The Federal Constitution was not intended to apply a cultural norm to all States.
No one here has ever claimed it was. The BOR's is not a 'cultural norm'. Inalienable rights apply to all citizens of the USA.
It was intended to provide a new agency--the Federal Government--to serve interests that all Americans, the citizens of each State, had in common. Those fell in two basic areas--common defense and general welfare. The latter was not the present Welfare State concept--it had nothing to do with helping any group with a particular (i.e. non-General) problem. It had to do with promoting the free market among the States, giving them a sound currency for their transactions, providing uniform weights and measures, better communications, protection for their obligations, etc., etc..
And protection for individual rights, from violations by ~every~ level of government, as made evident by the Supremacy clause, which applies to, -- The right of the PEOPLE to bear arms .... For instance.
You keep wanting to add to these a busy body function that was simply not there.
You call the BOR's a 'busy body' function? Incredible.
You need to look at the vast differences between the States in 1787 to see how far such a uniform view of rights was at the time, from what was intended. It was up to the States to define the limits on the Police Power.
All the Bill of Rights did was restrain the Federal Government.
Not true. That erronious BOR's 'decision' was made in 1833 by a USSC trying to keep the union together, by pandering to the states 'rights' crowd of the day.
It didn't work, obviously, -- so the 14th was ratified to restate the original intent. - Obviously, it hasn't worked either. - Because of socialist politics.
You want us to have to win not only local elections to control local society, but endless Federal elections, to prevent the appointment of the wrong kind of Judges. Why don't we just fight for the system we were actually promised?
We shouldn't have to win "endless Federal elections". -- A few good impeachment proceedings for violation of the oath to protect & defend would end such nonsense, I'm sure.
The 14th Amendment was not adopted for any other purpose but to punish the South and enable Carpetbag and Scalawag rule in the former Confederate States. (It disenfranchises their old leadership, and makes citizenship in a State dependent upon geographic birth alone and/or Federal citizenship. That is a radical idea. (See Immigration & The American Future, for a discussion of the nationality question.)
On the subject of inalienable rights, I would agree with you that the right to have arms is such a right. You do not need the Fourteenth Amendment to make the argument that a Californian should have the right to protect himself. I am hardly a foe of you on that issue. Just don't throw out the baby with the bathwater--i.e. the concept of limited Federal power, in order to vindicate a natural right of man.
William Flax
No one here has ever claimed it was. The BOR's is not a 'cultural norm'. Inalienable rights apply to all citizens of the USA.The Fourteenth Amendment has been interpreted to mean that the "Congress shall make no law.." provisions of the Bill of Rights cannot be violated by state legislatures either. For that reason alone it deserves re-affirmation, and if Ohio never ratified it, we should. If nothing else it may end some of the whining.
-Eric