Is the Constitution strong enough to survive the current Supreme Court?

[HikerGuy83]

Understanding requires reading the sources and contemplating the content. The information is provided.

Understanding means nothing in the absence of a standard.

What qualifies as hyperbole and what does not has to be common to an argument or else it becomes the argument.

That information isn't provided.

It's your opinion and you should own it as such.

Saying otherwise, once again, qualifies it as being similar to your previous argument where you claim you are the de-facto standard.

 

[HikerGuy83]

Not being alone in error is not an argument, as your mother probably pointed out to you as a child. "If everyone else is jumping off a cliff, does that mean you should too?" Most of your posts so far have consisted of "I disagree" and "I don't understand, I'm not going to do my own thinking." That's not exactly a basis for discussion of any depth.

You can drop the childish insults.

And my posts (as I introduced myself) are pointed towards fleshing out an argument for what it really is.

There is nothing wrong with me pointing out the shortcoming of your posts.

Deal with it.

 

[HikerGuy83]

There is a fundamental difference, though, in protecting the rights of the minority against the incursion of a majority (something embedded in the structure of the Constitution) and pushing the interests of the minority onto the majority, as this Court is doing. I can see a counter-argument, but it is a weak one. Let's take as a for-instance: same-sex marriage.

The Supreme Court has long held that choices in familial relations/choices (marriage, child-rearing, sex) are fundamental interests requiring the utmost protection. This is supported by a long list of cases: Pierce v. Soc'y of Sisters, 1925 (educating children); Skinner v. Oklahoma,1942 (right to procreate); Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965 (right to contraception); Loving v. Virginia, 1967 (right to marry). Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) is a natural outgrowth of that line of cases.

In contrast, homophobia is a minority view. Should the views of that minority be enforced against views of the majority (and against a social minority)? Should discrimination against that minority be judicially enforced? The current Supreme Court majority, in a number of recent cases, has taken the view that individual (religious) preferences (including of corporations - an artificial legal entity) take precedence over fundamental civil rights. It's not a "balancing act" - it is enforcing the views of the religious minority against the secular majority (another constitutional principle) - in business, social welfare, education, and employment. That's the kind of hostility I am highlighting. (Religious preferences have also resulted in serious undermining of other equality determinations, such as in executions.)

While I am familiar with a few of those cases, I've never heard them pulled together and called a "support for your claim. Not saying it isn't so. Your wording is interesting and worth reviewing.

Is there language (in one of those cases), with which you are familiar, that is parallel to your claim ? Just wondering. If not, it is a exterior conclusion and not an aim specifically spelled out by the court itself.

 

[HikerGuy83]

And yet, that's exactly what this court is doing. You're not paying attention, or too bound up with ideological purity to care. The Supreme Court Is Putting Democracy at Risk (NYT, Opinion, Subscription). "In two disturbing rulings closing out the Supreme Court’s term, the court’s six-justice conservative majority, over the loud protests of its three-liberal minority, has shown itself hostile to American democracy." That's not hyperbole.

In numerous recent decisions, most specifically Shelby County, and yesterday's Brnovich, they gutted the voting rights act. Neither of those decisions are dictated by, or frankly consistent with, the Constitution, and represent unprecedented judicial activism, comparable to the infamous Dred Scott decision. Again, not hyperbole. They are creating judicial law out of whole cloth.

How Shelby County vs. Holder not consistent with the Constitution ?

This is what the court said.....

The Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) as unconstitutional in a June 25, 2013, ruling.[2][29] The majority opinion was delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito.[30][31][32] The Court held that Section 4(b) exceeded Congress's power to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, reasoning that the coverage formula conflicts with the constitutional principles of federalism and "equal sovereignty of the states" because the disparate treatment of the states is "based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day" and thus is not responsive to current needs.

The fact that they allowed for the original purpose of the law is a bit disturbing to me.

They should have said....the federal government does not have this purview under the constitution and they can get the hell out of a states business.

Whole cloth ? Pure garbage.

