Text 20359, 97 rader
Skriven 2006-05-23 05:45:56 av Bob Ackley (1:2905/3)
  Kommentar till text 20296 av John Hull (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: War Monkey
==================
Replying to a message of John Hull to Bob Ackley:

 VH>>> It is bizzare to suggest that the Founders, who declared two-thirds
 VH>>> of BOTH houses AND three-fourths of the states are required to
 VH>>> amend the Constitution actually meant a mere majority of the Senate
 VH>>> only, could amend it by approving a treaty.

 BA>> It's not bizarre at all, that's the way they wrote it.  The words are
 BA>> not complex and the grammar is pretty simple and easy to read and
 BA>> understand. Perhaps you could convince 2/3 of both houses and 3/4 of
 BA>> the states to change that?

 JH> That isn't what he said, Bob.  Getting 2/3 of both houses, and 3/4 of
 JH> the states to agree on something is damn near impossible.  That's
 JH> exactly what the Founders meant to do when they wrote that, simple
 JH> English or not.  They wanted it hard as hell to change to prevent the
 JH> Senate or the House, or anybody else from making changes on the fly,
 JH> willy nilly.

I know that.  I also know that the operative word in Article 6 is AND. 
Treaties
don't modify the Constitution, when a provision of a treaty violates a
provision of
the Constitution, the Constitution prevails.  That's settled law.

What Article 6 says, quite plainly, is that properly signed and ratified
treaties, along
with the Constitution, are the supreme law of the land.  While a treaty can
override
a federal or state law, it cannot override the Constitution.

 BA>> And while you're on the subject of amending that document, perhaps
 BA>> you could convince the congress, the executive and the courts that
 BA>> none of them has a legitimate power to amend, alter, or abolish the
 BA>> Constitution?  The horribly misnamed and blatantly
 BA>> anti-Constitutional USA PATRIOT Act comes immediately to mind, along
 BA>> with some provisions of the FISA legislation and the current
 BA>> brouhaha over NSA's domestic spying (which data mining - the claim
 BA>> they aren't doing it is patent bullshit - one can easily defeat by
 BA>> buying a disposable cell phone, disposing of it as soon as the
 BA>> minutes are up, and buying another one - and note that there's no
 BA>> record of who owns any of those).  Note that the 1947 law that
 BA>> established NSA specifically forbids it from listening to
 BA>> communications within the US.  Also retroactive taxes and pay
 BA>> increases (which are by definition ex-post-facto laws, and the
 BA>> Constitution - at least my copy of it - doesn't differentiate
 BA>> between civil and criminal law in that regard). And the so-called
 BA>> death tax, which is a direct tax and is therefore unConstitutional,
 BA>> because the government has the power to directly tax only incomes,
 BA>> and estates are not incomes.

 JH> You really need to catch up.  NSA and the President have specifically
 JH> said that only calls that originate outside the US are being
 JH> monitored.

IMO they are lying.

 JH>  Nor is data mining illegal.  Advertisers have been doing
 JH> it for years.

Data mining by the government IS illegal.  Fourth Amendment.
Which is why the government hires civilian companies (Choice Point to name
one specific company) to do their data mining for them.

 JH>  In fact, recent news report (and subsequent law
 JH> suites) indicate that NSA didn't even get the information directly
 JH> from the phone companies. In any case, all that information is public
 JH> record legally.

 JH> As for the Patriot Act, you can squawk about it all you want, but its
 JH> reality.  I might also note that when Congress voted to make it
 JH> permanent awhile ago, several parts of it were either rescinded or
 JH> modified to address the concerns of those who felt it was too
 JH> intrusive. I ask you, however, which is worse?  Sticking to your
 JH> idealistic guns and allowing terrorists more freedom (meaning you
 JH> might ultimately die in a nuke attack because they were able to carry
 JH> out their attack more easily) to plan and prosecute attacks, or
 JH> providing the tools necessary to track and capture them even if we
 JH> may have to put up with some inconvenience or loss of a bit of
 JH> personal freedom.

Those who would trade liberty for security will have neither liberty nor
security.
Where have I heard that?

You can cower under your bedsheets and p*ss your pants in fear of the chimera
of worldwide terrorism.  I refuse to do that, I'd rather die on my feet than
live
on my knees.

 JH> I'd say saving millions of lives will, in the long run, trump any
 JH> objections from the idealists.

As I said, I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+
 * Origin: Bob's Boneyard, Emerson, Iowa (1:2905/3)