AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

@ican711nm,

Really? And can you cite one case where the appellate court determined relevant facts in a case as opposed to facts of the law?

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@ican711nm,

ican711nm wrote:

Ican wrote:
Where in the Constitution does it say voters in voting districts are excluded from equal protection of voting laws?
Joefromchicago answered:
Nowhere. But then it doesn't say that they have any equal protection interest in a recount. That's something that Scalia and company invented.

Of course voters in each and every voting district in the USA have an equal protection interest in a recount. Specifically they have an interest in the validity of the recount. They have such an interest because they have such an interest in the validity of the election results. Selective voting district recounts are too easy to corrupt--and in fact were corrupted in Florida as was determined by subsequent total recounts by several independent groups.

That doesn't mean that every vote must be recounted. If some precincts are having problems with their voting machines, that doesn't mean that the entire state's ballots must be recounted. Indeed, that's how it is normally done, and since it was a state election, it is assumed that the state is in the best position to determine which votes should be recounted and which votes shouldn't.

The Florida courts determined that only certain counties needed to be recounted, due to the nature of the ballots used (the infamous "butterfly ballot"). The US Supreme Court said that that wasn't fair, because other ballots wouldn't be recounted, and it made the plainly impermissible factual finding that "the recount process underway was probably being conducted in an unconstitutional manner." Then it said there wasn't time left to come up with a more fair recount method, so it let the pre-recount vote totals stand. Now that, I submit, is idiotic. No one has a right to prevent somebody else's ballot from being counted, which is pretty much what happened. I don't see the equal protection interest here, except that of the voters who didn't get a chance to have their ballots considered in the recount.

ican711nm wrote:

You continue to fail to understand the true and full implications of this clause in the 14th Amendment:
"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

Yeah, you still haven't been able to point out where it says "voting districts" in the amendment.

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@ican711nm,

ican711nm wrote:

Depending on the nature of the appeal, determining facts of the case can legally be the job of the appellate court. This is especially true when a lower court did not determine all the relevant facts.

You're wrong.

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@parados,

parados wrote:

where in the constitution is it listed that voting is a privilege?
Let alone how votes are counted are a privilege.

Quote:

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

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THE CONSTITUTION ON VOTING AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS

Quote:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_amendments_11-27.html

Amendment XV (1870)
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Amendment XIX (1920)
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Amendment XXIV (1964)
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Amendment XXVI (1971)
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.

Amendment IX (1791)
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment XIV (1868)
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;

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@ican711nm,

ican711nm wrote:

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

You mean Supreme Court judges can make decisions pertaining to rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution?

1 Reply

@old europe,

I mean that the Constitution means:

Quote:

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

I interpret that to mean among other things that "Supreme Court judges can make decisions pertaining to rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution."

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Joe the JAg wrote:

That doesn't mean that every vote must be recounted. If some precincts are having problems with their voting machines, that doesn't mean that the entire state's ballots must be recounted. Indeed, that's how it is normally done, and since it was a state election, it is assumed that the state is in the best position to determine which votes should be recounted and which votes shouldn't.

The Florida courts determined that only certain counties needed to be recounted, due to the nature of the ballots used (the infamous "butterfly ballot"). The US Supreme Court said that that wasn't fair, because other ballots wouldn't be recounted, and it made the plainly impermissible factual finding that "the recount process underway was probably being conducted in an unconstitutional manner." Then it said there wasn't time left to come up with a more fair recount method, so it let the pre-recount vote totals stand. Now that, I submit, is idiotic. No one has a right to prevent somebody else's ballot from being counted, which is pretty much what happened. I don't see the equal protection interest here, except that of the voters who didn't get a chance to have their ballots considered in the recount.

***************************************************************

Joe the Jag won't rebut the following because he practically wets his pants in fear when he sees any of my posts:
Note:
The Remedies Stage--At this final point in the judicial process, a court sets forth the remedies for the law violations which it has found to exist. The remedies fashioned by the two FSC decisions are as troubling as its other rulings and reasonings. In its first decision, the FSC's remedy was to extend the deadline for votes to be filed with the state to November 26 (beyond the statutory deadline). Why November 26? Apparently because the seven FSC justices in that case determined for subjective, unexplained reasons that such remedy was appropriate and valid. But in the second case, extension to November 26 is no is no longer an adequate remedy in the FSC's mind because the 4-person majority writing on December 8 ordered manual recounts to continue. The FSC thus first arbitrarily created a remedy and then arbitrarily replaced it with another remedy requested by the Gore campaign.
Additionally, Chief Justice Wells in the second case asserts that the majority's remedy of Florida judges' creating vote-counting standards lacks authority under the U. S. Constitution and, "creates an overflowing basket of practical problems." Both he and Justice Harding contend that neither existing law nor practical circumstances make possible any adequate judicial remedy for the state's election problems. As Harding says, "Fairness is achieved by following the rules [not creating new ones after the fact] (emphases added). Any court which commits the errors in exercising its remedial powers as has the FSC is clearly engaging in judicial activism.

