Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!stanford.edu!neon.Stanford.EDU!Neon.Stanford.EDU!stanton From: stanton@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Scott Stanton) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Amendments Message-ID: Date: 15 Apr 91 15:59:04 GMT References: Sender: news@neon.Stanford.EDU (USENET News System) Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA Lines: 24 In-Reply-To: rogue@cellar.UUCP's message of 13 Apr 91 22:56:50 GMT In article rogue@cellar.UUCP (Rogue Winter) writes: The trouble with "pure" legislation not explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution is the current Supreme Court's (ahem) non-activist propensity to overturn any legislation that can (not does) appear to be Constitutionally shaky and does not follow the Great Conservative Tradition. Anything that guaranteed the rights of individuals would be percieved as infringing on the rights of legal entities (e.g. corporations). Human beings, despite the registration of Social Security numbers, et.al. are not established by the court as independent entities. I don't think you are giving the Supreme Court justices enough credit. While I may not agree with a good many of them on some fundamental issues, I don't think they take quite as cavalier an attitude toward the freedoms (implicit or explicit) guaranteed by the Constitution as you would seem to imply. Nevertheless, even if we do have a worthless bunch of governmental stoolies on the bench, a Constitutional amendment isn't going to help the problem. What we need to do is stop electing people who don't respect individual liberties to office. -- --Scott (stanton@cs.stanford.edu)