Did I say that all power to make laws was transferred to the federal government?
You said the federal government has the right to write laws on abortions for each state because the 14th Amendment gives the Federal government the authority to write legislation to prevent the deprivation of "life, liberty or property."
- So not only did you argue (whether you intended it or not) that the federal government has the right to write laws on abortion, but laws concerning any other deprivation of "life."
- You also gave the feds the authority to re-write state laws that concern any deprivation of "liberty," such as the right to vote, which is why elections are no longer run solely by local governments, but are governed by federal election laws.
- And you gave the federal government power to re-write all laws concerning deprivation of "property," such as laws on embezzlement, grand theft auto, larceny, shoplifting, etc.
- Is there any law that a state used to have authority to write that does not concern "life, liberty, or property?" I can't think of anything.
That's why I say your 14th Amendment theory potentially transfers
all lawmaking power to Washington D.C. away from the states where the Constitution left it.
Kevin Craig is a windbag.
Wait, are you Kevin Craig? You're a windbag.
I don't know what kind of computer you use, Lighthouse, and how you get your words transmitted to this forum, but my computer uses electricity. I'm not a "windbag," I'm an "electronbag," thank you very much.
And thanks for resorting to name-calling. That let's me know I won the argument on an
intellectual level.
the SCotUS is the danger here. Not the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment did not give the SCotUS the authority to strike down any law prohibiting abortion. It only gives the federal government the authority to strike down any law allowing abortion, within the 50 states.
The problem is you trust the federal government with power. America's Founding Fathers would say you're a Grade-B American.
John Adams wrote in 1772:
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
Should libertarians have more confidence in their government? Thomas Jefferson, 1799:
Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power.… In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
James Madison warned the people of Virginia (1799):
the nation which reposes on the pillow of political confidence, will sooner or later end its political existence in a deadly lethargy.
Madison added in
Federalist No. 55,
There is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust. . . .
Trusting government, having "confidence in government," is
un-American.
The British historian Lord Acton put it
this way:
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the
holder of it.
If you have to give the government power, better to keep it local, close to home, where voters can keep an eye on it and change it more easily if need be.
I said,
Bob Enyart, of course, wants the federal government to make "GOOD" laws for all 50 states, but the Godless atheists on the Supreme Court have a different idea of "good," and decided to use the power Bob says they have to NEGATE all anti-abortion laws passed by the states.
Lighthouse responds,
Now you're lying about Bob.
He wants the federal government to write BAD laws? What did I "lie" about?
And you also, obviously, don't know what "due process" is.
You may be right, but the last 60 years have proven abundantly that
neither does the federal judiciary. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court thinks it knows what "due process" is, and they think they have the power under the 14th Amendment to strike down all laws against abortion if the court doesn't see "due process." Ron Paul's legislation would remove that power from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court would not be able to strike down ANY anti-abortion law in ANY state. And for that, Ron Paul is called a "mass murderer."
And his bill also states that the federal government does not have the right to overturn a law that allows abortion. That's the problem.
No, the problem is that Christians in that state are waiting around for the Rapture instead of being vigilant and active and preventing liberals in the state legislature from passing such laws. That's the American and Constitutional way of looking at a problem: focusing on
local responsibility, not looking to Washington D.C. or Brussels Belgium or the Hague to solve local problems.
What we need is not a new bill, but for a candidate who will call the government on it's unconstitutional practice of allowing for the deprivation of life without due process.
The problem is not that the federal government "allows" states to pass bad laws, but that
the people of those states allow their legislatures to pass bad laws. The answer to this problem is not to transfer responsibility from the local to the federal level, but to make Christians more responsible in each state, and take away from the federal government the power to overturn good laws when "We the People" get off our duffs.
I agree that we should get rid of the SCotUS. But Paul's proposed bill is in error.
Get rid of the Supreme Court? Just have one Monarch in Washington D.C. to do all the governing?
Devastating comeback.