I’m fine with leaving this at a point where I’m not conveying what point I’m trying to make. I suspect we understand each other but simply disagree.
Regarding Jim Crow Laws (you’d have to specify what in particular and honestly, I’m somewhat ignorant of the details of these except for what I’ve gleaned from wiki), I would say that the people who proposed and passed these laws were racists. The law itself was not. The laws were bad independent of their impact on certain racial groups. And yes I know this construction that a racist law
must make mention of race is absurd to you. If the poll tax applied to all people, it in itself wasn’t racist. If it only applied to people of a certain race, then it was racist. Either way, it’s a bad law.
Is that so strange? I think if a particular person was harmed by the government they should be compensated. This is no different then as it is now. If the government were found to be enslaving people today, or denying them their civil rights, they have a claim against the government and deserve restitution. It’s not a wild out there position.
I am not sure that I would extend that claim to the descendants of the injured party - but I’m not familiar with claims made by an estate. Perhaps there is basis for that but I’m not aware.
Aren’t you arguing in favor of AA? The case at hand established different scoring or weighting based on race. Isn’t that special treatment? If I’ve misunderstood you then that is my mistake - but AA is special treatment.
What does the word “logosalatry” mean? Did you mean “logolatry”? I do hold the position as you’ve described it - that “a law is racist if it mentions race and it fails to be racist if it does not mention race.” I know you do not.
Things like poll taxes and literacy tests are acceptable candidates to be described in shorthand as racist laws since they were so obviously passed with racist intent. I have no problem with that description. Eliminating AA is not even close to the same ballpark and to say that doing so is racist in any way twists the meaning of the word so as to make it have no meaning.
Your statement was this:
“The most important factor for predicting future success, in all cases, is high school GPA.”
It is wrong.
HS GPA for applicants admitted without a standardized exam (typically, applicants with crummier scores, and schools which are willing to ignore those scores) can predict how well an applicant might do for college GPA and graduation rates.
But there’s a catch, and it’s in the paper you cited: “non-submitters are more likely to be first-generation-to-college students, minorities, Pell Grant recipients, women and students with Learning Differences.”
This is not all comers, and the pretense that some sort of general uselessness for SAT scores can be derived from it is silly. This is a very specific subset of weaker students who are handled with special care from the University side. They are coached through from start to finish; take less rigorously-tested courses (non quantitative; introductory; non-STEM…) and generally managed. They do NOT represent a blinded cohort of high- versus low-standardized test scores with only grades being the differentiator. Further, they are generally chosen within tiers felt to already represent a chance for academic success. It’s not as if MIT takes someone with great grades and horrible SAT scores from any old majority-black urban high school on the pretense that those grades will be a good predictor. Better schools take better students with better grades from better schools and then–for the sub-group mentioned above–look the other way about their standardized test scores. Then they can say those students did fine (in classes tailored toward their ability).
That’s why under-representation of blacks in quantitative STEM fields remains so low. It’s why “under-represented minorities” continue to perform so abysmally on MCAT and LSAT exams. It’s why out in the workplace, situations like Ricci v DeStefano represent the typical and not the unusual situation.
Good grades and lousy standardized tests most often mean you have a good work ethic and a modicum of ability (depending on how good the school you went to was).
They are NOT a predictor of “future success.” If they were, differences among groups would disappear once you get to college. They don’t.
You can read the cite I gave you earlier for some more reactions to your idea that SAT scores are not a “predictor of future success.”
“What this all means is that the SAT measures something—some stable characteristic of high school students other than their parents’ income—that translates into success in college. And what could that characteristic be? General intelligence. The content of the SAT is practically indistinguishable from that of standardized intelligence tests that social scientists use to study individual differences, and that psychologists and psychiatrists use to determine whether a person is intellectually disabled—and even whether a person should be spared execution in states that have the death penalty. Scores on the SAT correlate very highly with scores on IQ tests—so highly that the Harvard education scholar Howard Gardner, known for his theory of multiple intelligences, once called the SAT and other scholastic measures “thinly disguised” intelligence tests.”
I am not in favor of quotas and lowered standards. You disagree, but my proposal of broadening outreach programs to include marginalized groups is Affirmative Action and not racist, although you disagree.
Yeah. I typed too fast and misspelled it. We disagree on that point.
