[tpaine]

You seem to think YOUR beliefs about life, - death , -- & liberty, -- trump mine.

Nope. I think the American beliefs on life, death and liberty, on which the national union was explicitly and formally based at the beginning, in what Jefferson and Madison called "the fundamental act of union of these states,", i.e. the Declaration, DOES trump your beliefs about those matters.

You admit above [underlined] that what YOU think the declaration means, trumps what I think. -- All the rest is cheap flag waving rhetotic as you equate your thinking as being 'American', mine as somehow less. - A silly debate tactic. ---------------------

I asked you if the Oregon assisted suicide referendum contradicts the most fundamental principle of ANY federal law? -- And, - is this supposed 'law' based on any constitutional fundamentals?

Perhaps the notion of "principle" is unclear to you . The principles of a thing are distinct from the thing. Principles are that from which a thing comes, or upon which a thing is based.

-- More silly bafflegab rhetoric. We both know what principles are.

My answer to you, and the point of the Keyes column, was that Ashcroft was justified in looking to the principles of ALL federal law -- the foundation of all federal law.

--- Which is not in dispute. In fact, it was MY contention that he is not doing so. ---- If he did, he would find NO SUCH principle. -- Just as you cannot.

The Declaration expresses that foundation. Without some such foundation, there is no basis that I am aware of that obliges me to even obey federal law.

-- Yes, the Declaration so expresses. But not as you religiously interpret it, imo.

When an officer of the executive branch finds himself obliged to pass judgment on the particular matters about which a federal law obliges him to pass judgment, the formal and official criteria to which he must look are not the opinions of one out of fifty states, but of the national principles that illuminate the meaning and purpose of all federal law.

Exactly, you make my point, -- but you have not answered specificly, because you cannot. There is no consitutitional principle that allows the feds to dictate state laws on suicide, drugs, etc, --- beyond the constitutional mandate itself. -- If there were, you could cite it, couldn't you?

[davidjquackenbush]

The "unalienable right to life" is foundational to all federal law, and indeed to all American law -- federal, state or local. It is, says the Declaration, foundational to all government power whatsoever. Legal suicide, and particular the granting of power over one's life to another, is the alienation of one's right to life. "Unalienable" rights are rights that cannot be given away, and the exercise of which is not voluntary, but obligatory. The origin of the notion is in "unalienable" ownership of land -- land which the owner could not part with, whatever his wish to. What part of "unalienable right to life" don't you understand?

If you find this to be "bafflegab" as well, let's just call it a day, and I wish you well.