On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:52:03 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

Dave Hall wrote:
On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:16:16 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

Dave Hall wrote:
On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 08:40:43 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

SNIPPING all kinds of silliness from all sides

More Supreme Court bashing. I'm sure that when you get your case
in
front of them they're going to be real impressed with "You should
rule this to be unlawful because you are irrelevant".

Hint--the Constitution gives the Supreme Court the power to
decide
what is and is not lawful under the Constitution. It gives you
no
such power.

I have read the document thoroughly, including all amendments
thereto
and just can't seem to find that part of the document that gives
the
Supreme Court that power.

So in your opinion when there is some question as to whether a
particular statute violates the Constitution there is some _other_
agency of government that is responsible for making the
determination? If so, what agency is that?

I didn't say that I thought that the Supreme Court making such
decisions was "bad",

And I didn't say anything about "good" or "bad", I asked you what
agency was responsible for addressing that particular issue if it was
not the Supreme Court.

I was simply commenting on the statement that
"the Constitution gives the Supreme Court the power to decide
what is and is not lawful under the Constitution". This concept was
in fact discussed in the Federalist Papers (#78 if memory serves)
and
in the "anti-federalist papers" too (I've no idea which one) and the
anti-federalists had it right by saying that they believed the
judicail powers given by the Constitution would make the Supreme
Court
an oligarchy and despotic. Certainly nothing in prior governmental
structures allowed the judiciary to have final say as to what was
legal or not. British judiciary (upon which our judicial system was
essentially based) can have decisions over-ruled by parliment.

And the US Supreme Court does not have "the final say". It can have
decisions overrulled by Congress working in conjunction with the state
legislatures.

I guess that you are talking about a constitutional amendment every
time the Supreme Court rules on a case in a manner enough people
dislike. Could make the charter of the EU look simple beside what the
Constitution would become under such a concept. But, YOU ARE CORRECT,
we do indeed have the power to override the Supreme Court.

The
fact of judicial review was conceptual and theoretical until Marbury
v. Madison established it and nobody impeached the Justices for
their
actions and everyone decided to abide by the decision. It was indeed
a
risky decision at a time when this type of governmental structure
was
new and had a real possibility of failure if any group tried to take
too much power.

Seems to me that the Supreme Court "found"
that power in deciding the case of Marbury v. Madison, and has
used
it
ever since. Only one President seemed to clearly choose to ignore
that
concept - Jackson, when he simply ignored the Supreme Court ruling
regarding removal of indians from tribal lands. What the SC says
is
meaningless if ignored by the executive who is not then impeached
by
the legislative branch or is ignored by the legislative branch
which
answers to nobody (until the next election). Oh, how easy the
whole
deal could crumble if the various branches ever decide to really
push
an issue against one another.

What you say about the SC being "meaningless" also applies to the
President if nobody decides to obey him and the Congress if
everyody
ignores them and the Constitution as well. It can't even have a
hissy fit.

If you want to ignore the Supreme Court and decide that you are the
final arbiter of law, go ahead.
Again, you read my comments wrongly. I certainly am not advocating
any such thing. I am simply pointing out the fragility of the
structure. It was far more fragile back when Marbury v. Madison
established judicial review and was still quite fragile when Jackson
blatantly ignored the SC and Congress allowed him to. It is
considerably less fragile now, but with the presidency trying to
take
more and more power and the judiciary making up laws as they see
fit,
while congress seemily simply ignores the constitution and makes up
federal authority as they want (commerce clause indeed), there are
some stresses showing. Clearly, I think most people can agree that
the
strong federal govenment structure that we have today has no
resemblance to the fairly loose union of soverign states originally
established by the Constitution. Some of that change was done
officially via amendments to the Constitution, while most was done
by
usurption of authority that was accepted by all branches of the
government and the vast majority of citizens (based on the lack of
action to stop it), but never formalized as amendments.

So if you think it's busted tell us how to fix it.

You mean if I was in charge ;-)

Clearly the "fix" would be far more complicated than can (or certainly
should) be debated in a woodworking newsgroup. The original concept of
a group of soveriegn states united under a federal government whose
purpose was to be in charge of international affairs and squabbles &
interactions between or among the states seems better to me (The
United States ARE instead of the United States IS). I am not
intelligent enough to even postulate a reasonably achievable means of
getting that particular genie back in the bottle though and I am
pretty sure that most Americans don't actually want it back that way.
We do in fact have the government that most of us apparently want.

Dave Hall