Quote from: Solar on February 12, 2014, 09:03:41 AM
So freedom of speech, religious freedoms, protection from illegal search and seizure are no longer applicable?

Of course they're applicable.  The question is, and always has been, how to balance a document written by people in the 1780s with the innovations of 2014.

Quote from: LiberalIntellectual on February 12, 2014, 09:45:50 AM
Of course they're applicable.  The question is, and always has been, how to balance a document written by people in the 1780s with the innovations of 2014.

WRONG!!!
The Bill of Rights is designed to keep an oppressive govt at bay, these Rights are not granted by the govt, rather God, so they cannot simply be taken away.

There is a reason for the 2nd, it's to insure we keep these Rights.

Quote from: LiberalIntellectual on February 12, 2014, 09:45:50 AM
Of course they're applicable.  The question is, and always has been, how to balance a document written by people in the 1780s with the innovations of 2014.

You are aware we have a process in place to handle exactly what you are saying? It is called the amendment process. So what type amendment would you suggest?

Quote from: supsalemgr on February 12, 2014, 10:19:39 AM
You are aware we have a process in place to handle exactly what you are saying? It is called the amendment process. So what type amendment would you suggest?

An amendment isn't the problem; the problem is to apply our current amendments, written 220+ years ago, to changing conditions.  There's no need to update the wording of the amendments, we just have to figure out how to interpret them.

Quote from: Solar on February 12, 2014, 10:07:47 AM
WRONG!!!
The Bill of Rights is designed to keep an oppressive govt at bay, these Rights are not granted by the govt, rather God, so they cannot simply be taken away.

There is a reason for the 2nd, it's to insure we keep these Rights.

That completely misses the point of what I'm saying.

Don't we have something called Amendments?

Quote from: The Boo Man... on February 12, 2014, 10:58:15 AM
Don't we have something called Amendments?

I think you people are talking way over his head!  Remember Dem want it right now!   Amendments were for 150 to 200 years ago.   

Quote from: LiberalIntellectual on February 12, 2014, 10:42:06 AM
An amendment isn't the problem; the problem is to apply our current amendments, written 220+ years ago, to changing conditions.  There's no need to update the wording of the amendments, we just have to figure out how to interpret them.

That completely misses the point of what I'm saying.

Oh, I see, you're a moral relativist.
There is absolutely no reason to change anything, the law was laid out quite clearly, it wasn't until you morons started screwing with it, was it in need of repair and a restoration of Liberties.
Which is exactly what the TEA will do, REMOVE the Govt knife from the throats of the people.

Leftists revel in the subjectivity of their "interpretation" and that is how the will of the founders is circumvented by allowing the bill of rights to be materially altered without going through the methods of change outlined in the constitution.

Quote from: LiberalIntellectual on February 12, 2014, 10:42:06 AM
An amendment isn't the problem; the problem is to apply our current amendments, written 220+ years ago, to changing conditions.  There's no need to update the wording of the amendments, we just have to figure out how to interpret them.

That completely misses the point of what I'm saying.

"An amendment isn't the problem; the problem is to apply our current amendments, written 220+ years ago, to changing conditions."

That is exactly what I said. However, it is clear you do not wish to pursue making changes by the process in place. Are you suggesting that the party in power should be able to make any change they deem would bring the constitution up to date?

Quote from: Greystone on January 19, 2014, 09:56:18 AM
What's an interesting part of this debate on judicial review is that the constitution never even says the Supreme Court has the power to rule acts of congress or the president as unconstitutional, this was only established in Marbury v. Madison in 1803, and to me, the supreme court declaring that it has such a power is a dubious assertion. There is an entirely different school of thought on this issue, one that doesn't think the court even has this power they frequently exercise. Jefferson didn't believe the supreme court had this power of judicial review; he believed that if congress passed a law in opposition to the constitution that it was the duty of the electorate to be the check against this by voting out those politicians who passed such a law and that the court didn't have the power to simply strike it down.

