I've never been inclined to believe that being in the majority makes a person right,
Yet at #229, you argue your belief that: -- "The vast majority of people, through their legislators have declared that they have a clear purpose. --"
You can't even keep your story straight between two adjacent posts.
but when your reading of "due process" puts you in such a minuscule minority, you are going to have many burdens upon you in the discussion.One of those burdens would be proof.
The argument about whether States & local governments have to operate within Constitutional due process has been going on since the Republic was formed. -- That's a fact. - One that doesn't need 'proof', - not to rational people.
If the "due process" clause of the 14th amendment applies as you believe it to, why didn't the author of the amendment push for the immediate dismissal of all such regulatory laws? Why didn't anyone?
Because we had just fought a bloody war over the issue of 'States Rights'. -- In 1868 we we trying to reconstruct the Union under the original intent of our Law of the Land. [See Article VI]
Why did it take 100 years for someone to "discover" what no one else appeared to be able to read in a well published document?
'Jim Crow' was discovered, that's why.. The 14th was ignored, with the collusion of the Courts, Congress, & Executive.
I don't like inventive readings of the Constitution. If it is not a clear and binding document, it is worthless, and subject to the whims of five jurors. Trying to torture the Constitution into saying something that has been rejected by the vast majority [There you go again, "majority rules"] of this country for 220 years, so that someone can smoke a joint in peace is ludicrous.
The prohibitions you promote are far more serious than bans on smoking pot:
"-- This `liberty´ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property;
the freedom of speech, press, and religion;
the right to keep and bear arms;
the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures;
and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints, . .
As the second Justice Harlan recognized...
If you want legalization, then push for it on its own merits.
The initial prohibitions making drugs 'illegal' were unconstitutional. -- That's the "merits" of the issue.
Yet at #229, you argue your belief that: -- "The vast majority of people, through their legislators have declared that they have a clear purpose. --" You can't even keep your story straight between two adjacent posts.
Context. You don't seem to grasp it. The above statements are not even remotely at odds. The first was to state that I'm not basing my Constitutional argument on the fact that I'm in the majority (this was a nicety to you). The second was countering your argument that the WOD is arbitrary. A republican democracy debating a subject and then passing a law by majority, especially a set of laws over a prolonged period for an intended purpose can't be arbitrary. It can be wrong, but not arbitrary. Louis IVX's banning pineapples from France after taking one bite was arbitrary.
I don't know quite how to say this without being insulting, but my vocabulary is quite exact, my positions quite clear, yet you have shown an amazing inability to understand them. Mind you this has nothing to do with your agreeing with them, or who is right or wrong. You simply can't follow a line of thought, even when repeated.
Again I don't know how to say this without insulting you, but your debating skills are particularly weak. I'm confident that I already know the strengths of your position far more thoroughly than you do, or for that matter, you will ever be able to present them. Although there are some very good arguments for your position, you haven't made them, and I don't feel like arguing both sides.
Your parsing games have grown very old and juvenile. You continually parse my posts out of context, to attempt to show hypocrisy where there clearly is none. Sadly, I don't think you are doing this deliberately, but just honestly aren't comprehending my points. Others don't seem to have this problem with my posts on this thread or others (many disagree, but they understand and acknowledge my argument).
If you feel you need to parse this, consider it me giving you the last word.