FFL Quotes: Crito, Plato, ~360BC, 2nd of 2

 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1657/1657-h/1657-h.htm

SOCRATES (speaking as the Athenian laws, which is to say, the Athenian State): "[...] Do you imagine that a state can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and trampled upon by individuals? [...]
  (Speaking as the unjustly sentenced individual) "Yes; but the state has injured us and given an unjust sentence.’ [...]
  (And again as Athenian laws) ‘And was that our agreement with you?’ the law would answer; ‘or were you to abide by the sentence of the state?’ And if I were to express my astonishment at their words, the law would probably add: ‘Answer, Socrates, instead of opening your eyes—you are in the habit of asking and answering questions. Tell us,—What complaint have you to make against us which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and the state? In the first place did we not bring you into existence? Your father married your mother by our aid and begat you. Say whether you have any objection to urge against those of us who regulate marriage?’ None, I should reply. ‘Or against those of us who after birth regulate the nurture and education of children, in which you also were trained? Were not the laws, which have the charge of education, right in commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastic?’ Right, I should reply. ‘Well then, since you were brought into the world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the first place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were before you? And if this is true you are not on equal terms with us; nor can you think that you have a right to do to us what we are doing to you. Would you have any right to strike or revile or do any other evil to your father or your master, if you had one, because you have been struck or reviled by him, or received some other evil at his hands? You would not say this. And because we think right to destroy you, do you think that you have any right to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in you lies? Will you, O professor of true virtue, pretend that you are justified in this? Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding? also to be soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when angry, even more than a father, and either to be persuaded, or if not persuaded, to be obeyed? And when we are punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if she lead us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right; neither may anyone yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him; or he must change their view of what is just: and if he may do no violence to his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his country.’
  Then the laws will say: ‘Consider, Socrates, if we are speaking truly that in your present attempt you are going to do us an injury. For, having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good which we had to give, we further proclaim to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that if he does not like us when he has become of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him. None of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Anyone who does not like us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, retaining his property. But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the state, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we command him. And he who disobeys us is, as we maintain, thrice wrong; first, because in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents; secondly, because we are the authors of his education; thirdly, because he has made an agreement with us that he will duly obey our commands; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our commands are unjust; and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the alternative of obeying or convincing us;—that is what we offer, and he does neither. These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your intentions[.]
  Moreover, you might in the course of the trial, if you had liked, have fixed the penalty at banishment; the state which refuses to let you go now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you preferred death to exile, and that you were not unwilling to die. And now you have forgotten these fine sentiments, and pay no respect to us the laws, of whom you are the destroyer; and are doing what only a miserable slave would do, running away and turning your back upon the compacts and agreements which you made as a citizen. And first of all answer this very question: Are we right in saying that you agreed to be governed according to us in deed, and not in word only? [...]
  For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way, what good will you do either to yourself or to your friends? That your friends will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or will lose their property, is tolerably certain; and you yourself, if you fly to one of the neighbouring cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are well governed, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm in the minds of the judges the justice of their own condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be a corrupter of the young and foolish portion of mankind. Will you then flee from well-ordered cities and virtuous men? and is existence worth having on these terms? Or will you go to them without shame, and talk to them, Socrates? And what will you say to them? What you say here about virtue and justice and institutions and laws being the best things among men? Would that be decent of you? Surely not. But if you go away from well-governed states to Crito’s friends in Thessaly, where there is great disorder and licence, they will be charmed to hear the tale of your escape from prison, set off with ludicrous particulars of the manner in which you were wrapped in a goatskin or some other disguise, and metamorphosed as the manner is of runaways; but will there be no one to remind you that in your old age you were not ashamed to violate the most sacred laws from a miserable desire of a little more life? Perhaps not, if you keep them in a good temper; but if they are out of temper you will hear many degrading things; you will live, but how?—as the flatterer of all men, and the servant of all men; and doing what?—eating and drinking in Thessaly, having gone abroad in order that you may get a dinner. And where will be your fine sentiments about justice and virtue? Say that you wish to live for the sake of your children—you want to bring them up and educate them—will you take them into Thessaly and deprive them of Athenian citizenship? Is this the benefit which you will confer upon them? Or are you under the impression that they will be better cared for and educated here if you are still alive, although absent from them; for your friends will take care of them? Do you fancy that if you are an inhabitant of Thessaly they will take care of them, and if you are an inhabitant of the other world that they will not take care of them? Nay; but if they who call themselves friends are good for anything, they will—to be sure they will.
 ‘Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least of all to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito.’"

FFL Quotes: Crito, Plato, ~360BC, 1st of 2

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1657/1657-h/1657-h.htm

CRITO: "[...]oh! my beloved Socrates, let me entreat you once more to take my advice and escape. For if you die I shall not only lose a friend who can never be replaced, but there is another evil: people who do not know you and me will believe that I might have saved you if I had been willing to give money, but that I did not care. Now, can there be a worse disgrace than this—that I should be thought to value money more than the life of a friend? For the many will not be persuaded that I wanted you to escape, and that you refused.
SOCRATES: But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many? Good men, and they are the only persons who are worth considering, will think of these things truly as they occurred.
CRITO: But you see, Socrates, that the opinion of the many must be regarded, for what is now happening shows that they can do the greatest evil to anyone who has lost their good opinion.
SOCRATES: I only wish it were so, Crito; and that the many could do the greatest evil; for then they would also be able to do the greatest good—and what a fine thing this would be! But in reality they can do neither; for they cannot make a man either wise or foolish; and whatever they do is the result of chance."

SOCRATES: "Dear Crito, your zeal is invaluable, if a right one; but if wrong, the greater the zeal the greater the danger [.]"

