One of the big items on the Giuliani check list is his stance on the Second Amendment. Rudy has had a transformation with regard to this very important piece of our Constitution.
Rudy Giuliani has a huge following across the country as he works to gain the Republican nomination for the presidency of the United States. Giuliani is running as a Republican and touts his "conservative" views but his major claim for qualification is how he handled the events of 9/11. He uses the events of 9/11 as his credentials to lead America in the war on terror and his views are conservative in that light. However, Giuliani has other views and when we examine the total package one can only draw the conclusion that he is a RINO because he has mostly liberal views. Perhaps this is why he polls so well as liberals are looking for a candidate that well suits their beliefs without forcing them to vote for the hugely polarizing Hillary Rodham.…
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26 - Big Dog
I never claimed they were given prominence. You made my point, they are there because they are a basis for our law. I never said other documents did not play into what we did, just that they were a basis for our law (though when I said the basis it might have given the impression that I was saying the only one. My poor choice of words).
27 - Dr Dreadful
I'll accept your argument if you can show me how the Code of Hammurabi is also a basis for our law.
28 - gonzo marx
"This means any religious item. We cannot discriminate in what is displayed (we cannot go overboard. It should be a recognized religion)."
then by your reasoning, placing ONE up there means one must have ALL religious symbols up there...
all of them...NO exceptions
so Satanists, Wiccans and Scientologists (all recognized as legal Churches) have the SAME right to have their holy symbols on public property as the Catholic church...that's equal protection under the law, yes?
so are we to assume then, by your own words...that you would staunchly defend both Pentacle and Pentagram being placed up with that Nativity this holiday season? how about the Buddhists?
as for the Pledge of Allegience and the "in God we trust" on our money...those were implemented in the 1950s in response to those "godless communists"...
from 1782-1956 the unofficial motto of the nation was "E Pluribus Unum"...never voted on or ratified
it was a McCarthy-esqe political move in the 1950s that placed all that shit into our national language...and we should toss it away quickly since it appears many zealots don't bother to read all of their history and somehow have the idea that this purely secular nation is somehow "christian"
oh yes, BD sez... - "Of course, our laws had to have basis in English Law because we were its subjects."
"had to"???
our Laws were established AFTER the revolution...yes?
do you see where logic fails you here and makes that statement i quoted absolutely ludicrous?
Excelsior?
29 - Dr Dreadful
And BTW, how did we get from the 2nd Amendment to the 1st?
Would it have anything to do with those inalienable tights?
30 - Big Dog
Dr. D,
We have agreed that English Common Law was what we derived our laws from. The Code of Hammurabi was part of the basis for ECL.
The tights, it must be the tights.
31 - Dr Dreadful
Only several times removed via the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans and the Catholic Church, BD. And more to do with the Babylonians' love of good business practices than with religious piety.
Gonzo has demonstrated a much more immediate correlation between English common law and the US Constitution.
Take a look at the Book of the Dead some time, and see how closely Egyptian notions of right behavior correlated with the Hebrews'. There are similarities between legal codes throughout space and time. They do more to illustrate the basic tenets of how a civilization works than they show any kind of divine sanction.
32 - gonzo marx
not to mention, Doc that the English HAD a state church..and therefore had an established religion
we don't
nuff said...
Excelsior?
33 - bliffle
Righto, DD.
Also, if one actually reads the 10 commandments (after deciding which ones to enumerate out of at least 38 discernable in the bible) we only observe two of them (don't kill and don't steal) and even the religious ignore or alibi the rest.
Besides that, the constitution is not about personal behaviour, it's about government behaviour on the way to passing laws regarding personal behaviour.
The constitution is about process: how to make laws, how the legislature and executive and court go about making and enforcing and judging laws, and what the government can't do. The constitution doesn't even say "don't kill, don't steal", it tells HOW to pass and enforce such laws.
The constitution is about meta-laws, i.e., laws about laws and lawmaking.
34 - Big Dog
Sources reveal it as a basis for ECL and all the stuff on the walls as influences on our law.
The Constitution is what? The first 10 amendments are the bill of rights. They do not tell anyone how to make laws. They clearly indicate what rights we have that cannot be taken from us by government. The founders discerned that these rights came from higher than man so man could not take them away. None of these 10 are about making laws though many laws reflect them because laws may not infringe upon them.
Yes, the 10 are not about personal behavior, they are about absolute rights.
We also go by not lying. There are not 38 Commandments in the Bible and to make it clear, it is "not murder." Killing is not a crime.
Don't forget, these itmes (all mentioned) are a basis for laws. We took the ones we liked.
Hoe did we get here?