I am not sure where you are going with this. You hold that the word “race” must appear for a law to be racist, but now agree that Jim Crow laws that never mentioned race were racist.
I have not ever argued that eliminating AA is racist; I merely note that claims that all AA is racist is incorrect.
Speaking for me, I am not sure the decision is constitutionally incorrect. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I don’t understand laws and lawyering. And at the constitutional level I’m pretty sure my incompetence is intractable.
What I said in the OP was this:
“The practical result will be a shift to merit-based selection processes for schooling and jobs, with filtering (likely) still available for socioeconomic opportunity, but not (self-assigned) race categories.
This is a disaster for higher education, where black candidates as a group substantially underscore whites and asians across all socioeconomic (SES) strata. In the job world, an employer who establishes any sort of screening examination for employment will run into the same issue: SES does not account for score differences, so without race-based considerations, job offers based on qualification exams will be lopsidedly extended to whites and asians.”
To what small extent I understand this decision, it’s that states can choose to abolish or keep race-based preferential treatment for college admissions. I guess I’m unclear if this would also be the case for race-based preferential job hirings, but it certainly feels like a step in allowing those to be proscribed as well.
And over the long haul that’s a disaster for building and maintaining a black middle class in the US, because at every tier of every other metric (SES, for example), the general rank-order remains the same: asians at the top and blacks at the bottom on any quantifiable ranking screens such as academic admission test scores or job applicant exams. That means you can’t get to race-based proportional representation using SES opportunity.
If we take out race-specific set asides, we take out black opportunity to participate at every level.
See here for effects of AA bans to date in various states and various institutions. After this most recent ruling, look for these numbers to drop as non-admitted applicants become more aggressive in reviewing and contesting what is really happening behind the scenes of the admissions process in an effort to recruit and admit good black candidates.
From Ted Spencer, admissions director at U Michigan:
“It’s impossible to achieve diversity on a regular basis if race cannot be used as one of many factors.”
Schuette will open up an aggressive review of the machinations by which Universities get under-represented minorities into higher education. The sad result will be a further diminution of race-based diversity, constitutional or not.
Generally, one needs to look at more than just numbers. Link.
Many are going to Harvard, Stanford or Yale. Boo-hoo.
Private Universities are not held to the same legal standards as state schools, so this “disaster” you speak of sounds exaggerated, even if I accept your premises (which I don’t).
There was no “dispute” on the evidence of systemic voter fraud. The MCRI put out petitions in black communities telling them the petition was for Affirmative Action, when, in fact, the petitions were not. The Board of Canvassers and State Courts perpetuated the act by certifying the petition despite evidence of widespread voter fraud. The petition should have never put on the ballot, period. If your position has to engage voter fraud to get your proposal on the ballot, then perhaps, just, maybe your position was ethically and morally wrong to begin with.
[QUOTE= Hon. Arthur Tarnow, U.S District Judge]
All Michigan voters, whether supporters or opponents of affirmative action, should be concerned by the actions taken by MCRI in its attempt to place the proposed amendment on the November 2006 ballot. In particular, opponents of affirmative action should be concerned by what the MCRI has done while purporting to act in their name. If the proposal eventually passes, it will be stained by well-documented acts of fraud and deception that the defendants, as a matter of fact, have not credibly denied.
The People of Michigan should also be concerned by the indifference exhibited by the state agencies who could have investigated and addressed MCRI’s actions but failed to do so.With the exception of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, the record shows that the state has demonstrated an almost complete institutional indifference to the credible allegations of voter fraud raised by Plaintiffs. If the institutions established by the People of Michigan, including the Michigan Courts, Board of State Canvassers, Secretary of State, Attorney General, and Bureau of Elections, had taken the allegations of voter fraud seriously, then it is quite possible that this case would not have come to federal court. . . .
[/QUOTE]
You (unsurprisingly) missed the point. Considering any group that often gets preference because due to diversity concerns as “needing” special considerations is stupid. Surely some might, but many will not benefit from such a scheme at all, and saying they NEED is it just disingenuous. The holistic admission policies at most selective universities includes a commitment to diversity in a number of areas. Many schools may look for diversity in sexual orientation or geography. Would it be fair to say the point of diversity is that gay students or kids from Wyoming applying to Harvard NEED special considerations? The idea that any attribute that invites the possibility of preference implies something about qualifications of the group, let a lone the individual, is just a tedious and foolish way to frame the issue. Especially when you invite absurd hypotheticals like the President’s daughter NEEDING Affirmative Action rather than simply a phone call from her dad or his well-connected friends.
