apothanein kerdos Posted November 17, 2004 Group: Royal Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 331 Topics Per Day: 0.05 Content Count: 8,713 Content Per Day: 1.21 Reputation: 21 Days Won: 0 Joined: 07/28/2004 Status: Offline Share Posted November 17, 2004 Steff, you can say this all you want, the fact is neither the framer's nor the original Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution in the way you want to. In other words, you're going against the framer's intent and even application. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steff Posted November 17, 2004 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 86 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 624 Content Per Day: 0.09 Reputation: 1 Days Won: 0 Joined: 03/20/2004 Status: Offline Share Posted November 17, 2004 Steff, you can say this all you want, the fact is neither the framer's nor the original Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution in the way you want to. In other words, you're going against the framer's intent and even application. Wait a second now you're telling me original intent without backing it up? I believe I've made a very fair analysis of the constitution and you may not like it being true, doesn't change the fact that it is. Face it, you can't win this argument because the constitution is quite clear. Just because the Supreme Court abuses their power doesn't mean they have the right to. The reason they are not challenged is that people do not know better, and most people are ignorant of what the constitution really says. Not only that, but our elected officials in congress refuse to declare foul because they either don't care, or are too busy playing politics. The purpose of a written constitution is entirely defeated if, in interpreting it as a legal document, its provisions are manipulated and worked around so that the document means whatever the manipulators wish. Jefferson recognized this danger and spoke out constantly for careful adherence to the Constitution as written, with changes to be made by amendment, not by tortured and twisted interpretations of the text. "Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803. ME 10:419 "Where a constitution, like ours, wears a mixed aspect of monarchy and republicanism, its citizens will naturally divide into two classes of sentiment, according as their tone of body or mind, their habits, connections and callings, induce them to wish to strengthen either the monarchical or the republican features of the constitution. Some will consider it as an elective monarchy, which had better be made hereditary, and therefore endeavor to lead towards that all the forms and principles of its administration. Others will view it as an energetic republic, turning in all its points on the pivot of free and frequent elections." --Thomas Jefferson to James Sullivan, 1797. ME 9:377 "The Constitution to which we are all attached was meant to be republican, and we believe to be republican according to every candid interpretation. Yet we have seen it so interpreted and administered, as to be truly what the French have called, a monarchie masque." --Thomas Jefferson to Robert R. Livingston, 1800. ME 10:177 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apothanein kerdos Posted November 17, 2004 Group: Royal Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 331 Topics Per Day: 0.05 Content Count: 8,713 Content Per Day: 1.21 Reputation: 21 Days Won: 0 Joined: 07/28/2004 Status: Offline Share Posted November 17, 2004 Steff, you can say this all you want, the fact is neither the framer's nor the original Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution in the way you want to. In other words, you're going against the framer's intent and even application. Wait a second now you're telling me original intent without backing it up? I believe I've made a very fair analysis of the constitution and you may not like it being true, doesn't change the fact that it is. Face it, you can't win this argument because the constitution is quite clear. Just because the Supreme Court abuses their power doesn't mean they have the right to. The reason they are not challenged is that people do not know better, and most people are ignorant of what the constitution really says. Not only that, but our elected officials in congress refuse to declare foul because they either don't care, or are too busy playing politics. The purpose of a written constitution is entirely defeated if, in interpreting it as a legal document, its provisions are manipulated and worked around so that the document means whatever the manipulators wish. Jefferson recognized this danger and spoke out constantly for careful adherence to the Constitution as written, with changes to be made by amendment, not by tortured and twisted interpretations of the text. "Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803. ME 10:419 "Where a constitution, like ours, wears a mixed aspect of monarchy and republicanism, its citizens will naturally divide into two classes of sentiment, according as their tone of body or mind, their habits, connections and callings, induce them to wish to strengthen either the monarchical or the republican features of the constitution. Some will consider it as an elective monarchy, which had better be made hereditary, and therefore endeavor to lead towards that all the forms and principles of its administration. Others will view it as an energetic republic, turning in all its points on the pivot of free and frequent elections." --Thomas Jefferson to James Sullivan, 1797. ME 9:377 "The Constitution to which we are all attached was meant to be republican, and we believe to be republican according to every candid interpretation. Yet we have seen it so interpreted and administered, as to be truly what the French have called, a monarchie masque." --Thomas Jefferson to Robert R. Livingston, 1800. ME 10:177 <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Mayberry v Madison was ruled on WHILE the framer's were still alive...yet not a single one voiced an objection. As I said, the framer's disagree with you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steff Posted November 17, 2004 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 86 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 624 Content Per Day: 0.09 Reputation: 1 