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Do you care if the Constitution is violated?

Do you care?

  • The government should never violate the Constitution

    Votes: 47 85.5%

  • I don't care as long as I like the results of the violation

    Votes: 2 3.6%

  • It should be only violated in exterme emgerancies

    Votes: 4 7.3%

  • The constitution is outdated and should be thrown away

    Votes: 2 3.6%
  • Total voters
    55
haymarket said:
Slaves were human beings owned as property. As such they certainly were included in Jeffersons ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL phrase. Jeffersons own writings clearly state this beyond any doubt or dispute. We further have the evidence at the Constitutional Convention that slave owners and other delegates from slave owning states believed that these persons should be counted as people in the census. This is a direct admission that slave holders themselves and their representatives considered slaves as full persons. They were very much persons and I have seen NO evidence that says otherwise. Do you have any to present that slave owners and those who permitted it believed that people from Africa were not human beings?
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slaves were property and not human beings.

you have even said this on the forum in the past.
 
haymarket said:
Liberty was one of the so called founding principles contained in the Declaration of Independence in the clear statement of rights for ALL MEN. So if no state constitution can be repugnant to LIBERTY why were southern states like Alabama and Mississippi admitted when their constitutions limited rights and did not grant the to ALL MEN?
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You'll get a circle-jerk answer from the Natural Rights/Laws bunch. But Natural Mysticism, which was so loved in the days of the founders wasn't loved by everybody.

"The Granddaddy of Natural Rights" says:

Sec. 22 (Second Treaties of Civil Government - Pub. 1689)

The "natural liberty" of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule. The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the commonwealth; nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact, according to the trust put in it.

Now....

Locke differentiated between legitimate and illegitimate forms of slavery.

Locke said:

"The only way slavery can be legitimate is for an unjust aggressor to be defeated in war and his victor to place him under his absolute rule. This is allowable because the aggressor violated the laws of nature by committing some transgression and did not emerge victorious when the wronged party sought restitution through force. The cause for enslavement is just and can end when the conqueror and the conquered negotiate new terms of obedience and leniency for their relationship.

By contrast, illegitimate slavery is when an absolute and despotic ruler exercises complete control over someone without any just cause. This is conspicuous in an absolute monarchy because there is no cogent reason for the individual to hold total power over every man. Slavery can never occur with a contract and is completely illegitimate if it is accomplished using bare force and conquest."

Gosh, seems like our founders who LOVED NATURAL RIGHTS and LAW - selectively skipped the above in order to safeguard their wealth and status, sustained by using slaves.

The Founding Fathers and Slavery

Although many of the Founding Fathers acknowledged that slavery violated the core American Revolutionary ideal of liberty, their simultaneous commitment to private property rights, principles of limited government, and intersectional harmony prevented them from making a bold move against slavery. The considerable investment of Southern Founders in slave-based staple agriculture, combined with their deep-seated racial prejudice, posed additional obstacles to emancipation.

The Founding Fathers and Slavery | Founding Fathers | Britannica.com
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How convenient to deny that black slaves were persons...and considered them property. What a contraction of natural law/rights. :roll:
 
ernst barkmann said:
slaves were property and not human beings.

you have even said this on the forum in the past.
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You did not respond nor refute one thing I said in the post you reproduced as your lead in.

I gave you several pieces of evidence which prove beyond any doubt that the southerners who owned slaves considered them as human beings and people.
 
Removable Mind said:
You'll get a circle-jerk answer from the Natural Rights/Laws bunch. But Natural Mysticism, which was so loved in the days of the founders wasn't loved by everybody.

"The Granddaddy of Natural Rights" says:

Sec. 22 (Second Treaties of Civil Government - Pub. 1689)

The "natural liberty" of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule. The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the commonwealth; nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact, according to the trust put in it.

Now....

Locke differentiated between legitimate and illegitimate forms of slavery.

Locke said:

"The only way slavery can be legitimate is for an unjust aggressor to be defeated in war and his victor to place him under his absolute rule. This is allowable because the aggressor violated the laws of nature by committing some transgression and did not emerge victorious when the wronged party sought restitution through force. The cause for enslavement is just and can end when the conqueror and the conquered negotiate new terms of obedience and leniency for their relationship.