The Michigan Board of State Canvassers (BSC) has the authority only to “ascertain if the petitions have been signed by the requisite number of qualified and registered electors.” See MCL 168.476(1). Any conversations, advocacy claims, or urgings that happen between the petition gatherer and the signer are legally irrelevant.
And think of the chaos that would exist if this rule did not exist. No petition could possibly survive; all would be subject to this kind of collateral attack.
Any University that wants to maintain an academically competitive student body needs to extend admission to the subgroup of students that have a chance of actually graduating. UC Berkeley is extending their admit offers to a very small subset of black students who would have a chance to succeed at UC Berkeley, and they are outcompeted for that group by Ivy League schools.
Wealthy Ivy League colleges aggressively recruit the creme de la creme of black students across the USA, offering them heavily subsidized educations and extensive support to get them through to graduation. Without the same public policy constraint of worrying about race-based preferences, they can (and do) skim off the best black students. But there aren’t enough of that caliber of students to go around. For that reason, every other school needs race-based preferences so they can move beyond simply accepting a top X percent of students from each high school (like Florida and Texas do). That scheme leaves out the good black student from a good background and a good high school who just happens to be outcompeted by his SES peers.
In California, since Prop 209 in 1996, there has been a substantial loss of black enrollment, and not just for the anecdotal reason that it’s just too humiliating to be a black enrollee because of the suspicion you were given race-based preferential treatment for admission. Without an openly race-based preference process, schools under the constraint of no race-based AA are left with more limited ways to circumvent the proscription without running afoul of the policy.
See here for some additional comments, including: “The elimination of affirmative action in California had a devastating effect on
African-American freshmen enrollment. …
Moreover, when one examines the number of African-American males attending
these highly competitive universities, the results are considerably worse. UCSD had only
19 black males or .51 percent in its entering freshmen class in 2005 and that was up from 12 or .38 percent in 2000 .”
OK, now you’ve moved the goalposts from “blacks” to “black males”. At any rate, I’m not really interested in the debate about whether race-based AA is good policy or not, just trying to understand this SCOTUS ruling.
Bricker, do you live in Michigan? Did you live in Michigan during this time? God damnit, what’s the fucking point of posting cites if no one reads them? The Board of Canvassers was aware of the issue, in fact, Bricker, they refused to certify the ballot because of evidence of systemic voter fraud. If you lived in Michigan at the time, you would know that once the MCRI submitted signatures, people reported - all over the State of Michigan (but especially Detroit and Wayne County) - that they signed a petition that they believed was for Affirmative Action. The State Courts intervened and forced the Canvassers to certify the petition despite evidence systemic voter fraud. This isn’t news, Bricker. You can look it up the Internet (or you can look for yourself in the cites provided in this post and the last). Proposal 2 should have never made it to the ballot. Even the name of the MCRI - Michigan Civil Rights Initiative - is a misnomer and intentionally misleading.
Imagine if black people in Florida circulated a fraudulent petition for a constitutional amendment to protect the Stand Your Ground Law, collected enough signatures, submitted those signatures, only for people to find out that the petition is really for the permanent repeal of the said law. Why shouldn’t there be a remedy? The only thing that has been “collaterally attack[ed]” is concept of the democracy where petition gathers are legally able to collect signatures using snake-oil tactics. It’s disgusting and should be illegal. Given the systemic voter fraud reported in the signature gathering, it is very likely that if the signors were made aware of the petitions true intent, the MCRI would have failed to collect enough signatures to put the initiative on the ballot.
Cutting and pasting from your cite: (your cite is a link to a PDF, and my quote begins on page 19 of the PDF, which is numbered as page 905 at the top of the page).
I am calling bullshit on your claim that the Board of Canvassers refused to certify the ballot because of evidence of systemic voter fraud. Your link says exactly the opposite; that they held hearings, but did not have the legal authority to investigate whether the the circulators made fraudulent representations. That’s what your cite says.
As the court drily observed, the remedy is at the ballot box itself. Even if the petition was collected by people lying about what it says, the ballot language is clear and unambiguous. People voted for the ballot in sufficient numbers to make it obvious that there was widespread approval.
