Where did these words come from?

Question

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

What do you think these words mean in that context?
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Answer 1

That is from the Declaration of Independence and from the movie " National Treasure " = one of my favorites.

It basically says that the people should overthrow the Government if it becomes too powerful and add additional guards for the future of their country. So basically, the Declaration of Independence promotes TREASON if and when necessary. And I don't need to remind YOU that we would not be America - the home of the FREE AND THE BRAVE if it wasn't for those men who believed Treason was the answer some two hundred and twenty five years ago!

National Treasure is a fantastic movie, is it not?

Answer 2

The architects of the government (both the writers of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution) knew that power can corrupt those in charge. The intent was to allow people to bear arms in the event that a corrupt government would ever try to assume absolute power by force. Or at least act as a deterrent to ever trying it.

Answer 3

The Declaration of Independence. It means that if a government is oppressing the rights of a people and not allowing them any means of reversing the infringement, they have a right (and very nearly a duty) to overthrow that government in favor of something more just. People who say we can't have guns worry me deeply, because they're often the ones whose policies would take us to the state in which we'd need them for just that purpose. Circles within circles...

By the way, dstr, nice poem. Too bad it was entirely inspired by Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Answer 4

This was part of the contributions of Ben Franklin to the construct of the Constitution. It's actually part of the Preamble.

Notice the tie-in to the 2nd amendment! How else would citizens "throw off" a corrupt government?

Answer 5

American Declaration of Independance.

Answer 6

power is corruption, absolutely power corrupts absolutely. so, we need "check and balances". The US constitution came from Montesquieu's principle of check and balances

Answer 7

Declaration of Independence.

Sad that many people have never even READ it.

Answer 8

The US Constitution.

Jefferson or Madison?

I think it means "keep your guns, it could be your last line of defense against a lawless government."

Answer 9

i thinkl the 'well regulated milita' need to be highligted and emphised.

i mean hell,all sort of nutters are getting guns and are able to go on shooting sprees.

Answer 10

Here is a newer version.......enjoy........

They [King George II and his royal advisors: Lords Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, Gonzalez, and Lady Rice] have refused their Assent to Laws and Policies, most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

They have engaged in acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide in the city of New Orleans through acts of criminal neglect and gross mismanagement of the aftermath of a natural disaster, the willful creation of a diaspora of the poor Black inhabitants of New Orleans, the suspension of labor laws which would have ensured fair wages to those rebuilding the city, and the dispensation of generous federal contracts to crony corporations to rebuild a city favorable to the interests of the wealthy.

They manipulated facts and presented lies to the American People and to Congress to gain necessary approval of a "preventive", illegal war against the sovereign nation of Iraq on the shifting premises that this nation posed an immediate threat to our national security, that the Iraqi people needed a champion to topple a ruthless dictator, and that their purpose was to spread "freedom and liberty". It has now come to light that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction, had no connections with Osama bin Laden, and was little or no threat to the United States. They knew this prior to the invasion. They subverted a government led by a former US ally whom the US supported when it knew he was committing genocide. They installed a puppet Iraqi regime fortified by 140,000 US military personnel and call it "Democracy". They are responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqi civilians. Their hands drip with the blood of innocents slaughtered using monies from our Treasury and the blood, sweat and tears of our children.

They recruited and trained US military personnel under the pretext that they would be engaged in defending their nation. After enticing young men and women to serve based on blatant lies, They thrust them into imperial conquests like the one in Iraq. They are responsible for the sacrifice of over 2,000 American lives which They sacrificed at their sacred alter of the almighty Dollar.

They have continued to perpetuate, protect, and expand the powers of corrupt, avaricious corporations These cornucopias of avidity for wealth and power pay sub-standard wages, offer minimal benefits to their employees, increasingly utilize inexpensive "offshore" labor, manufacture products in "sweat shops" which egregiously violate the human rights of their employees, profiteer during wars and natural disasters, rape the environment and plunder our precious natural resources, utilize "creative accounting methods" to increase their stock value, capitalize on laws enabling them to create hostile environments for unions, demand virtually endless increases in corporate welfare, and strangle competition through mergers and acquisitions accomplished with their over-inflated stocks.

They have perpetuated and expanded an executive branch of government which is in many ways indistinguishable from the leviathan corporations and wealthy elite which it serves and represents.

They have forsaken their primary responsibility, which is to preserve the universal human rights of their citizenry, and to secure its general welfare. They have rapidly eroded federal domestic programs promoting health care, education, basic infrastructure, and housing, while directing unconscionable sums of public monies to the military industrial complex comprised of current and former government officials and the wealthy elite. They seize the lion's share of taxes from their citizens and spend obscene amounts to finance a grotesquely powerful military [and their imperial adventures], while a significant number of their citizens want for proper education, housing, transportation, and even nourishment.

They have created a rogue military state which engages in terrorism of such magnitude that terrorist acts committed by the Iraqi Resistance, while equally as morally objectionable, are modest in comparison.

They have created a rogue military state which engages in terrorism of such magnitude that terrorist acts committed by the Iraqi Resistance, while equally as morally objectionable, are modest in comparison.

They have, through their willful neglect of the general welfare, allowed 46 million Americans to languish with no health insurance, 13% of their citizenry to experience poverty, 3% to experience homelessness, 24% of their Black populace to live in poverty, and 6% of their citizens to experience unemployment. These glaring blights on humanity are inexcusable in the wealthiest nation in history.

They have continued to loosen federal regulations on the "free market" economy, thus further enriching their plutocratic allies while impoverishing more and more Americans. They have worked tenaciously to perpetuate the exportation of Neoliberal economic policies to Latin America, crushing economies throughout that region, and creating chasms between their rich and poor.

They have employed chemical weapons in Iraq, violating numerous treaties, conventions, and International Laws.

They have exposed their own soldiers and the civilian inhabitants of occupied Iraq to the dangers of depleted uranium.

They have employed a variety of illegal and unethical means to manipulate and taint the results of two presidential elections to ensure their ascendancy to the seat of power.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the Fifty Colonies of America and their Poor and Middle Classes, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these Fifty Colonies and United Peoples are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent of the United Stated Federal Government; that We are Absolved from Allegiance to the Federal Crown, and that all political connections between them and us, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent People forming a true Constitutional Republic, we have full Power to provide for the General Welfare of the Populace, to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence (by the Higher Power of each person's understanding), we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.