Why, Bill…it’s a proper holiday, dedicated to Achristianity, my religion that I just now made up in order to answer this question. It doesn’t declare that NO gods exist, just not the Judeo-Christian God.
Actually, that was my reason. I was going to capitalize every word on the banner, like most banners usually are, but then I got lazy.
In 1967, the Supreme Court placed a moratorium on use of the death penalty so that it might debate its constitutionality. In 1972’s Furman v. Georgia, the Court ruled that capital punishment violated the Eighth Amendment’s provision against cruel and unusual punishment. Four years later, in Gregg v. Georgia, the Court reversed its position and lifted the ban. Effectively, then, that was a ten-year period in which states were not allowed to execute criminals.
“The death penalty has been legal in this country since its inception,” indeed. :rolleyes:
*Originally posted by Flymaster *
Shoot, thought I had ya. 
While that is true, here is an honest question (no, I really don’t know the answer to it).
Didn’t the SC moratorium and ruling not apply w.r.t. the miltary’s code of justice? That is, wasn’t the death penalty still in practice and legal in the military at that point?
Billy, you zeal in trying to ensure that your religion is the only one anyone ever sees and that it pervades society and government is touching. Please say “hi” to Locutus and One of Three for me, willya?
Anthracite: I don’t know the answer to that, either. Even if it were true, however, Opus1’s statement was still flatly wrong.
For what it’s worth, a significant basis for the Eighth Amendment holding was that the application of capital punishment was too often–and inherently–discriminatory. Here are some quotes used by Furman:
–The President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice
–Warden Lewis Lawes, Sing Sing Prison
And from the opinion itself…
And, finally:
Pretty strong words.
egkelly: I used to work in Rhode Island, and for many years the standing joke (in reference to the ACLU) was their lawsuits against the City of Pawtucket. Every November, the city would erect a crèche /nativity scene, on the grounds of the city hall. As soon as the thing was set up and lit, regular as rain, the ACLU would file their lawsuit (the standard church-state separation). This was always done-in spite of the complete lack of opposition from the local rabbis-in deed, I recall reading a letter written by the rabbi of an area synagogue, expressing his total indifference to the issue. I was always amazed by how much money was wasted on such a trivial issue. It always seemed to me, that the ACLU could choose some other issue to complain about. In my opinion, the Pawtucket Chapter of the ACLU was a bunch of self-righteous idiots who had little else to do with their time.
Since I haven’t seen this issue in the RI ACLU newsletters recently, I assume that the City of Pawtucket finally managed to understand that what they were doing was plainly unconstitutional. (I find it interesting, by the way, that your response to a municipal government’s repeatedly spending time and money to do something plainly unconstitutional, and to defend it in court time after time even though the court repeatedly told them it was unconstitutional, is that it must be the ACLU who are the self-righteous idiots. It seems to me that that designation applies much more appropriately to the Pawtucket City Council.)
We have recently had to turn our attention to the same sort of idiocy in Bristol RI, though, as you can read in this press release:
Note, by the way, that in the Bristol case as well as in the Pawtucket cases and according to their general policy, the ACLU filed the lawsuit only on behalf of citizen plaintiffs who requested their assistance, and that they filed suit only after several informal efforts to explain the nature of the violation to officials who remained uncooperative.
**WB:**That is the kind of thing the ACLU does that just hacks me off. I mean what are they worried about some atheist becoming a believer from seeing the nativity scene.
What they are worried about, as some other posters have explained to you, is that such displays on government constitute a state endorsement of religion, which is U.N.C.O.N.S.T.I.T.U.T.I.O.N.A.L, and promote the false idea that members of that religion have a special claim to its government sponsorship. (Notice the responses from Mr. Cottone’s fellow Bristol residents who asked him to leave town and told him that Bristol was a “Christian community”. In other words, “if you don’t like having our shared, secular, taxpayer-supported municipal government sponsor our religious activities, you don’t belong here.” Is that your idea of a nice Christian attitude for Christmas, WB?)
I mean afterall it is Christmas. I wonder if they go inspect the Christmas cards that are in state buildings to make sure their is nothing Godly in them.
I don’t have much hope that you can be made to understand this, but I’ll do my best. No, the ACLU does not care what religious expressions appear in and on private property, including any Christmas cards or other personal memorabilia that state employees may like to keep on their desks. No, the ACLU doesn’t mind if your church or your private school wants to put up a nativity scene in the front yard. No, the ACLU doesn’t mind if an atheist gets converted after seeing a nativity scene. What the ACLU minds, and I think you may have heard this before, is when public property or resources are used to sponsor nativity scenes or any other expressions of religious belief. This violates the Constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state.
Man, I dislike that organization. What a bunch wackos.
I think that to be disliked and called a “wacko” by somebody as prejudiced, illogical, and unreflecting as your posts have indicated you to be is an accolade of high distinction. Thank you Bill, I will reflect on that with pride.
IMHO I really think that are founding fathers meant that the state not get involved in the church not the way the ACLU reads it and sues about it.
Well, the judges don’t seem to agree with you.
I have some other questions: the city that I now live in puts lights in the trees, on the town common, for the Christmas season. Does this constitute an illegal endorsement of religion? Please help me rid Waltham of this horrible scourge!
egk: I have some other questions: the city that I now live in puts lights in the trees, on the town common, for the Christmas season. Does this constitute an illegal endorsement of religion?
