JavaScript is disabled
Our website requires JavaScript to function properly. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser settings before proceeding.
Of course I would want the jury to nullify the law if I am innocent or charged with a crime that is bogus and unconstitutional (possession of firearms, drugs, etc.).

But on the other hand, I don't want a jury to convict me of a crime I am innocent of when the judge directs the jury to find me innocent because the law says I am.

In other words, "nullification" works both ways and I am less sure about the ability of a jury of my "peers" to make unbiased decisions than I am of the ability of someone (a judge) who is trained and experienced and knowledgeable in making relatively unbiased decisions. Juries are have an infamous reputation for being biased and easily swayed by those biases and emotional arguments by either the prosecution or defense - this is why the entity that has the better lawyer/legal team on their side often gets better results in a court of law.

As to what the website says, everyone can read and decide for themselves - but I would bet more than 50% will conclude that it says what they want it to say, not what it actually says, which goes to support my assertions about bias.

I hear what you're saying about feeling vulnerable to the ignorance of your own peers. But how does that ignorance come about? They say that "ignorance of the law is no excuse", yet according to the law in Oregon, the government - through public schools - are manufacturing the very ignorance that they say we have no excuse for. When I say "according to the law", what I mean is that Oregon "law" literally requires all public schools to provide "courses of instruction" on the Constitution for a minimum of 5 years (8th grade through 12th). If you graduated from high school in Oregon, then you know from your experience that the extent of what passes for Constitution education is about a semester of "government" class. Here's that law:

"336.057 Courses in Constitution and history of United States. In all public schools courses of instruction shall be given in the Constitution of the United States and in the history of the United States. These courses shall:

(1) Begin not later than the opening of the eighth grade and shall continue in grades 9 through 12.

(2) Be required in all public universities listed in ORS 352.002, except the Oregon Health and Science University, and in all state and local institutions that provide education for patients or inmates to an extent to be determined by the Superintendent of Public Instruction. [Formerly 336.230; 1977 c.226 §1; 1999 c.1023 §1; 2011 c.637 §114]"

ORS 336.057 has been on the books since 1923. Since the part about "history" only got added in 1977, we know that the original intent of this law originally required those 5 years of class time for the Constitution only. Now that standard applies to "history" as well. The case of Wilson v. Chancellor from 1976 backs this up, as well as Attorney General Opinion #7982 from 1980.

So this law is direct evidence that government schools are creating the very constitutional illiteracy that you say you prefer to avoid... by placing your interests in the hands of the very people who have destroyed the jury's capacity to make informed decisions about their determinations of the law through their verdicts. The source of the thing you fear is not your peers, but those you are trusting to educate your peers.

ORS 336.067 is similar:

"336.067 Topics given special emphasis in instruction. (1) In public schools special emphasis shall be given to instruction in:

(a) Honesty, morality, courtesy, obedience to law, respect for the national flag, the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Oregon, respect for parents and the home, the dignity and necessity of honest labor and other lessons that tend to promote and develop an upright and desirable citizenry.

(b) Respect for all humans, regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, religion, age, sex or disability.

(c) Acknowledgment of the dignity and worth of individuals and groups and their participative roles in society.

(d) Humane treatment of animals.

(e) The effects of tobacco, alcohol, drugs and controlled substances upon the human system.

(2) The Superintendent of Public Instruction shall prepare an outline with suggestions that will best accomplish the purpose of this section, and shall incorporate the outline in the courses of study for all public schools. [Formerly 336.240; 1975 c.531 §1; 1979 c.744 §13; 1993 c.45 §75; 2005 c.209 §22]"

Notice how Oregon's Legislators expressed that the goal of this law was to "promote and develop an upright and desirable citizenry" by requiring public schools to place "special emphasis" on (among other things) "obedience to law", the US Constitution AND the Oregon Constitution. My guess is that you got little if any exposure to the Oregon Constitution and likely no class time at all on how to accurately read the laws in order to be properly "obedient" to them. So the Legislature has passed laws to promote AND DEVELOP upright and desirable citizens (who will fill jury pools) and the public schools have made it a consistent "policy" to suppress this intent by denying future citizens of the time they need in class to learn the law for their own protection, as well as their communities. Your peers aren't the problem. They're the outcome of the problem.
 
