"I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."
-Wesley Clark

According to Justice John Paul Stevens, the 2nd Amendment applies only to militias (and thus the second half of the amendment is purely superfluous) though in every other instance when the framers mentioned the people, such as the 10th amendment, it did indeed refer to the "people."

In any regard Stevens' contends that the true purpose of the amendment was to prevent congress from disarming the various state militias and replace them with a standing army.

Using Stevens' own logic, can it not be argued that this has already been done? After all, the Militia system was eleminated nearly 100 years ago, replaced by the National Guard, which is very much an arm of the national army bearing little resemblance (or automomy) to the
former militias they replaced.

Stevens further asserts that their is no indication that the framers ever intended to enshrine the right of self defense in the constitution. Indeed even if that were true, which it certainly is not, the 9th amendment would surely protect this long held right from the intrusion of the statists. But of course the 2nd amendment most certainly does enshrine the principle of self defense, as this was the purpose of the militia and as these bodies were composed of private citizens who regularly furnished their own weapons it would be extreemly difficult to fathom any other rational argument that is not tainted by the stain of statist thought.

Obama said he would work with them on policies that would help, including a plan to spend billions in taxpayer dollars to build roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects that could create jobs and improve transportation routes. Obama asked if they have projects that were ready to go if they had the money, and there were nods and calls of "Absolutely!" around the table.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D91DVH680&show_article=1

1. Open the Outer Continental Shelf to exploration and drilling
2. Open ANWR to exploration, as it was originally intended
3. Bring Oil Shale resources on to the market
4. Increase America's refining capacity

"another page from (an)... energy policy that was literally written by the oil industry — give away more public resources."
-Rep. Nancy Pelosi

"This is not something that's going to give consumers short-term relief and it is not a long-term solution to our problems with fossil fuels generally and oil in particular..."
-Sen. Barack Obama

"...we cannot drill our way out of this problem"
-Sen. Harry Reid

“Big oil” scores record profits…lets get the pitchforks

Lets say an individual opens a sandwich shop in a small town. He sells a variety of sandwiches to local patrons and tourists. The shop owner sells each sandwich for $3 a piece. The cost to produce each sandwich is about $1.85, which means the shop earns $1.15 profit on the sale of each sandwich. What does the shop owner do with their profit? Whatever they desire. They can expand their business, invest it, save for the children’s college fund, use it to purchase a house in the mountains, etc…Now lets suppose, that a rival sandwich shop closes down, or lets suppose the population doubles in the town, all of a sudden the demand for sandwiches doubles. More and more people are coming in to the sandwich shop, buying more and more sandwiches as lines wrap around the corner. Because demand has doubled, so too have the shop owner’s profits. Now should the shop owner charge less and earn less simply because more people want his product? No…of course not. The same can be said of a person’s labor. Labor, is like a product, we sell that labor to an employer in return, they pay us an agreed upon wage, after cost of living, transportation, food, etc…anything left over can be considered profit. Lets suppose there is a labor shortage at Company X and they simply can’t find enough software programmers or garment makers or crane operators, those they interview demand 25% more in salary. Should these potential employees lower their salary demand simply because there is a labor shortage? No…of course not. By the same token, the oil companies shouldn’t be compelled to lower their prices because demand has increased. Oil prices have increased because of the shear-increased volume in demand from China, India, Eastern Europe and right here in our own backyard. As demand increases oil companies will sell more barrels of oil and thus their profits will inexorably increase. This is known simply as the law of supply and demand. The oil companies, like any businesses are in business to make money, they aren’t charities or governments giving away a product or service. This message, however, is lost on politicians today, who look upon the oil companies as easy targets as they seek to score political points with the voters. No one likes to pay high prices so why not attack the oil companies and thus politicians maneuver to craft proposals that would place caps of profits and other such foolhardy schemes. Make no mistake about it…as soon as we allow the government to dictate what a business (large or small) can charge for its services, its only a matter of time before the same government dictates what salaries we deserve, and how much we can spend on a new car or house or how much we can own or where we can own it. There’s a word for such forms of government, it starts with an “F” and ends with an “ascism.”
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/28/OIL.TMP