This was unconstitutional

[Guy Threepwood]

Um...no it's not a good idea to enact legislation everywhere. Otherwise, what's the point of having states? That's why we had states to begin with. We already know what the federal governments powers are and anything that aren't the federal government's responsibility is up to the states. There's a reason why some say America is becoming more socialist. This is one of them. Where everyone just does what the feds say and make it legal or illegal everywhere. This was forced against everyone who didn't want same sex marriage, against religious people who didn't want it. No one asked if they were ok with this. It was just forced on them against their will. No one sees a problem with this?

cynical perhaps, but the point of 'limited powers' and 'independent states' was largely a pitch to sell federal government to those independent states in the first place. Same with European union or any political entity for that matter, expanding political reach is a politicians job first and foremost. And by extension, enacting laws the people themsleves don't want, otherwise why have them? why not let people vote/decide issues?

aka government of the people, by the people, for the people.. crazy concept I know!

 

[Iti oj]

It smells like crap which is what you are full of. I know anyone who supported this will regret it. I've read history too many times. You don't study it, you repeat it.

ok so what is the historical precedent ?

 

[Jainarayan]

It smells like crap which is what you are full of. I know anyone who supported this will regret it. I've read history too many times. You don't study it, you repeat it.

What does history say will happen?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

It's different when we do it.
We elect the leader of the Free World.

Sigh....
the burden....
Tom

lol!!!

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

cynical perhaps, but the point of 'limited powers' and 'independent states' was largely a pitch to sell federal government to those independent states in the first place. Same with European union or any political entity for that matter, expanding political reach is a politicians job first and foremost. And by extension, enacting laws the people themsleves don't want, otherwise why have them? why not let people vote/decide issues?

aka government of the people, by the people, for the people.. crazy concept I know!

Okay, We the People elect representatives to the legislature (Congress or the state assemblies), who introduce and pass laws, which are approved by executive (president or governor), also elected by the voters--We the People. If you aren't liking the current results, you should get involved--support candidates, run for office yourself, advocate for the policies you like and against the ones you don't like. I think EVERYONE 18+ should be very involved--I think the results would be much better than what we're currently getting.

However, if you don't like the system, and are just certain that we need to replace the current one with something else, you are free to advocate and lobby for changes to the system. Many of the founders expected substantial changes quite frequently to the laws and the Constitutions, as the nation grew and changed--but we haven't done much of that; only 27 amendments in 225 years, and 10 of those in the second year.... If you want to give up the republican federal system we've been using for the last 225 years, then YOU need to stop complaining about how it isn't working and propose a more democratic system that will work better. Get your Congressperson to introduce that amendment, or the call for a new Constitutional Convention. Get active. Propose solutions. Work to get them approved and implemented. Encourage all your family, friends and neighbors to get involved, to get active--and don't take no for an answer, because it DOES make a difference.

Now then, getting involved doesn't mean you're going to get everything your way, and you're going to find that you're going to have to do some horse-trading to get some things you think are more important than others...but there will be some things you will lose on--just like under the current system.

Participatory democracy? Actual involvement by all the citizens, instead of waiting for a portion of the voters to select the handful of people who actually make the decisions? Yeah, a crazy concept, I know...

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Okay, We the People elect representatives to the legislature (Congress or the state assemblies), who introduce and pass laws, which are approved by executive (president or governor), also elected by the voters--We the People. If you aren't liking the current results, you should get involved--support candidates, run for office yourself, advocate for the policies you like and against the ones you don't like. I think EVERYONE 18+ should be very involved--I think the results would be much better than what we're currently getting.

However, if you don't like the system, and are just certain that we need to replace the current one with something else, you are free to advocate and lobby for changes to the system. Many of the founders expected substantial changes quite frequently to the laws and the Constitutions, as the nation grew and changed--but we haven't done much of that; only 27 amendments in 225 years, and 10 of those in the second year.... If you want to give up the republican federal system we've been using for the last 225 years, then YOU need to stop complaining about how it isn't working and propose a more democratic system that will work better. Get your Congressperson to introduce that amendment, or the call for a new Constitutional Convention. Get active. Propose solutions. Work to get them approved and implemented. Encourage all your family, friends and neighbors to get involved, to get active--and don't take no for an answer, because it DOES make a difference.

