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If the argument behind that sentiment were valid, then there's be no need for Article I section 8 to contain any clauses other than the first and the last.
The inclusion of the 16 other clauses, clauses that illustrate what was meant by "general welfare" and "common defense", negates that argument.
The Founding Fathers were not idiots. The debate between "originalist" versus "living" interpretations of law predate the Constitution. If there was a consensus among them about how the Constitution should be interpreted, they certainly would have mentioned it in the document.
So it doesn't say either way. And therefore its absence is open to interpretation. :roll:
A rebuke of the idea that people have only the rights enumerated in the Constitution (and its corollary: that government has the power to infringe on non-enumerated rights if their actions relate to an enumerated power of government). I don't know how many times I've heard someone claim that there's no right to privacy, using the reasoning that it isn't explicitly mentioned in the Constitution and therefore doesn't exist.
So you're basing your view of original intent off the handful of people who wrote specifically about any given issue? How do you know they even represent the majority of the ratifiers?
Even in the days of the Founders, the accepted practice of interpretation of law was 1st) look to the actual plain meaning of the words, and then 2nd) if it can't be determined from that, go on to the intent of the creators of the law. Only after exhausting that do you go on to other means of interpretation. That's the standard of interpretation of law still today.
Are you saying that the 9th Amendment refutes the entire idea of originalist interpretation?
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the Founding Fathers expected future generations to follow their original intent.
Uhh I don't know what Supreme Court YOU have been looking at, but original intent is HARDLY the standard of interpretation of law used today...
yes, your argument makes perfect sense.
Scarecrow Akhbar said:I mean, clearly the vast overwhelming majority of the legislators that ratified the Constitution CLEARLY wanted a complete blank check and a totally free hand,
Scarecrow Akhbar said:that's why they voted for a Constitution that in the simplest interpretation (ie, taking the meanings of the actual words in the Constitution itself) says that the powers of government will be extremely limited to only carefully drawn and exceptionally limited areas.
Scarecrow Akhbar said:That's perfectly clear that they wanted a socailsit paradise like Cuba and Cambodia, but were too stupid to say so.
Scarecrow Akhbar said:Give us a break. The people that wrote the Constitution made it perfectly clear what was meant, and it is more than perfectly clear that the people of the United States DID NOT want a totalitarian thieving government that would steal from them.
Scarecrow Akhbar said:So clearly the original intent of the authors of the Constitution was to prevent exactly the circumstances your Messiah is setting us up for right now.
(Nowhere in the Constitution does it say "read these words, o ye future Generations, in the light deemed most Favorable to your current whims" either.)
I'm telling you what the accepted hierarchy of interpretation of law has been for centuries, to speak to your specific point. If you feel you need to throw in a red herring, so be it. :shrug:
It certainly doesn't do it any favors.
Yeah, that's pretty much why they wrote it down on paper. They were assuming their descendants would be smart enough to figure out that since it was still in effect it still meant what it did the day before, and the day it was ratified.
Red herring? That's what you said. You said that the Founding Fathers used an originalist interpretation, and that we use the same legal standard today. If you think our current Supreme Court is originalist, I think the Federalist Society will disagree with you.
These were intelligent men. "Originalist" versus "living" is not a new debate; it predates the Constitution. Why the **** would they assume something like that, when it was such a big legal debate even in THEIR time?
Actually, it rather does, considering that it was put there specifically to reinforce the Framers' ideas of why a Bill of Rights was not only unnecessary under their intent, but undesirable.
If you think that's what I said, you obviously didn't follow what I wrote. :roll: I didn't say anything about "our Supreme Court," so yeah, it's a complete red herring.
You said the "standard interpretation of law" that we use today. If that's not a reference to the Supreme Court, I don't know what is.
I notice that you didn't actually refute it, you just used a lot of emotional hyperbole.
Our government has a system of checks and balances (which are spelled out in the Constitution) which prevents anyone from getting a complete blank check.
And why should we USE the original meaning?
That's what this discussion is about. Try to keep up. :2wave:
And yet they gave Congress the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises. Hmm.
Your moronic partisan hackery still does not answer the question of why we should care about original intent at all.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. You're referring to "the Framers' ideas" as though they were all a monolithic entity. And not only that, but you cite the MINORITY view as representative of them all. Obviously if "the Framers" thought a Bill of Rights was undesirable, it wouldn't exist in the first place. The fact is that some of them wanted a Bill of Rights, some of them didn't, and the ones who wanted it won that battle.
This is the problem with originalist interpretations of the Constitution. It assumes knowledge of what the writers intended, and applies that intent to EVERYONE who ratified the Constitution.
Clearly.
And one has to wonder -- why?
If their ideas are SO good, they should not have any trouble mustering the support necessary to make the change.
Ending slavery was a good idea.
So was giving women the right to vote.
That's far superior than the notion that it means whatever you want it to mean, which is the central tenet of liberalism.This is exactly what I'm talking about. You're referring to "the Framers' ideas" as though they were all a monolithic entity. And not only that, but you cite the MINORITY view as representative of them all. Obviously if "the Framers" thought a Bill of Rights was undesirable, it wouldn't exist in the first place. The fact is that some of them wanted a Bill of Rights, some of them didn't, and the ones who wanted it won that battle.
This is the problem with originalist interpretations of the Constitution. It assumes knowledge of what the writers intended, and applies that intent to EVERYONE who ratified the Constitution.
The first that a good idea is necessarily popular with people in Congress
On January 9, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson announced his support of the amendment. The next day, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the amendment, but the Senate refused to debate it until October. When the Senate voted on the Amendment in October, it failed by three votes.[1]
In response, the National Woman's Party urged citizens to vote against anti-suffrage Senators up for reelection in the 1918 midterm elections. Following those elections, most members of Congress were pro-suffrage. On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment by a vote of 304 to 89 and the Senate followed suit on June 4, by a vote of 56 to 25.[2]
On August 18, 1920, the Tennessee General Assembly, by a one-vote margin became the thirty-sixth state legislature to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment, making it a part of the U.S. Constitution. On August 26, 1920, Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the amendment's adoption
The Constitution is what it is, get over yourself. It does not mean what you wished it would mean either.Wow your complete inability to grasp the entire point of that post is almost retarded. Did you read the first sentence? But since you did bring them up :
What did I say? :
Your source :
This all supports my statement that a 'good idea' is not necessarily one that is popularly supported. Specially when it's getting passed mostly on 1-3 vote margins.
As far as slavery goes, we had to have a civil war before the 13th amendment was thought of and passed. If that doesn't say that it would have never been added to the constitution because it would have become immediately unpopular with the citizens of some parts of the U.S. I don't know what should. Do you think a 13th amendment would have been possible without a civil war?
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