 

[HikerGuy83]

There is a fundamental difference, though, in protecting the rights of the minority against the incursion of a majority (something embedded in the structure of the Constitution) and pushing the interests of the minority onto the majority, as this Court is doing. I can see a counter-argument, but it is a weak one. Let's take as a for-instance: same-sex marriage.

The Supreme Court has long held that choices in familial relations/choices (marriage, child-rearing, sex) are fundamental interests requiring the utmost protection. This is supported by a long list of cases: Pierce v. Soc'y of Sisters, 1925 (educating children); Skinner v. Oklahoma,1942 (right to procreate); Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965 (right to contraception); Loving v. Virginia, 1967 (right to marry). Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) is a natural outgrowth of that line of cases.

In contrast, homophobia is a minority view. Should the views of that minority be enforced against views of the majority (and against a social minority)? Should discrimination against that minority be judicially enforced? The current Supreme Court majority, in a number of recent cases, has taken the view that individual (religious) preferences (including of corporations - an artificial legal entity) take precedence over fundamental civil rights. It's not a "balancing act" - it is enforcing the views of the religious minority against the secular majority (another constitutional principle) - in business, social welfare, education, and employment. That's the kind of hostility I am highlighting. (Religious preferences have also resulted in serious undermining of other equality determinations, such as in executions.)

Before you start insulting again:

I thought I would say thank you for sharing this.

I am very busy but would like to do some more homework and ask questions related to your POV.

Actually having something to chew on (and being allowed to reach my own conclusions) is what I enjoy.

Again, much appreciated.

 

[NWRatCon]

Let's see....you are claiming a positive.

I am not.

Taking your argument further, if you say the sun rises in the west...we have to accept that in the absence of anything else.

Sorry.

Doesn't work.

Bzzt. Fail.

 

[HikerGuy83]

Bzzt. Fail.

Because you said so.

Got it.

 

[NWRatCon]

How Shelby County vs. Holder not consistent with the Constitution ?

This is what the court said.....

The Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) as unconstitutional in a June 25, 2013, ruling.[2][29] The majority opinion was delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito.[30][31][32] The Court held that Section 4(b) exceeded Congress's power to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, reasoning that the coverage formula conflicts with the constitutional principles of federalism and "equal sovereignty of the states" because the disparate treatment of the states is "based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day" and thus is not responsive to current needs.

The fact that they allowed for the original purpose of the law is a bit disturbing to me.

They should have said....the federal government does not have this purview under the constitution and they can get the hell out of a states business.

Whole cloth ? Pure garbage.

I agree, the Court's rationale is pure garbage.

And, frankly, so is your excusal of it. Here is the reality: the 14th Amendment fundamentally changed the federal-State dynamic (you may remember we fought a war over the issue). Pretending otherwise is disingenuous at best. As a result of the 14th Amendment, for the first time, fundamental principles of the Bill of Rights were applicable against State actions. Both the 14th and 5th Amendments protect citizens from unequal enforcement of the laws (the 5th from long precedent under the "due process" clause), but the 14th Amendment not only explicitly made it applicable to the States, but used the phrase equal protection: 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'.

It is not, and never should be, a question of federalism. That's a false construction, period. It doesn't make it any less so just because the Court majority pretended otherwise. The decision is fundamentally dishonest, and inconsistent with the plain language of the Constitution.

 

[NWRatCon]

Before you start insulting again:

I thought I would say thank you for sharing this.

I am very busy but would like to do some more homework and ask questions related to your POV.

Actually having something to chew on (and being allowed to reach my own conclusions) is what I enjoy.

Again, much appreciated.

If you're serious about discussion, I will participate. I apologize for thinking that you were being flip. I'm used to that being the expectation, and you will observe from the course of this thread why that is the expectation. I realize that you are new to the board, and should have taken that into consideration. (Sorry about that in the last post, too.) I find the latest rulings of the Court to be pretty dismissive of precedent and serious scholarship - I've been a court watcher for decades, and this is the least talented group in some time.

I'm also pretty busy, but I have set aside time in the day to get discussions going. I put a lot of work and research into most OPs. I'm perfectly willing to fill out the arguments, as issues arise. I'll take your questions more seriously.

