• CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 hours ago

    There is a difference between second amendment culture and your second amendment rights.

    2A culture is pretty much MAGA: “Respect my authority or I won’t respect your right to exist.” As a former conservative who owns guns, this line of thinking is very pervasive through gun owning circles. But you need to remember that they will fully support laws that bar the other people from owning guns like the Black Panthers.

    Bare in mind that the Constitution is just a piece of paper. It only has power when the government and the will of the people give it power. You can assume for at least the next four years, the Constitution will be seen as “rules that allow me to stay in power but don’t protect you from me”.

    • Awkwardly_Frank@lemmy.world
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      19 minutes ago

      Bare in mind that the Constitution is just a piece of paper. It only has power when the government and the will of the people give it power.

      There’s a scene from The West Wing that really impressed upon me the great challenge of holding even the seemingly most stable democracies together. Toby Ziegler was working with representatives of a newly forming government and a constitutional scholar played by Christopher Lloyd to craft a constitution. Toby takes issue with the amount of power they are considering vesting in their executive branch, preferring instead a parliamentary system. Christopher Lloyd’s character responds to him with almost this exact point, telling him that their work just then was to instill a democratic spirit in those leaders and through them the broader populace of their country.