The entire reason for the first clause of the second amendment is lost on a lot of Americans today because they don't serve and they grew complacent under a professional army.
The founders had just four years previously fought a two year war in the militia against a professional standing army. The entire point of the American republic was that it was a government of the people, and the people who voted in it were the militia.
Take some time to process this clause:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state..
If you want a free state, then you need to defend it, and if you don't want a professional army that could potentially be used tyrannically to oppress the free people of said state, then you need a militia.
How do you organize a militia?
I would submit to you that it was near impossible to register men in any militia unit that had no permanent address and would migrate from place to place.
There was NOTHING special about owning land in those days. Anybody could own land if they wanted to. Land was fucking free on the expanding frontier, or pretty fucking cheaply bought from the government. Owning land meant nothing in this context other than your obligation to serve in the militia for your community.
Did Bob Smith from some place up yonder who will be here for the harvest season and move on to some other work in the city make a great militia member? Fucking no. If it came to it, Bob probably was expected to help out, but he sure as shit didn't make rank in the militia.
Who tended to rank up and remain in a militia unit? The guy who owns the farm down the road. That's who.
If we all want a professional army, then we ought to base enfranchisement in the federal government not on property ownership but service, and remove all this social and economic policy garbage from the federal level. I freely admit that people at the state level should then be net tax payers to vote or serve, and at the county or city level actually be paying a property tax.
That's what is meant by skin in the game. Separate the powers according to role so they no longer conflict with each other (i.e. re-read the Constitution and take it seriously), and enfranchise based on who actually has a stake and pays the costs.
THE ERA OF TRUMP
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nmoore63
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Re: THE ERA OF TRUMP
Nope.Speaker to Animals wrote:Owning land meant nothing in this context other than your obligation to serve in the militia for your community.
Sorry to tell you this but the founders were aristocrats.
There was no, join the militia and you can vote, clause.
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Speaker to Animals
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Re: THE ERA OF TRUMP
Dude, you realize that land was literally free back then, right?
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nmoore63
- Posts: 1881
- Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 2:10 pm
Re: THE ERA OF TRUMP
They were thoroughly anti- unencumbered males.Speaker to Animals wrote:Dude, you realize that land was literally free back then, right?
Being a revolutionary war veteran wasn’t what got you the vote. It was being tied down that got you skin in the game.
Not being an adventurous kid. They were thoroughly anti letting those rash warriors vote.
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Smitty-48
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Re: THE ERA OF TRUMP
Different states had different rules, some states required a minimum amount of property ownership and/or taxes paid in order to vote, others allowed veterans to vote on top of that, Vermont had "universal manhood suffrage" first, as of 1777.
The basic requirement came from English precedent and it was called being a "freeholder", permanent resident of a county, land owner, and member of a church congregation, which in America at the time meant overwhelmingly Protestant, but 75% of the adult males in the colonies qualified for that at the time.
The basic requirement came from English precedent and it was called being a "freeholder", permanent resident of a county, land owner, and member of a church congregation, which in America at the time meant overwhelmingly Protestant, but 75% of the adult males in the colonies qualified for that at the time.
Nec Aspera Terrent
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Smitty-48
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Re: THE ERA OF TRUMP
Bear in mind, at this point, they had very little top down control from the state level and almost none from the federal level, everything pretty much ran through the county, and the counties were so small and tight knit, who was and who was not a "freeholder" in the county wasn't that contentious, everybody could pretty much agree who was and wasn't at that level, it's a bunch of families who all answer to their patriarch, if they said you were a "freeholder", then you were, if they said you weren't, then you weren't, the men who were the recognized freeholders of the county were able to hold sway over that sort of thing, there wasn't much questioning of the family patriarchs in that paradigm.
You could have, in theory, been a rabble rouser in open defiance of the county patriarchs, but since they pretty much controlled your fate in that county, most boys would never take it there, somebody was your daddy, and if all the daddy's were in agreement, you wouldn't have defied them, if you wanted to get married to their daughters or what have you, which you did.
The purpose of the voting requirements was essentially to keep young men from voting, they wanted to keep it in the control of the patriarchs, but they wouldn't have really needed the law to enforce that, they had other means of leverage in such a small community, but in some states they did codify it.
They didn't make the bar so high that you had to be rich, but they did make it high enough to exclude the young. If you owned a home or a farm or a business, you were in, but if you were somebodies son who hadn't struck out on his own and made a stake for himself, then you weren't a "freeholder" yet.
Single unattached male living on his own? Wasn't really a thing at the time, you pretty much lived under your daddy's roof until such time as you were married off and given your dowry. You could have stormed off in a huff, but that would have been tantamount to being a vagrant in most counties, they would have shunned you as being some sort of neerdowell miscreant.
Bottom line, if you didn't do as the daddy's said, you weren't going to get any pussy, they decided who got the putty and who didn't, and that was generally enough to keep most young men in line, single unattached male de facto vagrant without standing in the community, that was the recipe for being real hard up, thus you pretty much had to play ball by their rules.
You could have, in theory, been a rabble rouser in open defiance of the county patriarchs, but since they pretty much controlled your fate in that county, most boys would never take it there, somebody was your daddy, and if all the daddy's were in agreement, you wouldn't have defied them, if you wanted to get married to their daughters or what have you, which you did.
The purpose of the voting requirements was essentially to keep young men from voting, they wanted to keep it in the control of the patriarchs, but they wouldn't have really needed the law to enforce that, they had other means of leverage in such a small community, but in some states they did codify it.
They didn't make the bar so high that you had to be rich, but they did make it high enough to exclude the young. If you owned a home or a farm or a business, you were in, but if you were somebodies son who hadn't struck out on his own and made a stake for himself, then you weren't a "freeholder" yet.
Single unattached male living on his own? Wasn't really a thing at the time, you pretty much lived under your daddy's roof until such time as you were married off and given your dowry. You could have stormed off in a huff, but that would have been tantamount to being a vagrant in most counties, they would have shunned you as being some sort of neerdowell miscreant.
Bottom line, if you didn't do as the daddy's said, you weren't going to get any pussy, they decided who got the putty and who didn't, and that was generally enough to keep most young men in line, single unattached male de facto vagrant without standing in the community, that was the recipe for being real hard up, thus you pretty much had to play ball by their rules.
Nec Aspera Terrent
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Fife
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TheReal_ND
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Re: THE ERA OF TRUMP
BOLTON'S YOUR PATH
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Speaker to Animals
- Posts: 38685
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Re: THE ERA OF TRUMP
Bolton symbolizes the problem.
Bolton decided in his youth he didn't feel like waiting to get drafted and potentially die in Vietnam for what he considered a lost cause. So he went guard to get out of the draft and deployment to SE Asia.
Then he went into politics where he did in fact think it was in his best interest to send lot of other American men to die in pointless wars overseas.
His butt-buddy Dick Cheney is another good example.
Bolton decided in his youth he didn't feel like waiting to get drafted and potentially die in Vietnam for what he considered a lost cause. So he went guard to get out of the draft and deployment to SE Asia.
Then he went into politics where he did in fact think it was in his best interest to send lot of other American men to die in pointless wars overseas.
His butt-buddy Dick Cheney is another good example.
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K@th
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