35 - STM
OK, let's get one thing straight here: the Constitution of the United States is actually based on English common law and the rights either regarded as "natural" to an Englishman (or Briton) or written down by kings or enacted as legislation by parliaments. Much of it too comes from Blackstone's treatises (on English common law), the book used by ther American colonies as the basis of law under Britain.
As one of the founding fathers said, or words to this effect: "We're not doing anything new here, we're just writing it down so that everyone knows".
It WAS groundbreaking stuff. But it's interesting that the unwritten constitution of Britain, and the legal and governmental systems and constitutions of its former colonies, bestow similar rights on their citizens. That includes such things as due process at law, first enunciated in the 14th century by Edward III. His due process addition to the Magna Carta served as the basis for the IV and V amendments to the constitution, and the wording is near identical.
The place we've all reached too is almost identical (right down even to the application of criminal law, adversarial trial, Habeus Corpus, trial by a jury of 12 peers, and Miranda-style rights), but the roads taken have been different.
Not that different, though. And that's the key. It's also why I believe the 9th Amendment to the Constitition of the United States might be the most important of all, but always fail to understand why it is almost entirely misunderstood or not known of at all in the United States.
You see, the key to our collective success as stable representative democracies (in the modern sense, not the Greek) is down to rule of law and evolution of thought.
It is not just constitutions and acts of parliament or congress that make our continued viability possible. They simply form the basis of free and just socities, but to continue to be free and just, we must continue to evolve along the lines of rule of law.
36 - STM
Of course, there was one big difference between the US Bill of Rights and the English Bill of Rights - the religion aspect.
I say this is understandable, however, given that much blood had been spilled in the attempt by Rome to bring England back into its sphere of influence.
That is why the right in regard to the carrying of guns was not extended to Catholics in England under the English Bill of Rights - because they'd been plotting to undo the Crown and replace the monarch with a Catholic.
So in effect, in England, having no separation of Chruch and State in that period was the thing that actually kept it free. Like I say, times change - which is why we must all be willing to evolve with the times.
37 - STM
And I'll add this. An American, now a friend, who came to live here in the 1980s and stayed, was arguing one night about how the right to free speech is not enunciated.
I must admit that I'd never thought about it at all, because I'd always believed - and indeed, had seen it in action - that speech was free anyway, and that I was free to speak my mind on any issue I chose, contentious or not (within reason, and having regard to criminal and civil laws the same as in the US).
So not knowing anything about these things, I started to read up and do a bit of digging. Under our constitution, and that of Britain (and which is our important inheritance), there is isn't talk of free speech rights. That's because, under our law, it is taken to exist and has been regarded thus for 1000 years.
It is just there, a natural right, nevertheless enshrined in law by myriad rulings at law, both under Australian common law and English common law, from which the other is derived. And it can no more be taken away from me - and won't be - than it can from a citizen of the US. And I have never felt any fear in relation to that.
38 - Baronius
STM, I don't know if this was covered upthread, so I'm sorry if I'm repeating things.
The Bill of Rights was a last-minute backrooom deal. The authors could probably have found the votes to get the Constitution approved, but there were plenty of people who wanted their rights enumerated. So none of the rights is new or shocking. They were all implied in the idea of limited government.
I think history has vindicated the anti-federalists, the people who opposed the Constitution. They were the ones who argued for a Bill of Rights at minimum. Sure enough, government has encroached on those rights repeatedly, and the non-enumerated rights have been trampled.
But part of the problem arose from listing the rights. It's all well and good to write up a code, but to steal a line from E.B. White, that which is not forbidden is required. There's a kind of legalism in the US that I bet can't develop in a common law country.
39 - STM
Baronious: Thanks for replying. The one big thing in all this, and I believe that it was the anti-federalists who asked for the 9th amendment, is that that amendment specifically allows for America to continue along the road as a common law country. (Indeed, America IS a common-law country.)
It's really an instruction on how to read the constitution (ie, don't regard it as the whole law of the land, ever).
Why it is largely ignored, when it is of such importance, is beyond me. Indeed, it was the masterstroke IMO in terms of the writing of the Bill of Rights, because as in any common law country, it allows for evolution and new wellsprings of thought along the common thread of improving a democratic society. I think people will get sick of me trumpeting this, but I reckon any American could challenge all kinds of stuff under the 9th amendment.
40 - Big Dog
Legal scholars have indicated that the 9th is not actually a right. It is simply a rule about how to read the Constitution.
But there are many opinions about what it actually means. If I get some time I might look and see what the author had to say about it.
41 - Zedd
I don't understand religious SYMBOLS. If religion happens within the individual, why do they need symbols? Certainly why do they need their symbols to be on other peoples properly or on public property? What do the symbols do?
I'm so sick of the ten commandments thing. All the Southern wackos weeping about not wanting those words removed from their court houses when the same nut cases spat at "NEGRAS" as they requested to be treated like their neighbors.