Posted on 09/07/2015 8:06:37 AM PDT by lowbridge
Pardon me if I cannot follow your dichotomy of thought here. If you advocate for the Union in the Civil war, you by proxy have to take responsibility for the consequences of what they did.
The 14th amendment is a DIRECT consequence of what they did. You advocate for them, you advocate for it.
Without the Union subjugation of the South, there could have been no 14th amendment. They held a gun to their head and told the Southern States to approve it, or else.
Kinda turns that whole "consent of the governed" thing on it's head.
It's guaranteed that they would have continued owning people had they submitted to Lincoln early in the war. Quit ignoring that fact.
You want to keep hammering the Immorality of owning people, then you need to hammer on Lincoln for agreeing to continue it. Stop giving him a pass.
But, they lost and it was that loss that made the 14th Amendment seem to be politically possible and necessary.
It is only that loss that made it possible. Had they never seceded, slavery would have continued. Had they not had Union guns pointed at their heads, they never would have voted to ratify it. Not only is the 14th amendment horrible in it's results, it is horrible in the way it was coerced into existence.
What is the point of this pretense of "ratification" when the State legislatures were merely the Puppets being manipulated by their Union Masters? The Union ordered them to ratify it, because they wanted to create the illusion that there was still a "democratic" process, but the reality was quite different. The Illusion was for the Papers, but the masters of the Union intended to have their power grab.
Read the 1st Amendment and ask yourself if, without the 14th Amendment, states and local governments might be able to deprive you of many of your most basic rights.
Wasn't a problem for the first "four score and seven years" of the Nation's existence. Why would it have been a problem thereafter?
"Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England."
What do you think they meant by "the loss of property worth four billions of money" in that document? They were talking about the loss of slaves.
You can disagree with the "secessionists" if you wish, but there is no mistaking what they believed. (You should also read the whole document to understand just how threatened they felt.)
But, that's all done now. Your real problem in repealing the 14th Amendment is that it is popular. A lot of us don't trust state governments. Maybe you should settle for a "repeal and replace" compromise. .
They do have rights. The right to go to prison and the right to be deported.
Before you drive yourself crazy about the 14th Amendment, why don't you consider one simple question:
If they repealed the 14th Amendment today, in what specific ways would your life be different next week? What would you be able to do that you can't do now?
Because, see, if there isn't anything, let it go. Enjoy life. Don't drive yourself crazy over nothing. ;-)
A serious problem on both sides of the Atlantic - activist "lawyers" willfully perverting the rule of law. Identify and disbar, repeat as necessary. And don't forget the judges who play along with these perversions.
I did not disagree with them. I merely point out that had they not done so, Lincoln would have presided over a Slave Holding Republic during his terms in office.
It is my opinion that States can leave for any reason they please, and do not have to beg leave of the other states to get permission. We did not get permission from England, and so they should not have to get permission from what replaced England as their ruler.
But, that's all done now. Your real problem in repealing the 14th Amendment is that it is popular. A lot of us don't trust state governments. Maybe you should settle for a "repeal and replace" compromise. .
Or simply resign ourselves to the fact that we are going to ride this mess into the ground.
But, that's just my guess. We'll never know for sure.
I could relax.
I don't think you have a grasp of what have been the consequences of the 14th amendment.
There are dozens of very serious calamities that trace back to that blunder. Much of what is currently wrong, and currently keeping me up worrying about the future, is the result of that 14th amendment.
Let's take just one example.
The 14th amendment was cited to toss all religious observance out of the public school system. What has been the good consequence of this?
It occurs to me that if schools reinforced the Christian principles upon which the nation was founded, we would have less theft, less corruption, less rape, less murder, and more responsible people.
Society would be vastly improved in any number of important ways.
Do you doubt this?
Do you think that the drafters should have known what was going to happen with their amendment? LOL. They never do.
Where do you get the idea that i'm trying to convince you that Lincoln didn't oppose slavery? Of course he opposed slavery. That is not the same thing as saying he was going to do anything about it.
Had the South continued to pay their excessive burden of tariff fees (anywhere from 50% -80% depending on who you ask) then Lincoln was going to keep presiding over a slave owning nation.
If they repealed the 14th Amendment today, in what specific ways would your life be different next week? What would you be able to do that you can't do now?
The obvious answer is that it wouldn't change your life much. Nor mine. My point is that I don't like to see you suffering so much over something that won't really affect your life. Because if you do that, there will be no end to your suffering. There are literally thousands of laws that I would change, if I could.
But, you won't catch me suffering over it. Life is too short. And, I'm kind of glad that I don't have the job of fixing all the laws I don't like.
So, do me a favor and smile more! ;-)
P.S. I have to go to a Labor Day foodfest. I'll catch you later.
That is what a rational person believes. But that is not what our courts believe.
Had the 14th amendment restricted itself to granting citizenship, that would probably have been enough, but no, it had to go into all this other verbiage about forcing the states to comply with whatever constraints were placed on the Federal Government, and that ambiguous and easily misinterpreted verbiage has been used to justify every Judicial excess ever since.
The 14th amendment is a terribly written amendment. It is probably the worst written amendment in the Constitution, as well as the worst in the manner of it's passage.
You still don't believe me when I tell you I started off by looking at what was wrong with the country, and then tracing it backwards through the history of the court decisions that put us on this road. They are all powered by the 14th amendment.
Pick any issue that is really a mess, and you will find that if you look through the court decisions governing it, they will usually trace back to an overreach based on the 14th amendment.
Abortion, "Gay" Marriage, "Anchor Babies", Banning Religion in Government, etc. All 14th amendment crap.
Unfreaking real. Yes it would change my life greatly. It would mean I don't have to spend so much time and effort trying to figure out how i'm going to respond to the societal collapse it precipitated. That I could just live life without worrying about the sword of Damocles hanging over mine and everyone else's head.
I am on a virtual war footing, and you are in pie in the sky dreamland. I am contemplating getting my whole family licenses to carry concealed, and you are enjoying the sunshine and long walks. I'm thinking about building underground storage for several years supply of food, and I'm sure you are just wondering what's on television tonight, or some such.
So, do me a favor and smile more! ;-)
P.S. I have to go to a Labor Day foodfest. I'll catch you later.
And there it is. Confirmation. Yeah, you got a smile out of me, but not for the reasons you think. :)
I think you've summed that up pretty well. I really would join you in the shadows there if I thought it would help. It's not fun to see that a couple of weird guys are getting married and such, but I can't stop them and I'm certainly not going to let them wreck my life. Eventually, they'll figure it out, I suppose. Like I think I said the other day, I'm old enough now to know that my opinion on everything doesn't matter. I prefer to concentrate my efforts on things that I can change. If I could change the 14th Amendment to make it clearly state what I want it to say and nothing more, I would. But, I can't. Even its authors couldn't. It's like the weather now. Things almost have to turn out better than you're predicting.
I like you and I just don't like to see you suffer over things that you really can't do anything about. Your cardiologist, if you have one yet, wants you to smile more. ;-)
I am reminded of what that German General thought when he saw chocolate among the American rations he captured. (Battle of the Bulge) He realized what it meant. That we had so much excess capacity that we could ship treats to our men.
What "Gay" marriage means, is that the law doesn't mean anything, and it won't protect us when they decide to stage the latest version of Kristallnacht.
I like you and I just don't like to see you suffer over things that you really can't do anything about. Your cardiologist, if you have one yet, wants you to smile more. ;-)
Yeah, I want to smile more too, but it's hard to focus on merriment when real threats exist and the cordon of safety just keeps tightening.
And for what it's worth, I like you too.
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