You are laboring under the delusion that if SCOTUS issues some decision it is questionable and wrong!
No, I'm questioning specific decisions made the court, not making broad assertions regarding every SCOTUS decision. You're the one who is making an argument that whatever SCOTUS says is settled law and cannot be questioned, thereby lumping together every decision handed down by the court regardless of whether or not the decision is correct.
As a statist, you appear to be OK with a state legislating your rights into submission.
I'm glad to see you were able to last to the fourth sentence of your response before unleashing an ad hominem attack by calling me a "statist." Great argument. I am certainly not ok with a state legislating my rights into submission. In case you forgot how our federal system works, there is a little thing called a "state constitution." They're really nifty. And in these "state constitutions" have sections remarkably similar to the Bill of Rights which protect the rights of the citizens from the state government. You see, unlike you apparently, I disdain all forms of tyranny whether they be at the state or federal level. You seem to be perfectly ok with the tyranny of the federal government, especially when that tyranny manifests itself under the guise of the federal judiciary.
And frankly, not approached in recent decisions.
Here we go. I supply you with relevant facts on how the Supreme Court has eroded gun rights and your response is "well, they haven't done anything lately." All of those decisions I listed have never been overturned and are apparently, as you would have it, settled law.
YES. Under our system of government, that IS reality. Do you understand that, or do you have some other statist view that disagrees with reality?
No, under our system of government that is not reality. And again with the statist attack. Are really that unaware that you are arguing for a federal government with complete power to alter itself, rewrite the Constitution, and do anything is pleases through the Supreme Court? That is, an unlimited government with complete and total power. You do realize that actually is statism, right?
What's worse is that you think SCOTUS really can do that. So the Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution to outline the new government with the specific intent of limiting the size and power of the federal government, reserving most functions of government to the several states. These same people created one branch of government, the judiciary, which was all powerful and could freely rewrite and reinterpret at will the Constitution they so carefully drafted. They were so concerned about the size and scope of government that they thought it would be a good idea to give absolute power to one branch of government (the branch least responsible to the people) to twist and distort the Constitution on a whim. That makes no sense whatsoever. Why draft a Constitution, the very essence of which is to formalize and limit the government, if the Supreme Court can, at any time, simply change and reinterpret the text to mean whatever they want it to mean? What asininity. If you really think that was the vision of the judiciary the Founders meant, you clearly have no grasp of reality.
The authors of the 2nd Amendment wrote what they meant to write. The original meaning is somewhat hidden. (really).
The original meaning is only hidden if you have never actually read the 2nd Amendment or the debates at the Constitutional Convention over what it means. It's crystal clear.
For it to be a clear individual Right without ambiguity, a simple declaration in the text like "this is an Individual Right" would have removed the wiggle room.
Oh yes, the Founders of our country should have had the foresight to realize that you, wrightme, might somehow miss their clear intent and should have written it the way that would have pleased you.
It was "allowed" when the 14th Amendment was ratified, by the states[....]
Did the 14th amendment get presented and passed by the process?
It's funny that you bring that up since the 14th Amendment was never properly ratified (of course, even if it had been, your perverted incorporation view would still be incongruent with its original intent). When the Republicans proposed the 14th Amendment it passed the 2/3 requirement in Congress and was sent to the states for ratification (of course, it only passed because the Radical Republicans refused to seat the elected representatives from the South after the 1866 election). But even so, it did not really meet the 2/3 requirement. It was one vote short of passing so they voted to not seat the newly elected (and anti-14th Am.) Senator Stockton of NJ even though they had already voted to seat him. They did not have the votes to expel him so they illegally prohibited him from voting.
When Oregon voted to ratify it, the amendment passed when two seats were under dispute. Two Republicans had been elected under suspicious circumstances. An investigation determined that the Democrats had in fact won those two seats. It was decided that the vote to ratify needed to be redone since two of the voters were actually ineligible. This time it failed to pass. The US government refused to accept their second vote even though it occurred while the ratification process was still continuing.
Both Ohio and New Jersey initially voted for ratification but swiftly rescinded their ratification (again, while ratification was still occurring. That is, it had not passed yet). New Jersey in particular questioned the ambiguity of the wording of the amendment, fearing it would be used to expand the power of the federal government.