Days Won: 0 Joined: 03/20/2004 Status: Offline Share Posted November 17, 2004 Mayberry v Madison was ruled on WHILE the framer's were still alive...yet not a single one voiced an objection. As I said, the framer's disagree with you. And again you are wrong. While you may argue that Jefferson wasn't a framer, he was in fact mostly responsible for convincing people that a bill of rights was necessary in the constitution. He was also one of the main responsible parties for the Declaration of Independence. The reason the framers did not object directly to the judicial interpretation was that in that day, the court had no way of forcing its will on the people "The question whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches." --Thomas Jefferson to W. H. Torrance, 1815. ME 14:303 "But the Chief Justice says, 'There must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.' True, there must; but does that prove it is either party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our Constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force." --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:451 "But, you may ask, if the two departments [i.e., federal and state] should claim each the same subject of power, where is the common umpire to decide ultimately between them? In cases of little importance or urgency, the prudence of both parties will keep them aloof from the questionable ground; but if it can neither be avoided nor compromised, a convention of the States must be called to ascribe the doubtful power to that department which they may think best." --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:47 Judicial Despotism : "The Constitution... meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch." --Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:51 "To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:277 "In denying the right [the Supreme Court usurps] of exclusively explaining the Constitution, I go further than [others] do, if I understand rightly [this] quotation from the Federalist of an opinion that 'the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government, but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under which the judiciary is derived.' If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se [act of suicide]. For intending to establish three departments, coordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. For experience has already shown that the impeachment it has provided is not even a scare-crow... The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please." --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819. ME 15:212 "This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825. ME 16:114 Taken from www.libertyhaven.com: Marbury vs. Madison Chief Justice John Marshall also wisely avoided a confrontation with the President by his opinion in the celebrated case of Marbury vs. Madison. William Marbury had been appointed justice of the peace by President Adams, but the appointment was so late that the commission was not delivered. James Madison, the incoming Secretary of State, refused to deliver it under orders from Jefferson. Marbury sued in the Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus that would force Madison to deliver the commission. Marshall held that Marbury was indeed entitled to a commission and force was appropriate, but, unfortunately, by his reading of the Constitution, he had applied to the wrong court. Thus, petition denied, and no mandamus was issued. It was just as well, too, for the general view has been that Jefferson would not have honored it, and the court would have been powerless to enforce it. By Jefferson's interpretation of the Constitution the court could no more force him to act than he could force it to render a decision in accord with his wishes. Marshall got his opportunity to try force on the President again in the Burr trial for treason in 1807. He issued a subpoena, on motion of defense, for Jefferson to appear in court. Jefferson declined, though he did send some papers, and gave the court a lecture on the separation of powers.20 Marshall took no further action. But before either of these cases came before the courts, Congress had begun to move to rein in and restrain the courts. In 1802, it repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801, taking away a number of new offices. Shortly after, it passed a new act returning Supreme Court justices to riding circuit and restricting the Supreme Court to one session each year. Then, gently prodded by Jefferson, it zeroed in on the most notorious of the judges. District judge John Pickering, ill famed for his drunken, if not insane, carrying on in court, was impeached by the House and removed from office by the Senate. Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase was impeached by the House for his intemperate behavior in court, but the Senate failed of the two-thirds majority required for conviction. Jefferson was disappointed and thereafter maintained that impeachment was very nearly an empty threat. That was surely an overly pessimistic assessment, however, for it appears that the behavior of judges improved perceptibly for quite a while after the Pickering and Chase cases. The broader point is this. As Jefferson held, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the President, as well as the courts, are empowered to act in ways that depend upon interpreting the Constitution. They take oaths to uphold and defend the Constitution, and if its meaning could only be divined by the courts this would amount to nothing more than oaths to obey the courts. Happily, however, the Constitution is written in English, and the other branches have powers that enable them to act upon their own interpretations and even restrain the courts if they get out of line. All legislative power is vested in the Congress and executive power in the President. If the courts invade the legislative domain of the Congress by their constructions of the Constitution, as they have most certainly done in recent years, Congress has the power to set them straight. The Constitution authorizes Congress to define and limit (or expand) the appellate jurisdiction of the courts. The President can refuse to enforce court orders he believes in conflict with the Constitution. (The courts have no enforcement