By contrast, illegitimate slavery is when an absolute and despotic ruler exercises complete control over someone without any just cause. This is conspicuous in an absolute monarchy because there is no cogent reason for the individual to hold total power over every man. Slavery can never occur with a contract and is completely illegitimate if it is accomplished using bare force and conquest."

Gosh, seems like our founders who LOVED NATURAL RIGHTS and LAW - selectively skipped the above in order to safeguard their wealth and status, sustained by using slaves.



How convenient to deny that black slaves were persons...and considered them property. What a contraction of natural law/rights. :roll:
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Its the way EB pretends that states had to be consistent with the so called founding principles contained in the Declaration when it is clear and obvious and indisputable that SLAVERY is a direct contradiction to ALL MEN being entitled to the right of LIBERTY.

Extremists will do some very strange mental gymnastics twisting themselves into the most ungodly pretzel shape ever seen just to pretend that their belief system and the BS that flows from it is intact and not destroyed.
 
haymarket said:
Its the way EB pretends that states had to be consistent with the so called founding principles contained in the Declaration when it is clear and obvious and indisputable that SLAVERY is a direct contradiction to ALL MEN being entitled to the right of LIBERTY.

Extremists will do some very strange mental gymnastics twisting themselves into the most ungodly pretzel shape ever seen just to pretend that their belief system and the BS that flows from it is intact and not destroyed.
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Well, remember - slaves weren't men in the eyes of Jefferson and many others. Odd that a slave owner like Jefferson - knew damn well that slaves were in fact not property - but an ordinary creatures called "human being" or "person".

Selective beliefs work great when one's pocketbook is at stake. Seems like that's held true from 1776 to current day.
 
Removable Mind said:
Well, remember - slaves weren't men in the eyes of Jefferson and many others. Odd that a slave owner like Jefferson - knew damn well that slaves were in fact not property - but an ordinary creatures called "human being" or "person".

Selective beliefs work great when one's pocketbook is at stake. Seems like that's held true from 1776 to current day.
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Jeffersons own writings indicate he knew full well that Africans used as slaves were men .... people .... human beings. The Monticello site has a pretty good piece showing just that.

http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/thomas-jefferson-and-slavery

And of course EB has no leg to stand on with his assertions since slave owners and their political toadies at the 1787 Philadelphia Convention made many statements about just that insisting that slaves were people and must be counted as such for the census.
 
Paschendale said:
Yes I do. But most outcries of constitutional violations are nothing more than partisan nonsense. Real violations are much more complicated and arcane than a talk radio soundbyte.
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True, but SoutherDemocrat makes a very valid point (re: post #5). It's not a violation to the Constitution until the judicial branch of governance, the SCOTUS, declares it to be so. Which makes what Senate Republicans are trying to do in regards to telephone meta-data surveillance under the Patriot Act very interesting especially given the Pledge to America and the show they put on a few years back over reading the Constitution before a bill was proposed and making such a big deal over adherence to the Constitution all the while claiming that President Obama "shreds" the Constitution and has a disregard for same.
 
Objective Voice said:
True, but SoutherDemocrat makes a very valid point (re: post #5). It's not a violation to the Constitution until the judicial branch of governance, the SCOTUS, declares it to be so. Which makes what Senate Republicans are trying to do in regards to telephone meta-data surveillance under the Patriot Act very interesting especially given the Pledge to America and the show they put on a few years back over reading the Constitution before a bill was proposed and making such a big deal over adherence to the Constitution all the while claiming that President Obama "shreds" the Constitution and has a disregard for same.
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That's not really accurate. Any branch could find something to be in violation of the constitution. That's hardly the sole province of the judicial branch. But, if a citizen is contending that an act of congress violates the constitution, the courts are the only way to grant relief against the other branches.

