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| 5:59 |
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| 7:53 |
It felt good to feel the chill of a 55º morning, our windows open. It's sunny, with blue skies, hardly a breath of wind, perfect for kayaking. It was a good morning for kayaking, calm lake, few boats, and herons and osprey.
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| Kayak Morning |
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| North |
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| Osprey Breakfasting |
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| Time Out From Breakfast |
Yesterday was a busy but fun day, starting with a long paddle, then breakfast in Bemus and a very crowded Yin Yoga class. After class, I drove to the bike shop, picked up my bike, and was home just in time for lunch, the leftover chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy. While I was gone, Evie had prepped our dinner because we were having friends from the CI over.
After my nap, I helped Evie clean both porches, then we both mowed the lawn, Evie the first half, me the second. For the rest of the afternoon, we relaxed if you can call listening to the hearings on the radio relaxing. And the news that the Supreme Court made it legal for anyone to carry a gun without a permit is absolute madness. They forbid abortions but allow anyone to carry a gun, What kind of world are we living in?
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| Dinner With Judy And Fred |
Fred and Judy arrived at 6:00 and it was good to see them since the last time we got together was probably a year ago August. We settled on the porch with Manhattan's, shrimp cocktails, and spicy cashews and caught up on our health, families, and politics. It was a beautiful night on the lake and we were able to eat outside. Evie had made Peruvian chicken, with an amazing cilantro sauce, and cauliflower rice for a side. We enjoyed our dessert, raspberry and blueberry parfaits on the porch and talked until 10:00 when they headed home and we finished cleaning up the kitchen. It was a fun night.
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The Supreme Court does not “forbid” abortion; the question for the Court is only whether the federal Constitution provides a right to abortion that could override state regulations or prohibitions of abortion. Given that the text of the Constitution is silent on abortion and there was a long history at the state level of regulating or prohibiting abortion, it’s hard to say there is a right to abortion in the constitution. By contrast, there is a specific text about the right to bear arms. The Court’s ruling in the gun case was to invalidate a law that required one to demonstrate a “special need” to the government to exercise one’s Second Amendment rights. Imagine if a state passed a law saying you could not exercise your first amendment right to free speech unless you convinced the state you had a special need to.
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous: I highly doubt the writers of the constitution or the second amendment think it’s acceptable that 18 year olds - or anyone for that matter - can go buy AR 47s or other assault rifles. GUN CONTROL NOW.
ReplyDeletePeace.
Patrick Holzheimer
Dear Patrick, thank you for your comment. But what you say about whether the writers of the second amendment approve of particular weapons was not the issue in the recent gun case, which instead focused on whether a state can require its citizens to demonstrate a “special need” in order to exercise a protected constitutional right. With respect to your comment particularly, I do believe the founders would consider so-called “assault rifles” to be within the protection of the Second Amendment, which embodies the principle that ordinary citizens have the right to protect themselves and also serve as a last bulwark against tyranny (George III was systematically disarming rebellious areas in the colonies in order to crush dissent, which would have been very much in the mind of the founders). The Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms in common use at the time, and this was the founders vision, even if they didn’t foresee AK-16s in particular (just as the free speech principle of the First Amendment protects Tom’s right to complain about a Supreme Court decision on an internet blog, though the founders surely did mot foresee the Internet). AK-16 are the most common rifle in use in the country. Therefore they are clearly protected under the Second Amendment. However, we can argue about the proper age of majority (18 or 21) to buy them; that is a separate issue. Respectfully, Anonymous
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