SCOTUS, DOMA and CA Prop. 8 decisions.

[Subdeacon Joe]

I'm seeing in the local rag a lot of letters praising the SCOTUS decisions on DOMA and Prop, 8, and all seem to be adopting the "Well, you can't vote away civil rights!" line.

I'm taking advantage of those to ask "What do you think of the 28 bills in the CA legislature that are aimed at doing just that? Do you really support civil rights? All of them? Even those spelled out in the Bill of Rights and that aren't politically popular at the moment? Or are you fine with legislating away some civil rights? Because once you attack one, it is easier to attack them all."

 

Don't waste ANY chance to attempt to educate the public that we don't have "gun rights" but we do have constitutionally protected rights to keep and bear arms. And that is a set - keep AND bear. If you can only have them in your home, that is negating one half of the rights.

 

Here is the latest in the local rag:

 

Majority problems

EDITOR: D. Don Johnson
believes the judicial system does not work because the U.S. Supreme
Court nullified Proposition 8 (“System didn’t work,” Wednesday).

Don,
if the majority of the people voted to send a certain group of people
to concentration camps based upon their religious beliefs, should that
be allowed to stand?

If
the voters vote in something that is unconstitutional you’re fine with
that? You’re OK with having your rights taken away if the majority vote
to do so?

CHARLES THOMPSON

 

And my response:

 

CHARLES THOMPSON - are you as zealous in your protection of all our civil rights? Or are you OK with the 28 bills now working their way though our state legislature that are aimed at gutting the 2nd amendment for Californians?

Seems rather strange that the leftists, and I assume you are a leftist, have suddenly, after decades of working to strip us of our 1st and 2nd amendment rights, rights actually mentioned in the Bill of Rights, started being concerned about civil rights and how they can't be voted away.

So, which is it, Mr. Thompson? Do you really support civil rights? Or only certain civil rights that the DNC deems to be the cause of the day? Because, as we have seen, once you start attacking the legitimate and responsible exercise of one civil right, it becomes so much easier to attack all civil rights.

Justice Robert Jackson wrote: "The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." Yet we are constantly having to fight Democrats who want to subject the civil rights protected by the 2nd to "the vicissitude of political
controversy" and place them within the reach of "majorities and officials."

 

Feel free to chime in through the link below:

 

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20130708/OPINION/130709702/1044/opinion02?p=2&tc=pg&tc=ar

 

I post these to show how easy it is and how many opportunities we have to get the word out. Be reasonably polite, have your facts straight, and try to avoid name calling.

Oh, and if you reply to a letter in the paper online, be aware that many sites have an auto-refresh that kicks in every 5 minutes or so. So if you are writing something and go to a new tab to do a cut and paste, as I did for that quote from Justice Jackson, be sure to copy your work every few lines. It's frustrating to have work lost just as you are about to hit ENTER because you forgot to copy it. Better yet, compose in a program like Word, then copy and paste to the paper.

[Badlands Beady]

Be careful whom you quote. Justice Jackson also wrote, "The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact." That, and Jackson, can be used any number of ways.

[Subdeacon Joe]

Be careful whom you quote. Justice Jackson also wrote, "The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact." That, and Jackson, can be used any number of ways.

 

 

Yes, he did, well sort of. What he wrote in his dissent in Terminiello v. Chicago was:

 

"This Court has gone far toward accepting the doctrine that civil liberty

means the removal of all restraints from these crowds and that all

local attempts to maintain order are impairments of the liberty of the

citizen. The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between

liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if

the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical

wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact."

 

I think his dissenting opinion in the case was that he didn't see the Chicago ordinance as over-broad as the majority did. The ordinance banned speech which "stirs the public to anger, invites dispute, brings about a condition of unrest, or creates a disturbance." A VERY broad brush that could apply to people discussing which of Chicago's baseball teams was better. And, he, I think, was correct. The Bill of Rights was not meant to cover incitement to riot, slander, libel, and the like.

 

What I quoted was from 319 U.S. 624. WEST VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION et al. v. BARNETTE et al. No. 591. Argued March 11, 1943. Decided June 14, 1943.

[Badlands Beady]

Now *that* is what I call a rebuttal. Well played, Sir! And have a beer on me.

[Subdeacon Joe]

Now *that* is what I call a rebuttal. Well played, Sir! And have a beer on me.

 

Why, thank you, Sir. And do have one one me!

 

(raises glass in a toast)

Confusion to our enemies!