****************************************************************

NOTE-- THE CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE FLORIDA SUPREME COURT NOTED THAT

NEITHER EXISTING LAW NOR PRACTICAL CIRCUMSTANCES MAKE POSSIBLE ANY ADEQUATE JUDICIAL REMEDY FOR THE STATE'S ELECTION PROCESS.

***************

Joe the Jag wrote

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Jag from Chicago is full of **** and again PROVES that he is a charlatan.

He wrote:

The Florida Supreme Court has the final say when it comes to interpreting Florida law, and the recount was purely a state matter.

Now, Jag from Chicago is scared to death of me since I wiped the floor with him several times a couple of years ago, but I invite anyone to read the **** he wrote and then to consider the following:

The Florida SupremeCourt DOES NOT have the final say when it comes to interpreting Florida Law if that interpretation leads to errors which deprive citizens of their right to have their votes counted.

Jag from Chicago has obviously not read the literature on Bush Vs. Gore very carefully. His "recount purely a state matter' does not address the fact that the Florida Supreme Court made repeated errors.
They should not have extended the deadline for hand recounting that had been fixed by the Secretary of State

They should not have reversed Judge Sauls' dismissal of the council proceedings.

They should have not ignored the discretionary authority that the election code gives to state and local election officials.

They should not have authorized relief in a contest proceeding on the basis merely that the election was close.

They should not have credited Gore with the Broward and the partial Maiam-Dade recount results, or ordered a statewide recount of undervotes but not overvotes.

They should not have condoned iconsistent and subjective criteria in hand recounting.

It is clear that in all of these respects, the FSC was flluting the state's election code. Had Gore been declared the winner on the basis of the recount ordered by the FSC on Decemebr 8, he would have owed his victory to LEGAL ERROR.

**************************************************************

Jag from Chicago does not know this. He gets all his legal opinions from Classic Comics.

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I don't think Joe the Jag ever read the New York Times--He certainly missed this article:

The New York Times( certainly not a right wing source) reported on the findings of a consortium that went to Florida and did exhaustive work on the count for the presidential election of 2000.

Jag from Chicago does not know about this.

Note:

Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote
By FORD FESSENDEN and JOHN M. BRODER Acomprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward.

Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr. Gore if the Florida court's order to recount more than 43,000 ballots had not been reversed by the United States Supreme Court.

Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff ? filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties ? Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations.

But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots. This also assumes that county canvassing boards would have reached the same conclusions about the disputed ballots that the consortium's independent observers did. The findings indicate that Mr. Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state to "count all the votes."

In addition, the review found statistical support for the complaints of many voters, particularly elderly Democrats in Palm Beach County, who said in interviews after the election that confusing ballot designs may have led them to spoil their ballots by voting for more than one candidate.

More than 113,000 voters cast ballots for two or more presidential candidates. Of those, 75,000 chose Mr. Gore and a minor candidate; 29,000 chose Mr. Bush and a minor candidate. Because there was no clear indication of what the voters intended, those numbers were not included in the consortium's final tabulations.

Thus the most thorough examination of Florida's uncounted ballots provides ammunition for both sides in what remains the most disputed and mystifying presidential election in modern times. It illuminates in detail the weaknesses of Florida's system that prevented many from voting as they intended to. But it also provides support for the result that county election officials and the courts ultimately arrived at ? a Bush victory by the tiniest of margins.

The study, conducted over the last 10 months by a consortium of eight news organizations assisted by professional statisticians, examined numerous hypothetical ways of recounting the Florida ballots. Under some methods, Mr. Gore would have emerged the winner; in others, Mr. Bush. But in each one, the margin of victory was smaller than the 537- vote lead that state election officials ultimately awarded Mr. Bush.

For example, if Florida's 67 counties had carried out the hand recount of disputed ballots ordered by the Florida court on Dec. 8, applying the standards that election officials said they would have used, Mr. Bush would have emerged the victor by 493 votes. Florida officials had begun such a recount the next day, but the effort was halted that afternoon when the United States Supreme Court ruled in a 5-to-4 vote that a statewide recount using varying standards threatened "irreparable harm" to Mr. Bush.

But the consortium's study shows that Mr. Bush would have won even if the justices had not stepped in (and had further legal challenges not again changed the trajectory of the battle), answering one of the abiding mysteries of the Florida vote.

