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From: jim@ISM780B.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Edwin Meese
Message-ID: <39000046@ISM780B.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 2-Jan-86 15:32:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ISM780B.39000046
Posted: Thu Jan  2 15:32:00 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Jan-86 22:12:30 EST
References: <1945@psuvax1.UUCP>
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Nf-From: ISM780B!jim    Jan  2 15:32:00 1986


>Until 1925, the Supreme Court had held that when the Bill of Rights said
>"Congress", it in fact meant Congress, and did not limit the powers of
>States.  Nobody, as far as I know, ever argued that the Bill of Rights
>itself applied to States.  But in 1925 the Court ruled that the 14th
>Amendment (ratified just after the Civil War) implied that the Bill of
>Rights' limitations to Federal power were also to be applied to the States.
>
>During the Senate debates on the 14th Amendment, a clause specifying that
>the States were to be held to Bill-of-Rights limitations was specifically
>rejected.  That is, the people who wrote, debated, and ratified the 14th
>Amendment thought it meant one thing, and the 1925 Supreme Court "interpreted"
>it to mean something else.

This is utter and complete nonsense.  Your reference without documentation to
clauses and debates to provide a veil of authenticity is the worst sort of
disinformation.  To quote the 14th Amendment itself:

    Section 1.  All persons born or naturalized in the United States and
		subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
		United States and of the State wherein they reside.  No State
		shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
		privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
		nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
		property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person
		within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

If the clause you mention was rejected, it was only because it was so
obviously redundant.  The Bill of Rights includes "privileges and immunities
of citizens of the United States", and only the most perverted and dishonest
reading of the 14th amendment could allow an interpretation which does not
bind the States to the B-of-R.  Your implication that the writers of the
14th amendment did not intend it to apply to the B-of-R is extraordinarily
dishonest.

>This doesn't, of course, mean that States *should* have been left free to do
>everything the Constitution allowed them to.  But let's not get so attached
>to recent Court decisions that we think anyone who likes the original
>meaning of the Constitution is stupid or evil.

There are plenty of reasons to think that Edwin Meese is stupid and evil.
His positions on interpretation of the law are in the extreme minority.
His legal capabilities are almost universally held in low regard, even by
those who agree with some of his positions.  I am surprised that you would
embarrass yourself by defending him.  Let's not get so attached to our
ideologies that we think that the framers of the Constitution or of the 14th
Amendment actually would haved liked or respected or agreed with Edwin Meese.

>Some people, Meese included, think recent Supreme Courts have subverted
>Constitutional principle.  President Reagan was elected in part because
>the electorate agrees with him on this.  Wouldn't it be pretty silly for
>his Attorney General to just go along with the Court on everything?

There are a lot of people who have stupid opinions about the Supreme Court
and Constitutional principle, not based in fact, understanding, or history.
Of course they will act in regard to their beliefs.  That is why it is
important ot expose those beliefs, the flaws in them, and the actions being
taken by such people who have achieved power.  In regard to this phony
"mandate" argument, I would ask what percentage of the cause of people voting
for Reagan consisted of them wanting to gut the 14th amendment?  .0003?  This
intellectually dishonest argument, that everything that Reagan does or
believes is supported by the American people because they voted for him, is a
favorite one of right wing ideologues.  When the polls show that, despite the
fact that many people voted for Reagan and would vote for him again, they do
not generally agree with his policies in regard to economics, foreign policy,
military expansion, affirmative action, restriction of freedom of
information, abortion choice, teaching of evolution, etc. etc., it is foul
and disgusting to justify those policies based on the mere fact that Reagan
was elected, as though that gave him a mandate of any sort, rather than
indicating that people were confused, misled, beguiled, apathetic, and
unenamored by Mondale.

-- Jim Balter (ima!jim)