Rise up?

Hmm... thinking more about the story below.. the old man that got worked over by the SS (get it? har).. Specifically, I'm interested in the comment that got him investigated the first time, in which he advocated a "civil-war to unseat Bush".

Is that a threat? Is it illegal? Consider this report on the 2nd amendment, with preface written by Orrin Hatch on January 20, 1982.

A few years later, Joseph Story in his "Commentaries on the Constitution" considered the right to keep and bear arms as "the palladium of the liberties of the republic", which deterred tyranny and enabled the citizenry at large to overthrow it should it come to pass.

Here we have Orrin Hatch framing a 2nd amendment argument around the rights of citizens to overthrow a tyrannical government. Yet, when a citizen of the United States proposes such a course of action, he gets a visit from the United States SS division.

The two views are diametrically opposed. If one of the purposes for which Madison wrote the 2nd amendment was to enable citizens to overthrow a tyrannical government, how can a citizen be "investigated" for suggesting that we live in times where that purpose be fulfilled?

For the feds that might be reading this.. I'm not advocating a government over throw.. I'm just curious how the State Security Apparatus justifies their harassment of citizens exercising their constitutional rights.

Another interesting bit in the essay.. is the original text of the 2nd amendment, which read as;

"That right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person."

Obviously the last bit didn't make it into the Bill of Rights. I wonder how things might be different if it had.