I wasn't really talking about ignorance, I was talking about bias and the inability of most people to make rational objective decisions and their inability to understand basic "informal" logic.

Say what you may about lawyers, judges and the legal system, but no small part of the education, training and experience of lawyers (most trial court judges were lawyers at one time) specifically covers that domain of knowledge and they practice it in practical exercises in law school.

As for high school education, yes, all of my education (except that in the military) from first grade to my two engineering degrees was in Oregon.

Granted, I slept through many high school classes, but I don't recall any on "government" (we had "social studies), that specifically covered the Constitution in anything more than superficial detail. In short, when I went to high school over 40 years ago, it pretty much sucked Equus africanus asinus penile tissue (although I would have got a lot more out of it if I had applied myself - mea culpa).

I am daily reminded just how stupid most people are. Everybody is ignorant about one thing or another, or often, even about many things. But the wise person realizes that and tries to remedy it. I would say 99+% of the general population are not wise in this regard. Hence my reluctance to rely on their judgement when my freedom is on the line.
 
Where in the Second Amendment does it talk about guns?

It talks about "arms" not guns.

What are "arms"?

Tanks, cannon, grenades, rockets and yes, firearms.

The Second Amendment is not limited to firearms.

I've always wondered why people on both sides of the 2nd amendment argument choose to assume small arms were all that is meant by "Arms". There was no limitation, the largest most powerful equipment of that day was the man o' war with 80 or 100 large cannon, yet the 2nd amendment doesn't limit the man o' war from consideration, nor anything else!

In the recent conflict with England hand grenades of dubious safety but doubtless lethality were used, but there is no exclusion for that either, nor for crew served artillery. Roll that sucker right up and get the presidents attention! And yes, that is the intention! That the people will be able to get their servants attention.
 
I've always wondered why people on both sides of the 2nd amendment argument choose to assume small arms were all that is meant by "Arms". There was no limitation, the largest most powerful equipment of that day was the man o' war with 80 or 100 large cannon, yet the 2nd amendment doesn't limit the man o' war from consideration, nor anything else!

In the recent conflict with England hand grenades of dubious safety but doubtless lethality were used, but there is no exclusion for that either, nor for crew served artillery. Roll that sucker right up and get the presidents attention! And yes, that is the intention! That the people will be able to get their servants attention.

+1

I have often made that point.

The purpose of the Second Amendment was to protect the right of the governed to have a balance of power with the government. Therefore, civilians have the right to possess and bear any "arm" that the government possesses (save NBC weapons, which the government shouldn't have either - nobody should have them).

So few people understand this very basic principle that I keep repeating it wherever and whenever I can. It puts the whole debate in a different perspective.
 
I wasn't really talking about ignorance, I was talking about bias and the inability of most people to make rational objective decisions and their inability to understand basic "informal" logic.

Say what you may about lawyers, judges and the legal system, but no small part of the education, training and experience of lawyers (most trial court judges were lawyers at one time) specifically covers that domain of knowledge and they practice it in practical exercises in law school.

As for high school education, yes, all of my education (except that in the military) from first grade to my two engineering degrees was in Oregon.

Granted, I slept through many high school classes, but I don't recall any on "government" (we had "social studies), that specifically covered the Constitution in anything more than superficial detail. In short, when I went to high school over 40 years ago, it pretty much sucked Equus africanus asinus penile tissue (although I would have got a lot more out of it if I had applied myself - mea culpa).

I am daily reminded just how stupid most people are. Everybody is ignorant about one thing or another, or often, even about many things. But the wise person realizes that and tries to remedy it. I would say 99+% of the general population are not wise in this regard. Hence my reluctance to rely on their judgement when my freedom is on the line.