Now then, getting involved doesn't mean you're going to get everything your way, and you're going to find that you're going to have to do some horse-trading to get some things you think are more important than others...but there will be some things you will lose on--just like under the current system.

Participatory democracy? Actual involvement by all the citizens, instead of waiting for a portion of the voters to select the handful of people who actually make the decisions? Yeah, a crazy concept, I know...

Which of those supreme court justices did we the people cast a single vote for as such?

I think we agree in principle though, why not let us the people vote on it state by state rather than a handful of politicians?

 

[columbus]

why not let us the people vote on it state by state rather than a handful of politicians?

Because we are a constitutional republic. The decision to make rights equal for all was already made. It is just taking a long time to implement.
Tom

 

[columbus]

What does history say will happen?

Well, there were homosexual Romans. They were not thrown head first off of high buildings with their hands tied behind their backs, or burned alive at the stake. By 800ad the Mediterranean world was overrun by quasi-jewish heretics. You have to admit that this is true.
Tom

 

[Levite]

...By 800ad the Mediterranean world was overrun by quasi-jewish heretics. You have to admit that this is true.

Leave the Jews out of this. Nothing to do with us.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Which of those supreme court justices did we the people cast a single vote for as such?

I think we agree in principle though, why not let us the people vote on it state by state rather than a handful of politicians?

We didn't vote for them, because the system our founders selected wanted to avoid the problem of an elected judiciary (which we do have in some states). They wanted to divide the power of appointments to the judicial seats by making executive appointments subject to legislative approval. It may not be the best system, but it was better than the English system, where the King named the judges, and served at the pleasure of the King, and had better make rulings in the King's interest. Truly, I'd like to hear some serious proposals to change some aspects of our system--but as a nation and as a political system, we seem to be very afraid of change.

I personally like the idea of more direct democracy, but every system that's been proposed either only works on the small scale or is so new and different that no one is willing to try them. But even if we could come up with some direct-democracy system, we still have a problem because even if the majority in each state approves, the rights of members of minority groups need to be protected. Otherwise, you will have the majority forcing the minority to do, or not do, things that they cannot affect because they are a minority. One of the reasons the founders wanted a limited representative democracy was to keep the masses of poor people from passing taxes that would have impoverished the founders, who were all members of the wealthy class--that is, they were protecting their minority a$$es. This concern for the protection of minority groups has been central to much legislation over the past 75 years. As a person who is a member of both majorities and minorities in this society, I very much value the protection of my rights to be in a minority without imposition by the majority.

So overall, yes, I think we agree much in principle--as ever, the devil is in the details. But I'd love to see lots of involvement by everyone, and some outside-the-box alternatives to consider.

 

[columbus]

Leave the Jews out of this. Nothing to do with us.

"quasi-jewish heretics" does not include Jews.
But Leviticus predates both Christianity and Islam by a good bit. So there is something to do with Judaism.
Tom

 

[Levite]

"quasi-jewish heretics" does not include Jews.
But Leviticus predates both Christianity and Islam by a good bit. So there is something to do with Judaism.
Tom

Leviticus, maybe. But Christianity is not "quasi-Jewish" anything. It's an entirely separate religion.

 

[Skwim]

Legalizing same sex marriage everywhere was against the constitution of the united states.

Exactly what part of the Constitution does legalizing same sex marriage violate? Specific article or amendment please, and how it applies..

 

[Jeff Anderson]

I agree that it is unconstitutional.

 

[gsa]

Looking at Yahoo News just now, I saw this extract from Justice Roberts' dissent:

"The majority's decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court's precedent. As a result, the Court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the States and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?"

The key word is "dissent."

 

[Guy Threepwood]

We didn't vote for them, because the system our founders selected wanted to avoid the problem of an elected judiciary (which we do have in some states). They wanted to divide the power of appointments to the judicial seats by making executive appointments subject to legislative approval. It may not be the best system, but it was better than the English system, where the King named the judges, and served at the pleasure of the King, and had better make rulings in the King's interest. Truly, I'd like to hear some serious proposals to change some aspects of our system--but as a nation and as a political system, we seem to be very afraid of change.

