Guns, Guns Guns

There are restrictions on the freedom to keep and bare arms too, weapons of mass destruction are restricted, explosive devices, atomic arms, poison gas, crew served weapons (machine guns and shell firing cannon, you can own a Gatling guns and similar cranked machine guns, or muzzle loading cannon. As one judge said, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."

Poker

Annachie wrote:I don't know why they just don't ammend the bloody thing so it makes sense.
I'd also add the right to vote btw.
(Is voting 'Free Speach'? If money is surely voting has to be. So any laws that make voting difficult like Texas' voter ID law or Florida's extreemly loose felon voting laws must be unconstitutional. )

Actually, the poster above who said that the first and third have no limitations, well there's huge limitations on the first.Defamation, libel, NDA's. There's even limitations on the third, though invuilt into itself.

It would take a super majority of Congress and 2/3s of the States to be ratified.

You can defame someone, but you will pay a price to do so. You can also lie (for the most part), political speech is one of the protected speeches (assuming most politicians are flat out liars anyways). Voting is a form of freedom of speech and assembly. I see no real problem with voter IDs as long as only citizens of the US can vote and it's easy for citizens to get said ID.

As far as I know the US isn't quartering troops in the homes of US citizens (3rd Amendment), but assuming you mean the third part of the First Amendment, freedom of speech, see the above paragraph on that. But for the most part there isn't any limitations on the rights listed in the US Constitution even though some parties would like there to be.

Strangely, for an Australian, I do know what it would take and I do have the sense of a gnat and realise that such a change would never be agreed upon, no matter how much sense it makes. Even, in the impossible chance, if the Supreme Court rules the second illegal it wouldn't happen.

So you're arguing that there's no limits on free speach? Whilst identifying limits?

Have you ever looked at some of the voter registration laws? Florida was, and still is, a shocker. And Texas' is designed to disadvantage the poor.

And we're leaving the topic by too much so I'll stop that bit.

The Supreme Court cannot declare elements of the US Constitution illegal. That would be the defacto power to rewrite the Constitution without any input from the other elements of the local and federal governments. The Court can interpret how that part of the Constitution applies to a situation but not the constitutionality of the Constitution. The US Constitution defines what is or is not in it and the process to amend it does not include the nine justices adding to or taking away from it with a majority vote.

The Constitution limits the powers of the Supreme Court as it does every other branch of our government.

Annachie wrote:Strangely, for an Australian, I do know what it would take and I do have the sense of a gnat and realise that such a change would never be agreed upon, no matter how much sense it makes. Even, in the impossible chance, if the Supreme Court rules the second illegal it wouldn't happen.

So you're arguing that there's no limits on free speach? Whilst identifying limits?

Have you ever looked at some of the voter registration laws? Florida was, and still is, a shocker. And Texas' is designed to disadvantage the poor.

And we're leaving the topic by too much so I'll stop that bit.

Annachie wrote:SHave you ever looked at some of the voter registration laws? Florida was, and still is, a shocker. .

What is exactly so shocking about this?

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/pdf/webappform.pdf

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/voter-r ... -reg.shtml

Wow, talk about the lolz.

Um the throw away reference was to an amendment, not the constitution itself, and if not SCOTUS, who else?

I'm sure no poli would do it deliberately, but they do make mistakes, and there is such a thing as the laws of unintended consequences, so it could happen that an amendment gets through that does in fact violate the constitution. That is exactly the sort of job that the SCOTUS was enacted for.

PeterZ wrote:The Supreme Court cannot declare elements of the US Constitution illegal. That would be the defacto power to rewrite the Constitution without any input from the other elements of the local and federal governments. The Court can interpret how that part of the Constitution applies to a situation but not the constitutionality of the Constitution. The US Constitution defines what is or is not in it and the process to amend it does not include the nine justices adding to or taking away from it with a majority vote.

The Constitution limits the powers of the Supreme Court as it does every other branch of our government.

