Slashdot Mirror

The Constitution allowed slavery

Nope, there until the Thirteenth Amendment.

and no vote for women

Nope, the Constitution was silent on the matter until the Nineteenth Amendment.

We have to make the laws that are reasonable to our time.

Sure. The point was, for any such laws to be valid, the Second Amendment has to be abolished (or altered) first. Hardly unheard of — the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the sale of alcohol, was repealed by the Twenty-first, for example.

Make arguments, please, that are really arguments, rather than hiding behind a document

I am making a legal argument, and I'm referencing (not "hiding behind" — whatever that means) a legal document — the Constitution.

Does it make sense now for individuals to buy and sell full-auto weapons? "Assault rifles"? Flamethrowers? Surface-to-air missles? What are the real distinctions?

As long as the Second Amendment is in effect, there are no distinctions. If you feel there should be, you need to discard (or reword) the Amendment — until then, any and all weapons are, indeed, legal under the Constitution.

This is why, even with unbridled capitalism, workers are generally paid enough to keep them alive.

Just enough.

http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of...

Japan ~ 'Early in the occupation MacArthur saw the need to drastically change the Meiji Constitution. In his autobiography, MacArthur argued:

"We could not simply encourage the growth of democracy. We had to make sure that it grew. Under the old constitution, government flowed downward from the emperor, who held the supreme authority, to those to whom he had delegated power. It was a dictatorship to begin with, a hereditary one, and the people existed to serve it." http://www.crf-usa.org/election-central/bringing-democracy-to-japan.html

As for Germany ~ 'but most people date the end of the Weimar Republic to 1933, when Adolf Hitler took control and the constitution became effectively meaningless under his Third Reich.' http://www.wisegeek.com/what-was-the-weimar-republic.htm

And I did forget to mention Canada, the fought England for the independence when exactly? Australia?

Just read this excellent article on that: http://www.crf-usa.org/america-responds-to-terrorism/the-alien-and-sedition-acts.html

The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?

I love rabid right wingers who have no concept of why the founders thought that it so damn important we have certain liberties, than telling anyone who disagrees with their calls for a flag-waving autocratic theocracy, " If you had lived at time X_____, me or someone like me would of killed you and that would of been justice. "

A) For someone who cherry picks quotes from Tocqueville, I can tell you have never read him, have you even read a synopsis of Democracy in America? One of his great warnings to the US was over denying minorities the right to freedom of speech, in fact if you pickup the cliff notes. He may of gone on to restrict the press in France but only insofar as to prevent armed revolution/insurrection. The US has sedition laws and inciting a riot laws for this purpose now.

B) Learn to critically think and debate you intellectual midget.

"You have no inherent right to abuse someone else so stop with your logical fallacies. Your asshole is showing." -- You are an outrageous and deluded hypocrite and I hope cancer consumes your soul.

Isn't it the Japanese Constitution that restricts what their military is allowed to do?

Will you hear or see that happening ? With jay walkers not being able to face their accusers in court, because their right to habeas corpus is suspended ?

Like we haven't heard about Jose Padilla?

Of course, we all know that once it gets suspended (not that it has), we'll never EVER get it back. Good thing it has NEVER happened before!

Social Security numbers were introduced by the Social Security Act of 1935. They were originally intended to be used only by the social security program. In 1943 Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9397 which required federal agencies to use the number when creating new record-keeping systems. In 1961 the IRS began to use it as a taxpayer ID number.

Here I was, thinking that we simply lived in a modern, bureaucratic state with social welfare benefits, and it turns out that it is all a secret plan established and repeatedly expanded by Democrats to number, track, and control us all! Insidious! Ingenious! And they just took control of Congress with promises to further expand social welfare programs! I thought that they were just beneficail social welfare programs, but your case that they are the road to totalitarianism is worth study.

Yes, we do need to be protected from Al Qaida and other terrorists, but not at the expense of the constitution.

