchisement for the people and only the number of people grew with the emancipation and universal suffrage.
The US was free from the outset. I've been saying that all along, and as you notice by my defintion it's always in comparison to what is considered free for the times.
And by that yardstick, I disagree that the USA was different to the United Kingdom. We both had different groups that we subjected various forms of illegal and legal persecution to and through different caveats that allowed us to claim they were different and not subject to traditional liberties (inso far as Americans claimed that Blacks were not citizens thus not subject to American views on liberty, we said that the Irish were Catholics and it was thus necessary for security to subjugate them.) but the point is, for me, that we both did it and using the same logic: that some groups are not fit for our liberties.

And that also explains why so many people left the UK, especially the Irish (and IIRC 300 million people did not emmigrate to the USA and not all that did came from the UK!). We treated them like shit. Their main crop failed and we did nothing. And for the standards of the time, it was OK to treat people like shit based on their race. We both did it to Blacks, for example, and for other minorities.

Ditto Representation of the People Acts. The USA didn’t have universal suffrage in 1800, and used legislation to enfranchise more people. By the standards of ‘If a legislature has to pass legislation to allow people to vote, it’s unfree until all people can vote’ the USA wasn’t free until the late 1960s.

I’m sure one of us is misunderstanding something over the Russia thing. (Quite possibly me). You were putting a lot of faith into the idea that universal suffrage is a turning point in the development of a free society. I don’t think this is the case. The UK was much freer in 1927 than the Soviet Union in 1927, despite the USSR having universal suffrage while the UK had not. (I’m sure Andaras would agree!) Regardless of why and how the USSR got universal suffrage, it did not make it free relative to Britian, or the USA.

My beef with your analysis, however, comes from the fact that you look at America through the lens of the nineteenth century and at the UK through the lens of the twenty first. Your point about the USA starting out at the greatest enfranchisement on earth (which it didn’t, plenty of states increased their property requirements under the Articles o Confederation) is a case in point. By the standards of Æthelstan, England was free in 927 AD. There was no other democracy in the world since Greece and, in some ways Rome. You could argue that it was freer, Parliament –like bodies had appeared after 1066, something almost unique to England. If you can say that America was founded in an era of relative freedom which extended, you have to say the same of England and the rest of the UK, albeit over a much longer time frame.
I don’t have a problem with saying the USA was free, by the standards of the time, when it came into existence in 1788. It just wasn’t significantly any more or less free than the UK, which was also no more or less free than its neighbours and standards in the first millennium.
Yes, exactly, they would/will.
And? China beating down the Falung Gong is equal to the treatment of women in Afghanistan under the Taleban (or, heck, ANYTHING under the Taleban!). In the modern world (post 1870), the spread of ideas and liberal philosophy means that things like the Spanish Inquistion shouldnt happen.
Yes, but only not free by the norms of THAT time.
It might happen, but you do know that all of this oil stuff is just hype right? We're seeing a "Green Bubble" right now, and the corporations are raking in the dough on both sides of the fence: green technologies AND energy firms. Carbon footprint? Please. Each coal powerplant that China puts online every two weeks has a bigger footprint than a western city of 100,000.
You know that about peak oil wasn’t my point.;)[/quote]
Ultimately, this is about the definition of the unqualified term ‘free’: free by the eighteenth/nineteenth century or by today? I use the term as compared to today because freedom is a relative concept and I have to have something to compare it to. Thus, if I wanted to know whether ancient Rome was free or not I would compare it our established models of western democracy, with the idea that spread in the European Enlightenment, for example, with ancient Rome. Thus I would compare nineteenth century America and compare it to Europe and America today.

To me, using the standards of the time to judge between the US and UK, as they were so similar, to be comparing it to itself. I’m not saying that it’s never useful as, compared to other societies at the same time they would be relatively free. I just don’t like that way of looking at the past in this context.

Ultimately there’s no right or wrong with this one.
Erm? I JUST posted 3 Amendments that give the right to vote! And the states must allow it, it wasn't until 1964 (unfortunately) that the laws to ensure that the bar of entry wasn't set so high that it'd be impossible were passed. :(
They could, but given the laws at the time they'd probably just go to jail. Again, it baffles me that it took the Federal governement so long to destroy these obviously illegal state
Actually, only two states (Maine and Vermont) allow prisoners to vote.
Tell me this. How can a country where there is a right to vote have a bar in the first place? Those three amendments say that a bar cannot use race, gender or age over 18 as a yardstick, but this does not prevent using literacy requirements and (in Alabama at least) various other requirements designed to prevent gays from voting. Or, some statues used requirements that one’s grandfather had the right to vote, which is where the term ‘grandfather clause’ comes from. And as you put it, the privilege of voting has a behaviour requirement in most states.