SOCRATES: "[...] I am and always have been one of those natures who must be guided by reason, whatever the reason may be which upon reflection appears to me to be the best; and now that this chance has befallen me, I cannot repudiate my own words: the principles which I have hitherto honoured and revered I still honour, and unless we can at once find other and better principles, I am certain not to agree with you; no, not even if the power of the multitude could inflict many more imprisonments, confiscations, deaths, frightening us like children with hobgoblin terrors. ⁵ What will be the fairest way of considering the question? Shall I return to your old argument about the opinions of men?—we were saying that some of them are to be regarded, and others not. Now were we right in maintaining this before I was condemned? And has the argument which was once good now proved to be talk for the sake of talking—mere childish nonsense? That is what I want to consider with your help, Crito:—whether, under my present circumstances, the argument appears to be in any way different or not; and is to be allowed by me or disallowed. That argument, which, as I believe, is maintained by many persons of authority, was to the effect, as I was saying, that the opinions of some men are to be regarded, and of other men not to be regarded."

SOCRATES: "Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of us; but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. And therefore you begin in error when you advise that we should regard the opinion of the many about just and unjust, good and evil, honourable and dishonourable.—‘Well,’ someone will say, ‘but the many can kill us.’
CRITO: Yes, Socrates; that will clearly be the answer.
SOCRATES: And it is true; but still I find with surprise that the old argument is unshaken as ever. And I should like to know whether I may say the same of another proposition—that not life, but a good life, is to be chiefly valued?
CRITO: Yes, that also remains unshaken.
SOCRATES: And a good life is equivalent to a just and honourable one—that holds also?
CRITO: Yes, it does.
SOCRATES: From these premises I proceed to argue the question whether I ought or ought not to try and escape without the consent of the Athenians: and if I am clearly right in escaping, then I will make the attempt; but if not, I will abstain. The other considerations which you mention, of money and loss of character and the duty of educating one’s children, are, I fear, only the doctrines of the multitude, who would be as ready to restore people to life, if they were able, as they are to put them to death—and with as little reason. But now, since the argument has thus far prevailed, the only question which remains to be considered is whether we shall do rightly either in escaping or in suffering others to aid in our escape and paying them in money and thanks, or whether in reality we shall not do rightly; and if the latter, then death or any other calamity which may ensue on my remaining here must not be allowed to enter into the calculation."

SOCRATES: "[...]I highly value your attempts to persuade me [...], but I may not be persuaded against my own better judgment."

SOCRATES: "Are we to say that we are never intentionally to do wrong, or that in one way we ought and in another way we ought not to do wrong, or is doing wrong always evil and dishonourable, as I was just now saying, and as has been already acknowledged by us? Are all our former admissions which were made within a few days to be thrown away? And have we, at our age, been earnestly discoursing with one another all our life long only to discover that we are no better than children? Or, in spite of the opinion of the many, and in spite of consequences whether better or worse, shall we insist on the truth of what was then said, that injustice is always an evil and dishonour to him who acts unjustly? Shall we say so or not?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then we must do no wrong?
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor, when injured, injure in return, as the many imagine; for we must injure no one at all?
CRITO: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: Again, Crito, may we do evil? CRITO: Surely not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And what of doing evil in return for evil, which is the morality of the many—is that just or not?
CRITO: Not just.
SOCRATES: For doing evil to another is the same as injuring him?
CRITO: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. But I would have you consider, Crito, whether you really mean what you are saying. For this opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any considerable number of persons; and those who are agreed and those who are not agreed upon this point have no common ground, and can only despise one another when they see how widely they differ."

FFL Quotes: Critias (Dialogue), Plato, ~360BC

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1571/1571-h/1571-h.htm

"The Critias is a fragment which breaks off in the middle of a sentence. It was designed to be the second part of a trilogy, which, like the other great Platonic trilogy of the Sophist, Statesman, Philosopher, was never completed. Timaeus had brought down the origin of the world to the creation of man, and the dawn of history was now to succeed the philosophy of nature. The Critias is also connected with the Republic. Plato, as he has already told us (Tim.), intended to represent the ideal state engaged in a patriotic conflict. This mythical conflict is prophetic or symbolical of the struggle of Athens and Persia, perhaps in some degree also of the wars of the Greeks and Carthaginians, in the same way that the Persian is prefigured by the Trojan war to the mind of Herodotus, or as the narrative of the first part of the Aeneid is intended by Virgil to foreshadow the wars of Carthage and Rome. [...]"
Plato, Critias, Introduction and Analysis, Benjamin Jowett, italics added

"Each of the ten kings was absolute in his own city and kingdom. The relations of the different governments to one another were determined by the injunctions of Poseidon, which had been inscribed by the first kings on a column of orichalcum in the temple of Poseidon, at which the kings and princes gathered together and held a festival every fifth and every sixth year alternately. Around the temple ranged the bulls of Poseidon, one of which the ten kings caught and sacrificed, shedding the blood of the victim over the inscription, and vowing not to transgress the laws of their father Poseidon. When night came, they put on azure robes and gave judgment against offenders. The most important of their laws related to their dealings with one another. They were not to take up arms against one another, and were to come to the rescue if any of their brethren were attacked. They were to deliberate in common about war, and the king was not to have the power of life and death over his kinsmen, unless he had the assent of the majority.
  For many generations, as tradition tells, the people of Atlantis were obedient to the laws and to the gods, and practised gentleness and wisdom in their intercourse with one another. They knew that they could only have the true use of riches by not caring about them. But gradually the divine portion of their souls became diluted with too much of the mortal admixture, and they began to degenerate, though to the outward eye they appeared glorious as ever at the very time when they were filled with all iniquity. The all-seeing Zeus, wanting to punish them, held a council of the gods[.]"
Plato, Critias, Introduction and Analysis, Benjamin Jowett