Ignorance is the absence, or vacuum, of knowledge and uninformed bias will usually fill that vacuum by default. To lack the knowledge that is necessary to question, test and dislodge a bias, is to ensure the bias, and thus, the society you are so cynical about. This is a cause-and-effect issue and my point in raising the issue of 336.057 & 067 is that schools are required by law to "promote and develop an upright and desirable citizenry", i.e. a citizenry that doesn't rely on bias as a crutch, and in turn make you cynical about their ability as jurors to make competent, informed decision makers.

If you and your classmates, as well as those from subsequent generations, had not been deprived of the five years minimally required by these laws to assimilate basic liberty and legal principles, you wouldn't likely be as jaded and pessimistic now (40 years later) about the so-called citizens that fill the society around you. In a nutshell, since we're talking about the law competence of the general public who fills jury pools, suppression of 336.057 & 067 provides evidence of what has has led ("cause") to the "Hence my reluctance to rely on their judgement when my freedom is on the line"... "effect".

As far as your comment on "no small part of the education, training and experience of lawyers..." goes, if they are so versed on how to carry out their legal duties in harmony with basic constitutional principles, then why after so many years of dedicated specialized training in the law, do lawyers suffer such a pervasive public perception of incompetence or worse? Is it because high school didn't first "promote and develop" the value of being "upright and desirable citizens" through meaningful, in-depth exposure to the fundamental tenets of liberty that lay the foundation of our constitutional system?

For example, we all know that the value of the money we work so hard to earn is being rotted out of it at such a rapid pace that we have to work harder or longer each year to maintain our preferred standard of living. Presuming that lawyers are a class of people who generally possess good faith in their hearts, if lawyers were such beacons of constitutional astuteness, why haven't we heard of any cases in the news about righteous lawyers taking it upon themselves to sue the government for adopting an inflationary, debt-based money system in direct violation of US Constitution, Article 1, Section 10, which says in part:

"No State shall... make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts;" ?

In order for States to fulfill their duties under this provision, by paying their debts in gold and silver Coin, gold and silver Coin has to be in circulation so the States can acquire it through taxes. Article 5 of the US Constitution says only an Amendment can overturn constitutional provisions and there has been no amendment to abolish Article 1, Section 10. Now we have multiple States on the verge of bankruptcy through a debt-based money system that generations of highly trained lawyers have been either unable or unwilling to recognize and challenge as constitutionally non-compliant. If this is an accurate measure of what society gains from forsaking basic popular constitutional/legal literacy in favor of a system where profit-motivated, credentialed legal experts monopolize the business of constitutional law, then we should think much more carefully about where we invest our trust. Our nation may very well depend on it.
 
For (most) lawyers, our justice system isn't about "right or wrong", or "truth, justice, and the American way", it's all about "winning", and doing almost (if not) anything to "win".

This is largely reflected in the conduct of our society and political system. Students cheating on tests, or hiring/bullying someone to do their school work. Athletes on steroids or biting opposing athletes, etc. Masses of people looking for the "big payoff" without putting in any honest work to earn and "build something". Politicians who rig the system and manipulate voters to immorally (and often times illegally) "win" and election. Judges from lower courts on up to the SCOTUS who "legislate from the bench" and inflict THEIR bias upon the voters.

The out of control obsession with money, sex, and power is (and has been) the downfall and destruction of societies past, present, and future.

However, we digress from the thread topic. ;)
 
"However, we digress from the thread topic. ;)"

Well... digress maybe, but more to the heart of the matter. I wonder how much of what you've itemized would have been curtailed, in Oregon anyway, if generations of Oregonians had had the minimum of 5 years required by law to study and absorb the fundamental principles behind the State and federal Constitutions, as well as time to learn how to read the law for themselves? After all, they go to school for about 5 years... right? Maybe with that 5 years of Constitution/law education under everyone's belts as high school "graduates", we would be more respectful of each other, more mindful of not losing sight of big pictures, and less inclined to perceive a need for lawyers... which would create an incentive for lawyers to keep a tighter ship.
 