By the way, your complaint is that support for placing the measure on the ballot was obtained by misrepresentation – but here in this thread you have little compunction about misrepresenting what the Board of Canvassers actually did. :dubious:
You can call “bullshit” all you want, but the Board of Canvassers were deadlocked 2-2 to certify the initiative. This deadlock was due to evidence of widespread voter fraud. The Courts intervened and forced them to certify. Would you like a cite on this as well?
Well, this may be a matter of semantics. The Court of Appeals said:
(emphasis added)
So I agree they were deadlocked. But just as a deadlock does not certify, neither does it reject. The Board did not reject the petitions, but I agree that, in one sense, they could be said to have “refused” to certify – “refused” meaning that they neither rejected nor approved, but simply took no action. And they took no action because a majority of the Board did not agree that they had the authority to investigate the verbal interactions between signature gatherers and signers. And in this they were correct: the law does not give them that authority.
Brickbacon is the one trying to argue referendums are somehow legally different or constitutionally different from ordinary legislative power exercised by the State legislature. That simply isn’t the case, and also wasn’t the case in Seattle, the case in Seattle had nothing to do with referendums vs State legislative action.
In Seattle you had two things going on:
Political process change specifically in that the State government was taking powers from a locally elected governmental body, namely the Seattle School Board. This process change had the result of giving minority’s less of a voice in government.
The change itself was injurious to minority interests.
In the Michigan case if you look at those two same arguments you see that:
No locally elected government body was losing power. In fact, the State had always had power over the universities in Michigan, they were never under locally elected governing bodies. However, Michigan had devolved decision making to unelected university officials. When Michigan (through legislation, in the form of a referendum) put a restriction on how those unelected officials operate they were not changing the political process because those unelected officials have always been subordinate to the State of Michigan. This is dissimilar from the Seattle School Board which had its own legal base of authority from its local constituency and had not be subordinate to the State of Washington in its day to day operations. Secondarily, the change in Michigan (which was not a political process change but a simple policy change) could not at all be argued to have diluted the ability of minorities to participate in the political process. In Seattle when you take away power from a local government where minorities have greater voice and give it to a government where they are less represented you can’t make that same argument. But in Michigan, the issue was made a policy issue on which the voters themselves got to vote on versus being one which previously the State had allowed unelected officials to decide on–thus you cannot at all say minorities had less of a voice in the new policy decision as they had no voice in the previous regime while they had a voice in the referendum through voting.
Unlike in Seattle I don’t believe you can demonstrate that prohibiting race based AA was designed specifically to hurt minority interests. I think that’s a matter of opinion, while with school busing that’s much less the case.
The point you seem to not understand is under Michigan law it isn’t “voter fraud” for people collecting petition signatures to misrepresent what the petition is for, the onus is on the signer to know what they are signing. If they find the petition signature gatherer untrustworthy or want more information on the issue they should have consulted the Secretary of State’s office to find out some unbiased information on the ballot initiative.
The Michigan Canvassing Board, as Bricker points out, has no authority to make the kind of determinations they were trying to make, only to ascertain whether the correct number of signatures was made and basically whether or not someone forged those signatures. “Deceptively” getting someone to sign the petition by not properly explaining what it’s about can’t be legally viewed as forgery.
This, FWIW is worth, is why I don’t believe any State should have referendums. I’m okay in theory with local referendums on property tax levies for various purposes or approval of certain local bond issues, but actual laws (and not just fiscal activities) are poorly suited for voters to vote on directly.
Not a dig at black voters at all, but the problem in the situation you’re describing isn’t that voters were mislead (misleading voters I don’t believe is or should be a crime, as public lying is just an act of free speech and most of us lie in our daily lives), it’s that voters are so easily mislead because most of them don’t know the issues on the ballots when they vote. There were estimated to be several hundred thousand California voters who thought voting for Prop 8 was a vote for legalizing Same Sex Marriage, just as an example of how stupid voters are and how ill equipped they are to decide on legislative matters.
