Posted on 10/04/2005 3:20:22 PM PDT by Richard Poe
at least the members of the donner party ate something... which is more than i can say for ann coulter...
teeman
Hey, coming from you, that just made my Tuesday.
And I respect your opinion, even as I disagree, because of the rigorousness of your approach.
However, laws need to be interpreted, IMO, as they are written, not as they are intended. The Founders, from their writing, clearly limited the First Amendment to the federal government with the preface "Congress shall pass no law." And that is buttressed by the fact that official state religions were allowed at the time of the Founders.
But they did not preface the remainder of the Bill of Rights in a similar manner.
So to my simplistic point of view, the remainder of the BOR is a description of absolute rights, not restraints on federal power. If the Founders had meant otherwise, they should have written them otherwise.
At the end of the day, although I think the Originalist point of view should be considered, laws are written with words, not meaning. And Miers, IMO, has given a preliminary indication that she will seek the meaning of the words in the Constitution.
You give me too much credit.
However, laws need to be interpreted, IMO, as they are written, not as they are intended.
"As they are written," by what understanding? Should that be a current understanding, then the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment denotes that anchor babies have Natural Law citizenship, because the current common understanding of "subject to the jurisdiction" means 'those to whom the laws apply within a country'; whereas, if you took the original understanding by those who wrote and (more importantly) ratified the law (Scalia's approach), "subject to the jurisdiction" did not mean 'within the jurisdiction' for "subjects" meant subjects of particular countries and therefore specifically excluded the children of aliens within US boundaries from gaining American citizenship.
Original meanings must carry weight, else all the leftists have to do is to twist the meaning of common words, at which they have shown themselves most adept.
So to my simplistic point of view, the remainder of the BOR is a description of absolute rights, not restraints on federal power.
I think that incorrect. The Preamble to the Bill of Rights stated the purpose of those Amendments with an appropriate tone of warning, “in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added.”
IMO, declaratory as to their form, restrictive as to their purpose.
At the end of the day, although I think the Originalist point of view should be considered, laws are written with words, not meaning. And Miers, IMO, has given a preliminary indication that she will seek the meaning of the words in the Constitution.
My guess is that you now understand why this scares me.
Did you know realize that when she gave money to Al Gore in 1988, she was supporting the author of the RIGHT-TO-LIFE Amendment to win the PRIMARY, at a time when the Democrats were trying to purge pro-life candidates?
Did you realize that at a time when Republican nominee George H. W. Bush was on his way to maxing out campaign contributions, she was forcing Dukakis to burn much needed campaign money and forcing Dukakis to highlight his liberal viewpoints in front of moderates and Republicans? IOW, she couldn't help Bush directly, but she could hurt his opponent.
Did you realize that the Democrat she handed the check to was none other that current Republican Governor Rick Perry, George W. Bush's running mate?
You remember the Al Gore of 2000, after he cratered to the radical left. She supported the Al Gore of 1988.
Do you realize that back then, there was still a home for pro-life and anti-communist conservatives in the Dem party?
Do you realize that, without converted Southern conservatives, there would be no GOP majority today?
Actually, what you stated is precisely my point. But you extend it even furter, which is encouraging, because in my attempt to find supprting information for my thesis that maybe she was trying to keep the Democrats from becoming a militantly pro-abortion party, I found some bad news for my thesis: she also gave $1000 to the DNC.
Now it could be that she was trying to buy some credibility by asserting she was a real Democrat, not just the inverse of all these people who switched parties to vote for McCain. But the easiest conclusion to make is that, at least at that time, she was still a moderate Democrat.
To be honest, I was a radical left-winger. But then I was 16, not in my 40s. But then again, I became a conservative in the state capital of NY; she was in Texas, where Democrats were of a different breed.
(New York Democrats are so easy to hate! :^D)
The easiest conclusion? Or just the one that works for you without any rigorous analysis?
She attends an evangelical church. Her pastor says she is pro-life.
The Dems used to accomodate a pro-life contingent. And an anti-communist one. Those days are over. As is Dem control of the South.
Factor that into your conclusions...
Oh, yes, I forgot about that! Razorblades were had by all!
You confuse me. First you attack her. Then, when I defend her by pointing out the fact that the Democrats she supported were prolife, you jump all over me, but you dont say anything to oppose my argument, but rather furthers it. Then, when I conclude she was a moderate Democrat twenty years ago, you correct me... by arguing that a lot of Democrats were prolife!
It's as if we were arguing about baseball and had this argument,
"Red Sox sucked last year"
"Boston's the reigning World Series champs"
"You ignorant fool, everybody knows the Red Sox won the World Series."
"I know, I know, the Red Sox beat the Yankees."
"No they didn't! New York lost!"
Well, I didn't think the race was over, but I had to admit I thought he did a lousy job. And gee, he only went from destroying Kerry in the polls to falling behind him. Thank God patriots turned out by the tens of millions to clobber that Al Qaeda-loving commie freak, but for a while there, John Lovitz' impression of Mike Dukakis was floating in my mind, "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy!"
Fortunately, Bush recovered by doing a merely bad job in the next debates.
O, sorry... nevermind. I got so turned off by your attack, I missed the "/sarcasm" at the end of it. I'm guessing you took "moderate" as a negative, and figured I was merely conceding that she wasn't all that liberal. I meant moderate as opposed to liberal.
(Time to go to bed when we're arguing with people who agree with us, right?)
I've been watching FR for years, and this Bush-is-a-traitor-to-the-movement-and-I'm-never-voting-Republican-again is self-defeating. Sometimes I wish our side was a little more strategy-savvy and aware that winning this game is going to be incremental. The history of America's march to socialism began nearly 80 years ago and we'll be lucky if we can dismantle it in half that time.
Believe it or not, I haven't heard people say she's gay or unattractive. It's kind of weird to even think about attractiveness in a Supreme Court justice. I'm not even sure I know what Janice Rogers Brown looks like.
I'm sorry, but this is a bogus point and unworthy of you. Whatever Harriet Miers achieved, it was because she was smart and she worked hard. The nonsense you talk about above, is mularkey. Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Carolyn Graglia, etc. were all female lawyers of an earlier generation than Miers.
Please answer me this, if you are so impressed by Miers accompliments as a woman, were you equally impressed and cheering for Ruth Bader Ginsberg for going to Harvard Law School 15 years before Miers, and was on the Harvard Law Review while caring for a husband with testicular cancer. Not only that, but after she graduated from law school, she went on to get a LL.B. from Columbia Law School. While there she was on the Columbia Law Review, making her the only person in history, man or women, to be both on the Harvard Law Review and Columbia Law Review. All of this was in the dark ages of the 50s, when you believe women were not allowed to do anything. She went on to to be the General Counsel of the preeminent civil rights organization in the United States. Please tell me you are consistent and think she's great!
Good post, thanks
I don't know if you heard the dispicable Ann Coulter on Hannity's program today screeching that GWB appointed Miers out of "vindictiveness." She insisted that the President is mad at conservatives because they opposed putting the Attorney General on the court, so he appointed "an even worse mediocrity" instead just to be vindictive.
That did it for me. If I have to attach myself to and blindly parrot the likes of that shrew just to prove my conservative bona fides, count me out.
Too sick? Does she have health problems?
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