CRITIAS: And I, Timaeus, accept the trust, and as you at first said that you were going to speak of high matters, and begged that some forbearance might be shown to you, I too ask the same or greater forbearance for what I am about to say. And although I very well know that my request may appear to be somewhat ambitious and discourteous, I must make it nevertheless. For will any man of sense deny that you have spoken well? I can only attempt to show that I ought to have more indulgence than you, because my theme is more difficult; and I shall argue that to seem to speak well of the gods to men is far easier than to speak well of men to men: for the inexperience and utter ignorance of his hearers about any subject is a great assistance to him who has to speak of it, and we know how ignorant we are concerning the gods. But I should like to make my meaning clearer, if you will follow me. All that is said by any of us can only be imitation and representation. For if we consider the likenesses which painters make of bodies divine and heavenly, and the different degrees of gratification with which the eye of the spectator receives them, we shall see that we are satisfied with the artist who is able in any degree to imitate the earth and its mountains, and the rivers, and the woods, and the universe, and the things that are and move therein, and further, that knowing nothing precise about such matters, we do not examine or analyze the painting; all that is required is a sort of indistinct and deceptive mode of shadowing them forth. But when a person endeavours to paint the human form we are quick at finding out defects, and our familiar knowledge makes us severe judges of any one who does not render every point of similarity. And we may observe the same thing to happen in discourse; we are satisfied with a picture of divine and heavenly things which has very little likeness to them; but we are more precise in our criticism of mortal and human things. Wherefore if at the moment of speaking I cannot suitably express my meaning, you must excuse me, considering that to form approved likenesses of human things is the reverse of easy. This is what I want to suggest to you, and at the same time to beg, Socrates, that I may have not less, but more indulgence conceded to me in what I am about to say. Which favour, if I am right in asking, I hope that you will be ready to grant."

CRITIAS: "In the days of old, the gods had the whole earth distributed among them by allotment (Cp. Polit.) There was no quarrelling; for you cannot rightly suppose that the gods did not know what was proper for each of them to have, or, knowing this, that they would seek to procure for themselves by contention that which more properly belonged to others. They all of them by just apportionment obtained what they wanted, and peopled their own districts; and when they had peopled them they tended us, their nurselings and possessions, as shepherds tend their flocks, excepting only that they did not use blows or bodily force, as shepherds do, but governed us like pilots from the stern of the vessel, which is an easy way of guiding animals, holding our souls by the rudder of persuasion according to their own pleasure;—thus did they guide all mortal creatures."

CRITIAS (speaking of the customs of Athens 9000 years prior): "Moreover, since military pursuits were then common to men and women, the men of those days in accordance with the custom of the time set up a figure and image of the goddess in full armour, to be a testimony that all animals which associate together, male as well as female, may, if they please, practise in common the virtue which belongs to them without distinction of sex."

CRITIAS (still talking about the customs of Athens 9000 years prior): "Now the country was inhabited in those days by various classes of citizens;—there were artisans, and there were husbandmen, and there was also a warrior class originally set apart by divine men. The latter dwelt by themselves, and had all things suitable for nurture and education; neither had any of them anything of their own, but they regarded all that they had as common property; nor did they claim to receive of the other citizens anything more than their necessary food."

CRITIAS: "As to offices and honours [of Atlantis], the following was the arrangement from the first. Each of the ten kings in his own division and in his own city had the absolute control of the citizens, and, in most cases, of the laws, punishing and slaying whomsoever he would. Now the order of precedence among them and their mutual relations were regulated by the commands of Poseidon which the law had handed down. These were inscribed by the first kings on a pillar of orichalcum, which was situated in the middle of the island, at the temple of Poseidon, whither the kings were gathered together every fifth and every sixth year alternately, thus giving equal honour to the odd and to the even number. And when they were gathered together they consulted about their common interests, and enquired if any one had transgressed in anything, and passed judgment, and before they passed judgment they gave their pledges to one another on this wise:—There were bulls who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten kings, being left alone in the temple, after they had offered prayers to the god that they might capture the victim which was acceptable to him, hunted the bulls, without weapons, but with staves and nooses; and the bull which they caught they led up to the pillar and cut its throat over the top of it so that the blood fell upon the sacred inscription. Now on the pillar, besides the laws, there was inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the disobedient. When therefore, after slaying the bull in the accustomed manner, they had burnt its limbs, they filled a bowl of wine and cast in a clot of blood for each of them; the rest of the victim they put in the fire, after having purified the column all round. Then they drew from the bowl in golden cups, and pouring a libation on the fire, they swore that they would judge according to the laws on the pillar, and would punish him who in any point had already transgressed them, and that for the future they would not, if they could help, offend against the writing on the pillar, and would neither command others, nor obey any ruler who commanded them, to act otherwise than according to the laws of their father Poseidon. This was the prayer which each of them offered up for himself and for his descendants, at the same time drinking and dedicating the cup out of which he drank in the temple of the god; and after they had supped and satisfied their needs, when darkness came on, and the fire about the sacrifice was cool, all of them put on most beautiful azure robes, and, sitting on the ground, at night, over the embers of the sacrifices by which they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple, they received and gave judgment, if any of them had an accusation to bring against any one; and when they had given judgment, at daybreak they wrote down their sentences on a golden tablet, and dedicated it together with their robes to be a memorial.
 There were many special laws affecting the several kings inscribed about the temples, but the most important was the following: They were not to take up arms against one another, and they were all to come to the rescue if any one in any of their cities attempted to overthrow the royal house; like their ancestors, they were to deliberate in common about war and other matters, giving the supremacy to the descendants of Atlas. And the king was not to have the power of life and death over any of his kinsmen unless he had the assent of the majority of the ten.
 Such was the vast power which the god settled in the lost island of Atlantis [.]"

CRITIAS: "[As] tradition tells: For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they [the Atlanteans] were obedient to the laws, and well-affectioned towards the god, whose seed they were; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting gentleness with wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another. They despised everything but virtue, caring little for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtue and friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect for them, they are lost and friendship with them. By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, the qualities which we have described grew and increased among them; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as follows—[*]"  * The rest of the Dialogue of Critias has been lost.

FFL Quotes: Cratylus (A dialogue on 'the correctness of names'), Plato, ~360 BC

Socrates: "[The] knowledge of names is a great part of knowledge."

Socrates: "[Protagoras] says that man is the measure of all things, and that things are to me as they appear to me, and that they are to you as they appear to you. [...] But if Protagoras is right, and the truth is that things are as they appear to any one, how can some of us be wise and some of us foolish? [...] And if, on the other hand, wisdom and folly are really distinguishable, you will allow, I think, that the assertion of Protagoras can hardly be correct. For if what appears to each man is true to him, one man cannot in reality be wiser than another. [...] Nor will you be disposed to say with Euthydemus, that all things equally belong to all men at the same moment and always; for neither on his view can there be some good and other bad, if virtue and vice are always equally to be attributed to all. [...] But if neither is right, and things are not relative to individuals, and all things do not equally belong to all at the same moment and always, they must be supposed to have their own proper and permanent essence: they are not in relation to us, or influenced by us, fluctuating according to our fancy, but they are independent, and maintain to their own essence the relation prescribed by nature."