It should be illegal to do it in the first place, Bricker. This is why I hate this country sometimes. THIS SHOULD NOT EVER HAPPEN:
[QUOTE=Election Fraud and the Initiative Process]
In Detroit, a few miles south of Macomb County, another circulator approached Lawrence Fears and asked him to sign the same petition. Mr. Fears attempted to read the petition but was unable to do so because, in his words, “the language was . . . obscured by padding and tape attached to the clipboard.” Mr. Fears asked the circulator what the petition concerned. The canvasser responded that she was collecting signatures to place an initiative “to keep affirmative action”on the ballot in the November 2006 elections. Mr. Fears had heard about a ballot initiative that was being circulated to do away with affirmative action, an effort that Ward Connerly led and identical to efforts Connerly waged in California and Washington. Mr. Fears asked the circulator if the petition “had anything to do” with Connerly. The circulator told him “that it did not and that she was ‘not trying to do that.’” Mr. Fears, still unable to decipher the unclear language of the initiative, relied on the circulator’s representation of the initiative and offered, with his signature, what he thought was his support for affirmative action. Fears later found out, much to his dismay, that he had instead signed Connerly’s petition supporting a ballot initiative to do away with affirmative action.
[/QUOTE]
Still not convinced of systemic voter fraud in MCRI’s collection process? That’s OK, I’m very patient and I’m willing to keep hitting this home until it sinks in. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission found the following:
[QUOTE=Michigan Civil Rights Commission, 2006]
The Commission recieved sworn testimony from 31 citizens and received 106 affidavits from citizens concerned about their experience with MCRI petition circulators.
The MCRC heard repeated testimony that petition circulators represented the proposed constitutional amendment for which they were soliciting signatures as being “in support of affirmative action” and civil rights. As former Flint Mayor Woodrow Stanley stated, “I don’t remember the exact words, but I know the pitch was not, ‘Do you want to sign a petition to get rid of affirmative action?’ That is not what was said on any of the three occasions when I had an opportunity to encounter circulators.”
Ms. Kathleen Butler stated that when she asked the circulator if this petition was for affirmative action, the circulator answered “Yes.” She stated, “I’m very upset that I was duped into signing this petition. I feel like I was lied to, deliberately lied to. I never, ever would sign a petition like this.”
Ms. Kim Peterson stated that a petition circulator told them that the petition was against discrimination and “for affirmative action.” She read the proposed amendment and determined this was not at all “for” affirmation action and she did not sign the petition.
James Edwards, Fred Anthony, and William Allen each stated that a petition circulator had told them that the petition was against discrimination and “for affirmative action.”
Another woman, Ms. Heather Miller, brought affidavits from five circulators who
affirmed that they did not realize that they were circulating a petition that was against affirmative action.
Reverend Willie Hill stated that he was told by a circulator that the petition was to keep affirmative action. It was reported that petitioners also told signers that the amendment would help their children get into college, or that it would help the petitioner go to college.
Ms. Deidre Belton stated that she believes circulators who were incompetent and unable to question or comprehend the nature of the proposal on the petition, were intentionally recruited by MCRI so that they would disingenuously mislead potential signers.
Others commented about the fact that so many signatures were obtained in urban communities with largely African American residents. About one-quarter of the total number of signatures gathered by MCRI are likely from African American individuals. It was felt that these communities were targeted by MCRI who hired African American circulators, suggesting to them that the petition drive would ensure civil rights. In turn the African American circulators, motivated by money, unwittingly persuaded fellow African Americans to sign a petition for an amendment that they would not have knowingly supported.
Kathryn Blake testified about how a black female circulator at the Flint African
American festival tricked a substantial number of African Americans (including
Katherine Williams the CEO and curator of the Museum of African Ancestry and
Research Center) to sign the petition, saying it is for affirmative action.
[/QUOTE]
Still not convinced of systemic voter fraud in the collection process, Bricker? Still calling bullshit on it? No doubt. Let’s keep going.
[QUOTE=Michigan Civil Rights Commission, 2006]
In Lansing, testimony again revealed that citizens had been subjected to misleading statements and intentionally presented with misinformation by MCRI petition circulators.
At this hearing, a petition circulator, Reverend Nathaniel Smith, described the petitioner orientation that he attended. He stated that petitioners (about 35 to 40 African American persons) were told that this ballot proposal was about keeping and maintaining civil rights. He had no idea that he was circulating a petition against affirmative action until a citizen told him. He stated that he then read the proposal and was humiliated and embarrassed when he realized that he had gathered at least 500 signatures that would place this type of amendment on the ballot. He stopped gathering signatures. He stated that he believed hundreds of people had signed the petition under false pretenses.
