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To: JeffAtlanta
Not really. We have a constitution and Bill of Rights to protect the rights of the people from the masses. These rights have been attacked many times by legislation and only judicial review has been able to protect them.

Yes, really. The "Bill of Rights" is a series of amendments to the original document and those amendments can, themselves, be amended. Please see the 18th Amdendment for a good example of exactly what the Constitution empowers the people to do (as well as the 21st Amendment). In other words, if a sufficient number of The People wanted to make the possession of pornography Constitutionally punishable by death, they could. You should actually read the Constitution sometime, if you haven't already. The protections it offers and rights it contain are not nearly as firm and absolute as many people seem to imagine.

I suppose I should also point out that the clearly stated intended scope of the 1st Amendment was "Congress" (the first word of the amendment) and it was not intended to stop the States from enacting legislation concerning free speech and that the idea that the 1st Amendment would someday be used to defend your right to have pictures of women having sex with animals would probably have seemed as absurd to the men who passed it as the idea that the 2nd Amendment did not grant an individual right to own firearms. But here we are, with the courts saying just that.

141 posted on 08/15/2007 8:01:35 PM PDT by Question_Assumptions
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To: Question_Assumptions
You should actually read the Constitution sometime, if you haven't already.

And you should try being less snarky, if you haven't already.

It is true that the constitution can be amended, but it is a far more difficult process to amend the constitution than it is for some city to pass an ordinance.

BTW, none of the bill of rights applied to the states, not just the 1st. Only via the 14th were they incorporated and then only selectively.

145 posted on 08/15/2007 8:08:58 PM PDT by JeffAtlanta
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To: Question_Assumptions
The protections it offers and rights it contain are not nearly as firm and absolute as many people seem to imagine.

To a large extent that is true. The Constitution's amendment process, along with the election process, give the people ultimate power to change the protection of rights offered by that document. But those two processes are filtered and somewhat complicated...it's not as if the Constitution is immediately malleable to the will of the people.

I think it was designed this way for a reason. The Founders understood that rights are important and that majorities can be just as dangerous as tyrants when it comes to rights.

Of course, it should be mentioned that the Constitution does not grant rights, it merely recognizes and protects them. The people could amend the Constitution to require death for professing Christian beliefs...that does not mean there is no right to religious expression.

166 posted on 08/15/2007 8:55:49 PM PDT by timm22 (Think critically)
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