Soc. And do you not believe with Anaxagoras, that mind or soul is the ordering and containing principle of all things?
Her. Yes; I do.
Soc. Then you may well call that power phuseche which carries and holds nature (e phusin okei, kai ekei), and this may be refined away into psuche.
Her. Certainly; and this derivation is, I think, more scientific than the other. 
Soc. It is so; but I cannot help laughing, if I am to suppose that this was the true meaning of the name. 
Her. But what shall we say of the nextword?
Soc. You mean soma (the body). 
Her. Yes. 
Soc. That may be variously interpreted; and yet more variously if a little permutation is allowed. For some say that the body is the grave (sema) of the soul which may be thought to be buried in our present life; or again the index of the soul, because the soul gives indications to (semainei) the body; probably the Orphic poets were the inventors of the name, and they were under the impression that the soul is suffering the punishment of sin, and that the body is an enclosure or prison in which the soul is incarcerated, kept safe (soma, sozetai), as the name ooma implies, until the penalty is paid; according to this view, not even a letter of the word need be changed.

Socrates: "[...] I believe that the primeval givers of names were undoubtedly like too many of our modern philosophers, who, in their search after the nature of things, are always getting dizzy from constantly going round and round, and then they imagine that the world is going round and round and moving in all directions; and this appearance, which arises out of their own internal condition, they suppose to be a reality of nature; they think that there is nothing stable or permanent, but only flux and motion, and that the world is always full of every sort of motion and change. [...]"

Socrates: "Phronesis (wisdom), which may signify Phoras kai rhou noesis (perception of motion and flux), or perhaps Phoras onesis (the blessing of motion), but is at any rate connected with Pheresthai (motion); gnome (judgment), again, certainly implies the ponderation or consideration (nomesis) of generation, for to ponder is the same as to consider; or, if you would rather, here is noesis, the very word just now mentioned, which is neou esis (the desire of the new); the word neos implies that the world is always in process of creation. The giver of the name wanted to express his longing of the soul, for the original name was neoesis, and not noesis. The word sophrosune is the salvation (soteria) of that wisdom (phronesis) which we were just now considering. Epioteme (knowledge) is akin to this, and indicates that the soul which is good for anything follows (epetai) the motion of things, neither anticipating them nor falling behind them; wherefor the word should rather be read as epistemene, inserting en. Sunesis (understanding) may be regarded in like manner as a kind of conclusion; the word is derived from sunienai (to go along with), and, like epistasthai (to know), implies the progression of the soul in company with the nature of things. Sophia (wisdom) is very dark, and appears not to be of native growth; the meaning is, touching the motion or stream of things. You must remember that the poets, when they speak of the commencement of any rapid motion, often use the word esuthe (he rushed); and there was a famous Lacedaemonian who was named Sous (Rush), for by this word the Lacedaemonians signify rapid motion,and the touching (epaphe) of motion is expressed by sophia, for all things are supposed to be in motion. Good (agathon) is the name which is given to the admirable (agasto) in nature; for, although all things move, still there are degrees of motion; some are swifter, some slower; but there are some things which are admirable for their swiftness, and this admirable part of nature is called agathon.
  Dikaiosune (justice) is clearly dikaiou sunesis (understanding of the just); but the actual word dikaion is more difficult: men are only agreed to a certain extent about justice, and then they begin to disagree.  For those who suppose all things to be in motion conceive the greater part of nature to be a mere receptacle; and they say that there is a penetrating power which passes through all this, and is the instrument of creation in all, and is the subtlest and swiftest element; for if it were not the subtlest, and a power which none can keep out, and also the swiftest, passing by other things as if they were standing still, it could not penetrate through the moving universe. And this element, which superintends all things and pieces (diaion) all, is rightly called dikaion; the letter k is only added for the sake of euphony.
  Thus far, as I was saying, there is a general agreement about the nature of justice; but I, Hermogenes, being an enthusiastic disciple, have been told in a mystery that the justice of which I am speaking is also the cause of the world: now a cause is that because of which anything is created; and some one comes and whispers in my ear that justice is rightly so called because partaking of the nature of the cause, and I begin, after hearing what he has said, to interrogate him gently: "Well, my excellent friend," say I, "but if all this be true, I still want to know what is justice." Thereupon they think that I ask tiresome questions, and am leaping over the barriers, and have been already sufficiently answered, and they try to satisfy me with one derivation after another, and at length they quarrel. For one of them says that justice is the sun, and that he only is the piercing (diaionta) and burning (kaonta) element which is the guardian of nature. And when I joyfully repeat this beautiful notion, I am answered by the satirical remark, "What, is there no justice in the world when the sun is down?" And when I earnestly beg my questioner to tell me his own honest opinion, he says, "Fire in the abstract"; but this is not very intelligible. Another says, "No, not fire in the abstract, but the abstraction of heat in the fire." Another man professes to laugh at all this, and says, as Anaxagoras says, that justice is mind, for mind, as they say, has absolute power, and mixes with nothing, and orders all things, and passes through all things. At last, my friend, I find myself in far greater perplexity about the nature of justice than I was before I began to learn. But still I am of opinion that the name, which has led me into this digression, was given to justice for the reasons which I have mentioned."