Yes, that is a worry. President Roosevelt did directly threaten to pack the Supreme Court by expanding the number of justices to get them to stop rulling all of the social programs he was pushing as unconstitutional. That should have been a key tip off, don't you think? Clearly, President Bush is in the junior leagues when it comes to influencing the Supreme Court even if you assume the more lurid fantasies about his designs on the court are true.

Things are not bad yet, but they could go bad. Pieces are being moved into place that would give a dictator all of the tools that he would need to exercise incredible power. We are already seeing the media bullied, silenced, and propagandized. I guess the next sign of things getting worse would probably be disappearances and prominent people flee^H^H^H^Hleaving the country.

It is hard to get good information from the media about the war against the Islamist extremist terrorists, especially when the media uses imposters as "news sources".

Where do you think people will go? Eurabia? It looks like France is in worse trouble than the United States:

Since appeasement alone is not a strategy. French authorities are keeping a force of some 50,000 riot police in permanent stand-by. A ministry spokesman said it is important to find "the good balance: not overreact to the situation, but at the same time, not underestimate it either."

A local prefect (a provincial governor) added: "In case of trouble, we will have to

The Bush regime is currently trying to suffocate any movements that are active against it's highly inhuman and dirty practices to keep holding power in America yet are trying to fool the world about their support for democracy and free speech.

Really? An American president is trying to eliminate discourse? That's totally a new concept. Surely the Bush Administration is biggest threat to the constitution in American history.

Well at least we can get rid of this problem by voting Democrat, right? After all, they call themselves The Party Of Free Speech. They wouldn't lie, would they?

Traditionally, parents bequeath their homes, money, etc.. to their children, and this was a big part of the economy.

Traditionally, as in before the estate tax. The estate tax kicks in at $1,000,000 which isn't as much money as it used to be. If the family business isn't transferred in name before the parent dies it's likely that business will be taxed to pieces.

A little googling found me this text:
Under President George W. Bush's 2001 tax cut law, the federal estate tax will gradually decrease until it ends completely in 2010. But this will not be permanent. In 2011, the estate tax will return at its 2001 rates.

Ignore the name on the law so you can properly think about it. I like the idea since it's been over 100 years since the tax has been reviewed for its effectiveness. If that plan goes through we're going to have a chance to see if more big money actually does land in the children's hands, and we'll see what exactly happens.

1. 
   > We have fought this war with the army not the interpol or the CIA

1. > In Iraq, afghanistan, phillipines, and south america we have mobilized our army

1. > The estimates for the first gulf war were anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 killed

On the night of March 9-10, 1945, LeMay's B-29 bombers attacked Tokyo, a city of 6 million people. Nearly 600 bombers dropped 1,665 tons of fire bombs on the Japanese capital, destroying 16 square miles of the city. The resulting firestorm killed 100,000 people, more than died at Hiroshima or Nagasaki from atomic bombs a few months later.

1. > I think a true measure is the actual number of human beings killed and maimed.

1. > That's an awful lot of people killed just by our country

1. > [snip the rest]

Congo is a former Belgian colony, not French.

A whole bunch of other good, related links can be found here.

It is interesting, given that the founders of our country picked no bones about having no such separation. In fact, the Declaration of Independence talks about the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" and of the need for its direct influence on manmade government.

Our currency carries our motto, "In God we Trust!"

Our pledge states that we are a nation indivisible "under God"

Is it moral and upright to take a growing child and pervert them in a way that doesn't allow them to live a normal life or not? And God's law says it isn't.

And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that
cometh out of man, in their sight...Then he [the Lord] said unto me, Lo, I
have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread
therewith. -Ezek. 4:12-15

Here is a discussion of different definitions of terrorism. Whatever definition you accept, it is a highly charged and ambiguous word. This page goes deeper into the subject and contains a fascinating interview snippet with a State Department official. While seeming to have a clear definition of terrorism, the official evades questions and ultimately states, "I do not think it will be productive to get into a description of the various terms and conditions under which we are going to define an act by the PLO as terrorism."

In other words, the US reserves the right to define terrorism as it goes. I can't blame Reuters for steering clear of this word.