If there was a constitutional right to vote it would be unconstitutional to put these kinds of bar in. But it isn’t, which is why it took until the 1960s for this legislation to be repealed. And why some Representatives are pushing for a constitutional right to vote.

I’m not sure whether I’m explaining this very well. Perhaps Neo Art or Cat-Tribe can explain better.
Fair, but the Confederacy was illegal, as is a state leaving the Union. That's what the whole war was about, not so much slavery.
When I meant ‘Confederation’ I meant as in Articles of Confederation. You aren’t wrong though, as some states went through a period when they were neither in the Confederacy or the Union. And the Union itself was not intended to be quite the national government we know it as today. Jefferson, for example, considered himself a Virginian and Virginia his country and America as something merely functional. It took time to consolidate American identity.
Basically that's the size of it. And it's been a fine debate too. :)
Interesting indeed. I did quite a similar exam question to this yesterday, too. :D

YES!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
You just argued for my position: banning something is pointless and won't solve anything. QED.
... aye, you can't ban something that's been in everyday use for any period of time. You couldn't ban guns in the US. You can in the UK, because we've got no past history of having the population armed up.

If you can't follow the thread, then what's the point of debating with you? My point (going back some pages now) was the the UK lacks a written constitution and that because of it you're less free. And, given this arcane chain of this-document-that-document and the basic unreadability this one "for the judges", I think you've proven it to a fine degree.
That doesn't prove anything. At the end of the day judges are the ones who make the decisions on freedom. You can make an argument about people knowing their freedoms more but it doesn't actually make them any more free. And if the choice is between a easy to read bit of legislation with lots of potential loopholes or a complicated one that works exactly how it's supposed to I'm going to take the second one every time.

In the US you have the same, except instead of laws leading to laws, you have court judgements making interpretations of the constitution that are just as complex.


The bit below the bar is from a totally different poster (read: not me).
And I still hold what I said pages ago that Tony Martin should be made Sherriff of his town and his example emulated. The burglars weren't vicitims, they just paid their "occupational hazzard".

Eh, fundamental difference of opinion. I don't think shooting people in the back when they're running away can be considered justifiable. But whether individual cases aside, we can't quantify how many crimes with legal guns wouldn't have been committed if the guns hadn't been there, and listing anecdotal cases doesn't prove anything.



Regarding your arguments of US freedom, surely a point to be made is that in law it's only notional that the electoral college has to accept the will of the people. In fact they almost always did/do. But in law all these enfranchised people did not have the ability to choose their president.

If you can't follow the thread, then what's the point of debating with you? My point (going back some pages now) was the the UK lacks a written constitution and that because of it you're less free.


And you're completely incorrect. The UK lacks a codified constitution, which is not the same thing. Just because there is no single document that one can point to and say "This is the constitution of the UK", does not mean that it is unwritten. As already pointed out to you, there is the Human Rights Act. There are the Acts dealing with the EU, or with Devolution, or any number of other aspects of the constitution, and they are all written down. There is just not a single codified constitution.

Seriously, please learn the difference between the two words "unwritten" and "uncodified", especially if your argument hinges on them.

And you're completely incorrect. The UK lacks a codified constitution, which is not the same thing. Just because there is no single document that one can point to and say "This is the constitution of the UK", does not mean that it is unwritten. As already pointed out to you, there is the Human Rights Act. There are the Acts dealing with the EU, or with Devolution, or any number of other aspects of the constitution, and they are all written down. There is just not a single codified constitution.

Seriously, please learn the difference between the two words "unwritten" and "uncodified", especially if your argument hinges on them.

<YAWN>
There is just not a single codified constitution.
Thank you for contradicting yourself and wasting a post.

The UK lacks a written Constitution. There is no debate on this FACT unless you can link me to The Constitution of the United Kingdom. This document does NOT exist. QED. Thanks for playing.

