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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (41649)	6/23/1999 8:09:00 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

No. She's saying that when the Bill of Rights says "Congress shall pass no law... abridging the right of the people to peaceably assemble" it means that the government can't stop you and me and our friends from gathering on the steps of the Capitol building to protest what Congress is doing. But it doesn't stop YOU from kicking people off YOUR front lawn whether they claim to be peaceably assembling or not. In fact, for example, it is perfectly legal even now for you to set up a subdivision which has private covenants prohibiting the sale of houses to certain classes of people. The limitations can even include race or religion. That is not against any law. (As long as you're not a place of public accommodation.) OTOH, the government will not enforce the provisions, and if you try to enforce them by arms, etc., the government will arrest you. But you can have the provisions if it makes you happy. (I once had a very interesting discussion with a civil rights professor about this. It is clear that if you had a provision against, for example, selling a home in your subdivision to an Inuit, and somebody sold to an Inuit anyhow, the courts would not enforce your prohibition as being against public policy, and would not undo the sale. But what if as a condition of buying a house in the subdivision the buyer had to deposit $100,000 in a trust account, and could only recover the money if they sold to an approved buyer who made an equivalent deposit unde the same conditions. If the owner then sold to an unapproved buyer you would refuse to return the deposit. Then the shoe would be on the other foot; they would have to sue you, and it's not clear to me that the courts would be able to force the return of the money in violation of what was indeed a legal contract. Cobalt, do you have any thoughts on this?)

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (41649)	6/24/1999 3:15:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I just bought The Bill of Rights, by Akhil Reed Amar, and it has been described as the best book ever written about the Bill of Rights. It's about its history and evolution. I rarely buy books, I like the library (and my hubby has turned this place into a book madhouse, there's no room to live here, so I try to set a good example!), but this isn't a two week book, and I knew I wouldn't read it unless I did it a little at a time. It's Yale University Press, 1998, and not yet out in paper.