I personally like the idea of more direct democracy, but every system that's been proposed either only works on the small scale or is so new and different that no one is willing to try them. But even if we could come up with some direct-democracy system, we still have a problem because even if the majority in each state approves, the rights of members of minority groups need to be protected. Otherwise, you will have the majority forcing the minority to do, or not do, things that they cannot affect because they are a minority. One of the reasons the founders wanted a limited representative democracy was to keep the masses of poor people from passing taxes that would have impoverished the founders, who were all members of the wealthy class--that is, they were protecting their minority a$$es. This concern for the protection of minority groups has been central to much legislation over the past 75 years. As a person who is a member of both majorities and minorities in this society, I very much value the protection of my rights to be in a minority without imposition by the majority.

So overall, yes, I think we agree much in principle--as ever, the devil is in the details. But I'd love to see lots of involvement by everyone, and some outside-the-box alternatives to consider.

I think we agree then that the system is not perfect, though there is certainly no easy answer to fixing it. Also that in the wider perspective- it's been a relatively successful experiment.

I take your point on representative democracy, and it's been the main caveat to true democracy politicians have always cited; that we can't trust ourselves to make the best decisions.. I'm just not sure, perhaps to paraphrase Churchill, we might make the least worst decisions.

'we the people' don't have votes, voting records, party affiliation, physical appearance, media savvy, favors, etc etc to affect our influence and decisions.
I think there is a good reason juries are stocked with 'we the people' and not legal experts, because an unbiased amateur beats a biased professional any day.

Part of the rationale for representation was also to do with the logistics of collecting individual votes on varying issues across such distances, todays technology makes that argument redundant.

Maybe it comes down to - who would you trust more; the average citizen or average politician? I know a lot of people, friends and loved ones who would vote differently from me, but out of their own honest opinions, so I'm fine with that, maybe they're right and I'm wrong.

 

[Laika]

Legalizing same sex marriage everywhere was against the constitution of the united states. This is not something to be debated. Anyone who read the constitution would know that any powers that then federal government doesn't have is left up to the states. This should be a state issue, not a federal issue. Instead of giving people a choice it's either making it legal everywhere or illegal everywhere. This was wrong.

Does anyone know the Constitution, let alone care?

The 9th Amendment of the US Constitution:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The 10th Amendment of the US constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Strictly speaking, at no point in the US constitution is the supreme court given powers to make legal judgements based on constitutionality of certian laws. It is an improvised aspect of constitutional law from the Marbury v. Madison decision in 1803, arising out of the duty to say what the law is. This idea of judical review was accepted by the founders, but is not explicitly written into the constitution but is arguably implied by articles III and IV of the constitution;

Article III

The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. . . . The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority. . . . In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

Article IV

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. . . . [A]ll executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.

The bold bit in Article III is the one which establishes that the supreme court has the power to interpret all laws, and therefore has a duty to interpret and apply the constitution as "the supreme law of the Land". It is therefore constitutional if you accept this interpretation as it was improvised, but is consistent with the seperation of powers and of checks and balances in the US constitution and of the position of the founders.

This was 'constitutional'. But you can always put the case before the supreme court if you think otherwise.

 

[oldbadger]

................................ healthcare that's crappy and forced upon others,..........................

'OK Mr Poorly, we've discovered that although you're very ill, we can save your life and make you better if we carry out an operation. You will need several days of critical care nursing afterwards, but don't worry because there is provision for all this under recent government legislation. You won't need to sell your home to pay for this.'
Mr Poorly, 'How dare you try to force this service upon me! I've got rights!!!!! My Daddy and my Grand-Daddy fought in wars so I wouldn't have to accept this crappy service, forced upon decent folks freely!!!'

 

[idav]

It is unconstitutional to give someone rights and not freely to a minority. Slavery and women rights went through the same thing. So it is unconstitutional to ban same sex marriage, a religious supreme Court even thinks so.

 

[Bunyip]

Legalizing same sex marriage everywhere was against the constitution of the united states. This is not something to be debated. Anyone who read the constitution would know that any powers that then federal government doesn't have is left up to the states. This should be a state issue, not a federal issue. Instead of giving people a choice it's either making it legal everywhere or illegal everywhere. This was wrong.

Does anyone know the Constitution, let alone care?

You are mistaken, the constitution guarantees such equalities.