Socrates: "[...] I should like to consider the meaning of the two words arete (virtue) and kakia (vice); arete I do not as yet understand, but kakia is transparent, and agrees with the principles which preceded, for all things being in a flux (ionton), kakia is kakos ion (going badly); and this evil motion when existing in the soul has the general name of kakia, or vice, specially appropriated to it. The meaning of kakos ienai may be further illustrated by the use of deilia (cowardice), which ought to have come after andreia, but was forgotten, and, as I fear, is not the only word which has been passed over. Deilia signifies that the soul is bound with a strong chain (desmos), for lian means strength, and therefore deilia expresses the greatest and strongest bond of the soul; and aporia (difficulty) is an evil of the same nature (from a (alpha) -- not, and poreuesthai -- to go), like anything else which is an impediment to motion and movement. Then the word kakia appears to mean kakos ienai, or going badly, or limping and halting; of which the consequence is, that the soul becomes filled with vice. And if kakia is the name of this sort of thing, arete will be the opposite of it, signifying in the first place ease of motion, then that the stream of the good soul is unimpeded, and has therefore the attribute of ever flowing without let or hindrance, and is therefore called arete, or, more correctly, aeireite (ever-flowing), and may perhaps have had another form, airete (eligible), indicating that nothing is more eligible than virtue, and this has been hammered into arete. I daresay that you will deem this to be another invention of mine, but I think that if the previous word kakia was right, then arete is also right."

FFL Quotes, Introduction

I had the brilliant idea to keep a running of quotes that stick out to me while reading a book from the Founding Fathers Library. I started with a partial list from Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, which I already posted. I thought I had more quotes from the book recorded elsewhere, but can't find them at the moment. If I find them, I'll update them to the post.

I'll continue these running lists of quotes from now on. This will also motivate me to go back and reread some the works which I read before thinking of this system.

FFL Quotes: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume, 1751

"No object ever discovers, by the qualities which appear to the senses, either the causes which produced it, or the effects which will arise from it; nor can our reason, unassisted by experience, ever draw any inference concerning real existence and matter of fact."
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section IV, Part I

"In a word, then, every effect is a distinct event from its cause. It could not, therefore, be discovered in the cause, and the first invention or conception of it, a priori, must be entirely arbitrary. And even after it is suggested, the conjunction of it with the cause must appear equally arbitrary; since there are always many other effects, which, to reason, must seem fully as consistent and natural. In vain, therefore, should we pretend to determine any single event, or infer any cause or effect, without the assistance of observation and experience."
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section IV, Part I

"The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind only staves off our ignorance a little longer: as perhaps the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to discover larger portions of it. Thus the observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it."
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section IV, Part I

"For all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar sensible qualities. If there be any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless, and can give rise to no inference or conclusion."
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section IV, Part II

"I must confess that a man is guilty of unpardonable arrogance who concludes, because an argument has escaped his own investigation, that therefore it does not really exist. I must also confess that, though all the learned, for several ages, should have employed themselves in fruitless search upon any subject, it may still, perhaps, be rash to conclude positively that the subject must, therefore, pass all human comprehension."
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section IV, Part II

"Nothing is more useful than for writers, even, on moral, political, or physical subjects, to distinguish between reason and experience, and to suppose, that these species of argumentation are entirely different from each other. The former are taken for the mere result of our intellectual faculties, which, by considering priori the nature of things, and examining the effects, that must follow from their operation, establish particular principles of science and philosophy. The latter are supposed to be derived entirely from sense and observation, by which we learn what has actually resulted from the operation of particular objects, and are thence able to infer, what will, for the future, result from them. Thus, for instance, the limitations and restraints of civil government, and a legal constitution, may be defended, either from reason, which reflecting on the great frailty and corruption of human nature, teaches, that no man can safely be trusted with unlimited authority; or from experience and history, which inform us of the enormous abuses, that ambition, in every age and country, has been found to make of so imprudent a confidence."
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section V, Part I, Footnote 7

"The history of a TIBERIUS or a NERO makes us dread a like tyranny, were our monarchs freed from the restraints of laws and senates: But the observation of any fraud or cruelty in private life is sufficient, with the aid of a little thought, to give us the same apprehension; while it serves as an instance of the general corruption of human nature, and shows us the danger which we must incur by reposing an entire confidence in mankind. In both cases, it is experience which is ultimately the foundation of our inference and conclusion."
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section V, Part I, Footnote 7

"Here, then, is a kind of pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the succession of our ideas; and though the powers and forces, by which the former is governed, be wholly unknown to us; yet our thoughts and conceptions have still, we find, gone on in the same train with the other works of nature. Custom is that principle, by which this correspondence has been effected; so necessary to the subsistence of our species, and the regulation of our conduct, in every circumstance and occurrence of human life. Had not the presence of an object, instantly excited the idea of those objects, commonly conjoined with it, all our knowledge must have been limited to the narrow sphere of our memory and senses; and we should never have been able to adjust means to ends, or employ our natural powers, either to the producing of good, or avoiding of evil."
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section V, Part I

"Though we give the preference to that which has been found most usual, and believe that this effect will exist, we must not overlook the other effects, but must assign to each of them a particular weight and authority, in proportion as we have found it to be more or less frequent. It is more probable, in almost every country of Europe, that there will be frost sometime in January, than that the weather will continue open throughout that whole month; though this probability varies according to the different climates, and approaches to a certainty in the more northern kingdoms. Here then it seems evident, that, when we transfer the past to the future, in order to determine the effect, which will result from any cause, we transfer all the different events, in the same proportion as they have appeared in the past, and conceive one to have existed a hundred times, for instance, another ten times, and another once."
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section VI

"It is universally acknowledged that there is a great uniformity among the actions of men, in all nations and ages, and that human nature remains still the same, in its principles and operations. The same motives always produce the same actions. The same events follow from the same causes. Ambition, avarice, self-love, vanity, friendship, generosity, public spirit: these passions, mixed in various degrees, and distributed through society, have been, from the beginning of the world, and still are, the source of all the actions and enterprises, which have ever been observed among mankind. Would you know the sentiments, inclinations, and course of life of the Greeks and Romans? Study well the temper and actions of the French and English: You cannot be much mistaken in transferring to the former most of the observations which you have made with regard to the latter. Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature, by showing men in all varieties of circumstances and situations, and furnishing us with materials from which we may form our observations and become acquainted with the regular springs of human action and behaviour. These records of wars, intrigues, factions, and revolutions, are so many collections of experiments, by which the politician or moral philosopher fixes the principles of his science, in the same manner as the physician or natural philosopher becomes acquainted with the nature of plants, minerals, and other external objects, by the experiments which he forms concerning them. Nor are the earth, water, and other elements, examined by Aristotle, and Hippocrates, more like to those which at present lie under our observation than the men described by Polybius and Tacitus are to those who now govern the world."
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section VIII, Part I