That doesn't prove anything. At the end of the day judges are the ones who make the decisions on freedom. You can make an argument about people knowing their freedoms more but it doesn't actually make them any more free. And if the choice is between a easy to read bit of legislation with lots of potential loopholes or a complicated one that works exactly how it's supposed to I'm going to take the second one every time.

In the US you have the same, except instead of laws leading to laws, you have court judgements making interpretations of the constitution that are just as complex.



Eh, fundamental difference of opinion. I don't think shooting people in the back when they're running away can be considered justifiable. But whether individual cases aside, we can't quantify how many crimes with legal guns wouldn't have been committed if the guns hadn't been there, and listing anecdotal cases doesn't prove anything.



Regarding your arguments of US freedom, surely a point to be made is that in law it's only notional that the electoral college has to accept the will of the people. In fact they almost always did/do. But in law all these enfranchised people did not have the ability to choose their president.

Actually, no. In the US, the Judges interpret the law, they cannot create it. That's not deciding on freedom, it's resolving transgressions.
And, BTW, the absurd success of the American Constitution for ~220 years at less than 10 pages vs. the abjuect failure to the EU Constitution at 100s of pages dealing with BS like farm subsidies and fishing rights proves that idea as being wrong.
You know, wrong like banning freedoms like the Right to Bear Arms. :D

That's because the people do not elect the President, the STATES do. I for one love the EC, as I'm from Connecticut (a small state) and it keeps the US from devolving into an NFL-ocracy. (That is, a country where only cities large enough for a football franchise matter.)

Quite right but that power still exists huh.

Didn't I just point out the contrary? Have you ever killed someone with a car? No? Why do you think you suddenly would with a legally owned firearm?

Now, that would be an interesting calculation...
How many car crashes (two cars) end deadly, and how many more can we expect with an increase of cars on the roads?
And how many pedestrians and cyclist are killed in car crashes each year?

Yep! Never mind how many auto accidents happen due to alcohol, food, cell phones, etc. BAN STARBUCKS!!! ;)

Yes, but that's mostly due to the heavy enforcement of the highway code. And yes, they DO have power over pedestrians. Ever tried crossing a busy street?

Heavy enforcement? You just try not doing 80 on the Jersey Turnpike or most US interstates, even though the highest allowed speed in most areas is 65mph... ;)

Exactly so. Which is why I'm baffled why anyone is against legally owned firearms: take the training course, get a license issued by the state, carry concealed. No different from a car or boat or ham radio.

All the time! But the cars do tend to stay on the pavement. Very rarely does one try to come up on the sidewalk or through my house. I've never seen anyone draw a gun in public either, even though I know that odds are when I'm somewhere that at least 5-20% (sometimes higher!) of the people around me are armed. No one's going to pull a pistol over someone skipping the line at the cinemas.

But it would increase the POSSIBLE number of collisions between cars.

Fixed. :)

... aye, you can't ban something that's been in everyday use for any period of time. You couldn't ban guns in the US. You can in the UK, because we've got no past history of having the population armed up.

...which is a major failing of the island and a direct result of never successfully rebelling against Feudalism. The UK has shaken off so much of the past over the years, but this idea of freedoms being relegated by the state instead of being held by the people is so ingraned...

I worry for when the UK finally decides that it can't join the EU and formally decides to become US states 64-67. :D
That, and is the world ready for a "blood pudding and haggis burritos" on the dollar menu?!?

Fixed. :)

You should fix your own assertion about reduced pedestrian casualties in the same way. The over all death rate would likely increase because multiple pedestrian deaths are much rarer than multiple car crash deaths.

Perhaps the thread title could be fixed to "Only Markreich soldiers on"

I personally disagree with the UK being a Hell Hole, but if its these laws are put in place then they need to apply to everyone. If it is just youth being targeted then this is just going to cause more problems in the future. The Brixton riots in the 1980s about the SuS law (A law that allowed the police to stop anyone that looked suspicious and the riots started because most of the people searched had ethnic origins. Everyone got angry:upyours: about this and that caused the riots.) are a key example of this. By treating everyone equal the police can't be seen as discriminative. Besides if you carry a knife your more likely to get stabbed than someone not carrying.

Right, I’ve decided to mess around with you post so I can make a more coherent argument. I’ll do my best to ensure I address all your points and not to misrepresent them.

