John wrote:
> At 12:10 PM 6/14/01 -0500 Adam C. Lipscomb wrote:
> >Not just "the courts" but the Supreme Court, the group that makes the
final
> >pronouncements on whether laws are Constitutional or not. If you're
basing
> >your argument upon the Constitution (which is what the title of this post
> >indicates), you've *got* to take into account the opinions of the Supreme
> >Court. Anything else is just willful ignorance.
>
> True, of course, this is the same Supreme Court that:
Well, not the same one. Not in a literal sense - different times, different
compositions of the court, but I understand your meaning. Just nitpicking.
> a) came up with "separate but equal"
And decided Brown vs. Topeka Borad of Education
> b) willfullly ignores the first words of the 1st Amendment "Congress shall
> pass no Law"
Care to clarify this one?
> c) discovered 150+ years later a "right to privacy" in the "penumbra" of
> the Constitution
I'm unfamiliar with the specific case law, but the court also approved drug
testing, so the respect for privacy isn't consistent.
> d) wrote the decision for Bush vs. Gore
I'm pretty sure they were on crack that day, buy I could be wrong.
> In other words, the Supreme Court seems well-known for fudging thing quite
> a bit, especially on very controversial issues.
Yes, but overall, things tend to even out. I could list all the decisions
recognized today as positively impacting our society, and there would still
be hundreds, if not thousands, of cases that are unknown to anyone save
scholars of Constitutional law. Considering that Dan's examples are from a
rather wide ranging set of points in time, we can safely assume that they
represent some kind of norm in the court's interpretations. That doesn't
mean that this court, or next year's, or the one after that, couldn't
interpret the 2nd Amendment in a drastically different way, but it's
unlikely.
Adam C. Lipscomb
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
ICQ# 32384792