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Because Joe the Jag is a fraud, he does not realize thata majority of the USSC decided thata recount would deny Florida voters the equal protection of the laws, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, because the absence of a PRECISE STANDARD to guide the recounters would inevitably result in different voters' votes being weighed differently.

Now Joe the Jag disagrees with this. He may, of course, but he may not erase the decision. It has been done. He may say that the decision was reached with insufficient reason and without a precise foundation from previous legal decisions.

But Joe the Jag apparently is a LEFT WING IDEOLOGUE. He apparently does not realize that a great many LEFT WING abominations have been adjudicated without a good foundation. One of the most atrocious is the background for the abortionist Roe vs. Wade.

Now, Joe the Jag won't agree( I don't think he even understands the reasoning used) but the foundation of Roe Vs. Wade is HILARIOUS!

Students of the law have always LAUGHED at the following written by Blackmun.

Keep in mind that he is not a Professor of Literature but a Supreme Court Justice.

Blackmun wrote:

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."

Scalia later wrote--"I have never heard of a law that attempted to restrict one's rights to define certain concepts; and, if the passage CALLS INTO QUESTION THE GOVERNMENT'S POWER TO REGULATE ONE'S ACTIONS BASED ON ONE'S SELF-DEFINED "CONCEPT OF EXISTENCE. etc>"IT IS THE PASSAGE THAT A T E T H E R U L E O F L A W>"

*****************************************************************

Joe the Jag never read Scalia's comment about the ridiculous rationale given by Blackmun...But Joe the Jag sets himself up as a critic( without any evidence) of the USSC's ruling in Bush Vs. Gore.

What Joe the Jag does not know is that the Consortium set up by the New York Times and others( which I reported on previously on this thread) noted that Bush would have won no matter which method was counted.

But Joe the Jag, not only a fraud but completely lacking integrity, won't comment on that.

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@ican711nm,

ican711nm wrote:

parados wrote:
where in the constitution is it listed that voting is a privilege?
Let alone how votes are counted are a privilege.

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

You must be kidding:

The supreme court, in Bush v. Gore, wrote:

The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

Sadly, most of Ican's posts fall in the "you must be kidding" category.

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@McTag,

You're being too kind, sir.

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@McTag,

That brings me back to the main topic of this thread. How many of you self-described "modern American conservatives" actually agree with these right-wing monomaniacs who think the constitution doesn't allow taxes on incomes or who, like Ican, think the constitution permits taxation but doesn't permit the government to spend the money (well, that's not entirely accurate -- I think Ican views the American government as one large postal savings bank, where taxpayers deposit their money and then take it out on a dollar-for-dollar basis in the form of goods and services)?

Now, to be sure, there are plenty of people on the left whom I find embarrassing. Fortunately, I think many of the left-wing anti-Semites and 9/11 "truthers" didn't make the transition to the new A2K, but there are others with whom I'd still prefer not to be associated. Is that the same with you "MACs," or is "modern American conservatism" such a big tent ideology that you'll take any harebrained crank that comes along, spouting the latest in an endless series of increasingly implausible theories as to why the constitution was really written by people apparently as deranged as they are, so long as they're sufficiently conservative?

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That was sublime entertainment . . .

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

That was sublime entertainment . . .

it really was... kudos.

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@joefromchicago,

That's true -- not only are the crazed and nasty Wingnuts accepted by conservatives, but when they do feign criticizism, it is still passive weak and nearly everyone agrees that Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the party, not Michael Steele. The left wing conspiracy theorists and anti-Semites have got a screw loose and are too obviously bigots. Good riddance.

1 Reply

@Lightwizard,

The wonder of wonders is the simple fact that they don't have the common sense to understand that they are destroying their own party. The 30% who still strongly support their agenda are extremist bigots without any sense of direction.

All they have now are negatives where none really exists, and have become the No Party.

Even though the financial pundits are saying the worst in our economy is over, I don't believe that for one second when thousands continue to lose their jobs and homes.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

... like Ican, think the constitution permits taxation but doesn't permit the government to spend the money (well, that's not entirely accurate -- I think Ican views the American government as one large postal savings bank, where taxpayers deposit their money and then take it out on a dollar-for-dollar basis in the form of goods and services)?

You obviously do not know what I think about federal taxes and federal spending!

Start to understand, if you will, by reviewing the following:

Quote:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
Article I
Section 8. The Congress shall have power
To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

And review these definitions:
Definition of common
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=common&x=30&y=9
Definition of general
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=general&x=24&y=11
Definition of imposts
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=imposts&x=28&y=10
Definition of uniform
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=uniform&x=29&y=8

Quote:

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed41.asp
Madison No. 41
Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare.

''But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.

2 Replies

AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

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