Volconvo Debate Forums - View Single Post

Edge · Feb 19, 2004, 06:27 pm

I found this quote today. I shamlessly stole it from: http://www.derbyfals.com/Quotes.htm
"On every question of construction (of the meaning of the Constitution), let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and, instead of trying what meaning can be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed".
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Justice William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p 322.

Anon: I loved your quote about the new interpretation: So who will protect us from the interpreters?

Makeshift: I don't believe that I am overthinking your point. Your focus on those ammendments validates the fact that when there were enough people who decided that the foundational document of the US needed to be changed, they did it. They were able to accomodate the changes in cultural and societal morays into the rules that governed how the government works. When this happens; all is well and good: the process worked.

However, we now have the situation where the court's interpretation are driving culture and society. The US was made neither republic, nor federation, nor democracy; but a governmental system composed of all three, held in tension with competing checks and balances. When the court legislates from the bench, which is what this is all about; they subvert the process we have in place, whether legislative or constitutional and usurp the authority of the legislature, and the people. This is a tyranny of the minority. On some the scale is small on others the scale is large, but it is tyranny none the less.

Feb 19, 2004, 06:27 pm	#17 (permalink) (top)
Edge Molten Ash Posts: 76	I found this quote today. I shamlessly stole it from: http://www.derbyfals.com/Quotes.htm "On every question of construction (of the meaning of the Constitution), let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and, instead of trying what meaning can be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed". Thomas Jefferson, letter to Justice William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p 322. Anon: I loved your quote about the new interpretation: So who will protect us from the interpreters? Makeshift: I don't believe that I am overthinking your point. Your focus on those ammendments validates the fact that when there were enough people who decided that the foundational document of the US needed to be changed, they did it. They were able to accomodate the changes in cultural and societal morays into the rules that governed how the government works. When this happens; all is well and good: the process worked. However, we now have the situation where the court's interpretation are driving culture and society. The US was made neither republic, nor federation, nor democracy; but a governmental system composed of all three, held in tension with competing checks and balances. When the court legislates from the bench, which is what this is all about; they subvert the process we have in place, whether legislative or constitutional and usurp the authority of the legislature, and the people. This is a tyranny of the minority. On some the scale is small on others the scale is large, but it is tyranny none the less.