Democracy is explained, the Constitution evaluated, and the writer leaves out the 2nd amendment.

Joesph Filco has taught economics and American government. Joseph writes commentary for the Williamsburg Gazette. The gentleman is relatively well-versed. Sometimes, I disagree and write my discourse here because the local Williamsburg Gazette and Daily Press refuse to print the discourse. When writing about the Constitution in his recent article dated February 10th, 2024. " Did they (meaning our founding fathers) mean to elevate material needs into rights? Or did they envision a system of ordered liberty and limited government whose proper function was to protect the rights of self-reliant people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Democrats will, of course, look to Article One, section 8 of the Constitution, to say the federal government can impose a tax for the general welfare of the people. But then, what is general welfare? General welfare, in my opinion, is limited to the power of the Constitution as written. To provide for a standing army or defense of our country as an example, but not welfare, food stamps, or school funding for the individual as an example. These needs would be the responsibilities of the states and not the federal government. 

Democracy is explained, the Constitution evaluated, and the writer leaves out the 2nd amendment.

Excellent article, albeit a bit 5th-grade, but then you are writing to an ignorant class of people who mostly do not understand our Republic anyway. It was, after all, our founding fathers who did not trust the majority to elect a president. Democracy or pure democracy is, of course, "rule by mob," and Democrats like Hillary Clinton maintain the idea she was robbed of an election because she won the popular vote. I have to ask, is that treason not accepting an election? 

According to some, one of the most hotly debated parts of our Constitution, the Second Amendment, is a single sentence that leaves much to interpretation, or does it? Passed in 1789, along with the other amendments you mentioned in your column today, known as the Bill of Rights, I found it odd you left out the 2nd amendment in your list of amendments. 

In my research of historical grammar, we find that at the time of our founding fathers, our founding fathers used run-on sentences or the use of commas to separate ideas. It is one of the reasons people today find the Constitution so hard to read and understand. When we use today's English grammar to look at the 2nd as a list using commas, we associate the list with a well-regulated militia that has the right to bear arms and shall not be infringed as meaning a state military right to bear arms and shall not be infringed, but that is wrong. Each is a separate idea; we have the right to a militia, and we have a right to bear arms, and those rights shall not be infringed. If we look at this from the founding fathers' use of commas in 1789 and other aspects of the Constitution, we see our founding fathers' use of run-on sentences. I proposed this idea to the James City County Police Constitutional  Officer during my time in the citizens' police academy. He has been trained to help other officers as a Constitutional resource when dealing with our laws. He agreed. 

Yet, your liberal friends want to take from the individual the right to bear arms, and we are seeing this today in the general assembly in Richmond as I write this. The same liberals are ignoring sound legislation to deter the use of inanimate objects for harm by imposing minimum sentencing guidelines when a gun is used to commit a crime. 

Democrats want control of all of us, and that is clear to this writer. The conservative Democrat of my youth is gone. We are fortunate enough that the Supreme Court released opinions on the topic in 2008, and they found the Second Amendment does, in fact, protect an individual right to bear arms, a "right" left-wing haters of America want to take from me. 

January 6th: The people's power has diminished over time, proven by the expanding federal government in our lives. Where the federal government picks and chooses which federal laws they want to enforce, or do we need to talk about drugs and the border? The Civil War settled the idea of state rights and mandated federal law over state rights. This is why the federal government sued Texas after Texas decided to enforce federal laws on our border. January 6th was nothing more than a peaceful protest when compared to other peaceful demonstrations defined by Democrats across our nation in 2020. Where the federal government and some state governments looked the other way as cities burned and people died. Yet the Democrats are now throwing people in jail for long periods of time for protesting peacefully, mind you, after a protest came to Washington and their front door steps.