...and no, the phrase that "you probably have some issues with Lincoln, I take it," wasn't meant to suggest that.  I meant it in terms of his asserting the federal government over the States, and your view about States rights are well-known.

I will confess, though, that I wonder if you take the possibility of regression back into a slave society seriously enough, or if evidence indicating this regression would even bother you.  

Slavery existed all through human history.  There's every reason to believe that our society could regress back into it, just from ill-considered policies.

More about this after some rest.    

-- Modified on 5/12/2005 9:46:50 AM

Well, at least on the point of freedom of association or dis-association.  The importance of constitutional rights, particularly the Bill of Rights, is to guarantee freedom to the people from government control or interference.  People can be as bigoted or pig-headed as they want as long as they don't use government benefits to discriminate in ways the government (representing the people as a whole) deems illegal (i.e., race, sex, religious persuation and maybe soon sexual orientation).

"and rather than give you a legal brief, I would suggest you go to Findlaw.com and research the issue yourself."

I thank you very much for that reference to findlaw.com.  I will have a lot of use for that. However, in the midst of this argument, it wouldn't be very timely for me to do the research.  I point out, however, that you haven't made a counterargument or attempted a rebuttle with this. You simply referred to an authority, without even a summarization.  I won't be surprised when I find that gross errors in and disregard for logic never deter lawyers when its inconvenient, including the ones who rule on the laws.        


"Of course, your intellectualoid pretensions are laid naked when you suggest that I am pro-slavery, which is a ridiculous slander, but characteristic of the tactics of the uninformed far Left.  Perhaps our Moderator could explain why yours is an appropriate comment, particularly if, as I suspect, you were allowed to cast your aspersion, while mine might not make it."

James, about slandering your good TER handle, if I believed your outlook were moral, or sane, or logical, or compatible with rights, or even supportable from their own point of view, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

You didn't answer this from my post in the tread below where I directly mentioned slavery. ("With Federal Cash, Religious Group Builds Power,"post: "But James...")  I said dissolving labor unions was a good way to re-introduce slavery. It was indirect. I meant the notion to resonate with you James.  It was aimed at your thinking, not at undercutting your good handle.  It seems to have hit a sensitive cord, all right, though not the one I intended. You've yelped.  

I gave you my guess as to your real outlook about slavery, and fine tuned it two posts ago, to where it was the best and honest description. But in all truth, James, that was just my guess.  I'm not obligated to think the best of you.  And in this anonymous setting, I'm not obligated to honor your good name (or handle) either.  As far as I know, you're real view about slavery is even worse than what I expect.  

And it would be an error for me to expect the best from a social conservative with 34 escort reviews. (And don't call that a slander or out of bounds.  It's the only thing I know about you for a fact, and is more than I want to know, BTW.) Anybody should assume that at the core you are quite different from your public face, even here, behind your handle.  


"And no, not all rights imply their opposite, at least as miscast by you."

Strange twisted statement, I almost feel sorry for it.  You say I miscast it, but you agree, and you agree by saying no. You demonstrate why the root word for attorney is the same one for tourniquet-- literally attorney means one who twists words. (I don't know if that was ever a compliment.)  You've certainly put them on the rack for torture here. It's practically a work of modern art.

I'll translate it to read that you grudgingly concede in principle that a right does not imply its opposite.  Therefore, the right to exlude is not implied in the right to assemble/associate.  

So, from this agreement, what I've been saying follows: the government has to protect the right to assemble, but does not have to protect the right to exclude, as the latter would be an interest rather than a right.  

Unless, of course, it's one of the 9th amendment rights. It might be.    



-- Modified on 5/13/2005 10:40:11 PM

-- Modified on 5/13/2005 11:03:03 PM

-- Modified on 5/14/2005 8:57:48 AM

... the government's duty to protect the right to life against interference by outside forces (i.e., abortion, murder, euthanasia) is distinct from the so-called "right to die," though I'm not sure what you mean by that.
And of course, the right against self- incrimination does not interfere with one's right to confess to a crime, if one so chooses without coercion.  We do allow defendants to plead guilty, after all.   You create a series of false dichotomies, when your opposite is not the opposite at all (right to life v. right to kill, for instance)."

False dichotomies when the words are mis-applied like this, yes.  What I actually meant about self-incrimination is that if you have a right to self-incriminate equal and opposite to your right not to, then the government is free of the promise to honor your right not to self incriminate.  Hence, the government forcibly compelling you to incriminate yourself can then be presented as a protection of your rights.  Same with the right to life:  It can then give you its opposite, death, or any suffering short of it and can still present it as a "protection."  That is what I meant.  

