Son of a Lion Trailer on YouTube: http://youtu.be/hdRCmNn3joc
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
One of the coolest aspects of Netflix is the foreign film availability. Even though the films are just movies, they tell a lot about what movie-makers worldwide thought audiences in their countries would willingly watch. What, in fact, their national populations would pay money to see. Their beliefs, their likes and dislikes.
So a Netflix watcher can discover, for instance, how similar a lot of Americans are to Pakistanis by watching Son of a Lion. It’s a 2007 movie in which the primary characters are involved in a family business of gun making, gunsmithing, and gun sales and have been for several generations. Expected to go into the family business, the 11-year-old son of a strict Muslim father runs away from home, determined to get an education instead. In the location in Pakistan where they live everyone is a 2nd Amendment devotee. Nobody bothers with signs or bumper stickers because they just raise their AK 47 or 1911 Colt and loose a few rounds into the air when the mood strikes.
Starring:Niaz Khun Shinwari, Sher Alam Miskeen Ustad, Director:Benjamin Gilmour.
It’s comforting knowing how much we have in common with Pakistanis for the most part. The father in the story is mujahedeen and fought against the Russians in Afghanistan and is extremely concerned where, should he allow his son to take to school, it would be located. “Those schools are magnets for American bombs!”
Probably a lesson there somewhere.
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 
“So a Netflix watcher can discover, for instance, how similar a lot of Americans are to Pakistanis by watching Son of a Lion.”
Will have to check it out on Netflix. I think perhaps the difference is not so much believing in a “right to keep and bear arms” so much as to _what_ you want to keep and bear arms for.
Iwk2431: Perhaps then, the 2nd Amendment should explain the matter in more detail. It’s relatively concise. Whereas the reasons for people wishing to keep and bear arms are wide, varied, numerous, and frequently extreme. Pakistanis evidently don’t trust their government to protect them, for instance, from people who might attack them. Or don’t wish to rely on the government to protect them. Which isn’t a lot different from the reason Rwandans probably like keeping and bearing arms, along with anyone else in any country who acknowledges life is a dangerous place to spend a lifetime. Thanks for coming by. J
“Perhaps then, the 2nd Amendment should explain the matter in more detail.”
Perhaps it should, especially for those who never read what Madision, Jay, and Hamilton had to say in the Federalist Papers, or perhaps just as importantly the Anti-Federalists who forced the inclusion of Amendments in the Bill of Rights. The only reason given in the 2nd Amendment is so that citizens can be armed with military grade weapons so as to be capable of participating in a citizen militia, one of the purposes of which was to be a check on the Federal government and its professional army.
One could argue about the applicability of that idea in the 21st century, but I don’t think anyone really knows the answer to that question (and no person who has seen war first hand really wants to know the answer beyond a reasonable doubt).
I think one could support the contention that the authors of the Constitution largely saw a right for law abiding and non-crazy people to have the means to self defense and defense of their community as non-controversial and so obvious as to not belabor it with a lengthy description of why. I suppose what they would have a hard time imagining is how Americans, blessed with the blessings of freedom and liberty would be so willing to surrender it for a false security guaranteed by an all-powerful government.
If you read Federalist 46 (believe that is right number) by Madison he ridicules the idea that Americans could ever be so lax in guarding their freedom. Nevertheless he outlines in that paper a scheme of civilian militias from the states grossly outnumbering the government’s army therefore guaranteeing the Feds would be kept in line. As it turns out his ridicule was not an accurate.
“Pakistanis evidently don’t trust their government to protect them…”
That would seem to be a well founded fear in Pakistan. Maybe more than you think in America too. A lot of Americans think that the police have some duty to protect them as an individual. This however is not true.
The police only have a general duty to the public as a whole and can’t be help responsible if they fail to protect an individual. This issue has been to the Supreme Court more than once and I am not aware of any citizen ever winning this case against the police. The reality is if you are threatened with serious violence or crime you are almost always going to be your own “first responder.”
Here is a link to an article by Jeffrey Snyder (on my blog) that you might find interesting.
A Nation of Cowards
http://free2beinamerica2.wordpress.com/a-nation-of-cowards/
regards,
lwk
Lwk: Thanks. A lot of what I say on my blog is somewhat oblique, and a fair amount of it is tongue in cheek. Back in the day I read the material you’ve referred to and used to compose fiery tributes to the 2nd Amendment supported by roughly the same sources. To be honest, I like the distance I’ve got today, the change in perspective that comes with recognizing there’s a whole US Constitution that’s gone down the toilet, and not just a 2nd Amendment. Maybe I’m wrong in thinking it isn’t ever coming back with one side of my brain, and knowing it never really was anyway with the other. About the best that can be said is that as a person of white, northern european ethnicity, I’m glad to have been blessed with the opportunities and freedoms I was blessed with this lifetime. Nobody ever said it was fair, and nobody should be surprised it isn’t. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. J