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To: Tau Food
But, I want you to notice that you seem to prefer to blame the 14th Amendment (from the 1860's) rather than the misuse of that amendment in the 21st century. Do you think it possible that you do that because of your strong feelings about Lincoln and because you think that the 14th Amendment is easier to associate with Lincoln than a 21st century misinterpretation of the amendment?

I do that because when you track abortion to Roe V Wade, it asserts the 14th is it's basis. When you track the banning of prayer in public schools and the excising of religion in government buildings and ceremonies, that too tracks back to the 14th.

The "Gay" marriage things is a deliberate application of the "equal protection" clause. And so on.

Pick any subject regarding which the court decisions are wrecking the society, and you will find most of them are a consequence of the 14th amendment.

I figured this out long before I had any interest in learning more about the civil war. I started with abortion and worked my way backwards. Same on a lot of other subjects. A bunch of this modern crap converges on that point in history.

Look at that stretch you're making, all because you have been wanting to blame Lincoln for homosexual marriage. As I've said before, that connection is very dubious. (In fact, you really cannot even properly blame Lincoln for the 14th Amendment.)

This is like a guy racing his car out of control, hitting a fence, crashing into a house and setting it on fire. You are trying to say the fire is the result of actions beyond his control, and that his driving had nothing to do with it.

No, Lincoln's driving is definitely responsible for the crash and subsequent fire which burned through what were then established legal principles.

38 posted on 09/09/2015 10:52:06 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp

One can’t really “Equally Protect” everything in the sense that the modern activists claim to propound. Something is going to be thought the less, and probably is going to end up getting special opprobrium in an effort, begging the question, to justify that.


39 posted on 09/09/2015 10:55:10 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: DiogenesLamp

Unless, perhaps, one wants to go to a “fair lottery system” to determine who wins a particular face off. Okay, the Christians win the coin toss this time, but next time it might be the gays, and after that the animal rights people, and....

Laugh, but that’s the only “fair” way to do it under that kind of idea of “fairness.” Since there is stalemate, we need lotteries.


40 posted on 09/09/2015 10:58:19 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: DiogenesLamp
You have previously expressed your distaste for Constitutional provisions that are a bit vague. I think you view them all as mistakes. In fact, the vagueness is nearly always intentional.

It was in the eighteenth century that the term "due process of law" was placed in our Constitution. The idea was to provide protections (somewhat loose protections, but protections nonetheless) of life, liberty and property from arbitrary actions of the new central government.

About eighty years later, the same term was included in the new 14th Amendment to protect the same interests from arbitrary actions by states. The precise boundaries of those protections were not defined by the draftsmen, but they wanted to provide future decision-makers with some ammunition that might prove to be useful in protecting those interests.

I think that it's safe to say that neither the eighteenth century draftsmen of the 5th Amendment nor the nineteenth century draftsmen of the 14th Amendment imagined that in the twentieth century, some future decision-makers would utilize the "due process of law" clause to protect abortions from federal or state prohibitions. For that reason, I am reluctant to blame either the eighteenth century draftsmen of the 5th Amendment or the nineteenth century draftsmen of the 14th Amendment for abortion decisions made by 20th century judges.

In any event, I trust that you can see the difficulties in pinning abortions on Lincoln. Even if you blame the draftsmen of the "due process clause" rather than the twentieth century judges who (I believe) misinterpreted that clause, you are stuck with blaming draftsmen who had finished drafting the provision nearly two decades before Lincoln was born.

And, as to all Constitutional draftsmen, give some thought about why you might occasionally find it sensible to include a little vagueness and wiggle-room for future leaders in some of the provisions. There is a difference between a Constitution designed to provide a framework for a government and a month-to-month rental agreement. Just think about it a bit sometime.

[Sorry about the delay in responding, but earlier today I learned that somebody had a brainstorm about a more or less minuscule improvement that could be made to something I thought was plenty good three weeks ago.]

42 posted on 09/09/2015 10:32:47 PM PDT by Tau Food (Never give a sword to a man who can't dance.)
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