Intelligence and knowledge are just two legs of a three legged stool - the other leg is wisdom.

Okay, maybe multiple other legs - the allegory falls apart:

You also need to be willing and able to make objective rational decisions, to not be lazy and stick to pre-disposed biases because that is the easy reliable thing to do.

It is hard work to challenge one's own biases and preconceived assumptions about issues in order to arrive at the truth. And yet, this is exactly what juries are charged with doing. Why do we think that people from the general populace, who can't do this in their day to day lives 99% of the time, can suddenly come together in a court room and jury room and do it there, when there is less on the line (for them) than there is when they make decisions about their own lives?

I work in a profession where my colleagues are ALL college educated, degreed (not infrequently masters and sometimes doctorates). These are not uneducated unintelligent people. Some of them, like myself, have a good variation in both education and experience. Many of these people are smarter than I am, and I am above average intelligence (not bragging, just fact).

And yet, I have seen more wisdom from my grandparents (now deceased) in their lives, who never made it past the 8th grade, who always lived on the farm and rarely traveled. All they ever did was farm. Did they have biases? Sure, some pretty bad ones in fact. But they did make wise decisions in their life more frequently than many more educated and intelligent people.

In my experience intelligent educated people are only slightly better at making wise decisions, and even when they do make relatively wise decisions, those decisions are almost always strongly colored by their biases.

As for lawyers doing what they do. They work the system to their own benefit and to the benefit of their clients. The latter is what we pay them for, and when you need a lawyer you are usually very glad that they can and do work the system the way they do.

It isn't about ignorance or education - lawyers have more education and knowledge about laws and the history of the laws and the philosophy behind the laws than most people off the street. This is their profession, it is their job to know this stuff.

But just because they have the knowledge doesn't mean that they arrive at the right conclusions about how things should be.

There are a lot of smart intelligent people out there who are just flat wrong. Take Noam Chomsky. Highly intelligent, very articulate, makes good points and has good observations - and yet, his conclusions on issues are often just flat wrong.

As I said, it is very hard work and against human nature, to turn your biases upside down and look for the objective truth. Few people can do it, and nobody can do it all the time. If you can do it just 0.5% of the time, you are way ahead of the average person who can't do it 0.1% of the time.

We are irrational emotional animals - this is the way we evolved, to act on instinct and emotion. That served us well when we had to evade predators. We improved on that slightly by way of our brain power and improving our ability to solve problems, learn new knowledge and so on, but at our core, we are still working with our primitive emotional instinctual centers of our brain.

It is literally hard work to think rationally and it takes a lot of energy. It is a LOT easier to just go with what we think we know and not challenge that. Very few people will even try, much less succeed, at overturning their biases and preconceptions to see even a faint glimmer of what might be the truth.

It takes continual concentration and thought to do this, and most people are simply unwilling to even try, much less practice it.

Am I cynical?

You bet your posterior I am.

I really want to believe that people are better than that, and I am pleasantly surprised when I meet someone who displays some semblance of that ability.

But after six decades of life, I am repeatedly disappointed in the human race in general.

I am simply accepting the facts that are before me.

As much as I would like to say that we are better than that, we simply are not.

Then there are those who may see the truth, but simply do not care. I put some politicians and other people in power in that category. They work the system the way they do because it is to their benefit. They lie, cheat and steal because they do not care about other people or the truth. Whether they see the truth or not is irrelevant, they wouldn't speak it unless it benefitted them. They are not leaders, they are manipulators.

Our system is very corrupt, and the general populace is manipulated by corrupt people in power. Those in power are either skilled and/or intelligent enough to know how to manipulate the general populace to their ends. The only way that will stop is if people wake up, and work at seeking the truth.

Sadly, most people are asleep, and simply do not wish to ever wake up.

Moreover, I see this getting worse as time goes on.
 
In short, in most situations I am likely to experience, my preference would be for an experienced and skilled lawyer to argue my case before an experienced, knowledgeable and hopefully impartial judge, than to have that lawyer argue my case before an inexperienced jury with all kinds of biases and possible wildcards.
 