 

[newpublius]

The left wants to be apoplectic over Shelby County and its their opinion that it 'guts the VRA' and this is wrong. There is no question Congress can subject ALL state laws to preclearance. Secondly preclearance doesn't ultimately change the substantive result, it merely changes the procedure. All state laws impacting voting still absolutely remain subject to challenge.

Now of course another decision regarding the AZ law comes along which he disagrees with. Well, let's assume he's 100% right on that one. Still, preclearance and Shelby have nothing to do with that. If Shelby went the other way, AZ passes the law, it becomes subject to 'preclearance' -- assuming it 'fails' preclearance, AZ then challenges that determination and wins anyway. So ultimately all of this fuss over preclearance is just that.

Treat all states the same and preclearance passes constitutional muster.

 

[Mircea]

Why would stagnation in law be a good idea?

It's typical of foreigners who have no understanding of the Constitution to be totally confused.

Of course the Constitution is a "living document", and always has been. That was, in fact, the framers point in its creation.

The men who wrote the Constitution would vehemently disagree, but then you've never read their meeting minutes, notes, journals, diaries and letters.

The Constitution is "living" only in the sense that it can be amended, but as those men wrote in their meeting minutes, notes, journals, diaries and letters that you didn't read, they didn't want it amended on the basis of whimsical fantasies by populist movements, which is why amending it is not an easy task, nor should it be.

I've started a separate thread on this article, but it is airport's to reference it here:

The Supreme Court’s Latest Voting Rights Opinion Is Even Worse Than It Seems (Slate)​

There is nothing in Alito's opinion that is consistent with the Constitution, with the Act's text, with original intent, or with reality.

As soon as I saw "Slate" I knew I'd be wading through a morass of Left-Wing talking points. I was not disappointed....

"....decision for a six-justice conservative court majority reopens the door to a United States in which states can put up roadblocks to minority voting and engage in voter suppression with few legal consequences once a state has raised tenuous and unsupported concerns about the risk of voter fraud."

No one at Slate is educated, trained or experienced in fraud investigations or legal matters.

Not to worry, I am.

The statute of limitations for any fraud does not begin to run until the fraud is discovered.

Who on this forum would like to know why?

Because fraud schemes by their very nature are incredibly difficult to uncover.

No one at Slate has watched an army of freaking forensic accountants pour over financial records for 4 friggin' years examining literally 10s of 1,000s of financial transactions before finally figuring out how that particular financial fraud was concocted and pulled off.

I mention that, because in that particular fraud scheme it was concocted by one person who enlisted the aid of another who had full knowledge, and they both enlisted the help of a third person who was an unwitting participant in the fraud scheme and had no knowledge of the fraud scheme before, during or after (until they were informed by law enforcement agents.)

That debunks a Liberal myth commonly repeated that it takes dozens or 100s of people to carry out a fraud scheme.

The other reason I mention it is because federal and/or State laws require certain business records to be maintained for definite periods of time, generally 7 to 10 years, but sometimes longer depending on the type of records.

That is not true for voting records which are destroyed in the normal course of business shortly after the election.

In other words, if you wanted to investigate the 2016 Election for voting fraud, you couldn't do it because there are no records.

Some States do maintain certain types of records. Ohio is one State that tracks your voting record, but only that you voted in a particular year and not where or how you voted.

Slate's claims also fail for other reasons.

Early voting is not a right. Early voting is also a recent phenomenon.

The lack of early voting was not a road-block for 130+ years, thus to suggest that the absence of, or restrictions on early voting is a "road-block" is absurd.

Demanding that people present a valid State-issued driver's license or ID card that people are supposed to have anyway and must have to in order to get any number of State or federal benefits is not a road-block, it's just common sense.

It is the ballot that is secret, not the identity of the person casting the ballot.

 

[Mircea]

The US is constitution is one of the worst constitutions, it's way too ambiguous and imprecise, it only invites perpetual arguments about how things should be "interpreted" based on political/ideological or other interests of the parties that dispute one thing or another.

There's nothing ambiguous in the Constitution. There is only those one-dimensional people who don't understand what they're reading.

Let's discuss
Voter Suppression...

​

Why? There isn't any.

How Shelby County vs. Holder not consistent with the Constitution ?

