The words of them those men should not and do not matter most. The words and actions of present day living and breathing humans do. In fact, there are mechanisms for changing the constitution, which was what I was saying will be the end of the 2A. This court and their bungling of nearly every case associated with the 1st and 14th amendments will force the nations hand at some point. At that point, the 2nd can and will come in to play to be changed, reversed or clarified in a manner far different than this courts interpretation.
Our voices matter most not only because we should not be governed by selfish morally reprehensible people who died 200 years ago but also because those people were homogenously wealthy white men who formed a government for their own benefit. The words of Jefferson and Hamilton were eloquent and spoke of freedom and liberty but in action they actually owned and traded human beings. So while their words may be inspiring or comforting especially to those who believe in fairy tales, they created a government that allowed for the owning and trading of humans. The government that they created was designed to treat people so unequally as to allow humans to be owned. This was done mostly through "states rights" and by abdicated the responsibility to protect all people through the federal government and bill of rights. All this was done for their own personal gain. It's pretty difficult to think that they created some form of perfect governmental system or should be treated as though they deserve some respect. They did not and they do not. They should not be looked upon with reverence. In fact, they should be looked upon with skepticism, doubt and often scorn. The best of them like Webster turned a blind eye to slavery and the rights of women when crafting our form of government. Others like Hamilton and Jefferson were active slave owners and traders. To use their work creating our government as guidance as to how to assure freedom and liberty for all is like using R Kelly as a role model as to treat your daughters.
Look at the Declaration of independence: "All men are created equal?" except the humans that I profit from, trade, use for sex, and give no rights to? Solid work Tommy J! Liberty for me, freedom for me, slavery and no rights for African Americans and women. The truly sickening part is by virtue of the words that they wrote, they showed that they knew better. By their actions, including creating our government, they showed that they did not actually care. Looking at these people as in any way being superior or more important than present day living humans defies logic. The country can not and should not be beholden to them or the government that they formed for the enrichment of themselves and their peers at the cost of everyone else. It's a fairy tale told for the comfort of those too weak to think on their own.
They were so good at creating a framework of planned inequality that slavery required a war to overcome. Jim Crow lasted until modern times and the effects of it are still felt every day. Inequality has been ingrained into our society so much that it is still the norm in the most powerful of places.
Much of the planned inequities of our original form of government began to be healed with the 14th amendment. This court has all but ignored it and it's true meaning as evidenced by recent court rulings. This is why I am of the belief that this very court is the single greatest thereat to the 2nd amendment. At some point as they strip Americans of long standing and immensely popular rights conveyed thorough the 14th, the population will be forced to look at all of our government. When the 2A is changed due to popular pressure, I believe that you will have Sam Alito and his religious zealot cohorts to blame.
This is getting off track a bit, but I'm compelled to respond that you're maligning the founders a lot, as pointed out by Chromers in his later post regarding "presentism." It's incorrect to describe the nation's founding as an attempt to preserve the status quo when the over-arching act was to change from a royal monarchy to a democratic republic, fully noting that the democracy was reserved to white men who owned property. It's only reasonable and fair to evaluate the development of the Constitution in the context of its time in history.
The founders studied the forms of government of all the most advanced nations in the known world at that time to come up with our form of government. While some of the founders were more enlightened about the moral reprehensiveness of slavery than others, it's only fair to note that slavery had been culturally common and accepted for all of known human history. The idea that slavery isn't appropriate was still a pretty new idea. Similarly, women being the property of men had been a long held cultural attribute as well. To expect the founders to be way ahead of their time on every human issue would be both unreasonable and unreal.
In addition to forming a new and independent republic, I think it's critical to note that the most pressing issue on the founders' minds was national security as a free nation and not slavery and women's rights. The concern for national security - expecting that they could be invaded and conquered by England, France, or Spain - pressured the founders to form a union of all the newly free states for strength, rather than 13 small independent sovereign states or some lesser number of small nations that would be weaker than a nation of the full 13. This is important because it was the driving reason for the numerous compromises that were made with respect to the new Constitution. In order to get "buy in" from all 13 states we got the continuation of slavery and the way a state's population is counted for the purpose of determining the number of its members to the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. No one conceived of a future state called Wyoming, but they were well aware that states with small populations would have disproportionate representation in Congress. And that the reason was so that New York, with its large population wouldn't be calling all the shots as national governance proceeded.
The founders did not turn a blind eye to slavery. Those opposed to it choose to accept it as a necessary compromise to achieve the more important objective of a national unity. I think you already know that the objective was not to form a "perfect union," but rather to form "a more perfect union." I think the result speaks for itself. We have a framework for governance in the Constitution, a document that accommodates change through amendment. Amendment is arduous and difficult. Your later post suggests that was deliberate to maintain the status quo - presumably of slavery and women as property. Reading the Federalist Papers suggest that it is to prevent rapid and radical changes from being made willy nilly by the sure to happen idiot members of government that we would elect from time to time. I admit that it also makes important and necessary changes very difficult at times, to wit: the Equal Rights Amendment was approved by Congress over 40 years ago, and the necessary quorum of states never did ratify it. Obviously it's critical for some of our states to prevent women from enjoying equal rights, but I digress.
Lastly, I don't disagree that Alito is a religious kook, but he's the same justice who pointed out that the 2A right is both a state and an individual right. And he further held that the 2A, like all rights of citizens is subject to reasonable regulation, like when W.O. Douglas pointed out that the 1A doesn't not include the right to shout, "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire.
All of which brings me back to the current House and Senate bills. Are these "reasonable" regulations necessary and do they unreasonably "infringe" on the individual right to keep and bear arms? At the moment I'm thinking that these bills are over reach and a better alternative was mentioned in a post yesterday. Leave things as they are with respect to nearly all firearms, shotguns, rifles, and pistols. But require a permit to purchase and own an AR or AR style rifle/carbine. This, along with universal background checks and a 3 - 10 day waiting period, would not prohibit the ownership of such a firearm, but would contribute to a significant reduction in their acquisition by the felons and mentally impaired people that shouldn't have them. And that should be the desired outcome, IMO.