And to be clear, I include myself in the general populace as being biased and tending towards being lazy and emotional in my thinking.

I do however believe I have an advantage over the average person and general populace; I recognize that fact, and sometimes I am even able to recognize it when it happens.

Moreover and even more importantly, I recognize when people in power, lobbies and advertisers are trying to manipulate my decision making. This greatly decreases their direct power over me, but unfortunately I am still impacted indirectly by their influence on the general populace.
 
Finally, I don't see a lot of benefit in agonizing over where and when the country went wrong - I truly don't believe the gold standard has much to do with it. IMO the problem started at the beginning; the founders underestimated basic human nature and did not word the Constitution plainly or clearly enough. They also did not make the legal system strong enough to preclude laws that were in basic conflict with the Constitution or the principles behind it.

E.G., one of the first major infringements was the Alien and Sedition acts of 1798 which basically imprisoned anybody that criticized or opposed the regime in power at the time. Both major parties used it to silence any opposition. These were people that 30 years earlier had beat their chest and preached about the freedom of speech, and fought a revolutionary war supposedly towards that goal.

When they get into power they were corrupted and abused that power.

Cynical? All anyone has to do is look at the facts of history with an open mind and they will see the problems are more serious and plain than anything to do with what our money system is based on.

In short, it really comes down to understanding the way things are in the world (i.e., human nature) rather than fantasizing about how things might have been. If we want to have a system that works, then it has to have built in checks and balances that take into account a very cynical view of human nature while at the same time trying have minimal interference with how a person runs their own life (even if that person makes a mess of it, as long as they harm no one else).
 
It would take more than 1 person to pull my redneck *** outta the hills.....if there are 5 million like me hiding up in the woods where would the manpower come from? I can only think that China has the population to do that and they would have to arm everybody
A few bombs dropped here, a little nerve gas there - works wonders and is a force multiplier.
 
I agree with you Heretic, however I think the only part of the Constitution that needs revision is only ambiguities relative to the rights of the people over the governing people, the Founders thought they had taken human nature into full account, but they discounted how devious 200 plus years would make some of the governing power mad segment. It was a much better people on average in the late 1700's than Americans are today, in a moral sense, that made up the populace then. The definitions of right and wrong were much more distinct, and we haven't seen even yet how bad it can be and will become with public education defining common morality.

To write a Constitution that even a wicked evil generation could understand and appreciate would take more wisdom than mankind possesses, but the weaknesses of the original document can be fine tuned so that even a stupid people are forced, for a time, to be able to either see and appreciate or toss out entirely.

But the document has to be appreciated by the bulk of the citizens, not just the educated elite few. I fear time has distorted the fabric of American morality too far for that, and, in short, America as envisioned 230 or so years ago is in it's death throes, the victim of selfishness to the exclusion of belief in the greater good of the whole.
http://www.ucg.org/united-states/life-cycles-empires-lessons-america-today/
More to the point;
http://www.1215.org/lawnotes/work-in-progress/country-life-cycle.htm

Written in 1787 by Alexander Tyler;
"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from
the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During
those 200 years, these nations always progressed through
the following sequence

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage"
 
I don't believe people were necessarily different back then with regards to basic human nature. It just took a while for self-reliance to wear off as a way of life so people were more concerned about surviving than they were about depending on government for their survival.

As civilization and technology progressed, people were less self-sufficient/reliant and more dependent on others, including the government and we get to where we are now. I don't think it is coincidence that the larger the city, the more "liberal" and less self-reliant the populace is. Looking at the rural and less populated areas and you generally find people who are less reliant on others, and by necessity they are more self-reliant and tend to be more resistant to government interference.

As for the nature of people in positions of power, as I noted, it only took 30 years for the founders themselves to enact laws that plainly fly in the face of the Constitution as it is.

Would it be possible to now make major or even minor but significant changes to the Constitution or laws such that they curtail the unconstitutional laws and systems in place now?