The fact is, the rights and their antipodes are not equal and opposite.  What if the Bill of Rights had been written referring to the opposite of our rights: you have a right to shut up always and print nothing, Congress will let you know which religion is proper, you have a right to be solitary, you have a right to incriminate yourself, you have a right to a trial by secret tribunal with unknown charges by an unknown accuser... nobody would ever read those to mean the opposite.  

Therefore, I'll reiterate on this, there is no logical inference of a right to exclude from a right to assemble.  

BTW, I brought it up, but I'll put it to rest here.  It's rather ridiculous to talk of a "right" to incriminate yourself.  Of course, you are free-est in life to screw yourself every which way, and your real rights aren't important if you're doing that. Your rights really become important when you don't intend to self-incrimate, but you're coerced into doing it.  A lot like your right to assemble, the government doesn't have to guarantee your right to be solitary-- simply because when you're solitary, the government has all the power over you.


"Of course, I'm correct about the freedom to associate implying the right to refuse to associate.  It's in decades of Supreme Court decisionmaking."  

I did say above that the crippling strictures of logic have never dissuaded our legal system from coming out with bad ideas. The legal system was lifted hook, line and sinker from England, who we supposed to be overthrowing.

Logic has only been systematized for 100 years, where jurisprudence has been around far longer.  You again refer to authority, and I will admit, since the courts are an authority, my hand is weaker.  However, you haven't demonstrated my view as wrong, you've only pointed out that yours is aligned with the powers that be. And you've only referred to these arguments vaguely and have left them in the debate unseen.  So, its an argument from arbitrary authority and power, not from anything logical or correct, or even right.

Furthermore, if you can dissent from the onerous obligation of taxes, levied by your legally elected Congress, and spent on social programs also legally adopted into law, I can dissent from the law the court has passed down here.  

"As to the notion that 'To exclude is to create factions, and we know what they really thought of that,' I would refer to you Madison's Federalist No. 10, in which he discusses the "problem of faction," noting that its "causes are sown into the nature of man," and concluding that the Constitution only seeks to control its effects."  

Yes, seeks to control its effects, and since you haven't noticed, that supports my argument, not yours.  As a historical note, it is very well known that the founders were dismayed and even despaired as factions developed among them after they worked hard to create a system that would "minimize" it.  Things got so contentious, that many thought that they had failed with the constitution. They were classically educated, and knew how much blood had been spilt by the Greeks and Romans due to factions. This is a matter of record, James.  There's no argument with it.

"Unless, of course, you're claiming to have superior knowledge about 'what they really thought' to which we are not privy and which is contrary to their actual comments.  Wouldn't surprise me, though."

So, now your smearing me for arrogance. This is simply a low-blow James, and you complain about slander.  I don't claim to have superior knowledge about it. I only refuse to acknowledge people as superior to me only because of the fact that they are dead.

Let Madison into the debate, marshall his writings out. I will respect the fact that his work was central to the conception of this country, and he was there to witness to the events of its founding, but I won't fall into awed silence about his word being the last word. These were just human beings, remember.  Madison and the rest of the founders weren't capable of knowing the implications of the principles that they established 230 years later.  No human being can be.  I'll debate them as I do anybody else's words, and I won't be ruled by the dead.    


"And as for whether 'the Founders would have recognized non-association as a right,' I'll merely quote Jefferson (granted, not a Framer) who, in a letter to Madison (the "wall of separation" comment is in a similar source), commented about the tyrannical character of forcing an individual to contribute even "three pence" for the 'propagation of opinions which he disbelieves.'"  

I wish you didn't *merely* do that because the connection of this fragmented quote to subject here looks  very weak. This is disappointing, because this broken quote looks to be the closest you've come to forming a real counterargument.  You've given me a leg and a wing, and you're calling it a chicken. "Wall of seperation" and "seperation of powers" are clear and concrete, concepts and they refer to things specifically in the Constitution.  This quote mumbles about something about a detail the Founders (and indirectly, Jefferson) forgot to put in the constitution.    


"It's the quotation which has been repeatedly cited favorably by the Supremes. Soooo, you really don't know what you're talking about.  The State cannot interfere with the church's determination of who is properly a member, even if that determination is, as here, ill-advised."

Again, all you've said is that the powers that be support you, and I say that's just the score of yesterday's game. You haven't even presented any of their arguments, even paraphrased, you just expect me to fall into silence from awe at the superior power behind you.    

Sooo, James, if you could call social programs voted on by your legally elected Congress illegal and immoral, I can have my own dissent over a different branch of government. Ironically, as Conservative and Liberal, we seem to have switched sides.  Your beef is with Congress; mine is with the court.

And as for practice of discriminating, it isn't always, or even  usually a right.  And it's not one protected under the First amendment when it is.    

If I'm getting tax breaks...zzzzz..