Sooner or later, you're going to have to come to the realization that words have meanings. They're not just little pieces of window dressing that we make cool-sounding phrases out of. Process means process, not the substance of the law. If you're going to demand that government not be held to the meanings of the words that define their powers, then you shouldn't complain when they use that latitude you've so graciously given them, to do whatever they please.
CA is busy infringing my RKBA, with majority rule acceptance. The 14th is 'necessary' here, - NOW.
Translation: Your state's doing something you don't like, so you want the feds to get involved. You're sadly mistaken if you think Washington has any interest in protecting genuine liberty. They certainly will never use the 14th amendment to uphold 2nd-amendment rights, because they themselves have next to zero respect for those rights themselves. You'd have a much better chance of reforming your state government than reforming Washington, unless you think Washington is somehow inherently wiser - an odd position for a libertarian to take. Their history with the 14th amendment has been almost nothing but a history of judges using it to impose their personal preferences on society. What little it may have done to restrain states from doing things that truly violate peoples rights, has been completely overshadowed by the malignant growth of the federal government that the 14th made possible, albeit indirectly.
And its the job of the constitution to see that individual rights are not violated. - Checks & balances, remember?
The job of the Constitution is indeed to preserve checks and balances, and that's done in a variety of ways, not the least of which - as the name of our country strongly implies - is the division of power between the state and federal governments. The 14th amendment hamstrings the states in their ability to govern themselves, leaving the feds to fill in the vacuum - all while doing next to nothing to protect individual rights.
You appear to have bought into the states 'rights' propoganda, - or - you have a statist type agenda of your own, based on the idea that a state can make 'moral' laws of some type, to control personal behavior. - Not so, under the 14th.
I'm sure it would be great if we had small government at all levels, that stayed out of peoples' business and just did what was necessary to protect lives and property, but until the federal government starts living up to those standards, I don't understand how any sane person can demand that they be the guardians of our liberties against the states - their only meaningful competition. As a libertarian, I'm sure you can understand (and have probably heard before) that the more we demand of government to do for us, the more we authorize them to do to us. At no level of government does that hold more true than at the national level.
And just as a technical note, I'm wondering what you mean when you say that states don't have the power to pass "moral" laws to control personal behavior. You seem to subscribe to the "original intent" school of legal interpretation, so I'll ask you: Was it the intent of the framers of the 14th amendment to overturn all existing state laws against fornication, sodomy, incest, polygamy, etc.?
Sooner or later, you're going to have to come to the realization that words have meanings. They're not just little pieces of window dressing that we make cool-sounding phrases out of. Process means process, not the substance of the law. If you're going to demand that government not be held to the meanings of the words that define their powers, then you shouldn't complain when they use that latitude you've so graciously given them, to do whatever they please.
Another meaningless lecture mixed with straw men about what I supposedly 'demand'. --- You really believe in your powers of bafflegab, don't you? Whatta buncha bull.
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Well, CA is busy infringing my RKBA, with majority rule acceptance. The 14th is 'necessary' here, - NOW.
Translation: Your state's doing something you don't like, so you want the feds to get involved.
Translation: - You could care less that CA is violating the constitution. - Thanks for your admission.
You're sadly mistaken if you think Washington has any interest in protecting genuine liberty. They certainly will never use the 14th amendment to uphold 2nd-amendment rights, because they themselves have next to zero respect for those rights themselves. You'd have a much better chance of reforming your state government than reforming Washington, unless you think Washington is somehow inherently wiser - an odd position for a libertarian to take. Their history with the 14th amendment has been almost nothing but a history of judges using it to impose their personal preferences on society. What little it may have done to restrain states from doing things that truly violate peoples rights, has been completely overshadowed by the malignant growth of the federal government that the 14th made possible, albeit indirectly.
Thanks again. Your rant is very revealing of your fanaticism about the feds. I don't like federalism either, but I will not give up on respecting the constitution.
---------- And its the job of the constitution to see that individual rights are not violated. - Checks & balances, remember?
The job of the Constitution is indeed to preserve checks and balances, and that's done in a variety of ways, not the least of which - as the name of our country strongly implies - is the division of power between the state and federal governments. The 14th amendment hamstrings the states in their ability to govern themselves, leaving the feds to fill in the vacuum - all while doing next to nothing to protect individual rights.
You've made this same vague charge against the 14th this entire thread, yet never get to particulars. - All fancy rhetoric, it seems, but no real 'ham', just the string, the 'line'.
----------- You appear to have bought into the states 'rights' propoganda, - or - you have a statist type agenda of your own, based on the idea that a state can make 'moral' laws of some type, to control personal behavior. - Not so, under the 14th.
I'm sure it would be great if we had small government at all levels, that stayed out of peoples' business and just did what was necessary to protect lives and property, but until the federal government starts living up to those standards, I don't understand how any sane person can demand that they be the guardians of our liberties against the states - their only meaningful competition.
More 'straw men' demands. - Insane.
I DO demand the constitution be honored, by fed or state.
As a libertarian, I'm sure you can understand (and have probably heard before) that the more we demand of government to do for us, the more we authorize them to do to us. At no level of government does that hold more true than at the national level.
And just as a technical note, I'm wondering what you mean when you say that states don't have the power to pass "moral" laws to control personal behavior.
Did you even bother to read the 'due process' quote I posted this morning? - Are you really this dense? - Mindboggling myopia.
You seem to subscribe to the "original intent" school of legal interpretation, so I'll ask you: Was it the intent of the framers of the 14th amendment to overturn all existing state laws against fornication, sodomy, incest, polygamy, etc.?
Of course not. Most of those laws have a victim, - an injured party. - And a criminal who commited that injury. -- No one here has any problem with giving a fair trial to an accused criminal.
Many of us constitutionalists have problems with prohibitory 'laws' on victimless 'crime', however.