Rights or Reason?

The 'occupy' movement is getting a lot of press. A lot of quite favorable press, in fact, and a lot of people loudly claiming that they're simply exercising their First Ammendment rights.

I think a lot of those people need to go read the Constitution, or accept that they must then also be fine with me walking down Wall Street with a full-auto M16 slung over my shoulder.

"But a firearm is dangerous!" Many would cry loudly.

Yeah? Ever seen what a mob can do? And that's all the 'occupy' movement is, is a mob. They have no leadership, no coherent agenda - and quite clearly many of them are more than willing to resort to violence.

Now, the First Ammendment prohibits Congress from ..."abridging... the right of the people peacefully to assemble..."

Please note. CONGRESS. Via the Tenth, that means the States aren't bound, and I haven't seen anywhere a single Federal uniform doing a darn thing to the 'occupy' mob. The Constitution is being fully observed.

So what if I want to walk down Wall Stree with that rifle? Well... "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." No clarifier that Congress shan't do this, please note. Go ahead, look it up yourself. Again, via the Tenth, since this right is granted to the people, not simply denied to Congress, the States ARE bound.

Let's note anothe key word of the First. Peacefully. Peacefully to assemble. Punching cops is NOT peaceful. We could debate whether violating local ordinances is peaceful, and I'm not entirely sure myself, but as a former member of public safety, I can assure you that punching uniformed public safety personnel in the performance of their duty is NOT peaceful.

Cops aren't perfect, and do get carried away. Part of that, in this case, is because any long-serving cop in a major city has seen very clearly what a mob can do, and they know that you can't appeal to a mob's better nature. Once a mob is in full howl reason is out the window. You can reason with a person, even a very angry or even unstable person. Reasoning with two is a dozen times as hard. Reasoning with ten? Once their blood is up, don't bother. A good orator can still steer them, channel them, but he's not REASONING with them, he's FEEDING them.

Now let's apply the cop test to the Second. Are cops on guard around people with firearms? Surely. If you haven't seen a gunshot wound first hand, you haven't been a cop or a medic in a major city very long. They don't wear those optimistically titled 'bullet proof' vests because they're fashionable. But you can still reason with someone with a firearm. Quite often, even someone who's already drawn a firearm. Again, cops do this - they talk down people who are armed and dangerous.

So, do you support the 'occupy' movement's 'right' to camp out on a mix of public and private property while they wait for a miraclulous solution to occur to one of their number?

Elements

Something occurred to me tonight - why are the four classic elements (earth, air, fire, and water) the four classic elements?

It is an easy game of 'one of these things is not like the others'. So who thought fire belonged with the other three?

Really, there are three basic elements - not coincidentally, there are also three basic states of matter. OK, once you get a fair amount of energy or the ability to look at really small things a fourth one shows up, but plasma is a latecomer at best and a stretch at worst.

Even if you do insist on four elements, why fire? Why not the one stable thing you can have in a primitive world that is not like earth, air, or water... life.

You can't, at least not in a primitive world, have a bucket of fire. True, it is hard to conceptualize that an empty bucket is a bucket of air, but once you do it becomes clear that fire doesn't belong, yet there is one thing in your world that is not earth, not air, not water, and yet can fill a bucket: living things. Flesh and leaf, blood and feather. Life becomes the fourth element that weaves through the other three, while most fire can only survive in one.