Do the states have to do all this stuff?
You know, that Bill of Rights stuff? We’ll stay with the first eight amendments to make things simpler.
There’s been a really big debate on whether the U. S. Constitution requires the states to obey the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court used to say no, then mostly no, now mostly yes.
Around a year ago, I thought I could write up some material about the states and the Bill of Rights and the history of this whole controversy.
The problem is lots of other people have written about this too, so I would have to find a distinctive way of doing it.
I decided that a series of vignettes, real-life human-interest stories, each story dealing with some facet of the subject, might make the whole topic of “the Bill of Rights and the States” come alive.
So I did some research and gathered some material for the various vignettes.
All that research was sitting around for some time doing nothing when Glibertarians said they were accepting contributions.
So I says to myself, I says, “finally, somewhere to unload all this stuff!”
No, actually what I said was, “the educated and sophisticated people at Glibertarians would make an ideal audience for all this material!”
So until someone pulls the plug on this or I get tired, I think I’ll share some of the material in my Bill of Rights research files.
Now allow me to pad out this post with some pictures.
Here’s a statue of James Madison:
Here is a bald eagle:
Dear god, The Fusionist was Stephen Colbert this whole time. How did we miss this?
We only found out when we started receiving his pieces to edit & post.
They’re coming from his official Late Show email account. No attempt to even hide it.
His picture makes him look more like Ming the Merciless.
the educated and sophisticated people at Glibertarians
/looks around, shakes head sadly
Needs moar genitals.
What? Madison’s seductive come hither pose and conspicuous camel toe isn’t enough for you, fiend?
He seems to have a look like “There’s a curved wall of marble behind me, isn’t there?”
That’s no excuse to be manspreading.
Just how many genitals do you need?
Did not specify.
Question: Are the Knights of Malta still awesome even with the pope’s recent interference?
What is your take on that? Should the papacy be allowed to interfere with a sub-sovereign religious order?
Personally, I’ve always preferred the Knights of Ni, but ever since they changed their name they just aren’t as good.
#1 flesh wound
Chopping down a tree with a… herrwing seems to take the starch out of a religious order.
You must bring me … a shrubbery!
Do you require a nice little white picket fence as well?
Of course the Pope can “interfere” with a Catholic order, that doesn’t mean I have to accept the specific actions of this Pope and the Knights of Malta.
From what I hear, His Holiness may not have exercised his powers wisely.
But it’s up to him.
He chose poorly?
But the removal of a religious order’s leader is fairly unprecedented in modern times. I am not trying to challenge the pope’s authority or dispute his decision, but this was a rather unique action for a questionable purpose.
He needs to watch out, I’m pretty sure that the Knights of Malta have more divisions than the Pope.
Well… how many divisions DOES the pope have?
You’re worse than .. Stalin ….
I’m not sure what just happened here. Also, there were no footnotes, so i suspect someone has kidnapped Eddie and replaced them with an identical twin.
No, actually what I said was, “the educated and sophisticated people at Glibertarians would make an ideal audience for all this material!”
-1 TH
Or is it +1?
See? I can’t even figure that one out… 🙁
So what I’ve gotten out of this article, is that this Bill of Rights, along with the Constitution as a whole, really IS like a hundred years old and no one can read it now. And that the Bald Eagle has a racist name because it’s obviously not bald and it’s head is white. So obviously, a white bird who’s bald. Since if it was a black man who’s bald, it’s head would be black. So probably named by those same racists who wrote the racist Constitution and who think that every person who is bald has a white head.
You forgot to mention racism. That’s the most important part.
“There’s been a really big debate on whether the U. S. Constitution requires the states to obey the Bill of Rights. ”
This is not a difficult problem. The only way one can justify saying no is by denying the very notion of inalienable rights. I will bang something out on that shortly.
Technically, isn’t the constitution (and by extension the BoR), a governing document for the Feds alone? Isn’t each state supposed to have it’s own constitution?
Now you could argue that after the Civil War and the switch from “these United States” to “The United States” that the BoR does in fact apply to all of the states at that time, plus any state that happened to join later, and I would agree. But I think it’s pretty clear in it’s writing that as originally intended, the states weren’t obligated to obey it.
As originally written I would agree. Then along came the 14th amendment and it’s privileges and immunities clause that changed that or, well, was supposed to change that.
That has always puzzled me, why the founders took that position. The principle of inalienable rights disagrees. That principle is the foundation of the bill of rights.
I believe it’s because the founders were only concerned with building the Federal Government. Also, the states all had to consent to new constitution, so they couldn’t be very intrusive into state level politics and have it ratified.
Technically, isn’t the constitution (and by extension the BoR), a governing document for the Feds alone?
Nope. It’s the Supreme Law of the Land.
If the states aren’t required to follow it, of what use is it?
That’s a good question for the framers. They pretty explicitly didn’t believe that it applied to the states when the Constitution was passed. I believe the justification was one you still hear in libertarian circles: local control is always best, and you can always move states if you don’t like yours.
Exactly. Rights are inalienable. You cant take off your federal badge, slap on a state one and all of a sudden violating rights is just spiffy.
I think the rational and carefully considered argument is “Fuck off Slaver” said while holding two pistols Yosemite Sam-style.
I really need to get some Yosemite Sam mudflaps for my truck that say fuck off slaver. That would look really good.
I’ve never been one for vanity tags, but FO SLVR would be worth it.
Awesome…except for the irony of having that plate issued to you by and with the permission of the DMV.
That’s why there was an amendment (14) to incorporate the whole of the Federal protections in the bill of rights against the States. Predictably, the courts chose to read it differently and incorporation is still argued about. See e.g., D.C. v. Heller.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Seems pretty straightforward to me. I am ot however a Supreme court justice, so I don’t understand the nuance of plainly written words.
Ohhh, look at Mr. Plain Language over here, citing the actual text of the 14th amendment. /s
“nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”
That part’s been
amendedchanged to ‘or if we think you might have some drugs or maybe did have some drugs, or just FTYW’.‘FYTW’
The phrase “Compelling government interest” comes to mind. That’s the phrase they use to describe a process to invalidate constitutionally protected rights whenever they feel like it. Or, like you said, FYTW.
Just like
Blockquote should end after jurisdiction above.
Now this is how you do web site design.
Nuclear weapons are a hoax. Nuclear power is likely another hoax. Explore history, politics, scams, war plans, ‘Jews’, nuclear weapon & nuclear power revisionism. Read & weep.
HAHAHAHA WTF?
That’s pretty awesome.
I couldn’t see where I was meant to sign up for his newsletter
Jesus christ it looks like geocities threw up in my browser.
owwwwww
Who did that? Dr. Bonner?
Beat me to it! It’s “Bronner” /pedant
I was suprised he’s still around and is web site lives
updown to my expectations.If this were put at the top of the Bill of Rights would it be clearer for everyone?
FUCK YOUR BULLSHIT TAGS, USE REAL TAGS FFS
If this were put at the top of the Bill of Rights would it be clearer for everyone?