The constant outcry against the president from the right wing has had the effect of the boy crying wolf. If he did cross a line, no one would ever listen to them. But I would like to see a bipartisan effort to oppose NSA surveillance and data gathering, but that is the product of all three branches over a span of decades. You can't really attribute it to any single actor. And it would likely take all three working together to do away with it and reinforce the fourth amendment and really protect our privacy, but that's very unlikely to happen. Especially while partisan right wingers simultaneously decry that spying and surveillance and proclaim that we don't have a right to privacy.
 
Bodhisattva said:
It is violated on a daily basis by people, businesses and the government... and that won't ever change.
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People, provided they are not government agents, and businesses cannot violate the Constitution because it does not apply to them.
 
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Luftwaffe said:
And?

What of these amendments?

I think the thirteenth amendment is maybe the only thing a company or individual can truly break since the amendment reads that slavery shall not exist within the US (and that would mean US private entities cannot engage in it).
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No. People cannot violate the 13th. The 13th directs Congress to pass laws abolishing slavery. People can violate those.
 
Bodhisattva said:
...and the 1st with regards to speech and religion and the 9th with regards to the right to privacy.



And? You laughed at me, told me I was wrong AND? You were wrong. End of story.
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Private parties cannot violate the first or the ninth or any amendment.
 
Gaius46 said:
How so?
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There is a federal law that specifically addresses deprivation of civil rights, 18 USC 241, basically if you and another person conspire to deprive somebody of their civil rights (like say go beat up some civil rights workers registering people to vote) you can be charged with conspiracy against rights
 
EMNofSeattle said:
There is a federal law that specifically addresses deprivation of civil rights, 18 USC 241, basically if you and another person conspire to deprive somebody of their civil rights (like say go beat up some civil rights workers registering people to vote) you can be charged with conspiracy against rights
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Federal law =\= constitution
 
EMNofSeattle said:
There is a federal law that specifically addresses deprivation of civil rights, 18 USC 241, basically if you and another person conspire to deprive somebody of their civil rights (like say go beat up some civil rights workers registering people to vote) you can be charged with conspiracy against rights
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Federal law is not Constitutional law.
 
OrphanSlug said:
The point is our government at various levels violates the Constitution already in a multitude of ways. No matter how you answer the question, it is all voided by the point of view on the power of the Constitution as a government limitation device. It is no longer such a document, as such the better question is the Constitution relevant any longer?
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That laws are broken does not discredit the law. Not caring about it does.
 
Gaius46 said:
In all the cited cases the private parties were deemed to be state actors because of the relationship between the private party and the state.

So no I'm afraid you are incorrect.
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Perhaps I am. It was interesting though to take the opposite side and see how you would defend. I am enlightened.
 
Paschendale said:
That's not really accurate. Any branch could find something to be in violation of the constitution. That's hardly the sole province of the judicial branch. But, if a citizen is contending that an act of congress violates the constitution, the courts are the only way to grant relief against the other branches.

The constant outcry against the president from the right wing has had the effect of the boy crying wolf. If he did cross a line, no one would ever listen to them. But I would like to see a bipartisan effort to oppose NSA surveillance and data gathering, but that is the product of all three branches over a span of decades. You can't really attribute it to any single actor. And it would likely take all three working together to do away with it and reinforce the fourth amendment and really protect our privacy, but that's very unlikely to happen. Especially while partisan right wingers simultaneously decry that spying and surveillance and proclaim that we don't have a right to privacy.
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All true, but you do see the irony here, right, with what Republicans are trying to do despite their fervent claims of being the party to uphold the Constitution, do the will of the people and defend liberty?
 
The Constitution is a pretty good group of ideas...but it is FAR from ideal and it needs work.

And those Constitutional fanatics who think it is a perfect document...tell someone else as I do not care how great you think it is.

In fact, I don't even begin to care.

It is a solid but highly flawed 'paper' and needs lots of work.
 
DA60 said:
The Constitution is a pretty good group of ideas...but it is FAR from ideal and it needs work.

And those Constitutional fanatics who think it is a perfect document...tell someone else as I do not care how great you think it is.

In fact, I don't even begin to care.

It is a solid but highly flawed 'paper' and needs lots of work.
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Perhaps you can post some proposed amendments so we can not care about them.
 
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