Um, what religion mandates putting lights in trees as part of its religious ceremonies? As we’ve recently discussed in a different thread, there’s a difference between a religious symbol (Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus) and a secular decoration (snowmen, jingle bells, lights in trees), even if it’s often associated with a religious holiday. What your town appears to be endorsing is the secular celebration known as Holiday Shopping Season.
Please help me rid Waltham of this horrible scourge!
Sorry, you’re not my table; you need to talk to the Massachusetts ACLU affiliate, but be warned, they’ll laugh you out of the office. 
Waltham? Bah. I think they need to get somebody to work on changing the name of the Salem High football team. Much more pressing
Aw, c’mon, “Salem Witches” is a cool name, it has historic significance and instills local pride, and all that crap. Remember the city’s “official witch”, Laurie Cabot, almost getting elected mayor a few years ago?
The football team can take it - they kick rump. Besides, what would they change it to - Magicians? Marblehead already has that, and they’re in the same conference. Speaking of which, my kiddies agree with me that the Witches and Magicians should play each other in Quidditch, not basketball, although the best of them might go on to play for the Washington Wizards.
Is not the standard argument against “militia” meaning state supported activity such as the National Guard that “militia” means the whole (armed) populace? Then it follows that “well regulated militia” means that they can and indeed must regulate the members of the militia.
Simply put, there is not a single guaranteed right in the Constitution that is absolute.
Ooh, here’s where I get to use my beautiful quote from Jodi:
*Reasonable restrictions placed upon the means of exercising a constitutional right do not, in and of themselves, constitute a violation of that right. *
Like Ptahlis’s point that no right is really absolute in practice, this seems to me like a very good response to the “we have to amend the Constitution if we want to be able to ban private possession of machine guns [or nuclear warheads, for that matter]” line of reasoning. To “restrict” a right is not the same thing as to “infringe” it.
I think kimstu here has really nailed the crux of the thing here. After all, the Supreme Court has not recognized an unrestricted right to free speech that, say, allows you to yell “fire” in a crowded theater. The problem is, of course, that your rights eventually collide with someone else’s rights.
For speech, they have tended to draw the line at the point where you are not merely offending someone else but are actually putting their life or liberty or property in great danger. By that standard, I think one can in fact argue for a fair number of restrictions on firearms even within the context of a constitutional right to have them!
Anthracite wrote:
Partial-birth abortion pills?!?
Well, guess what Bill? You can own a tank! Yep, that’s right, a real life working tank. BUT, it cannot have any kind of armaments on it, and it’s not street legal. (I read in a biography of Tom Clancy that he owns an M1 Abrams tank…)
Oh. bills.
[Emily Latella]
Never mind.
[/Emily Latella]
Fine…But then this just seems to move the question to the level “Sufficient against who?” After all, if people want to talk about defending their family against the federal government (and some of these people do talk about this) then it doesn’t seem that a rifle is going to do much good against an entity that has, say, cruise missiles at its disposal. Not that I don’t think lines can be drawn…but I am just saying it is just not as cut-and-dried where to draw them (or where people will agree to draw them).
I will admit that your interpretation is a possible one, but I don’t think it is the only one. Frankly, like many things in the Constitution, it is somewhat ambiguous. I vaguely remember reading that if one goes back and researches some of the discussions taking place when the Admendments were written, there is considerable support for the argument that it is meant to qualify the right rather than just justify it. But, I will admit that I am going on only a vague memory on that, so I won’t claim it as fact. Does anyone else know more about this?
Reading the Bill of Rights, looking for absolute and unqualified rights as opposed to qualified ones, I come up with the following:
Amendments 1,6,8, and 9 are unqualified.
The rest are qualified in one way or the other.
The ACLU concentrates a lot of attention on 1, then, for the very good reason that it enumerates a set of unqualified, absolute rights.
Unfortunately, government at all levels spends an inordinate amount of time and money trying to figure out ways to circumvent the freedoms given us by the First Amendment or, even worse, trying to establish in some sneaky way Christianity or even Judeo-Christian beliefs in general as our national religion.
As to the militia, as defined and proscribed by the Constitution, the below clauses, the second of which was cited by Boris B, when juxtaposed with the Second Amendment, make for a pretty clear package:
It seems to me that, by specifically using the word Militia, the writers were referring back to these clauses, thereby making it clear that the right to keep and bear arms was in that context, under a “discipline prescribed by Congress.”
Seems to me that that pretty clearly means that Congress can regulate the type of arms the people can have. I can’t see how you can conclude that there is a right, implicit or explicit, to keep and bear arms unrelated to militia use ** as prescribed by Congress. ** The Congress couldn’t prevent you from owning arms at all, but it could say that you had a right to keep only a certain set of arms approved for militia use, and that all other firearms were prohibited. This would mean the Congress would have the right to outlaw any militia from keeping, for instance, nuclear arms. Also, that the arms allowed were to be used only in situations which clearly called for a militia.
This appears to be what the Supreme Court ruled in 1939. I realize that this was cited earlier by Kimstu, but in the context of the complete text concerning militias from the Constitution above, the below portion becomes clear: (from the site http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/constitution/amdt2.html )
The Court goes on to uphold a statutory requirement to register sawed-off shotguns.
I can’t see how this could be any clearer than it is.