"What would become of history, had we not a dependence on the veracity of the historian according to the experience which we have had of mankind? How could politics be a science, if laws and forms of goverment had not a uniform influence upon society? Where would be the foundation of morals, if particular characters had no certain or determinate power to produce particular sentiments, and if these sentiments had no constant operation on actions? And with what pretence could we employ ourcriticism upon any poet or polite author, if we could not pronounce the conduct and sentiments of his actors either natural or unnatural to such characters, and in such circumstances? It seems almost impossible, therefore, to engage either in science or action of any kind without acknowledging the doctrine of necessity, and this inference from motive to voluntary actions, from characters to conduct."
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section VIII, Part I

"All probability, then, supposes an opposition of experiments and observations, where the one side is found to overbalance the other, and to produce a degree of evidence, proportioned to the superiority."
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I

"The great source of our mistake in this subject, and of the unbounded licence of conjecture, which we indulge, is, that we tacitly consider ourselves, as in the place of the Supreme Being, and conclude, that he will, on every occasion, observe the same conduct, which we ourselves, in his situation, would have embraced as reasonable and eligible."
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section XI, Part I

ESSAY#1: Second Amendment

INTRODUCTION
I wrote the following essay in response to a series of lengthy posts on Facebook (I say lengthy, they covered 4 pages on Microsoft Word) in favor of increased gun control legislation, all written by the same author (name removed below), whom I know, following the tragic school shooting in Parkland, FL. As part of his discourse, the author had proposed a plan where 12 witness signatures from fellow law-abiding citizens would be necessary to attest to an individual's fitness/trustworthiness to purchase weapons above some magnitude (though I can't remember at the moment what limit of magnitude was proposed as the cut-off, though it may have been semi-automatic). It took me about 2 weeks to complete the below essay addressing the other author's arguments and outlining my own. I found it an insightful exercise, delving into the philosophical foundations of the two sides -- I hope that you find the essay digestible, helpful, and productive.


ESSAY
Sorry for the delay, [removed]. You wrote a lot, it was a lot to respond to. I will be posting my response in sections for ease of reading and replying.

1

I don't believe that you actually addressed my critique of your 12-witness plan, that it is based on the notion that the right to bear arms is a privilege granted by government. In my usage of the words, 'rights' and 'privileges' are opposite terms.

Rights originate from God, and include life, liberty, and private property. All men, being created equal, possess them by virtue of their Nature, not by their own declaration, education, approbation, or legislation. Rights can be claimed by all individually at the expense of no one else, and do not change with time. Rights are therefore not rewarded, but they can be lost by violation (either as violator or violated) and restored by consent.

Violations of rights include physical harm or death, enslavement by another, and theft or destruction of his property and/or industry; and nearly always require an application of force. The Moral Law of Nature (or Morality) prompts us to avoid violating the rights of others, but Man is imperfect and capable of choosing contrary to Morality, and efforts to violate the rights of others are made by some.

Before the establishment of government and jurisdiction, the responsibility to secure/protect one's own rights belonged to the individual him/herself, as well as the right to use prudent application of force (up to lethal if necessary) to defend him/herself and his/her rights in response to such attempts at violation. This constitutes what I call the right of self-preservation or self-defense.

When government is established, much of the responsibility of protection/security and the authority to use the force necessary to perform it are delegated by the individuals' consent to the government, usually manifested as law enforcement and military -- This is one of the reasons why government is by nature an entity of force and why security is one of the true primary purposes of government. Violations of rights are codified into laws, and become crimes, per the political process adopted by the society.

The question then arises as to the completeness of this delegation of security to the government, and whether it includes the right of self-preservation and the prudent application of force necessary to perform it. If that delegation were complete, then the individual would have no right to self-preservation in any situation. The Second Amendment clarifies that no, the individual remains the ultimate defender of his/her rights in the event that the government fails to protect, regardless of the size of the threat, from a single intruder in the house up to invasion by an enemy government. 

Privileges (mistakenly called 'rights' in many instances), on the other hand, don't come from Nature, but originate in the first place from government. They are benefits, favors, gifts of special treatment from people to other people, be it to another individual or group or entity, via governmental edict. At their core, privileges are arbitrary -- "the government giveth, and the government taketh away" at its will.

2

Admittedly, [removed], I do not understand your definition of the right to bear arms. On the one hand, you explain that mass shooters take advantage of the right to bear arms as cover to obtain firearms, which I believe is true for those without previous criminal history. You excellently explain some of the subtleties of rights, expounding how freedom is something really only enjoyed by the responsible (citing the exception of babies and young children), and how people who violate the rights of others can legally loose rights which were previously protected (using the case of felons as your example). You also say that people with evil intentions shouldn't have the right to bear arms, which I agree. You even phrase the dilemma in what I would consider a loosely conservative way: "how do you [or a seller for that matter] determine if someone without a criminal record can be trusted to obey the law with a gun?" I thought that your question could be interpreted as acknowledging the right to bear arms as a pre-existing individual right, and as adopting a traditional 'innocent until proven guilty' approach, which respected the rights of the individual, but at the same time was searching for some practical due process method in order to only remove rights from violators or imminent violators but not innocents or 'trustworthy,' as you call them. I agree with that kind of approach on this issue. 

I noted however that in spite of this apparent understanding, your 12-witness plan actually adopts the exact opposite 'guilty until proven innocent' approach, which, although well-intended, does not respect the natural rights of the innocent. 

On the other hand, you conflate the right to bear arms with something you call the 'right to kill. ' What is the 'right to kill'? From your response, I gather that it is something possessed by the murderer (you do not specify if it is possessed by the innocent), that the murderer can exercise it by committing murder (something beyond the notion of killing in self-defense), that it thereby provides what you call 'advantage' to the murderer over the rights of others, which 'advantage' is directly proportional to the murderer's capacity to commit murder, which you describe as being directly related to the type of firearm selected by the murderer, and that this 'right to kill' (under your conflated definition of 'the right to bear arms') is protected by the Second Amendment and therefore defended by those who defend the Second Amendment.

