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This conversation is beginning to have a hauntingly familiar ring to it, for some reason. But regardless of whether or not there's a "universal" (shudder) definition of due process, there certainly is a national definition, which is all the Constitution is concerned with (mercifully for me). If some state says that due process consists of having a police officer say, "OK, punk, what's the average rainfall of the Amazon basin?... Time's up! Get a rope," and even if that's been standard operating procedure for quite some time in that state, I think we would still have to conclude that their process could use an extra axiom or two.

This conversation is beginning to have a hauntingly familiar ring to it, for some reason.

It's okay - we seem to be on the same basic wavelength tonight ;)

We have an idea of due process here that applies to us as Americans, and that is laid out by the Constitution. It's not everyone's idea of due process - due process doesn't mean much in Cuba, for example. They'll have a real nice trial before they shoot you, but that trial is basically a formality, and not a true fact-finding exercise the way we do it here.

So, then the question all along has been WRT to the 14'th Amendment, and what due process means to the states in light of it. And I have to say, I understand the arguments against incorporation, and I even find them sort of persuasive. But I have to come back to the consequences (yeah, yeah) of total non-incorporation. Of what practical value is a Bill of Rights that the states can violate with impunity? Sure, the feds can't violate it, but when that Arizona trooper starts quizzing you about geography while knotting a rope, that ain't gonna be much comfort.

And practically speaking, historically speaking, there have been plenty of cases of abuses of due process by state and local authorities - hop in your time machine and dial it back 40 years, and then ask the black residents of rural Mississippi how that procedural due process thing is working out for them. The feds are remote and far away, for the most part. It's those state and local guys that I see on a daily basis, and I'd sort of like some guarantee that I'm not going to be subject to the personal whims of Sheriff Buford T. Justice.

Now, you want an a**hole's reading of the 14'th amendment? I'm wrapped up in argument with a hard-core lefty who insists that the 14'th means that if any one crop is subsidized by the government, it would be discrimination not to subsidize all legal crops. How do you like that reading of the 14'th? ;)