Even Tennessee's ratification is dubious. The opponents of the 14th Amendment in their legislature refused to attend the vote so that there would not be a quorum and the vote would have to be postponed. The supporters of the 14th Amendment literally kidnapped two of the legislators against ratification and forcibly brought them to the legislature so a quorum could be obtained.
All of the former Confederate states (except Tennessee) refused to ratify the amendment. In 1866 the Radical Republicans declared that governments of the Southern states illegal and illegitimate. They refused to seat their elected representatives and required them, at the threat of invasion and indefinite occupation, to ratify the 14th Amendment. Of course, there is a problem here. The Radicals did not view the Southern states as being a part of the US and that they lost all of their rights when the seceded. They also declared their duly elected governments to be illegitimate. These same Radical Republicans expected these non-states to ratify an amendment to the Constitution even though they were not states and even though their state governments (who would have been the ones to vote on and approve the 14th Amendment) were supposedly illegitimate and illegal. They cannot have their cake and eat it too. Plus, one can hardly consider forced ratification (at the threat of military invasion and occupation) in any conceivable way to be compatible with our system of government.
I am not disregarding what the text actually says. Where do you feel I am doing this?
I am not disregarding what the text was intended to mean. Where do you feel I am doing this?
In several areas.
Since you claim to respect the Constitution, why don't you actually read it? Where in Article III does the Constitution grant the Supreme Court the power to be the sole arbiter of constitutionality? For that matter, where does it give the Supreme Court the power to interpret the Constitution at all? The answer, of course, is that it doesn't. Judicial Review is a made-up doctrine fabricated by...*drumroll*...the Supreme Court itself! How convenient. Jefferson argued, contra Marshall, that the concept of judicial review existed nowhere in the Constitution.
You completely ignore the intent of the 14th Amendment.
Immediately after the Civil War, many southern states passed Black Codes to discriminate against the newly freed slaves. The Republicans (who obviously controlled Congress at the time) passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 aiming to protect the basic rights of blacks in the South. The Act was vetoed by Andrew Johnson because it was unconstitutional in that the federal government had no delegated power to pass such legislation. Congress overrode Johnson's veto and the Act became law (though the question as to its constitutionality was not resolved). However, there were two problems facing the Republicans: the
Dred Scott v. Sandford decision and fears of a stronger Democratic Party that could overturn the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
To resolve these issues the Republicans passed the 14th Amendment with the aim of overturning the key provision of
Dred Scott and ending the constitutionality question of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 by enshrining its provisions in the text of the Constitution itself. Section one of the 14th Amendment extended citizenship to the freed slaves (overturning
Dred Scott). It also guaranteed basic rights for freed blacks (namely that blacks were entitled to equal protection under the law). The phrases in Section One of the 14th Amendment have specific meanings that are tied to the Civil Rights Act, namely the freedom of blacks travel freely, to enter into contracts, sue in courts, testify in courts, and own property. Section Two protected black suffrage by punishing states with a reduction of their congressional representation if they denied blacks suffrage, but this was overridden by the 15th Amendment.
Then we come to the
Slaughter-House Cases which correctly found that the Privileges and Immunities Clause did not extend rights to freed blacks other than the basic rights of U.S. citizenship (completely in keeping with the original intent of the amendment). The Court even said the white butchers who were parties to the cases did not have a claim under the Equal Protection Clause because its purpose was only to protect blacks.
The whole object of the 14th Amendment was to constitutionalize the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Indeed, there were people who wanted a more expansive amendment. For instance, the Blaine Amendment (different from Blaine Amendment of 1875) considered adding the protections of the First Amendment to the 14th Amendment. His amendment obviously did not pass but it illustrates that he understood that the 14th Amendment, as it was passed by Congress, did not apply the First Amendment to the states.
Even Justice Felix Frankfurter, who was hardly some far-right extremist, said, "The relevant historical materials demonstrate conclusively that Congress and the members of the legislatures of the ratifying States did not contemplate that the Fourteenth Amendment was a shorthand incorporation of the first eight amendments making them applicable as explicit restrictions upon the States."