From here, you appear to conclude that the 'right to bear arms'/'right to kill' of the shooter stands in direct opposition to the student's right to life, and that America therefore 'favors mass shooters' as long as it (America) decides to continue granting them (the shooters) their right to kill under the guise of defending Second Amendment rights, and that Second Amendment advocates (whether NRA or otherwise) are morally objectionable people, "complicit in aiding domestic enemies," as you say, and therefore "[enemies] of the American people" and "against students." This logic could only make sense by accepting the notion that murder is a right, and that it was protected by the Second Amendment.

I agree that advocating in favor of someone's right to murder would be egregious, if this right to murder existed. But of course it does not. Since the right to murder does not exist, then no indivudal possesses it. This also addresses your comment about military having advantage over the citizenry -- since no individual had the right to murder in the first, so the right to murder could not be delegated to government, to law enforcement, or to the military, which is evident by the fact that police officers and military personnel are not actually allowed to murder. You of course know this as well. By your own clarification, you know that this 'right to murder' doesn't exist nor is it protected by the Second Amendment, because you write that "the 2nd Amendment implies the right to bear arms is to provide security" and that "the right to bear arms does not give people the right to violate to rights of others, ... to commit crimes with those arms, ...[or] to murder innocent civilians." I agree with that, and all Second Amendment advocates that I know agree with that as well.

I therefore find it more than a little despicable, as well as unproductive, to waste words casting someone as morally reprehensible for no other demonstrable reason than he/she/they disagree with you politically, which seems to be the case here. Second Amendment advocates, at least the ones that I know, do not believe what you say they believe (that people have a right to murder which is defended by the Second Amendment), and you have presented no other evidence to the contrary. At the very least, I find it difficult to understand how such baseless accusations are in line with any expressed desire to engage in discussion, since in my experience they have generally been used for the purpose of intimidating and silencing opposition.

3a

Also, I don't understand your strategy for when you appeal to Originalism to define terms, and when you do not.

For example, you did not claim Originalism with your interpretation of 'militia' when you asked "if gun owners don't have to join the militia, aren't they getting away with something," suggesting that the Second Amendment only protects ownership of guns related to military service. And rightfully so, because that is not an Originalist position. George Mason (co-author of the Second Amendment) argued during the Virginia's Ratification Convention (1788) that the militia as understood in his time was "the whole people." This is significant because a militia at the time was understood to mean "each and every abled-bodied white male citizen of the respective states, resident therein, who is or shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted)" as per the Act of May 8, 1792 (Congress' first militia Act). Clearly, the militia is a subpart of "the whole people," but it is "the whole people" who possess the right to bear arms in the first place. Support for this can further be found in the wording of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which enpowers Congress to form Army and Navy, but only to call forth and organize (not form) militias, suggesting that the militias were already existing. Appropriate, since the Founding Fathers viewed the right to bear arms as a pre-existing individual right.

3b

Also, you also did not claim Originalism when you said that the word 'regulated' in the phrase "A well regulated militia" was actually a modifier for the phrase "right to bear arms," in order to say that "A well regulated militia" implied that "the right to bear arms is limited." And rightfully so, because that is just incorrect reading of English sentence structure, much less Originalism. "Regulated" is modifying "militia" in that phrase, and is not in the same clause as the phrase "right to bear arms." I agree that the Second Amendment is not limitless, but it is not because of this. 

3c

Also, you did not claim Originalism in your interpretation of 'tyranny' as simply meaning "[involving] the cruel use of power," thereby declaring "mass shooters [as] America's new tyrants." And rightfully so, because this would not be an Originalist position either. James Madison wrote: "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elected, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny" (Federalist No.47). Tyrannies are tyrannical governments, and tyrants are the heads of such governments. This does not describe a mass shooter.

I would of course concede that both tyrants and mass shooters both violate the rights of others. At the same time, there is no question that people like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-un, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, or even (to take a less dramatic example) George III, whom I would argue were actual tyrants per Madison's definition (and therefore, tyrants in the Originalist sense), are exponentially more dangerous to the rights (including, many times, the lives) of a much greater number of people than mass shooters. None of this is to say that mass shooters are somehow less disgusting for not being tyrants, but it should stand to reason that if we want to prevent mass shootings, the most deadly of which in US history (Las vegas shooting) killed 59 people at a time, then we should certainly want to prevent tyrants, the 13th most deadly of which in the world from the 20th century on (per thedailybeast) was Enver Pasha of Turkey, whose regime killed an estimated 1.1-2.5 million people in 5 years. Again, I'm not pleading for mass shooters. Mass shootings are bad. I am absolutely in favor of preventing mass shootings. I am saying however that it would make sense that we should not want tyrants (in the Originalist sense) as well.

This is important because many Second Amendment advocates still argue that one of the purposes of the Second Amendment was so that the citizenry could defend themselves against James Madison's definition of tyranny, particularly should the United States government go the way of all other democracies in world history, and become tyrannical. And in this they would be correct -- when writing about arms, the Founding Fathers most frequently wrote about the people defending themselves against tyranny. You, [removed], actually disregard the Originalist notion of tyranny as a combination of old-fashioned and stupid, claiming it to be something about which Second Amendment advocates "fantasize," and against which muskets are sufficient to fight. It is clear that you don't take seriously the idea of tyranny in the Originalist sense, only the "contemporary interpretation" I suppose.

3d

In addition, you did not claim Originalism for your larger definition of the debate, which was that the Second Amendment debate is "basically over which weapons [and I think you mean, which firearms] are considered 'arms.'" And rightfully so, because an Originalist would not frame the debate in that way. 'Gun ownership' falls under the umbrella of the 'right to bear arms,' not the other way around. While guns were important tools, the principle of the Second Amendment for the Founders was never about guns per se, but about natural law, particularly the right of the individual to self-preservation, the right to repel force with force in the event that the society fails to prevent it.

