Posted on 11/14/2004 2:21:27 AM PST by Remember_Salamis
I know its true, I saw it on television!
The insanity starts in the school system. My daughter teaches in a public school with approximately 50 employees. Only 17 are regular teachers. The rest are interpreters, ESL teachers, counselors, psychologists. The children even have their own attorneys if needed, courtesy of the taxpayer. Three of the regular teachers have decided to become ESL teachers. And why not? They will have small classes and not be accountable to anyone if the kids don't learn. Teachers are required to send written material home in the household's native language. This is probably a waste of time; most parents don't communicate with the school or show up for conferences. Few of these kids will actually learn English at school, as their instruction time is scant—about 30 minutes every other day. Recently, the school's cafeteria sported signs in three other languages above the sign HOT DOGS. Our tax dollars at work.
Barbara Anderson Portland, OR
I don't know why the Library Of Congress didn't pick up this ball and run with it. The idea of archiving newspapers on their website would drive people to me to their website. Other than that, it's a complete waste of time.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK. I was laughing. Now I'm wondering how our leaders can either be insulated totally from these facts or else ignore or even encourage them?
A waste of time and taxpayer money.
I am sure it was a mandate from above. Who knows how many paid (by taxpayers) man-hours went into the decision and act of mandating and then making the signs.
"Statements by the Court in the Coleman case that Congress was left in complete control of the mandatory process, and therefore it was a political affair for Congress to decide if an amendment had been ratified, does not square with Article V of the Constitution which shows no intention to leave Congress in charge of deciding whether there has been a ratification. Even a constitutionally recognized Congress is given but one volition in Article V, that is, to vote whether to propose and Amendment on its own initiative. The remaining steps by Congress are mandatory. Congress shall propose amendments; if the Legislatures of two- thirds of the States make application, Congress shall call a convention. For the Court to give Congress any power, beyond that to be found in Article V, is to write the new material into Article V. It would be inconceivable that the Congress of the United States could propose, compel submission to, and then give life to an invalid amendment by resolving that its effort had succeeded -- regardless of compliance with the positive provisions of Article V. It should need no further citations to sustain the proposition that neither the Joint Resolution proposing the 14th Amendment, nor its ratification by the required three-fourths of the States in the Union, were in compliance with the requirements of Article V of the Constitution. When the mandatory provisions of the Constitution are violated, the Constitution itself strikes with nullity the Act that did violence to its provisions. Thus, the Constitution strikes with nullity the purported 14th Amendment. The Courts, bound by oath to support the Constitution, should review all of the evidence herein submitted and measure the facts proving violations of the mandatory provisions of the Constitution with Article V, and finally render judgment declaring said purported Amendment never to have been adopted as required by the Constitution."
It seems to me that this can still be argued at a time when we need to nullify automatic citizenship for those born here from benefit-leaching parasites who've managed to break water on our side of the border. At the very least we should amend the Amendment to insure one parent holds legitimate citizenship.
No, it's not. The lack of authority of the 14th is a rather serious subject. The notion that the Constitution could be amended by the fabricated vote of military governors, and then that amendment used for the next century to accomplish a million and one ludicrous, undemocratic goals is a rather ridiculous one.
This insertion shows the background of the foundation of the modern judicial activist state. Everything from Roe V. Wade to affirmative action to citizenship for illegal alien anchor babies has been legitimated by contorted interpretations of the 14th. "Equal protection" was turned into a stick to undo laws wholesale.
Considering its effect, wouldn't it be prudent to ask if the 14th was actually "the will of the people"?
Lander Perez and others were voices in the wilderness dominated by the Warren court in 1967. Nobody listened, except for a few real conservatives. Their names were Goldwater, Reagan, Meese, Kirk, etc...and they were right.
The United States needs a new Constitutional convention to decide just what rights should really be incorporated. The abuse of the current amendments by judicial terrorists has led the country to where it is now, to something that does not resemble original intent in any way.
If the 14th, 16th and 17th Amendments were re-presented today for ratification, it would take five minutes for 38 states to ratify.
Uh, if the 14th hadn't been instituted into American law, there is every real chance that there would never have been 19 little Arab cretins surfing through our countryside creating mayhem. Why is that? Because all of the laws, court decisions, policy directives etc that led to American police not having the right to just stop them dead in their tracks come from the 14th.
Got a funny accent, look "foreign", have some faulty paperwork? Don't worry, the cop will cut you loose these days because he has been told that to single you out on those conditions is a violation of "equal protection". So you drive on into the Virginia night in your rental car, to hijack your way into history.
The modern chaos in America is a direct result of the 14th and its interpretations. It is, as Perez said, the tool of judicial revolutionaries. The question of whether it should exist in the first place is a very real, very serious question, and timely. BTW, you might note that when this was placed into the Congressional record, the American body count in Vietnam was a bit south of 100 a week. The country still functioned, and people still discussed laws.
When someone tells you that the Constitution is a "living document", what they really mean is that it is dead.
The problem with most lawyers is their knee-jerk habit of accepting every precedent sentdown by the High Court.
If a precedent is either bad law or unconstiitutional it doesn't seem to matter to those practicing law.
In light of this posting we need someone to challenge the 14th Amendment's constitutionality, and I've yet to see that.
A new constitutional convention in this day and age scares me. There is even a big push being started to amend the Const. to allow a foreign born person to become president of the US. What other wonderful ideas would be championed and lobbied for at a convention if held in today's times?
Maybe so, but it will be because of 4 generations of intentional propaganda in support of them, and no discussion of their true roots. Did anyone in your American history class discuss the nature of the "governments" of the states when the 14th was "ratified"?
Things change. Once the debate is engaged, old assumptions about the outcome will go out the window. The effects of the 14th and other amendments will be seen for what they are: a dystopian America, ruled by the cold abstractions of rigid, ideological judges, unelected, unrepresentative, unaccountable.
BTW, since you appear to be a fervent defender of what The Radicals Have Wrought, you do agree that "it would be a violation of the equal protection of the laws not to allow gay people to marry", right? That's the legal hook that they are hanging their argument on.
Tell me now that a) The Radicals intended for that to be the outcome and that b) the states would re-ratify in a flash.
What's your deal man? So no other topics can be discussed?
Scares me too. We might end up with something horrifying like the EU nightmare.
But something has to be done to put the brakes on the train headed for the cliff.
Perhaps the simplest, but somewhat clunky solution is to add amendments that clarify how a derived "right" will be identified, and who will actually ratify it.
In defense of the defenders here, it is true that most of the mechanisms to change things exist in the Constitution now, under the authority of the Congress. But the problem has been that the Congress is politically unwilling to, since they are accountable, while the judiciary is not.
One truly useful thing to do would be to start making judges accountable either through term limits, re-appointment elections, and rather liberal use of impeachment.
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