Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ames.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!pesnta!hplabs!ames!barry From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Edwin Meese Message-ID: <1351@ames.UUCP> Date: Mon, 20-Jan-86 16:25:42 EST Article-I.D.: ames.1351 Posted: Mon Jan 20 16:25:42 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 21-Jan-86 10:06:34 EST References: <446@ssc-bee.UUCP> <4740@alice.UUCP> <1945@psuvax1.UUCP> <355@cisden.UUCP> <1956@psuvax1.UUCP> <400@cisden.UUCP> Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA Lines: 69 From John Woolley (cisden!john): >A response to some questions and comments Mr. Piotr Berman asks and makes >on Constitutional History. > >In article <1956@psuvax1.UUCP> berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman) writes, >quoting me: >>> 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. >>> >>Oho! Recent, means 1925. Thank you. > >Yes, in terms of Constitutional History, 1925 is awfully recent. >[various reasonable arguments in support of this excised for brevity] Point taken. The law is big on tradition; by some measures, even our Constitution is a relative novelty. Still, 1925 is before most of us were born. We've all grown up with the idea that the Bill of Rights is binding on the states, and I think most of us like it that way. Even if I grant, for the sake of argument, that a legal justification could be made for applying the Bill of Rights only to the Federal government, that only answers a technical criticism of Meese's remarks, it doesn't make them any less dumb. If the Bill of Rights is a sensible restriction on the Federal government, why is it not desirable to put the same restrictions on the states? I can think of a lot of reasons that the Feds may have found it uncomfortable, undesirable, or impractical to make the states abide by the Bill of Rights until the late date of 1925, but none of these reasons are very idealistic, and none make very good reasons for going back to the old system. >>What is in the heart of Reagan and Mease when they want to permit states >>not to upheld the Bill of Rights? > >Possibly simply a love of the Constitution, which does not impose such >restrictions on the States. The Constitution is, in essence, a treaty >between sovereign States, who agree to give up much of their sovereignty >to a Federal government. But when the Federal government tries to seize >more of the sovereignty than the States gave up, I don't see that it's >necessarily evil to try to restore the former balance. Isn't this answer a bit ingenuous? You'll have to go back a bit farther than 1925 to get legal support for the notion that the states are *truly* sovereign; maybe the Articles of Confederation ;-). At minimum, it's safe to say that the issue had been decided with finality by 1865. But, legal technicalities aside, Berman's asking why the Reagan administration supports these legal theories, and you're claiming it's some abstract love of states' rights. Why is it only when conservatives have *other* reasons to dislike a Supreme Court decision that the cry of "States' Rights" is heard? I don't mind conservatives using states' rights as a legal argument in court when it gives them the best chance of winning, but it strains my credulity when they claim that this is really, truly their only reason. There's no doubt that some decisions are best made locally or regionally, not nationally. But with something as basic as the freedoms guaranteed to all of us in the Bill of Rights, what argument can there be against applying these safeguards against abuse of power to all levels of government? Is whether the Feds should have the power to enforce something like the Miranda decision on the states the *real* issue, or is it that some people just don't like the decision, itself, and will use states' rights as a weapon to cripple it, as a convenience and a forced compromise? I repeat Berman's question: what can we deduce about Meece's goals, given his remarks? If you persist in claiming it's only an idealistic commitment to states' rights, I'll persist in suspecting someone's trying to pull the Woolley over our eyes :-). - From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry NASA-Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ELECTRIC AVENUE: {ihnp4,vortex,dual,hao,menlo70,hplabs}!ames!barry