For an Originalist then, the debate would be whether the government has the power to decide with what you are allowed to defend yourself, or not. While I agree with you that Originalists call for amendments to change the Constitution, I do not believe that Originalist would argue that "newer weapons require newer amendments," as you surmise, but that it would take an amendment to repeal the Second Amendment. Thus taking this more Originalist position that the Second Amendment is about self-preservation, I believe that Originalists would thereby pose a question regarding gun control similar to your earlier one, "how can we keep guns out of the hands of bad people without limiting the right to bear arms of the good people?"

It seems to me that pursuing the debate in your terms (that it's about "which weapons are considered 'arms') would require one to concede that 1) the debate is in fact about guns and not about self-preservation, and therefore conduct the debate in what I would call non-originalist terms; and that 2) government therefore, yes, has the right to decide with what you are allowed to defend yourself, which is also the opposite of what the Second Amendment says, and therefore not Originalist either.

In any case, our discussion would no longer be about looking for due process solutions that target the rights of violators or imminent violators only, but becomes a discussion looking for arbitrary parameters to implement blanket bans of certain weapons from all citizens, including from innocent citizens. I believe that such an approach punishes innocent citizens, and disregards their rights and value as individuals.

3e

You do however claim Originalism for your interpretation of "arms." As discussed, your purpose in defining "arms" seems to be to determine which firearms are protected and not protected by the Second Amendment, which implies the acceptance of the premise that the principle of the Second Amendment is gun ownership and not self-preservation, which is not an Originalist premise. Without the principle of self-preservation, then it is just about guns. I therefore see no small irony in the appeal to Originalism to guise authority for a point that is only pertinent within a Non-Originalist argument.

Your interpretation also breaks with American constitutional legal tradition. As Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote (speaking of the argument that "only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment"), "We [the Supreme Court] do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communication..., and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search..., the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the Founding" (District of Columbia v. Heller (No.07-290), which I highly recommend for future reading on the topic).

Let's examine, however, your claim to Originalism in this case. You place great emphasis that there were only "muskets and revolvers" in 1791 when the Second Amendment was passed. You then claim that muskets and revolvers denote the exclusive meaning of the word "arms" as used in the Second Amendment, and not modern firearms. This is what you claim is the Originalist view, I presume because it uses history to reach the conclusion, which has proven to indeed be a novel approach among your methods for defining words, at least during this analysis.

While I do not dispute your summary of the status of mainstream firearms technology at the time of the passing of the Second Amendment, and I concede that Originalism appeals to history to interpret the Constitution, I imagine that you would agree that the presence of muskets and revolvers in 1791 is circumstantial evidence at best, and does not by itself establish what the people of the time were thinking or believed about anything, much less about what they thought or believed about the right to bear arms. In order to establish this, you would need to provide other supporting sources from the time, which would require research, but I imagine that you could learn their views because we have tons of collections of writings from the people of that period.

To demonstrate what I mean, I'll suggest that the word "arms" as used in the Second Amendment does not even refer exclusively to firearms. I offer as my evidence the Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Ed, from 1773, which defined "arms" as "weapons of offence, or armour of defence," and the New and Complete Law Dictionary from 1771, which defined "arms" as "any thing that a man wears for his defense, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another." Notice the editions of the books provided are from the pertinent time period, and found in the American Colonies at the time just before the Revolutionary War. Originalists would read this and conclude that "arms," even in the way it is used in the Second Amendment, likely did not only refer to firearms.

If we were to consider only the circumstantial evidence you cite (that muskets and revolvers were what they had in 1791), and if we then brainstorm: Could not one just as easily reason that muskets and revolvers were the military-grade weapons at the time, and therefore even military-grade weapons are protected by the Second Amendment? Could not one just as easily reason that we fought the Revolution with muskets and revolvers, which more or less matched the level of firearms technology possessed by the British at that time, and therefore whatever weapons our enemies have could be covered by the Second Amendment? I am of course not advocating any of these interpretations simply by mentioning them in a brainstorm, but my point is, without the clarification/confines of supporting evidence, the same piece of information can yield competing rationales. At this point, what I know is that Originalism does not depend solely on inferences from circumstantial evidence if it can be avoided. The evidence I am familiar with shows that "arms" in the late 18th-century meant the same as it means today, "weapons of attack, armor of defense." This would be closer to an Originalist view.

3f

So, why then claim Originalism at all? Of the five examples I analyzed, you claimed Originalism for only one of them -- and rightfully so, as I pointed, since you did not hold Originalist views for any of them. Yet in the case of the word "arms," where you still did not actually hold an Originalist view, you nevertheless still attempted to invoke Originalism. What propose then did your claim to Originalism serve in your explanations?

I think there are clues in the two following quotes:

1) "How does the 2nd Amendment and the Parkland shooting interact? Simply because some people think that the AR-15 style rifle he used, and the cartridges he used, were referenced by the 2nd Amendment written 227 years ago. But they weren't. Only in a vague abstract category of "arms," which clearly needs specificity now. That massacre wasn't performed with a musket, it was performed with an AR-15 style rifle, which isn't mentioned anywhere in the 2nd Amendment."

2) "...and since it's the NRA making the argument for a non-originalist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, then don't all the deaths of innocent civilians in mass shootings fall on the person or people making that non-originalist argument? Should the NRA have to identify the bodies of school shooting victims? Should the NRA have to pay for hospital bills, funeral costs? They're the ones okay with the status quo, they're the ones who insist on a non-originalist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment..."

On the one hand, it is nearly impossible for me to read these explanations in any way so as to not imply that you are directly accusing Second Amendment advocates of being directly responsible for the Parkland shooting, specifically for their interpretation of the word "arms." Before, you were accusing them of being "complicit in aiding domestic enemies," but now they are murderers themselves.

On the other hand, you still provide zero evidence to corroborate your accusation apart from the fact that the people you are accusing do not share your political opinion, which is truly fascistic, and disgusting. I hope, [removed], that you will abandon this tactic in the future. It is unbecoming, to say nothing of unproductive.