Talk:Measured

The Measure 114 which supposedly passed in Oregon clearly infringes upon the natural right to bear arms. The right to bear arms is not a "constitutional right" granted by the Second Amendment.. The Second Amendment is prohibiting the Congress ("shall make no law").

No member of the government subject to that constitution has the authority to infringe upon that preexisting natural right to bear arms.

Oregonians are not only ignorant.of their rights and responsibility and the limits of their power of legislation but they are infested with the spirit of tyranny and desire to rule over their neighbo.

Despite the obvious evil embodied in this measure insult is added to injury because a man calling himself Reverend Mark Knutson was the chief petitioner and a pastor at institution identifying itself as Augustana Lutheran Church in Portland,

He clearly does not know the Gospel of Christ and because of his appeals to the rulers who exercise authority to take fundamental rights from neighbors he is also one of the many false prophets of the beast.

He is not alone. The thinking of Americans has been altered over the last century and more. What made America great?

" I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there… in her fertile fields and boundless forests, and it was not there…in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there… in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good; and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."

But those churches are nut the churches we see today and the people in them to not think like nor do like the early Americans.

But "The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults. ― Alexis de Tocqueville

We can change if we change our thing and what we do. Alexis saw the people of Europe a contrast to the American thinking prevalent at one time but encomprehensible to the modern voter.

"There are some nations in Europe whose inhabitants think of themselves in a sense as colonists, indifferent to the fate of the place they live in. The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation."

"They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved. They are so divorced from their own interests that even when their own security and that of their children is finally compromised, they do not seek to avert the danger themselves but cross their arms and wait for the nation as a whole to come to their aid. Yet as utterly as they sacrifice their own free will, they are no fonder of obedience than anyone else. They submit, it is true, to the whims of a clerk, but no sooner is force removed than they are glad to defy the law as a defeated enemy. Thus one finds them ever wavering between servitude and license."

"When a nation has reached this point, it must either change its laws and mores or perish, for the well of public virtue has run dry: in such a place one no longer finds citizens but only subjects.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

There is no salvation for America in merely voting in another leader to fix what has broken in the hearts and minds of Americans. Unless we can reforge the social bonds required in a free society there be no restoration of liberty.

The covetous practices of the masses has not only made them human resources but has degenerated large portions of society into perfect savages with an appetite for benefits willing to take a bite out of one another to satisfy their own lust and wantonness.

If we individually fail to reinstate those social bonds generations of New Deals and the Great Society has degenerated and sickened there will be no coming back from destruction.

Those systems of legal charity through the state has made Americans a scattered flock and tyrany prospers.

“Despotism, suspicious by its very nature, views the separation of men as the best guarantee of its own permanence and usually does all it can to keep them in isolation. No defect of the human heart suits it better than egoism; a tyrant is relaxed enough to forgive his subjects for failing to love him, provided they do not love one another. He does not ask them to help him to govern the state; it is enough that they have no intention of managing it themselves. He calls those who claim to unite their efforts to create general prosperity “turbulent and restless spirits” and, twisting the normally accepted meaning of the words, he gives the name of “good citizens” to those who retreat into themselves.” “Thus the vices fostered by tyranny are exactly those supported by equality. These two things are complementary and mutually supportive, with fatal results.” Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America, by Alexis Tocqueville