You can bet I’m doing that now.;)


It explains quite a lot about why we disagree on this. You put a lot of emphasis on what is written down and codified and take it at, what appears to me, face value. America has a Bill of Rights preventing persecution, thus America is free. Having grown in Britain, having no such codified constitution, I put more emphasis on what happens in fact as much as what happens in law, as that is an important part in British constitutional practice. Of course, whether fox hunters and smokers are persecuted is up to debate and politically contentious.


And by that yardstick, I disagree that the USA was different to the United Kingdom. We both had different groups that we subjected various forms of illegal and legal persecution to and through different caveats that allowed us to claim they were different and not subject to traditional liberties (inso far as Americans claimed that Blacks were not citizens thus not subject to American views on liberty, we said that the Irish were Catholics and it was thus necessary for security to subjugate them.) but the point is, for me, that we both did it and using the same logic: that some groups are not fit for our liberties.

And that also explains why so many people left the UK, especially the Irish (and IIRC 300 million people did not emmigrate to the USA and not all that did came from the UK!). We treated them like shit. Their main crop failed and we did nothing. And for the standards of the time, it was OK to treat people like shit based on their race. We both did it to Blacks, for example, and for other minorities.

Ditto Representation of the People Acts. The USA didn’t have universal suffrage in 1800, and used legislation to enfranchise more people. By the standards of ‘If a legislature has to pass legislation to allow people to vote, it’s unfree until all people can vote’ the USA wasn’t free until the late 1960s.

I’m sure one of us is misunderstanding something over the Russia thing. (Quite possibly me). You were putting a lot of faith into the idea that universal suffrage is a turning point in the development of a free society. I don’t think this is the case. The UK was much freer in 1927 than the Soviet Union in 1927, despite the USSR having universal suffrage while the UK had not. (I’m sure Andaras would agree!) Regardless of why and how the USSR got universal suffrage, it did not make it free relative to Britian, or the USA.

My beef with your analysis, however, comes from the fact that you look at America through the lens of the nineteenth century and at the UK through the lens of the twenty first. Your point about the USA starting out at the greatest enfranchisement on earth (which it didn’t, plenty of states increased their property requirements under the Articles o Confederation) is a case in point. By the standards of Æthelstan, England was free in 927 AD. There was no other democracy in the world since Greece and, in some ways Rome. You could argue that it was freer, Parliament –like bodies had appeared after 1066, something almost unique to England. If you can say that America was founded in an era of relative freedom which extended, you have to say the same of England and the rest of the UK, albeit over a much longer time frame.
I don’t have a problem with saying the USA was free, by the standards of the time, when it came into existence in 1788. It just wasn’t significantly any more or less free than the UK, which was also no more or less free than its neighbours and standards in the first millennium.

You know that about peak oil wasn’t my point.;)
Ultimately, this is about the definition of the unqualified term ‘free’: free by the eighteenth/nineteenth century or by today? I use the term as compared to today because freedom is a relative concept and I have to have something to compare it to. Thus, if I wanted to know whether ancient Rome was free or not I would compare it our established models of western democracy, with the idea that spread in the European Enlightenment, for example, with ancient Rome. Thus I would compare nineteenth century America and compare it to Europe and America today.

To me, using the standards of the time to judge between the US and UK, as they were so similar, to be comparing it to itself. I’m not saying that it’s never useful as, compared to other societies at the same time they would be relatively free. I just don’t like that way of looking at the past in this context.

Ultimately there’s no right or wrong with this one.

Tell me this. How can a country where there is a right to vote have a bar in the first place? Those three amendments say that a bar cannot use race, gender or age over 18 as a yardstick, but this does not prevent using literacy requirements and (in Alabama at least) various other requirements designed to prevent gays from voting. Or, some statues used requirements that one’s grandfather had the right to vote, which is where the term ‘grandfather clause’ comes from. And as you put it, the privilege of voting has a behaviour requirement in most states.

If there was a constitutional right to vote it would be unconstitutional to put these kinds of bar in. But it isn’t, which is why it took until the 1960s for this legislation to be repealed. And why some Representatives are pushing for a constitutional right to vote.

I’m not sure whether I’m explaining this very well. Perhaps Neo Art or Cat-Tribe can explain better.

When I meant ‘Confederation’ I meant as in Articles of Confederation. You aren’t wrong though, as some states went through a period when they were neither in the Confederacy or the Union. And the Union itself was not intended to be quite the national government we know it as today. Jefferson, for example, considered himself a Virginian and Virginia his country and America as something merely functional. It took time to consolidate American identity.