I doubt it - too many powerful people and lobbies have too much at stake to allow it and too much of the populace is reliant on the current system as it is. We are moving towards a mobocracy.

10501717_521808431280885_1227481484278139731_n.jpg
 
I love R. Lee Wrights quote. To be right is infinitely more important than to be popular.

I'm convinced that people today are far less moral than they were then, but you are free to disagree. As people become less wise they make even worse voters. The "Get out the vote" programs are stupid, do we really want people who don't even know Mr. Obama is a communist having the power of the vote when they didn't care enough about to fill out a vote card? I don't. Ask people if they have read Brave New World or 1984, I've asked a good n umber of people and was shocked that they didn't really understand what communism or free market capitalism really is, and yet they give into the general tide of feeling that socialism is probably a good idea. I don't want them voting, no! Hannity (I think it was) joked that a simple knowledge test might be a good idea before a vote, hmmm. Maybe, not based on race but based on a basic understanding of politics, the test written so a ten year old could understand it.

The second amendment is like a harsh poll, when the governed are so abused that they cannot stand it longer they vote the governing out of office and out of this world. If people don't have enough common sense to vote in an election I don't want them voting with guns either, to be honest. They may start another communist revolution.
 
T-bone a bull dozer onto the tanks tracks. Every public works department in the country has at least a couple heavy movers, not to mention the ones in private hands. Surprise is your friend.

If all you have is a gun, shoot out the sensors.
 
Last Edited:
I love R. Lee Wrights quote. To be right is infinitely more important than to be popular.

I'm convinced that people today are far less moral than they were then, but you are free to disagree. As people become less wise they make even worse voters. The "Get out the vote" programs are stupid, do we really want people who don't even know Mr. Obama is a communist having the power of the vote when they didn't care enough about to fill out a vote card? I don't. Ask people if they have read Brave New World or 1984, I've asked a good n umber of people and was shocked that they didn't really understand what communism or free market capitalism really is, and yet they give into the general tide of feeling that socialism is probably a good idea. I don't want them voting, no! Hannity (I think it was) joked that a simple knowledge test might be a good idea before a vote, hmmm. Maybe, not based on race but based on a basic understanding of politics, the test written so a ten year old could understand it.

The second amendment is like a harsh poll, when the governed are so abused that they cannot stand it longer they vote the governing out of office and out of this world. If people don't have enough common sense to vote in an election I don't want them voting with guns either, to be honest. They may start another communist revolution.

One of the biggest dangers that I think you're skirting there is the implication that any one person is any better than any other person. This is exactly what you point out in your last paragraph, and is generally what I fear and consider the most likely outcome of armed insurrection, even if it's not communist, it will certainly take the form of some variety of unpalatable totalitarian system. While the french celebrate the taking of the Bastile, it still took them another 50 years to free themselves from the terrors that followed the revolution, and then deal with the consequences of Napoleon's wars.

After giving this topic more thought, the original question is as fallacious as some of the answers, will we be fighting an insurgent war against a democratically elected government? The answer there should be a resounding no, because it should never come to that. However, the utility of the privately held firearm is a perpetual resistance to gangsterism.

As we look south to Mexico, we can draw some parallels to what we may face in the future of expanding government debts, and reduced government services (namely those of military and police), we, like the mexicans may be faced with armed insurgent gangs looking to shore up their criminal enterprises. The military probably can't be bought off, but also won't be here. The police, probably can be bought off, if not immediately, eventually. Will the cartels then be forced to buy everyone else off when they can simply respond with violence?

For the moment at least, cartels are not using tanks and apache gun ships. As an optimist, I hope they never do, but as a pragmatist, I hope we take them out before they ever get that opportunity.
 

Upcoming Events

Tillamook Gun & Knife Show
Tillamook, OR
"The Original" Kalispell Gun Show
Kalispell, MT
Teen Rifle 1 Class
Springfield, OR
Kids Firearm Safety 2 Class
Springfield, OR

New Resource Reviews

New Classified Ads

Back Top