Posted on 12/02/2001 8:50:01 AM PST by H.Akston
The "loaded gun in the wrong hands" is terrorists claiming protection under our bill of rights. They can't get under our umbrella. It doesn't matter if they're persons. They're not "of the United States". Our umbrella is not for them. They have no IVth Amendment rights.
So you'd flip Washington's observation around. Rights are like fire, dangerous and fearful. Better keep them limited and under careful control, like the Founders tried to keep the government.
They can't get under our umbrella. It doesn't matter if they're persons. They're not "of the United States". Our umbrella is not for them. They have no IVth Amendment rights.
I just did a simple text search of the Constitution. Not once does "of the United States" follow "person". It does, significantly, follow "citizen" on several occasions. When the Founders (or later amenders, for that matter) wanted to limit something to American citizens, they did exactly that in so many words. No pussyfooting around about the meaning of person.
I would imagine you meant that as a reference to the Preamble. "We, the people of the United States." But notice what it says AFTER those words. Remember, taking isolated phrases, not even sentences but phrases, is sloganeering, not exegesis. So, what about them? They "do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Imagine a monarch saying, "I, the king, recognize the right to a trial by jury." Would that mean only the king gets a jury? Of course not. That would be silly. The people of the United States are the authority issuing the Constitution. If you take that authority seriously, you look at what it says, which leads us back to the fact that the Constitution prohibits the government from doing certain things. Not certain things to us (and the Founders would certainly have known how to say it that if that's what they wanted to say), but certain things, period.
"Hey, officer, he had out of state plates. The no passing zone doesn't apply to him."
Please stop Clintonizing and parsing. It's embarassing.
Zacharias's computer should have been searched without a warrant, just like the Constitution says it can be. Barr was wrong and dangerous.
That argument doesn't fly, because our government can do most anything to a person outside the United States. Amd as soon as you realize that, you must admit that nationalities are important to the Context of the Bill of Rights. Ever heard of that law against assassinations we're bound to? Now that law wouldn't be necessary if the Bill or Rights restricted the US Government from "doing certain things" (Depriving life without due process) to persons without regard to political boundaries and nationalities.
You've got to understand the Context in which the Constitution exists.
Here's the basic fallacy of your position. Our rights come from God, not the Bill of Rights.
God didn't say we couldn't search ZM's computer before the attacks. God gave us the unalienable rights to life (Thou shalt not Kill), liberty and property (Thou shalt not Steal), and we should do our best to secure them.
The subject is the Bill of Rights. The 4th Amendment right to not be searched on a whim may not be a divinely endowed right. I don't think it is. It doesn't kill him or steal from him, to violate it. Searching ZM's computer in violation of his fictitious 4th Amendment rights would have helped secure many other lives and lots of property in downtown Manhattan. Bob Barr made no exceptions for the 4th Amendment. He was therefore wrong.
So now you're telling me the Preamble limits freedom to the posterity of the American citizens of 1889? Okay, add black folks because of the post- Civil War amendments. That still leaves out most of the American population.
You're cracked, dude.
Please stop Clintonizing and parsing. It's embarassing.
Yes, you really said that taking "person" to mean person is Clintonizing and parsing. Turning the Constitution on its head is apparently making everything upside down.
Person means exactly that.
where on God's green earth did you get that year? You're the one who's cracked. You tried to say that the word "people", in "We the people" doesn't mean all persons of the United states!
Huh? You're the one turning the Constitution on its head, giving foreign terrorists IVth Amendment protections from our Government's mission to protect its citizens.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10090-2002Aug12.html
We can at least search their little fingerprints without a warrant. GEEZ. I can't believe how some people think the Bill of Rights covers every vagrant that might wash up on our shores.
I've had to argue the same point to so many people now, I've got it almost perfected.
To break the log jam in your mind, that prevents you from understanding me/reason, get this through your head: - the 4th Amendment right to not be searched without a warrant is not a divine right.
There.
That's a simple concept. Let's get that straight. 4th Amendment rights are not divinely endowed rights.
Most of the consternation I've seen on this 700+ thread is caused by people going who go around with the notion in their head that the Bill of Rights are like the 10 Commandments. There might be some overlap between those two documents, in places, but not enough to make Bob Barr right.
"Does Congress have the power to establish an official religion for non-citizens?"
Can a blacksmith build steel wings for a bird?
What a stupid question.
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