Text 14299, 68 rader
Skriven 2007-05-09 15:54:06 av Josh Hill (669.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: unions
==================
On Tue, 08 May 2007 19:00:20 -0700, Anson Macdonald
<anson_macdonald@comcast.net> wrote:

>Josh Hill wrote:
>
>>=20
>> For many years now, the Democrats have been the party that has offered
>> the most support to the preservation of civil liberties.=20
>
>I disagree.  Many democrats supported McCain/Feingold, a serious assault=
=20
>upon the First Amendment; they have been doing everything they can to=20
>violate the Second Amendment; and Clinton asked the DOJ to find a way=20
>around the Fourth Amendment when it was explained to him that it barred=20
>warrantless searches for guns in public housing (they failed, as I=20
>recall).  And then, of course, there is the great blind spot as far as=20
>the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are concerned: were those amendments to=20
>be actually enforced as the laws of they land they are, the majority of=20
>federal regulations would have to be ruled unconstitutional.  Of course,=
=20
>that would make the federal government a great deal smaller and less=20
>intrusive, and we certainly can't have *that*!

I don't consider reasonable limitations on campaign financing a
violation of the First Amendment. Similarly, I haven't seen any
evidence that Federal Democrats are trying to violate the Second
Amendment: background checks, licensing requirements, and waiting
periods don't interfere with the right of citizens to bear arms any
more than licensing requirements interfere with the right of citizens
to drive. If it happened as you say it did, I don't condone Clinton's
attempt to get around the Fourth Amendment, but the DOJ apparently
stuck to the law and Clinton didn't attempt to do an end run around
them, as Bush and Gonzalez did with the ban on torture. I'm not sure
why you mention the Ninth Amendment, which has been a favorite tool of
liberals -- see forex Roe v. Wade. The Tenth Amendment is regularly
violated by both parties when it serves their purpose, e.g., the Terri
Schiavo affair and the Bush Administration's decision to prosecute
people for medical marijuana even when medical marijuana is legal in a
state and the marijuana never crosses state lines. Which is to say
that, as far as I can tell, the Republican assertion that they're the
party of states' rights is a crock: they favor states' rights only
when it suits their political purpose.

By way of contrast, Conservatives have sought to ban everything from
sodomy to a woman's right to control her own body to adult material on
the Internet. They've opposed the Miranda decision and just about
every Supreme Court ruling that backed the rights of the accused.
They've sanctioned torture in violation of both the law and our most
deeply held principles and traditions, they've tried to abrogate every
right of due process for those caught in antiterrorism sweeps, they've
spied illegally on international phone calls, they've written and
passed Draconian security laws that go far beyond anything having to
do with terror, they've barred anti-war activists from flying on
commercial airlines,  they've herded protesters into Orwellian "free
speech zones" and arrested people for wearing political T-shirts to
the US Congress in full view of the entire world. There's just no
comparison.

--=20
Josh

"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths,
and how many, what day it=92s going to happen, and=20
how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean,
it=92s, it=92s not relevant. So, why should I waste my=20
beautiful mind on something like that?" - Barbara Bush
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