A state representative from the Lansing area, Mr. Michael Murphy, declared that he and other state representatives had repeatedly heard from constituents that they had been tricked into signing the MCRI petition. These constituents had been told that successful 10 passage of the MCRI would strengthen fairness and equity and opportunity in the state.
These citizens were unaware that they were signing a petition to place an amendment on the ballot that would end affirmative action programs within the state.
A 17 year old high school student from Detroit, Jevon Cochran, relayed how his
grandfather, aunts and uncles were tricked into signing the MCRI petition. One of his aunts was approached at Wayne State University and given misinformation; she also signed the petition.
Shirley Schwartz, a citizen who strongly supports affirmative action, stated that she was at a University of Michigan function when an African American woman who was circulating the petition approached her. When she asked the circulator about the petition, she was told that it was for affirmative action. She believed that she and many others, who were waiting in line to sign the petition, were misled by the circulator.
Joyce Schon presented 31 affidavits from voters to the commission. She stated that these individuals saw their names on a website that identified MCRI petition signers. These people were visibly upset to discover that they had signed something that could lead to the end of affirmative action. All explained how the ballot language was misrepresented to them by the circulator.
[/QUOTE]
Are you still in doubt? Can you believe this is actually legal? It’s ok, we can keep going, there’s lots of fraud to go around.
[QUOTE=Michigan Civil Rights Commission, 2006]
Several voters in Grand Rapids including Deron Jackson and Tina Belbot testified that they signed the petition after being told it was a petition to raise the minimum wage.
Robert Davidson testified that he and his wife were registering voters in front of a store in Kalamazoo when he saw a ballot circulator who was mainly approaching only Black citizens and asking them if they wanted to sign a petition for affirmative action. Davidson testified that he knew the MCRI petition was going around and after telling a few people to read the petition before they signed it, the circulator subsequently got into his truck and drove off.
Lupe Ramos Montigny is a teacher, political and community activist and a self described product of affirmative action. Ms. Montigny stated she signed the petition without reading it because she was asked by an MCRI circulator if she wanted to protect affirmative action.
Rosie Smith testified that her name appeared on the signature list in support of MCRI. However, Ms. Smith said her name appeared as Rosie Lee Smith and she never uses Lee and only signs as Rosie L. Smith. She stated that she doesn’t remember signing any petition in support of MCRI.
Edwina Cervantes stated that she was asked to sign a petition to increase the minimum wage and later found her name as an MCRI ballot proposal signature.
Dannee Mayhue stated that she never signs her middle name Dannee Sue Mayhue as it appeared on the ballot petition.
Quincy Watson testified that his friend was circulating the MCRI petition and insisted that it was to preserve affirmative action. Mr. Watson stated that he went with his friend to meet the individuals who were employing his friend as a circulator. It was a husband and wife team. Mr. Watson further stated that he asked these agents of MCRI to confirm that the petition was for affirmative action. They declined to do so. The friend was being paid $1.50 per signature.
[/QUOTE]
How did I misrepresent what the Board of Canvassers did? The Board performs mostly a ceremonial function of rubber stamping ballots after the Secretary of State confirms the legitimacy of the signatures. The Board was in deadlocked in a rare 2-2 vote after it was brought to light that many people who signed the petition did so after being told it was for Affirmative Action.
God, you guys will forgive any transgression - lying, deception, cheating etc - as long it’s ostensibly legal and furthers your goal of sticking it to black people. The people of Michigan were systemically lied to by the MCRI and there was no remedy after the fact. MCRI engaged in systemic voter fraud, this aren’t just my words, it’s also the words of a U.S District Judge and the Michigan Civil Rights Commision.
No I haven’t. All I did was quote an article which talked about the fact that the effect on black males was “considerably worse.”
But OK; if you want to debate the constitutionality, fine. It was not my purpose to do so in the OP. I wanted to debate whether or not it’s a bad idea to eliminate race-based preferences. To the extent that the SCOTUS permits it, it’s a disaster.
I personally think judges–including SCOTUS–“find” things the Constitution says that more or less parallel their own sense of fairness. So debating whether or not the Constitution supports a non-explicitly expressed idea is a task beyond me.
Heck; I can’t even figure out the explicit stuff. Even when it says that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state and therefore my right to bear arms should not be infringed, apparently I still cannot keep a nuke in my basement. :mad: