Free Republic

certianly. Its just pathetic is all.

You question whose opinion is valid to judge Constitutionality. I ask you why yours isn't. I don't question my ability to think independently, just whether I am at the moment. Because he is sworn to defend the Constitution the President is obligated to mske that judgement call himself until the Supreme Court rules one way or another. One could ague that a law is Constitutional until declared otherwise by the Sumpreme Court as you do, or one can argue that it is necessarily suspect until it has been challenged and passed through. If a President feels that a law is unConstitutional and enforces it anyway, all prosecutions under that law are malicious because the person responsible (at the highest level) for enforcing it does not believe that such prosecution is just yet prosecutes anyway.

You're probably right. I have no experience with home owners' associations. I do have to say though, any time someone feels it necessary to enact a law enabling you to fly the American flag then a very pathetic situation has cropped up.

Based on what? Your opinion? Mine? A Liberal's? A Conservative's? A Libertarian's?

I don't mean for you to take this question personally, but it is something that you seriously have to consider in order to understand deep down to the bottom of your existence whether or not you believe in the America ideal of "every man is created equal." I repeat, this question is for you own consideration, and is in no way a personal insult. I ask myself this question any time I am think about taking someone else's word on what anything means.

Are you so stupid that you have to have someone else interpret for you everything you read?

If a law is contrary to the Constitution, even if it has not been declared so, the Pres still has the responsibility not to enforce it because he would, in fact, be enforcing an invalid law. Nothing can be done to a President who refuses to enforce certain laws so the only thing on the line it the public's opinion of him. Any President unwilling to do what it right for fear of alienating the public is not doing his job.

One could argue that the home owners' association is violating private property rights. It depends on whether this rule was in effect when the home was bought or after.

The problem is that the President, being sworn to uphold the Constitution, has an obligation to not enforce unConstitutional laws. Only if he believes a law it unConstitutional and the Supreme Court disagrees with him then is he required to enforce it. And even the its iffy. He has an obligation by virtue of his oath of office to avoid unConstitutional proceedings whenever possible. Otherwise his oath is even more meaningless than Clinton made it appear.

There are always alternatives. The question is: Are you willing to do what is necessary to take them? If you have access to a public library you can homeschool for free.

I think I may see one problem in my arguments. I was reading them over to see where I had gone wrong becuase it seemed to me you were being more obstinate that you should have been. I miscopied a quote the first time I posted you. I quoted you twice instead of copying a quote from a Supreme Court case. Maybe this will clear up the confusion. I apologize for messing this up the first time.

"An unconstitutional law is void, and is as no law. An offence created by it is not a crime. A conviction under it is not merely erroneous, but is illegal and void, and cannot be a legal cause of imprisonment." (100 U.S. 371 (1879) Ex parte Siebold)

You consider a fact to be a very slippery thing. I was under the impression (gained the last time I referenced a dictionary) that a fact was an actual happening. Unless the definition has changed in the intervening years, the fact of a happening that did not take place is not a fact, but rather a false statement, misinterpretation, or other nonfactual imformation.

New evidence can undo a conviction whether or not it is interpreted correctly. Not quite the same, though similar in concept.

I asked about religion to acsertain whether you believe God (Allah, YHWH, Shiva, the Goddess, The Higher Consciousness, Odin, Zeus, Jupiter, or whomever I forgot or never knew to mention) will judge you according to what the law says you did or according to what you truly did. Generally, when something wins out over something else in the last judgement, the frist something is considered to have trumped the something else. If the law does trump truth the God will make you account for that which the courts judged you guilty even if you didn't actually do it. Or karma will kick you for it. Atheism, and the neomorality taught in public school, is the only religion I can think of at the moment where law could effectively trump truth.

I do not believe I was misreading you in saying you consider effect more important than intent. You base the idea of law trumping truth on the effect of imprisonment meaning more than the literal fact of innocence. Law can only trump truth if the truth would not overturn a conviction legally obtained.

Don't s'pose I can claim that Yvonne Davis isn't my fault because I didn't vote for her, can I?

The law trumps the truth.

If the law did trump truth then those the law declared to be guilty would truly be guilty. If you truly believe that law trumps truth I would like to ask about your religious persuasion, but you are, of course, free to ignore that request.

The quote I pointed you to indicated that the Constitution does not consider people guilty of breaking an invalid law. The point of the appeals process is to force the lower courts to accept this already existing truth. If this truth were not alreday existing then a person would not be eligible from release when the law he violated was declared unConstitutional because it would have been valid when s/he was convicted, rather than erroneously considered valid as it actually is.

It seems to me that you consider effect more imortant than intent or circumstances. Would you convict someone who takes a life in self defense of murder because the end result is the same? Would you consider them as guilty as the person who maliciously intended to take a life?

Also, how do one challenge a law on the grounds that it is un Consitutional if it is Constitutional until it has been overturned? According to your logic no law could be legitimately challenged because the fact that it had not been overturned would be proof positive that the law was Constitutional.

I, also, am interested in real people. I do not feel that people are benefited by being told they deserve to be treated as guilty just because they have been. I do feel people are benefited by being told "it was wrong from the beginning," rather than your version of "I changed my mind." A changing of mind is not what happened. An appraisal of fact is.

Your comments indicate that you would consider someone guilty of a crime because they had been convicted even if you, personally, knew that they had not commited the crime of which they were accused. And that you would consider yourself guilty of a crime you never committed because you had been convicted. What does it matter that you know someone to be innocent when they have been punished?

I think I see where you are coming from. Tell me, are you willing to fight for what you believe in? Or are you only willing to fight with the certainty that you will gain no matter the outcome? Or are you unwilling to take any side in a fight for fear that you will lose something?

So you are saying that all innocent persons convicted of a crime are in fact guilty of the crime for which they've been convicted before someone else confesses. Just because a truth is not upheld doesn't make it any less true.

No law is unconstitutional until it is declared to be so. All laws on the books have to be obeyed, and enforced at a cost, even if they are "unconstitutional", until repealed or declared unconstitutional.

Not precisely true.

"No law is unconstitutional until it is declared to be so. All laws on the books have to be obeyed, and enforced at a cost, even if they are "unconstitutional", until repealed or declared unconstitutional."(100 U.S. 371(1879) Ex parte Siebold)

If a law were Constitutional until the moment it was declared to not be so then the convictions and sentences would stand because the convictions and sentences were Constitutional at the time they were imposed. When a law is taken off the books by an act of Congress or other legislative body all persons convicted of the crime described are not automatically set free because what they did is no longer a crime. They must still receive a pardon in order to be released prematurely because their conviction and sentence were valid; however, in the case of an unConstitutional law, the law is unConstitutional from the moment it is enacted and thus all convictions and sentences resulting therefrom are invalid.

Thanks in large part to the influx of Mexicans, Texas has a thriving Catholic population.

No state income tax.

The laws are extremely homeschool friendly. The school district cannot require you to test your children to prove that they are learning. They have no authority to approve, or disapprove, or your curricula. You are not required to notify the school district of intent; however, if the truancy officer comes by you do you to provide a letter assuring them that you are educating your child. Obviously, in some places districts like to try to make things difficult, but there's always someone trying to be a pain.

Like all capitol cities, Austin attracts your usual "what can I get the gov't to do for me" types, but so do many large cities and most of the state is pretty conservative.

Pick your climate. If you like trees, try east Texas, the panhandle if you want to ever see snow, from Austin south gets you a excessive heat upwards of 100 most of the summer (from May through Sept.), and west Texas gets you all the sand and cactus you could ever hope to see in your life. All of Texas is a steambath.

I love Texas, everyone should live here.

Sort of. She still intentionally misfiled her taxes. If she had claimed on her tax form that they were reparations for slavery rather than making something up it would be a lot more defensible.

That it is important that more people trust Fox to give them news is important I will not argue, but the additional ramifications of this article should not be ignored.

I reiterate: What this shows is that people don't care as much about what is going on in the country or the world when they would have to interrupt their entertainment in order to find out. Entertainment means more to cable viewers than news.