There are no educated people who would be able to disagree. It’s a statement of simple fact. The Supreme Court is the last word on the meaning of the Constitution. The Court’s word is literally law. If the other branches don’t like how SCOUTUS interorets the Constitution, it’s up to them to change it.
Because the Constitution says so.
Really? Where? Please quote the specific text.
It’s right there in the name. “Civil Liberties”. The Right opposes most civil rights and freedoms, beyond the right to own a gun. And probably the only reason they support that is because private ownership of guns makes it easier for mobs and thugs to terrorize and kill people the Right doesn’t like. A gun is more likely to be used to kill a doctor who performs abortions than it is to be used to fight off the American military in some war against tyranny.
Pretty much completely. Communism is an entire political/economic system and a worldview, not just “the lack of capitalism”; you might as well describe Christianity as “disbelief in Zeus”. And there are any number of other systems that take away people’s life, liberty, and so on - including capitalism, in some cases.
And what makes you think that shoving religion down people’s throats would be good for “the young in our society” ? And what makes you think that most of those 82 % Christians want some other bunch of Christians they don’t agree with ramming their beliefs down their throat ? When you find someone complaining about violations of Separation of Church and State, quite often it’s a Christian who doesn’t want to be forcefed someone else’s religion; not just us evil atheists.
And if the Boy Scouts would stop enforcing bigotry, they’d stop having those legal problems.
As for the Ten Commandments in courtrooms, why not just save space and put “JUSTICE ONLY FOR CHRISTIANS” up on the wall ? We all know that’s what it really means.
Have the police kicked in the doors of your church and prevented you from praying? Have you been fined for praying on a street corner? Jailed for handing out Chick tracts? I sincerely doubt it. But if it had happened, the ACLU would be the first to defend you.
If you restricted yourself to praying in public, no one, including the ACLU, would have the slightest complaint. But that’s not what happens. You aren’t just praying in public, you’re demanding that your religion have preferential access to government money and power. You want your religious beliefs preached in tax-supported schools and hung on the walls of government buildings. Can’t you see the difference?
Try a little thought experiment with me. Imagine that through some strange fluke the county government, including the school board, was taken over by radical Muslims. They mandate a program of prayer to instituted in all the local public schools. Of course, it’s voluntary. Your children can sit quietly while the teacher leads the morning prayer or while the principal speaks from the Koran at an assembly. They’d even be allowed to wait in the hallway during these proceedings. Surely you wouldn’t object to that, right?
NEWS FLASH! There are people in this country who are not Christians. There are Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Shinto, Wiccans and even gasp Atheists. These people have the same rights you do, including the right to raise their children in their own religion free from government interference. Unlike right-wing Christians, most of these people do not expect the government to subsidize their religion with other people’s tax dollars.
You can pray in public all you want. You can’t use the government to promote your religion. Quit whining because your unfair and unconstitutional subsidy was taken away. Put on your big girl panties and compete on the same level playing field every non-Christian religious or spiritual organization has played on since time immemorial.
You have a gift for sophistry. Sorry but I find this rather underwhelming. Any expansion of civil rights is necessarily a restraint on the rights of government. You’re trying to define any restraint on the power of government as a restraint on your “right to democracy.” I find that position preposterous. The only solution to this dilemma for you would be to grant absolute power to the government.
Have you even read the Constitution? Yes. Please: show us where the Constitution gives the Supreme Court the power of Judicial Review. Be sure to double check your citations.
Are you claiming that Justice Scalia is uneducated? He did graduate summa cum laude from Georgetown and magna cum laude from Harvard Law. He was also a Notes Editor for the Harvard Law Review. What exactly is your definition of uneducated?
It would be silly to base one’s view of the ACLU on that quote.
That quote supposedly comes from his Harvard classbook, though different versions appear in different accounts of this. Who knows why he wrote that (if he did), but it doesn’t much reflect his actual biography.
Roger Baldwin was born in 1884, well before the emergence of any Communist state, and was himself a believer–indeed he was rather puritanical when it came to sex, for example. He was never a Marxist, and he often quarreled with the IWW and Communist organizations. He denounced the Soviets, when they came around, and actually purged Communists from the ACLU.
