Reply #140: I am glad your life was saved. It is not to your detriment, tho, to point to [View All]

the incidences of innocent life being taken by gunfire in our streets (and in homes, such as whathappened in my family). I will say, tho, that our country's hospitals have gained enormously in their knowledge of how to save people who arrive on their steps with GSW (gun shot wounds). This unfortunate and tragic fact has advanced the medical community's ability to deal with such incidences. It didn't help my niece; hers was a clean shot to her left temple. Her mother was in the room (also wounded, not fatally) and saw her daughter die before her eyes.

I don't pretend to be an expert on Nazi Germany, but it does seem to me that the Nazis were able to take over for a variety of reasons, not the least being a lack of enforcing laws that protect civil liberties, an overt play to the nation's anti-Semitism, and, most importantly, the huge build up of their armed forces. We have an even more hugely built up military comparatively than they did. I don't wish that retribution on anyone, and certainly not anyone on this board.

Well, I haven't read the FP since grad school, but I do recall that what Madison was essentially saying in #46 was that our new country had defeated Britain because of locally armed patriots, which was very true. And it was also true that the founders were revulsed by the idea of the tyranny of European countries "standing (federal) armies." That is quite clear. And quite a good idea at the time! How we can translate that noble and stirring passage (as I recall he rhapsodized about it and well he should, as he was trying to convince people to vote in a new federalized constitution!) to the reality of today is another argument, perhaps for another time.