This is what the court said.....

The Court held that Section 4(b) exceeded Congress's power to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, reasoning that the coverage formula conflicts with the constitutional principles of federalism and "equal sovereignty of the states" because the disparate treatment of the states is "based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day" and thus is not responsive to current needs.

The fact that they allowed for the original purpose of the law is a bit disturbing to me.

They should have said....the federal government does not have this purview under the constitution and they can get the hell out of a states business.

You need to understand that when setting up a State, you have 3 choices:

1) a unitary-State
2) a confederation
3) a federation

A unitary-State only works when you have a homogeneous population. When you have a heterogeneous population, there is nothing but conflict, strife and war. You need only examine history, up to including the last few months/years to see that.

Consequently, a unitary-State was flat out rejected for those reasons, and the fact that a unitary-State has an all powerful central government.

Instead, they opted for a confederation. Generally, a confederation has a weak central government, but the powers of that government can vary greatly and again, you need only examine the constitutions of various confederations over time to see how widely varied their powers are.

But, the US failed under the Articles of Confederation.

We are falsely taught that we were always one happy united family when the truth was quite different. The simple fact of the matter is the Colonial States hated each other with a passion and that hatred grew under the Articles of Confederation.

Both the Colonial States and the Articles States engaged in protectionism. They levied taxes, tariffs and imposts on goods and commodities from the others and even blockaded the transportation of goods and commodities between the other States which negatively impacted commerce.

Those who don't understand that don't understand the purpose and intent of the Commerce Clause, which was intended solely to bar States from engaging in protectionism and impeding commerce between the States.

There were other issues as well. Because there was no standing army under the Articles, British ships plundered US ships and impressed the crews into the British Navy. The French plundered and captured or sunk US ships and killed those of British descent and sold others into slavery. The Barbary Coast States plundered US ships and sold the crews into slavery. The central government paid France and the Barbary Coast States 100s of $Millions in today's dollars as bribes to keep France and the Barbary Coast States from raiding US ships, but it had no effect.

France controlled all the land from Quebec in Canada down both sides of the Mississippi to the Gulf Coast. France was already contesting frontier areas and it was feared France might push east and gain control of the States. The only way to prevent that would be to beg the British to intervene and the Brits would gladly do that in exchange for control of the States as colonies once again.

That's why the US became a federation and the Constitution was adopted.

 

[HangLow]

There's nothing ambiguous in the Constitution. There is only those one-dimensional people who don't understand what they're reading. Why? There isn't any.
You need to understand that when setting up a State, you have 3 choices:
1) a unitary-State
2) a confederation
3) a federation
A unitary-State only works when you have a homogeneous population. When you have a heterogeneous population, there is nothing but conflict, strife and war. You need only examine history, up to including the last few months/years to see that.

Consequently, a unitary-State was flat out rejected for those reasons, and the fact that a unitary-State has an all powerful central government.

Instead, they opted for a confederation. Generally, a confederation has a weak central government, but the powers of that government can vary greatly and again, you need only examine the constitutions of various confederations over time to see how widely varied their powers are.

But, the US failed under the Articles of Confederation.

We are falsely taught that we were always one happy united family when the truth was quite different. The simple fact of the matter is the Colonial States hated each other with a passion and that hatred grew under the Articles of Confederation.

Both the Colonial States and the Articles States engaged in protectionism. They levied taxes, tariffs and imposts on goods and commodities from the others and even blockaded the transportation of goods and commodities between the other States which negatively impacted commerce.

Those who don't understand that don't understand the purpose and intent of the Commerce Clause, which was intended solely to bar States from engaging in protectionism and impeding commerce between the States.

There were other issues as well. Because there was no standing army under the Articles, British ships plundered US ships and impressed the crews into the British Navy. The French plundered and captured or sunk US ships and killed those of British descent and sold others into slavery. The Barbary Coast States plundered US ships and sold the crews into slavery. The central government paid France and the Barbary Coast States 100s of $Millions in today's dollars as bribes to keep France and the Barbary Coast States from raiding US ships, but it had no effect.