Annachie wrote:Strangely, for an Australian, I do know what it would take and I do have the sense of a gnat and realise that such a change would never be agreed upon, no matter how much sense it makes. Even, in the impossible chance, if the Supreme Court rules the second illegal it wouldn't happen.

So you're arguing that there's no limits on free speach? Whilst identifying limits?

Have you ever looked at some of the voter registration laws? Florida was, and still is, a shocker. And Texas' is designed to disadvantage the poor.

And we're leaving the topic by too much so I'll stop that bit.

biochem wrote:

Annachie wrote:SHave you ever looked at some of the voter registration laws? Florida was, and still is, a shocker. .

What is exactly so shocking about this?

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/pdf/webappform.pdf

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/voter-r ... -reg.shtml

Considering the constant attempts to illegally purge the voter rolls to favour republican voters that goes on in Florida?

It was despicable in 1998 (or was it earlier?) when they started it, and they're still trying it.

A year ago or so I saw several senior Republicans in Florida being interviewed on TV. They were quite open and unrepentant, along the lines of the ends justify the means. Anything that could hinder those commie Democrats was good for the nation, no matter how dishonest or undemocratic it was.


What is exactly so shocking about this?

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/pdf/webappform.pdf

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/voter-r ... -reg.shtml[/quote]

Considering the constant attempts to illegally purge the voter rolls to favour republican voters that goes on in Florida?

It was despicable in 1998 (or was it earlier?) when they started it, and they're still trying it.[/quote]

Annachie wrote:

biochem wrote:
What is exactly so shocking about this?

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/pdf/webappform.pdf

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/voter-r ... -reg.shtml

Considering the constant attempts to illegally purge the voter rolls to favour republican voters that goes on in Florida?

It was despicable in 1998 (or was it earlier?) when they started it, and they're still trying it.

They are trying to get non-citizens off the voter roles. Non-citizens generally vote Democratic. However it is illegal for non-citizens to vote. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are talking about it (probably because neither of them care), but it is in the non-citizens best interest that they NOT vote and that they be removed from the voter rolls ASAP (hopefully before they actually have voted). If you are not a citizen and illegally vote in a Federal election you can be denied citizenship, be fined / serve jail time and/or be deported because of it even if you did not know it was illegal. This is not theoretical and has actually happened.

http://www.chicagoreporter.com/node/7360#.VGIlKijGx74
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/nyreg ... d=all&_r=0
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-1 ... l-election

It is perfectly legal as well as good stewardship to purge the voter rolls routinely (all states routinely purge the voter lists). It needs to be done correctly, however. I'm not sure about 1998, but in 2012 the problem wasn't purging per se but the fact that it had a high error rate and was done 90 days before the election, which was insufficient time to correct any errors with the purge (and with the high error rate they needed that time). They seem to have learned from this problem and have scheduled the next purge for 2015 (a non-voting year) both to give them time to correct mistakes and to allow them to come up with an accurate list this time. The Democrats and friends are making all kinds of accusations etc but it really looks like plain old incompetence was the biggest problem in 2012.

The voting laws themselves appear fine, if applied in a competent fashion.

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/pdf/webappform.pdf

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/voter-r ... -reg.shtml[/quote]

Annachie wrote:Wow, talk about the lolz.

Um the throw away reference was to an amendment, not the constitution itself, and if not SCOTUS, who else?

I'm sure no poli would do it deliberately, but they do make mistakes, and there is such a thing as the laws of unintended consequences, so it could happen that an amendment gets through that does in fact violate the constitution. That is exactly the sort of job that the SCOTUS was enacted for.

No it wasn't what the Supreme Court was set up for. If the Constitution was amended, the SCOTUS cannot say that amendment is unconstitutional. They have to apply that amendment in context to the rest of the Constitution. At most they interpret how the amendment is applied, not whether it can be included in the Constitution or not.

Amendments can be made to rescind previous amendments. That means new amendments can totally contradict the existing Constitution. For those instances like the ACA the SCOTUS can interpret any new amendments so it is not in conflict with the rest of the Constitution. What they can't do is decide that an amendment doesn't fit the Constitution and reject an amendment that has properly passed through the amendment process.