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Originally Posted by ratbastid
Misunderstanding what a Constitution is, perhaps?
A Constitution isn't a body of law. In a general sense it can be said to be "the law of the land", but what it really is is an articulation of principles that GUIDE the law. You can't enforce the Constitution because there's nothing to enforce. What's the punishment for infringing on someone's right to peaceable assembly? The Constitution doesn't say. What exactly constitutes "infringement" or "peaceable" or "assembly"? The Constitution doesn't say. It's up to lawmakers and judges to INTERPRET the Constitution, and to create (and continually challenge and inquire into) laws that implement the principles of the Constitution.
That was what our founding fathers wanted. They could have just written a bunch of laws and said, "Ok, THERE. Those are the laws." But they didn't do that--they did something much MUCH wiser. They didn't give us a corpus of laws, instead they gave us a place to THINK FROM as we create the laws for ourselves. They didn't want a locked-in system--they wanted a structure that could adapt with the times. Because they had the foresight to know that the one thing that times do is CHANGE.
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Bullshit. It appears i'm not the one misunderstanding what the constitution is.
The constitution is not a set of 'guidelines', though it has been taken to mean that ever since the civil war. The constitution enumerates very specific and limited powers to the federal government with instructions on how to maintain the bodies of that new government. The laws that come after it prescribed punishments for violations of those powers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ratbastid
In this case, it took a long time to interpret the new Amendment into law. But it was a necessary step.
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This is why all lawyers and politicians should be drawn and quartered. We had a very simple, but elegant, framework of government that protected the freedom and liberties of the people. It took a bunch of politicians, judges, and lawyers for screw all of that up by claiming it should be 'interpreted' according to the times we live in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ratbastid
I'll also note that Amendment 14, Article 4 says, in part "The validity of the public debt of the United States... shall not be questioned." So it turns out that Tea Parties are unconstitutional!!!
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Are the tea party protests an actual lawsuit against the Obama administration for the bailouts and taxes? Hardly, but what they are is a protest of them protected under the First Amendment.
You're smarter than this to try and play semantics with me.
---------- Post added at 11:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:45 AM ----------
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Originally Posted by SecretMethod70
dksuddeth: maybe you're less of a strict constructionist than I thought. I fail to see how the 14th Amendment does anything to prevent a private employer from discriminating based on race. Nor do I see it taking a stance on separate but equal social policies, such as separate water fountains. It's easy to make an argument that separating races in education violates equal protection, but I can't see any such argument for two different water fountains which provide equal quality water. The Civil Rights Act, however, outlawed such practices.
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As far as protection against Employment discrimination, the civil rights act would be dead on and exactly what it should do. voting rights, public education, and anything else under the jurisdiction of a government body should have been handled by the Amendments and not the CR act.