France controlled all the land from Quebec in Canada down both sides of the Mississippi to the Gulf Coast. France was already contesting frontier areas and it was feared France might push east and gain control of the States. The only way to prevent that would be to beg the British to intervene and the Brits would gladly do that in exchange for control of the States as colonies once again.

That's why the US became a federation and the Constitution was adopted.

OUTSTANDING POST...
Yes, there is Voter Suppression... We are in trouble as a Nation...
I believe that some people will be killed during the next election...
While Standing in line to vote... The Crime will go unsolved...
2022 or 2024 may be our last election...
-Peace

 

[NWRatCon]

It's typical of foreigners who have no understanding of the Constitution to be totally confused.


The men who wrote the Constitution would vehemently disagree, but then you've never read their meeting minutes, notes, journals, diaries and letters.

The Constitution is "living" only in the sense that it can be amended, but as those men wrote in their meeting minutes, notes, journals, diaries and letters that you didn't read, they didn't want it amended on the basis of whimsical fantasies by populist movements, which is why amending it is not an easy task, nor should it be.


As soon as I saw "Slate" I knew I'd be wading through a morass of Left-Wing talking points. I was not disappointed....

"....decision for a six-justice conservative court majority reopens the door to a United States in which states can put up roadblocks to minority voting and engage in voter suppression with few legal consequences once a state has raised tenuous and unsupported concerns about the risk of voter fraud."

No one at Slate is educated, trained or experienced in fraud investigations or legal matters.

Not to worry, I am.

The statute of limitations for any fraud does not begin to run until the fraud is discovered.

Who on this forum would like to know why?

Because fraud schemes by their very nature are incredibly difficult to uncover.

No one at Slate has watched an army of freaking forensic accountants pour over financial records for 4 friggin' years examining literally 10s of 1,000s of financial transactions before finally figuring out how that particular financial fraud was concocted and pulled off.

I mention that, because in that particular fraud scheme it was concocted by one person who enlisted the aid of another who had full knowledge, and they both enlisted the help of a third person who was an unwitting participant in the fraud scheme and had no knowledge of the fraud scheme before, during or after (until they were informed by law enforcement agents.)

That debunks a Liberal myth commonly repeated that it takes dozens or 100s of people to carry out a fraud scheme.

The other reason I mention it is because federal and/or State laws require certain business records to be maintained for definite periods of time, generally 7 to 10 years, but sometimes longer depending on the type of records.

That is not true for voting records which are destroyed in the normal course of business shortly after the election.

In other words, if you wanted to investigate the 2016 Election for voting fraud, you couldn't do it because there are no records.

Some States do maintain certain types of records. Ohio is one State that tracks your voting record, but only that you voted in a particular year and not where or how you voted.

Slate's claims also fail for other reasons.

Early voting is not a right. Early voting is also a recent phenomenon.

The lack of early voting was not a road-block for 130+ years, thus to suggest that the absence of, or restrictions on early voting is a "road-block" is absurd.

Demanding that people present a valid State-issued driver's license or ID card that people are supposed to have anyway and must have to in order to get any number of State or federal benefits is not a road-block, it's just common sense.

It is the ballot that is secret, not the identity of the person casting the ballot.

The logical fallacies and misrepresentations in this post swallow any semblance of logic or merit. You have a hard and fast attitude denigrating anything you label "liberal", a rather idiosyncratic definitional process. What you've presented is not, actually, a refutation of anything in the Slate article (as anyone who read it would know), but a restatement of your preexisting predilections and biases. I'd invite you to read more broadly, but I know that to be a forlorn hope.

 

[Mircea]

The logical fallacies and misrepresentations in this post swallow any semblance of logic or merit.

And yet you couldn't provide even one example.

You have a hard and fast attitude denigrating anything you label "liberal", a rather idiosyncratic definitional process. What you've presented is not, actually, a refutation of anything in the Slate article (as anyone who read it would know), but a restatement of your preexisting predilections and biases. I'd invite you to read more broadly, but I know that to be a forlorn hope.

Insisting that someone have a valid State-issued ID is not voter suppression no matter how hard you try to spin it and there's no constitutional right to 24/7 voting.