Interesting indeed. I did quite a similar exam question to this yesterday, too. :D

Fair enough.

Yes, that's true. Because I think we can also both agree that rights not written down are much easier to remove.

AH! But the difference was that not all blacks were so denied, nor was such disenfranchisement unknown in other lands. Heck, find me anywhere that a man of no noble birth could do better in than America in the 18th century, nevermind a black one.

Of course not, as you probably surmise I was pointing out how many did come, not to say that there are no native born Americans after 13 generations of time.

...but I still point out that additions to the American electorate were done to the addition of the widest body of people imagined, vs. Britain, which added piece-meal to the smallest body of people possible. While both did indeed franchise more types of people with the changing of the times, the times of such change and the breadth of people added in Britain is very different from America.

I think also that while Russia had Universal Suffrage (as does Cuba today), the lack of more than one party really makes it moot vis-a-vis being a free society. Needless to say, that kind of makes pointing out that they had it (and got it in civil war) trivial to the debate we're having...

Actually, no. I'm looking at both nations from the same prism of time: if we're talking 1780s, 1910s, etc, I look at both nations from the POV. Britain being Britain has simply never had a larger body of enfranchised peoples until the parity of the post WW1 era.
And if you note, I count the US as a country from 1787 onwards. The (Southern) Confederacy was illegal, and the pre-1787 government (under the Articles of Confederation) was a failed first attempt at a loose EU-style union. It's also why I think the current EU is doomed.

I have no problem agreeing that England was freer than anywhere else before America came onto the scene. I just point out that whereas any Englishman could come to the US in (say) 1808, become a citizen and vote and be covered by the rights in the Constitution, the reverse is certainly not true. Heck, you were still trying to steal our sailors into your Navy!

I think we can agree that ancient Rome was certainly not free. :)
Yeah, that's a fair assessment.

And that's the pitfall of being the United STATES. The states have power over themselves for internal affairs, and that includes voting. That's why certain governors can allow gay marriage or ban the sale of alcohol on Sundays.
The privledge of voting HAD a requirement in some states pre-1964. Any and all such laws have been thrown where they belong on the scrap heap of history.

Yes, I agree. It was unConstitutional, just like Prohibition was or the War on Drugs should be. Doesn't mean it isn't the law for awhile. :(
Pass on Cat-Tribe. Too enamoured of the absolutely insane 9th Circuit.

Of course that's true. It takes about 3 generations to form a national identity, which is why the EU is buggered for another 20 years or so.

You should fix your own assertion about reduced pedestrian casualties in the same way. The over all death rate would likely increase because multiple pedestrian deaths are much rarer than multiple car crash deaths.

Perhaps the thread title could be fixed to "Only Markreich soldiers on"

It was a bit of a joke, I confess. But I hope you get the idea of what I'm trying to convey? If there are no pedestrians, none can be killed by cars. I took the object (car/knife/gun) out of the equation.

Yeah, it's not easy being the voice for liberty in an entire thread, but what can one do? :D

<YAWN>
There is just not a single codified constitution.
Thank you for contradicting yourself and wasting a post.

The UK lacks a written Constitution. There is no debate on this FACT unless you can link me to The Constitution of the United Kingdom. This document does NOT exist. QED. Thanks for playing.

Please. Put that down on any law school essay and you'd be laughed at. The UK lacks a [/i]codified[/i] constitution. That is the correct term. Much, if not most, of the UK constitution is written.

The word "uncodified" means that there is no single document. Conversely, the word "codified" would mean there was a single document. You're arguing against the use of the word that means exactly what you're trying to say and, in the process, making it painfully obvious that you don't really know what you're talking about.

Your confusion of the words "codified" and "written" is something you really should remedy if you're arguing about the British constitution.

Sorry, but constitutional law is my "area" in law, so it's nice when people get it right.

Actually, no. In the US, the Judges interpret the law, they cannot create it. That's not deciding on freedom, it's resolving transgressions.
Yes, but interpretations are everything where the law is not tightly defined. Hence why many gun control threads spend pages on the interpretations of the second amendment.


And, BTW, the absurd success of the American Constitution for ~220 years at less than 10 pages vs. the abjuect failure to the EU Constitution at 100s of pages dealing with BS like farm subsidies and fishing rights proves that idea as being wrong.
You know, wrong like banning freedoms like the Right to Bear Arms. :D


Define success. The EU constitution (or the treaties that have been signed which is what I assume you're referring to) was designed to include things like farm subsidies etc. You can argue that the policies are wrong but they were certainly put into place.

If you're going off popularity then firstly the EU is far more diverse than the states were in terms of cultures and entrenched rivalries and different governments, and we haven't had anyone try and leave so far. (Greenland left the EC rather than the EU and still retains ties through Denmark).


That's because the people do not elect the President, the STATES do. I for one love the EC, as I'm from Connecticut (a small state) and it keeps the US from devolving into an NFL-ocracy. (That is, a country where only cities large enough for a football franchise matter.)

Whereas the current system means that only a relatively small number of swing states matter, and if you're in a firm state then you get ignored. How democratic.

Please. Put that down on any law school essay and you'd be laughed at. The UK lacks a [/i]codified[/i] constitution. That is the correct term. Much, if not most, of the UK constitution is written.

The word "uncodified" means that there is no single document. Conversely, the word "codified" would mean there was a single document. You're arguing against the use of the word that means exactly what you're trying to say and, in the process, making it painfully obvious that you don't really know what you're talking about.

Your confusion of the words "codified" and "written" is something you really should remedy if you're arguing about the British constitution.

Sorry, but constitutional law is my "area" in law, so it's nice when people get it right.

Yes, I agree that there is no single document. BECAUSE there is no single document, the UK LACKS a written Constitution! This is just like how the UK does not compete in World Cup Soccer (Football).

You're at least the 4th person to try to argue this point with me. Please stop, I hate seeing so many people trying to change my point of view on something so obviously untrue. Go try the flat Earth society, I hear they need more members.

Yes, but interpretations are everything where the law is not tightly defined. Hence why many gun control threads spend pages on the interpretations of the second amendment.



Define success. The EU constitution (or the treaties that have been signed which is what I assume you're referring to) was designed to include things like farm subsidies etc. You can argue that the policies are wrong but they were certainly put into place.

If you're going off popularity then firstly the EU is far more diverse than the states were in terms of cultures and entrenched rivalries and different governments, and we haven't had anyone try and leave so far. (Greenland left the EC rather than the EU and still retains ties through Denmark).



Whereas the current system means that only a relatively small number of swing states matter, and if you're in a firm state then you get ignored. How democratic.

Which hopefully is coming to an end, ala the overturning of DC's totalitarian gun control laws, which (as a resident in the 90s) I can assure you meant that only law abiding citizens lacked guns.

Define success? Sure:
A) The EU will never pass a Constitution the way they're doing it, as the documents lack HUGE areas of defition, but go into minutae that don't belong in a Consitution but rather in law or trade agreements.
B) The US is successful as a nation-state specifically BECAUSE it agreed to a minimal, liberal framework and has the track record to prove it.
C) Europe is no more or less diverse than the US. The only serious differences are that European states have/had a longer period of independence than the US states had before joining the Union, and that the diversity of peoples is concentrated in specific areas. There are few German speakers on the Iberian Peninsula, for example. However, given the new immigration since the fall of Communism, this is falling by the wayside... consider the Polish population in UK/Ireland or the British in Spain.
D) You can't leave what doesn't yet exist. So far the EU is nothing more than a trade federation, and a young one at that. :)

Right now, that's true. Has it always been true and will it remain true? Nope. Go look back at the history of Presidential Elections. Consider the 1984 election, or even 1992. Judging the EC by the Bush Years is like judging the whole of the British welfare state on the Thatcher years. :D

Yes, I agree that there is no single document. BECAUSE there is no single document, the UK LACKS a written Constitution! This is just like how the UK does not compete in World Cup Soccer (Football).

You're at least the 4th person to try to argue this point with me. Please stop, I hate seeing so many people trying to change my point of view on something so obviously untrue. Go try the flat Earth society, I hear they need more members.

Are you actually some kind of idiot? The word is "uncodified". It means exactly what you're saying. That's why people use it. It is incorrect to say that we have an unwritten constitution, but it is correct to say that we have an uncodified constitution; that word means exactly what you're using ten words to say. I'm not trying to change your mind on anything; merely pointing out that while what you're saying is perfectly accurate, your terminology is incorrect and that you should use the word that means exactly what you're saying instead of brushing it off and using a word that is incorrect instead.

