Any constitutional limit on government power either extends to state and local governments, or none do. Picking and choosing which articles of the Bill of Rights will be respected must stop!
Sonia Sotomayor does not believe that the 2nd amendment applies to state and local government, she is wrong about this, or does not care what the law means.
The Constitution is the law of the nation, it is the protective shield between each American citizen and government, and between each American citizen and the excesses of democracy.
Tyranny by government is no worse than tyranny by popular vote, both are evil!
The Founders knew this to be true, it is why they formed a REPUBLIC!
Comments (7)
Very good, sotomayor needs to be ousted period!!!
As bad as sotomaYOR is, at least she knows that the 14th Amendment was not part of the Bill of Rights
No one said it is.
How would you decide which protections apply against state and local governments? Can a state forbid a person to use a particular water fountain? Can a state tell a person they can't be served in a particular hotel? Why not?
Do you really think Obama cares about this, tsiya. He is stacking the deck with the SCOTUS with the hope that he will be able to destroy the Constitution, which he swore to protect, to force the USA into a New World Order. The Founders are turning in their graves. He is more than willing to surrender our sovereignty to satisfy his twisted sense of morality. This should have been evident to you when he acted by apologizing for the USA (and we, the people) to the malcontents of Europe who forget the Lend-Lease program and the Marshal Plan that were instrumental in fighting back the fascists and rebuilding post-WWII Europe, respectively.
I am well aware of this. It is simply my habit to let everyone know where I stand!
Democracy Versus Republic
These succinct definitions of what is Democracy and what is a Republic was produced by the US Army in 1928, These definitions have been quietly withdrawn since, soon after.
Democracy:
A government of the masses.
Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct" expression.
Results in mobocracy.
Attitude toward property is comunistic-negating property rights.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate. whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
Results in demagogism license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
Democracy is the "direct" rule of the people and has been repeatedly tried without success.
A certain Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler, nearly two centuries ago, had this to say about Democracy: " A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of Government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that Democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a Dictatorship."
A democracy is majority rule and is destructive of liberty because there is no law to prevent the majority from trampling on individual rights. Whatever the majority says goes! A lynch mob is an example of pure democracy in action. There is only one dissenting vote, and that is cast by the person at the end of the rope.
Republic:
Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them.
Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights, and a sensible economic procedure.
Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences.
A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass.
Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress.
Is the "standard form" of government throughout the world.
A republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of:
an executive and
a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create
a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their governmental acts and to recognize
certain inherent individual rights.
Take away any one or more of those four elements and you are drifting into autocracy. Add one or more to those four elements and you are drifting into democracy.
Our Constitutional fathers, familiar with the strength and weakness of both autocracy and democracy, with fixed principles definitely in mind, defined a representative republican form of government. They "made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had founded a republic."
A republic is a government of law under a Constitution. The Constitution holds the government in check and prevents the majority (acting through their government) from violating the rights of the individual. Under this system of government a lynch mob is illegal. The suspected criminal cannot be denied his right to a fair trial even if a majority of the citizenry demands otherwise.
Difference between Democracy and Republic, in brief:
Democracy:
a: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority.
b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences
Republic
a: a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government.
b: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.
Democracy and Republic are often taken as one of the same thing, but there is a fundamental difference. Whilst in both cases the government is elected by the people, in Democracy the majority rules according to their whims, whilst in the Republic the Government rule according to law. This law is framed in the Constitution to limit the power of Government and ensuring some rights and protection to Minorities and individuals.
The difference between Republic and Righteous Republic is that in the Republic the Government rules according to the law set up by men, in the Righteous Republic the law is the Law of God. Only in the Righteous Republic it can truly be said "One nation under God" for it is governed under commandments of the only One True God and there is no pluralism of religions.
Autocracy declares the divine right of kings; its authority can not be questioned; its powers are arbitrarily or unjustly administered.
Mobocracy: 1. Political control by a mob. 2. The mass of common people as the source of political control.
tsiya
I see that you know of Ayn Rand, she has alot to say and and she back her ideas up with reason and I like most of her ideas, but not 100%, like having resources you can not use, can be like force use angainst you sometimes, like if you made sure someone does not have access to resources to live has the same out come as directly killing them.