Thoughts on the ACLU and the 2nd Amendment

The American Civil Liberties Union.

ACLU POSITION

Given the reference to "a well regulated Militia" and "the security of a free State," the ACLU has long taken the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right. For seven decades, the Supreme Court's 1939 decision in United States v. Miller was widely understood to have endorsed that view.

The Supreme Court has now ruled otherwise. In striking down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court's 2008 decision in D.C. v. Heller held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, whether or not associated with a state militia.

The ACLU disagrees with the Supreme Court's conclusion about the nature of the right protected by the Second Amendment. We do not, however, take a position on gun control itself. In our view, neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue.

There are a couple of points they're missing, namely that the right is recognized (not granted) by the Constitution, because "the people" were all considered potential militia members in the event of invasion or tyranny. It did not only apply to active members of militias because the Justification Clause was just one example of why the right to armed self-defense is a necessity of Natural Law. The right itself is not dependent on the Justification Clause, because the right was not established by the Constitution, but merely recognized.

More broadly, according to the Ninth Amendment, you cannot use any part of the Constitution to invalidate any right recognized by the Constitution, which is what happens when they claim that the Justification Clause prevents it from being an individual right. To do so is inherently contradictory, and sets a dangerous precedent for negating any individual right.

I get that they may not like guns or the idea of an armed populace, but that is irrelevant to the ultimate purpose of defending individual rights. To me, that sends a message that the ACLU is only interested in defending rights it deems valid, thereby attempting to supersede the Constitution.

Why I am opposed to the 9/11 Cross at the WTC.

9/11 wasn't a Christian tragedy, nor was it just an American tragedy. 3500 people, Muslims, Christians, Jews and Atheists from all over the world, died when a small group of extremists gave up and turned to violence, in an effort to traumatize an entire nation.

It is utterly ridiculous to me to think that amidst all of this violence, destruction and death, amidst the dozens of people who committed suicide by jumping to their deaths, that the god of Christianity saw fit to make his presence known by welding together two pieces of steel. Not by stopping the planes, the collapse of the towers or waiting until everyone had been safely evacuated.
Instead, and with a complete lack of sensitivity to all of the non-Christians who were killed, he made a metal sculpture.

All of the insensitivity and absurdity aside, this is incredibly divisive because it only encourages the narrow minded ideas that A) Christianity is a necessary part of the American identity, and B) Islam and Christianity are entirely incompatible because apparently individual human beings are inseparable from the wide range of beliefs attached to a particular label that they may claim.

It is entirely unsurprising that the same people who think Al-Qaeda is representative of all Muslims would also have the sort of childish pareidolia looking at two pieces of metal melted together at a right angle, while dismissing any notion that the WBC and KKK are equally representative of all Christians.

If it had been a Christian church, or a solely-Christian gathering, I would feel differently, but it wasn't. To me, that self-entitled ignorance which fuels the dehumanization and discrimination of every minority group, that fearfully and angrily searches for differences instead of similarities, is what that cross really represents.

Why does a Locus of control matter to a rationalist?

Think of it as splitting events into 2 categories:

1. Events that can be controlled.
2. Events that cannot.

For events that cannot be controlled, they are further divided by asking, not what, but "who" is in control? I use that word specifically because it characterizes an inherent tendency in people to anthropomorphize the universe. That perception of control, in most people, is often described with words like "The Universe," "God," "The World," or even "Society."

Internal Locus: I observed a property of the universe.
External Locus: The universe revealed something to me.
Undefined: I happened to be in a position to observe something the universe did.

Internal Locus: I misplaced my car keys.
External Locus: I couldn't find my car keys.
Undefined: I couldn't remember where I put my car keys.

This is important because how we perceive phenomena and events influences how we understand and explain things.

For instance, "How does water know which direction to flow?"

Water doesn't "know" anything. It has no intelligence. It has no mechanism for even having an intellect. Water flows downhill because of gravity. More specifically, because gravity acts upon all things which have mass, and liquids generally flow more easily than solids in conditions commonly found on Earth.

This subject may seem trivial or extraneous, but this type of mindset noticeably affects how people perceive and understand Logic, Causality, Knowledge, Truth, Morality etc.

One last example:
External Locus: Allah revealed the writings of the Koran to Muhammed.
Internal Locus: Muhammed made it up, and attributed it to being inspired by God.

To say that the universe reveals things is to imply a motive, and also to imply that a certain occurrence was out of the ordinary, regardless of how we've observed the universe to normally behave. If your Locus of control is external, then when Logic is demonstrated to be applicable to the universe, you may be perceiving that as the Universe revealing Logic to you, which would necessitate an existence of Logic that is external, instead of simply perceiving Logic as a method of thinking that works because it is based on observed principles. This perception will affect how you reconcile the idea of Logic existing in the universe, regardless of the fact that it doesn't have any tangible existence. It won't make sense, because you've already perceived the idea of Logic as being something external to your conscious mind.