Moreover, that quote does nothing to establish that he had “an ax to grind against religion.” That fact is well refuted by the ACLU’s early and frequent defense of religious exercise.
But more important than any of that, Roger Baldwin’s personal feelings on Communism is as relevant to feelings about the contemporary ACLU as Jefferson’s feelings on slaves is to the contemporary United States.
No. You are subject to two governments within the borders of the U.S… The ACLU tries to privilege the wrong one.
You may dispute the value of State governments. (And I’m sure you do.) But you cannot deny that the ACLU tries its hardest to weaken them in favor of the Federal government.
All your examples point to changes in technology. If anyone was arguing laws should NOT change based on new technologies, your examples would be apt. But since that hasn’t been asserted by anyone, they are useless.
Wow. I commend your generosity, really, are you that desperate to get more people to agree with you on SDMB? You didn’t realize that the post of his (hers) that you cited, was, shall we say, off point?
Just wow.
“In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be a Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned [within the judicial power of the United States], the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”
U.S. Const. art. III, Section 2 Clause 2
Marbury v. Madison established that this clause granted the Supreme Court the right of Judicial Review.
The Writ of Mandamus in the Judiciary Act of 1789 further adds statutory standing to the Supreme Court as the final autrhority on Judicial Review and establishes that such was the intent of the founders.
I’ve already cited it. Article 3, section 2, clause 2. I’m always happy to educate.
I think the battle you are fighting was lost with the ratification of the 14th amendment, long prior to the formation of the ACLU.
The organization’s avowed purpose is to protect the civil rights granted in the US Constitution and amendments. Since the 14th amendment, state governments are required to respect those civil rights in the same way as the federal government. Those civil rights are established in federal government documents and ultimately adjudicated in federal courts. You’re correct, enforcing those federal standards on state governments does reduce the states’ legislative powers. But it happened as a result of joint legislative action by federal and state legislatures – passage of the 14th amendment.
The reduction of state legislative power is a logical and necessary conclusion of the 14th amendment. The ACLU didn’t write it or pass it, they just work to make sure the governments enforce it (and the rest of the Constitution.)
Can you provide a cite for Justice Scalia denying that the Supreme Court has the right of Judical Review?
The Constitution privileges the Bill of Rights over either federal or state legislatures. The Bill of Rights is a protection from government.
No, it just tries to stop either state or federal governments from infringing on the rights of the people. The Bill of Rights is a protection from the fedearl government, not of it.
And this is why I and others can just write you off as one of the most closed-minded partisan members on this board. Do you not see how pompous, rude, and stifling to debate it is? Sheeze…
The power (not right) of Judicial Review is different from the power of being able to just nakedly say the Constitution means whatever we say. Have you ever read a Supreme Court decision? Have you ever read one that just said something like, “We decided the matter thusly because that Constitution says whatever we say it does”?
Justice Scalia’s whole philosophy of originalism is that the Constitution means what it was understood to mean at the time its specific parts were passed. You can read about originalism in his book A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law. There is no way to read this book and come out believing that Justice Scalia believes the Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says.
Do you deny that the Supreme Court has the right of Judicial Review?
Try again. III.2.2 gives the Supreme Court the power to decide cases based on the constitution. It does not (as written) give the Supreme Court the power to change/declare void laws passed by Congress. That power was not established until 1803.
Not really. The 14th Amendment essentially requires 3 things of the States:[ul][li]“privileges and immunities” - interpreted in the Slaughter-house cases to protect only the States, not the individual[]“equal protection of the law” - great. All for it. []no deprivation of life, liberty, or property without “due process of law” - this would be great. But… [/ul]…courts in the 20th century interpreted “process” to mean “substance,” even though they’re diametrically opposite. The only ones who should be deciding “substance” of law are the legislators.[/li][quote=DtC]
Can you provide a cite for Justice Scalia denying that the Supreme Court has the right of Judical Review?
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It’s not quite what you’re looking for, but check out Thomas’ dissent in Lawrence v. Texas.
Yes. The Federal government. Read it again.