As far as interpretation goes, I prefer Justice Scalia's method of originalism. He doesn't look to the original intent of the framers, but simply to the original meanings of the words in the text itself. I don't like the original intent method because the constitution was a compromise and you won't find authoritative conformity in thought to apply to the whole constitution. Just look at the plain meaning of the words, as they would have been understood by someone reading them at the time. Liberals often make the text say whatever they want it to say, which to me is something I find hard to differentiate from lawlessness.

It Seems Thomas Jefferson quite agrees

Quote"The question whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches."

    —Thomas Jefferson to W. H. Torrance, 1815. ME 14:303

"But the Chief Justice says, 'There must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.' True, there must; but does that prove it is either party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our Constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force."

   —Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:451

"But, you may ask, if the two departments [i.e., federal and state] should claim each the same subject of power, where is the common umpire to decide ultimately between them? In cases of little importance or urgency, the prudence of both parties will keep them aloof from the questionable ground; but if it can neither be avoided nor compromised, a convention of the States must be called to ascribe the doubtful power to that department which they may think best."

   —Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:47

"The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."

   —Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:51

"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."
   
    —Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:277

"In denying the right [the Supreme Court usurps] of exclusively explaining the Constitution, I go further than [others] do, if I understand rightly [this] quotation from the Federalist of an opinion that 'the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government, but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under which the judiciary is derived.' If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se [act of suicide]. For intending to establish three departments, coordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. For experience has already shown that the impeachment it has provided is not even a scare-crow . . . The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please."

   —Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819. ME 15:212

"This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt."

   —Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825. ME 16:114

"My construction of the Constitution is . . . that each department is truly independent of the others and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the Constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially where it is to act ultimately and without appeal."

   —Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819. ME 15:214

Quote from: Solar on February 12, 2014, 11:16:30 AM
Oh, I see, you're a moral relativist.

Recognizing that morals have improved since the 1780s does not make one a moral relativist.  By that logic you would be a moral relativist, unless if you seriously think that we should turn the clock back to the social policies of our slave-owning past.

Quote
There is absolutely no reason to change anything, the law was laid out quite clearly,

The original Constitution did not even get the question of slavery right; it is a product of its times, and the notion that it should be interpreted precisely the same way it was back in the 18th century is to assume that we haven't progressed as a society since, which is just absurd.

Quote
Which is exactly what the TEA will do, REMOVE the Govt knife from the throats of the people.

By using the government to deport undocumented immigrants and ban gay marriage?  That's the limited, Constitutional government at work?   

penrod, never use 50 words when 10,000 will do.

KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE LONG DIATRIBES! 

Quote from: Sci Fi Fan on July 26, 2014, 08:43:15 PM
Recognizing that morals have improved since the 1780s does not make one a moral relativist.  By that logic you would be a moral relativist, unless if you seriously think that we should turn the clock back to the social policies of our slave-owning past.

The original Constitution did not even get the question of slavery right; it is a product of its times, and the notion that it should be interpreted precisely the same way it was back in the 18th century is to assume that we haven't progressed as a society since, which is just absurd.

By using the government to deport undocumented immigrants and ban gay marriage?  That's the limited, Constitutional government at work?   

I'll tell you this once, cut the bull shit of moving the goal posts and creating straw men!
No one was talking about any of that shit, it's like me claiming you're in league with Hitler because he too was a socialist, so cut the shit, and if you can't bring real debate to the forum, then I suggest you stop posting Now!

I'm serious, that was your only warning, your shtick has run it's course.

Quote from: LiberalIntellectual on February 12, 2014, 10:42:06 AM
An amendment isn't the problem; the problem is to apply our current amendments, written 220+ years ago, to changing conditions.  There's no need to update the wording of the amendments, we just have to figure out how to interpret them.

That completely misses the point of what I'm saying.

Oh here let me assist you with that. Get out your Constitution see the words written/printend on the paper? Read them, read them outloud, then ask yourself, what does what I have just read say?

Voila, interpreting the Constitution.

Come on folks the damned document was written sot hat a man with a sixth grade education could read and understand it.

IT's simpler than the Bible, and well you don't get much more basic than that. ;)

Figure it out? WTF planet do you live on?