machinery, i. e., prosecuting attorneys, police, armies, prisons, or electric chairs, of their own.) As Andrew Jackson is alleged to have said, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it." Judges can be impeached and removed from office, though lawyers rail impotently that they can only be removed for indictable crimes. It happens that when the Senate acts as such a high court, there is no appeal from its decisions. As a last resort, Congress can refuse to appropriate money for the operation of the courts. In short, not only can the other branches interpret the Constitution, but they are also in as good position as the courts to make their interpretations stick. From what I have read Jefferson and the other founding fathers did not believe, however, that all the branches of government together are the final arbiters of constitutionality. Not even the Federal and state governments, to whom he would certainly provide some place, are the ultimate arbiters. Government is too dangerous, too bent on aggrandizing its own powers, to leave to it or them the final decision. "I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves," he said. In the final analysis, he thought, that was where the power of interpreting the Constitution resides. The people may turn out members of Congress who displease them on constitutional issues. They can refuse the re-election of a President. If all else fails, or if the branches of government cannot agree, the constitution can be amended by the consensual process prescribed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apothanein kerdos Posted November 20, 2004 Group: Royal Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 331 Topics Per Day: 0.05 Content Count: 8,713 Content Per Day: 1.21 Reputation: 21 Days Won: 0 Joined: 07/28/2004 Status: Offline Share Posted November 20, 2004 How many times must I remind you that Thomas Jefferson had absolutely nothing to do with the Constitution? In fact, he was against the idea of one prior to it being formed, however once it was formed he became a strict constructioninst. Likewise, Thomas Jefferson had nothing to do with the Bill of Rights being placed into the Constitution. This was done to appease fears from Virginia and Rhode Island who demanded that one be in there, otherwise they would not have signed on. So if you can bring up a Framer objecting to Mayberry v Madison, which gave the Supreme Court the final rule on the interpreation of the Constitution in these instances (as the Constitution gives them the power to do so), then please supply it. Otherwise you should have known that Thomas Jefferson would not have been acceptable at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steff Posted November 20, 2004 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 86 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 624 Content Per Day: 0.09 Reputation: 1 Days Won: 0 Joined: 03/20/2004 Status: Offline Share Posted November 20, 2004 Now you're just grasping at straws SJ. While abroad, Jefferson corresponded with members of the Constitutional Convention, particularly his close associate from Virginia, James Madison. He agreed to support the Constitution and the strong federal government it created. Jefferson's support, however, hinged upon the condition that Madison add a Bill of Rights to the document in the form of ten amendments. The rights that Jefferson insisted upon -- among them were freedom of speech, assembly, and practice of religion -- have become fundamental to and synonymous with American life ever since. Gee, now I wonder why Virginia wanted a bill of rights... Since the Constitutional ideals were also founded on the Declaration of Independence which Jefferson did mostly write, your argument that Jefferson isn't an acceptable souce falls by the wayside. Maybe he's not acceptable for you but again it goes back to the specific powers outlined in the constitution. Anything not granted is reserved to the people not one of the branches of government. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lifeandliberty Posted November 22, 2004 Group: Members Followers: 0 Topic Count: 23 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 68 Content Per Day: 0.01 Reputation: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/16/2004 Status: Offline Author Share Posted November 22, 2004 On Dec. 1, we, with our legal team will be holding a press conference in Philadelphia. We will present our case to a Federal judge and ask him to intervene and drop this case. He will be shown the evidence that proves our innocence. I ask those true Christians who post to this site to pray for us. Life and Liberty Ministries Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kabowd Posted November 22, 2004 Group: Royal Member Followers: 0 Topic Count: 112 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 3,489 Content Per Day: 0.48 Reputation: 13 Days Won: 0 Joined: 07/28/2004 Status: Offline Share Posted November 22, 2004 I ask those true Christians who post to this site to pray for us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lifeandliberty Posted December 5, 2004 Group: Members Followers: 0 Topic Count: 23 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 68 Content Per Day: 0.01 Reputation: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/16/2004 Status: Offline Author Share Posted December 5, 2004 Hymn-Singing Christians Fight Back by Stuart Shepard, correspondent Family News In Focus Some evangelists face a possible 47 years in prison for doing nothing more than showing up at a gay pride event. Eleven Christians facing prison time for singing hymns at a Philadelphia gay pride event are fighting back with a federal lawsuit challenging the charges against them. Members of "The Philadelphia 11," as the group has been dubbed, face as many as 47 years in prison. Their ordeal began in October at a pro-homosexual event called OutFest, where Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lifeandliberty Posted December 5, 2004 Group: Members Followers: 0 Topic Count: 23 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 68 Content Per Day: 0.01 Reputation: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/16/2004 Status: Offline Author Share Posted December 5, 2004 Emergency Complaint filed in Federal Court Emergency Complaint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts