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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (91216)	12/18/2004 1:32:48 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793739

I would like someone to show me ONE PLACE in the Constitution that FORBIDS a manger scene in a public square, a cross in the emblem for Los Angeles, a statue of the ten commandments in a courthouse or any of the other PREPOSTOROUS recent rules against those displays. Constitutions don't work like that. Our Constitution has very broad general language, and it's up to the courts to decide what that means. The example I always use is that the Constitution says we will have a military, but it doesn't say that the military will have rifles, that the rifles will have bullets, that the soldiers will have uniforms and that they will be paid and fed. It doesn't say that we will have an air force, and airplanes. It doesn't say that we will have air craft carriers and submarines and satellites and nuclear weapons. But they're implied. It doesn't say we'll have a lot of things that we have, that you probably find completely natural and unobjectionable. So, I believe we've established that it's not the judicial process you object to, it's these particular results that you object to. It's true that the Constitution does not contain the words "wall of separation between Church and State." Those were Jefferson's words, and he was in France when the Constitution was written, so what does Jefferson know? Well, Jefferson was Madison's best friend, and Madison DID help write the Constitution, and kept the notes of the Constitutional Convention debates. And Jefferson was close to George Mason, who wrote the Virginia Bill of Rights, which was the model for the US Bill of Rights. And Jefferson (along with Madison) wrote the Virginia Declaration of Religious Freedom. So, there's a pretty good chance that Jefferson knew what he was talking about. At least, many who have sat on the Supreme Court believed he was right. It's not a ridiculous assertion, when you come right down to it. When the Constitution was adopted, several states had state religions, similar to the Church of England, that were supported by taxpayer funds, but they all got rid of them. The main problem with the debate, from my perspective, is that many, maybe most, of the people arguing are not trained Constitutional scholars, nor even well-read amateurs. They grasp at minutia and ignore the important bits, sort of like that guy out in California who went through a lot of old documents picking out the bits that supported his position, and completely ignoring the rest of it. Nothing wrong with being an auto-didact, but real intellectual debate demands certain standards. To begin with, it requires acknowledging that even strict constructionists must interpret the Constitution, if only to recognize that having an army implies that the army will have guns and bullets and uniforms, and all the rest of that.