Another tyrant...
Via Ammoland:
An Illinois technocrat has demonstrated the Progressive attitude about the Constitution and the Second Amendment. Representative Bill Foster has a PhD in Physics from Harvard. He was raised and earned his Bachelor degree in ultra-liberal Madison, Wisconsin. In his view, the Constitution is a document that can be re-interpreted to mean different things every few years. That is true in a sense. Amendments to the Constitution can be put forward and passed any time. It is clear a constitutional amendment is not what Representative Foster is talking about. From chicagotribune.com:
Flanked by two area high school students, a pediatrician and the mother of a gun violence victim, U.S. Rep. Bill Foster told a community forum audience Monday the Second Amendment should be up for reinterpretation as new generations come into power.
“It always has been up for reinterpretation,” Foster, D-Naperville, said during an event focused on gun violence. “The technology changes, and the weapons thought to be too dangerous to be in private hands change. A civil war cannon is frankly much less dangerous than weapons we are allowed to carry on the streets in many of the states and cities in our country today. This is something where technology changes and public attitude changes and both are important in each of the generations.”
What does “reinterpretation” mean? It means you take the same words in the Constitution, and apply a different meaning to them. If you can do that, the Constitution only means what you want it to mean, when you want it to mean it. If Representative Foster means that legislators, such as himself, should change the meaning of the Constitution when they wish it, then Constitutional limits on government power mean nothing. Much of the purpose of the Constitution was to limit government power, to provide stability, to prevent rapid, radical change in the laws.
The Representative mentions technology changes and public attitudes. But technology changes apply to the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and most of the Bill of rights. Should we give the legislature the power to change most of the Bill of Rights at will?
The Constitution is designed as a structure of government to moderate and delay change so as to prevent hurried legislation in response to emotional public reactions.
In short, Representative Foster is talking about scrapping the Constitution and ruling by legislative fiat. That has always been the Progressive way.
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