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To: wideawake

The Rockerfeller laws are in plain contravention of the 4th, 5th, and 8th Amendments to the Constitution - amendments constructed with the specific intent of making impossible a repeat of the tyrannical abuses of the King of England. In addition, they are not only a current failure, but prohibition laws are also a historical failure.

What tyranny is, is the failure to respect the inalienable rights of man. What the above-referenced Amendments are, are enumerations of some of those rights. Therefore, the Rockerfeller laws are tyrannical.

If you knew what tyranny is, then you would see as clearly as I do that the Rockerfeller laws are.


9 posted on 09/16/2004 6:09:13 AM PDT by thoughtomator ("With 64 days left, John Kerry still has time to change his mind 4 or 5 more times" - Rudy Giuliani)
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To: thoughtomator
The Rockerfeller laws are in plain contravention of the 4th, 5th, and 8th Amendments to the Constitution - amendments constructed with the specific intent of making impossible a repeat of the tyrannical abuses of the King of England.

If this were the case, the extremely liberal NY judiciary would have thrown them out on Constitutional grounds long ago.

The 4th Amendment is obviously not violated by the law - there is no exemption for law enforcement from probable cause under the law.

Neither is the 5th Amendment violated either. The law provides for open indictments and full due process for the accused - again their are no exemptions for law enforcement under this law.

Nor is the 8th Amendment. Prison sentences for crimes are neither cruel nor unusual - and "excessive" bail is and has always been in the eye of the beholder. The defendant always thinks bail is too high.

What tyranny is, is the failure to respect the inalienable rights of man.

That's a pretty weak and specious definition.

What tyranny actually is, by historical definition, is a system wherein the governed have no say - a system usually reserved to the arbitrary whim of a single unelected ruler.

When the Founders were framing the Constitution, their notion of tyranny was clearly modeled on the Greek institution of tyranny (arbitrary rule of one man with no redress for citizens) and by what they saw as the tyranny of Great Britain - namely that by being deprived of Parliamentary representation, the colonists were effectively ruled by the arbitrary whim of the King without any means of redress.

Even if we pretend that selling crack is an "inalienable right" of man, which it manifestly isn't, a law passed by (and subject to the repeal of) the people's elected representatives is the definitional opposite of tyranny.

Unless you can prove that the Rockefeller laws sanction warrantless searches without probable cause, sanction indictments without benefit of grand juries, sanction conviction without due process etc., then your citation of the Bill of Rights is laughable. In point of fact, anyone convicted under the Rockefeller laws was served with a warrant, was indicted by a grand jury, was provided full recourse to counsel and a fair trial, and received a merited prison sentence.

The fact that you and a minority of NY residents don't like a law passed by the majority of the people's elected representatives is just too bad for you and your friends.

If you don't like it, make your case to the electorate and vote in a State Assembly that will pass laws that you prefer.

In the meantime, the law is the law.

Therefore, the Rockerfeller laws are tyrannical.

You have actually given two variant definitions of "tyrannical" now. One is, apparently, the "violation of the inalienable rights of man." That is a novel definition heretofore unknown. Your second definition is "violation of the Bill of Rights." Not all violations of the Bill of Rights are tyrannical - they are all unconstitutional but not all are "tyrannical." So this is erroneous as well.

If we go by the definition of tyranny our Founding Fathers used, the Rockefeller laws are not tyrannous.

Nor are they a violation of the "rights of man" unless the freedom of selling crack has now magically taken its place alongside the freedom of worship and freedom of the press.

If you knew what tyranny is, then you would see as clearly as I do that the Rockerfeller laws are.

Ah, but I do know what tyranny is. What you don't seem to understand is that spewing hysterical rhetoric does not enable you to redefine words to your liking. You believe that smoking crack is an important, imperishable, divine right. Believe that as fervently as you desire.

But please don't pretend to have a monopoly on "seeing clearly."

16 posted on 09/16/2004 6:58:50 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: thoughtomator

British troops would search for tea after the Boston happening and this was one of the reasons for the amendment requiring a warrant. The people you are arguing with are lack compassion and respect for the constitution


512 posted on 10/20/2004 10:48:02 AM PDT by johnshoemaker (Readers?)
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