Which hopefully is coming to an end, ala the overturning of DC's totalitarian gun control laws, which (as a resident in the 90s) I can assure you meant that only law abiding citizens lacked guns.
Judges will still make interpretations. Discussions of constitutional law will still include lengthy complicated legal discussions.


Define success? Sure:
A) The EU will never pass a Constitution the way they're doing it, as the documents lack HUGE areas of defition, but go into minutae that don't belong in a Consitution but rather in law or trade agreements.
B) The US is successful as a nation-state specifically BECAUSE it agreed to a minimal, liberal framework and has the track record to prove it.
We'll see. The EU already has an uncodified constitution, the 'constitution treaty' was primarily codifying what was their before, and the complaints against it were not with the minutiae but some of the larger provisions.

The fact that a particular constitutional treaty was rejected because of policies within it does not invalidate that entire form of treaty.


C) Europe is no more or less diverse than the US. The only serious differences are that European states have/had a longer period of independence than the US states had before joining the Union, and that the diversity of peoples is concentrated in specific areas. There are few German speakers on the Iberian Peninsula, for example. However, given the new immigration since the fall of Communism, this is falling by the wayside... consider the Polish population in UK/Ireland or the British in Spain.

If you're going to go with comparing the formation of the US constitution with the EU one then you need to compare the societies at the time. And the modern EU is much more diverse than the US was at that time. And the states didn't have comparable long histories of bitter wars/rivalries, or comparable language/cultural differences.

D) You can't leave what doesn't yet exist. So far the EU is nothing more than a trade federation, and a young one at that. :)
Go do your research, the courts and ability to make laws might give you the hint.



Right now, that's true. Has it always been true and will it remain true? Nope. Go look back at the history of Presidential Elections. Consider the 1984 election, or even 1992. Judging the EC by the Bush Years is like judging the whole of the British welfare state on the Thatcher years. :D

Which states are swing states has evolved, but elections have almost always concentrated around a few states rather than being wide ranging.

A) The EU will never pass a Constitution the way they're doing it, as the documents lack HUGE areas of defition, but go into minutae that don't belong in a Consitution but rather in law or trade agreements.
Hopefully they'll just pass it without any more of this voting pish. The people who vote against it are, by and large, people who know fuck all about it and who vote how the press tells them, and farmers, who forget that without the CAP, they would have been extremely poor in the last 30 years. They'll be rolling in money this coming year, but in our previous era of very cheap food, they would have been dying on their knees tbqh.
B) The US is successful as a nation-state specifically BECAUSE it agreed to a minimal, liberal framework and has the track record to prove it.
I'd actually say that the vast and underexploited (before the 19th century) natural resources of the US, its sheer size, the lack of civilian casualties from war, of any note, for the last 100 years and people swearing allegiance to the state from their early childhood have meant that your nation has been pretty unified and wealthy, really.
C) Europe is no more or less diverse than the US. The only serious differences are that European states have/had a longer period of independence than the US states had before joining the Union, and that the diversity of peoples is concentrated in specific areas. There are few German speakers on the Iberian Peninsula, for example. However, given the new immigration since the fall of Communism, this is falling by the wayside... consider the Polish population in UK/Ireland or the British in Spain.
What?

You're trying to claim that a vast influx of people of different languages and cultures in the last 15-odd years has meant that Europe has become less diverse?

Not to mention the fairly substantial population in Europe of more imperial origin from the 1950s onwards?

Or the fact that the EU deals in about 30 languages officially, and that there are many, many other languages and dialects inside the EU?

Or the extremely large historical conflicts between different members? You've got your one civil war, in which the obviously right side won. Europe has a long and complex history of conflict, the results of which have often been dubious, and the impact of which is still felt.
D) You can't leave what doesn't yet exist. So far the EU is nothing more than a trade federation, and a young one at that. :)
Uhu... so it doesn't actually have vast supranational legislative powers, nor its own disaster relief force, nor any kind of European gendarmerie force which is soon to be expanded into a European Army.... yes... I agree with you...

Didn't I just point out the contrary? Have you ever killed someone with a car? No? Why do you think you suddenly would with a legally owned firearm?

Sorry what has that got to do with my statement?

I only said that you DO have power over others if you are driving a car, and similarly, you DO have power over others if you are holding a gun.

Just noticed that the 1689 Bill of Rights does mention a kind of right to bear arms, but only for protestants (to defend themselves against Catholics) and within what the law allows.