Comments for Owens Rhetoric

Comment on F5 and the Northern Hive by LARP

LARP — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 04:52:10 +0000

You are unquestionably correct on this one

Comment on Shooting blanks by Lettice

Lettice — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 13:16:25 +0000

Stellar work there evryneoe. I’ll keep on reading.

Comment on Did Gregg Allman sing “Sweet Militia” by Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 13:19:09 +0000

Right – It’s also interesting that, again, he wraps in another argument for professional, as opposed to amateur, forces. So, even with the militia, it would be foolish, he argues, to just have every able-bodied citizen in the well regulated militia. Rather, we should select some out of the many to be a sort-of elite militia. Now, with the National Guard, that seems normal. But then, when the militia was popularly thought of as the people’s force, Hamilton’s argument must have raised eyebrows.

Comment on talkin’ bare armed blues (F29) by Lily

Lily — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 01:18:59 +0000

It’s an interesting tie you point out, between the Second Amendment to these clauses in Article 8. The majority in this summer’s McDonald v. City of Chicago case doesn’t talk about Fed 29 at all, although it does cite Fed 46 as supporting its argument that the 14th Amendment should be read to incorporate the 2nd Amendment as to the states.

Comment on Did Gregg Allman sing “Sweet Militia” by Lily

Lily — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 01:06:48 +0000

I thought the pro-business arguments in favor of a standing federal army were interesting here: “To oblige the great body of yeomanry and of the other classes of the citizens to be under arms for the purpose of military exercises . . . would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country.” We see this being played out nowadays, what with laws requiring employers to hold jobs open for members of the military reserve who get called up for weeks or even years at a time.

Comment on Two plus two has been interpretated as being four by Lily

Lily — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 05:37:00 +0000

Here we are on August 17, 2+ weeks after your post, and this Fourteenth Amendment thing is still dominating the public discourse. I can’t really understand the point of it. Do people really want to do away with the 14th Amendment? Really?

Comment on Seditions, Insurrections, and Rebellions: Federalist No. 28 by Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 15:29:15 +0000

I had two favorite lines in F28- the one you quoted regarding those ‘political doctors’ and this: ‘The obstacles to usurpation and th facilities of resistance increase with the increased extent if the state, provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them.’

huh? The bigger the government, the easier to avoid it taking over your liberty? That’s right, argues Hamilton. You see, in small communities, the gov can easily collect intellegence on rebels, and can easily directly control the citizens. But in the proposed system of a large general government existing side by side with fairly large state governmets- those levels of government will fight out and check each other, as Lilly described in the post. Also, in a geopolitically large state, the people can more easily resist usurpation from the state or federal governments; running, as Hamilton describes, from one scale to the other- ultimately balancing power throughout.

Interesting notion, Lilly, of the state federal power check. Good to have you back!

Comment on Name Note by Lily

Lily — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 05:36:08 +0000

And long may you live, OR!

Comment on the federal government pulling our heartstrings (F27) by Lily

Lily — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 05:34:06 +0000

Cool tie-in between F27 and the Jefferson letters! The idealism of both Ham and Jeff seems outdated to our modern eyes. I am interested in how it came about. Because it’s not like these guys were living lives of total ease — they had lived through wars on their native soil, epidemics of disease, and all kinds of terrible things that I, for one, haven’t personally had to see. How is it that we can be so much less idealistic, when our lives have been so much easier than theirs?

Comment on Before the Whiskey Rebellion by judson2history

judson2history — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 01:58:56 +0000

Truly a critical juncture in American history.

Have you read “The Whiskey Rebels” by David Liss? Historical fiction focusing on this period.

I wrote a review the other day …

http://judson2history.wordpress.com/