 

[bomberfox]

Imo, the Roberts Court will likely be remembered as being actively hostile to individual rights. I have hope that this will spur Congress to do what they are running out of time to do. Figure it out D's.

The Roberts court was very hostile to civil rights enforcement forgetting the lessons of reconstruction and the fact we had to force integration and civil rights down the throats of the segregationists.

 

[HikerGuy83]

The Roberts court was very hostile to civil rights enforcement forgetting the lessons of reconstruction and the fact we had to force integration and civil rights down the throats of the segregationists.

Forcing something down someone's throat hardly seems like a meaningful activity.

It would appear that "A man convinced against his will....is of the same opinion still".

 

[NWRatCon]

Forcing something down someone's throat hardly seems like a meaningful activity.

It would appear that "A man convinced against his will....is of the same opinion still".

At least that's an acknowledgement that the motivations in 2021 are no different than they were in 1870, or 178: Denying the humanity and civil rights to a huge swath of the population.

 

[HikerGuy83]

At least that's an acknowledgement that the motivations in 2021 are no different than they were in 1870, or 178: Denying the humanity and civil rights to a huge swath of the population.

Yes, I am afraid that you can't legislate out human nature.

 

[NWRatCon]

And yet you couldn't provide even one example.

If one were to throw a dart at your post, it would be hard not to hit a fallacy. Let's see: "It's typical of foreigners who have no understanding of the Constitution to be totally confused." Ad hominem. "The men who wrote the Constitution would vehemently disagree, but then you've never read their meeting minutes, notes, journals, diaries and letters." A two-fer - an empty "appeal to authority" and ad hominem. "As soon as I saw "Slate" I knew I'd be wading through a morass of Left-Wing talking points." A double ad hominem. "No one at Slate is educated, trained or experienced in fraud investigations or legal matters. Not to worry, I am." Another vacuous "appeal to authority" And then a doozy of a straw man. I could go on, at length, but there are character limitations...

Insisting that someone have a valid State-issued ID is not voter suppression no matter how hard you try to spin it and there's no constitutional right to 24/7 voting.

If that were legitimately the only issue, you'd have an argument, but, sadly, it's not an honest one, intellectually or otherwise. (BTW, it's also a "straw man", but we've belabored your dependence on fallacy argumentation.)

 

[NWRatCon]

Yes, I am afraid that you can't legislate out human nature.

Actually, you can. It's acknowledging that you have that the SC seems to have difficulty with. I have a query, too: do you honestly believe that the Supreme Court's determination was an honest one? Or, was it a fig leaf to cover a blatant partisan pre-determination? What about "no state shall" is equivocal? Does it intellectually matter if only some states are doing it? Personally, I'm of the opinion that they should expand the law to cover all States, but the historical background for section 5 was thoroughly established and hasn't changed significantly in 70 years, as current events demonstrate. And what's the legitimate excuse for gutting section 2, when, again, the language is unequivocal?

 

[mrjurrs]

The Roberts court was very hostile to civil rights enforcement forgetting the lessons of reconstruction and the fact we had to force integration and civil rights down the throats of the segregationists.

And in believing that the world had changed and preclearance was no longer necessary.

 

[smallvoice]

A distinction without a difference. It is the net result that matters and how it is achieved. The republicans did not do it honorably so why is it any surprise that the democrats want to even the score?

Of course it was done honorably, by adhering to the laws and rules of the government. It is only because the Democrats don't like the rules that we are even having this discussion.

 

[prometeus]

Of course it was done honorably, by adhering to the laws and rules of the government.

Bull crap. There are no applicable laws and as for the rules, there is nothing honorable about abusing the rules that are not precise.

It is only because the Democrats don't like the rules that we are even having this discussion.

More partisan crap from you. It is not a matter of which party, it is a matter of integrity and honor, something that you and the GOP clearly lack.

 

[smallvoice]

Bull crap. There are no applicable laws and as for the rules, there is nothing honorable about abusing the rules that are not precise.

More partisan crap from you. It is not a matter of which party, it is a matter of integrity and honor, something that you and the GOP clearly lack.

Your position that the Democraps have honor and integrity destroys your argument.