"Intent was" vs. "intended." The nominative and past tense forms of the same word; that is a distinction without a difference.


Uh huh. So the property owner (NOT government) prosecutes me for vandalism, right? And, regardless, whatever I write on the wall remains my publication, with all pursuant copyright protections, yes? Hence that continued analogy is a fabulous rebuttal, right? Hmm, now that I think about it, I think the answer to all three questions is "Not only no, but HELL, no!"


No, but it guarantees all weapons that ARE available. If the Second Amendment prohibits weapon regulation everyone is constitutionally entitled to nukes from any willing seller (or to just make one.) Fissionable material is a health hazard, but that is irrelevant because 1) the hazard vanishes when safely encased in an iridium warhead and 2) the Second Amendments absolute assertion of the right to arms supposedly permits no regulatory exception. After all, ALL weapons are "health hazards," the very motive for those demanding gun bans. If that is sufficient grounds to ban one weapon it is sufficient to ban all, Second Amendment notwithstanding. I prefer legalizing ownership of ANY weapon but regulating the tar out of the most lethal, not banning ALL weapons as health hazards.


No, really, I require no grammar lessons from you, condescending or otherwise. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state" is GRAMMATICALLY dependent on "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," because the first clause, unlike the second, is not a complete or coherent sentence alone. However, the second clause is LOGICALLY dependent on the first, because the dependent clause states independent clauses rational justification. Remove the independent clause and the dependent one has no sense; remove the dependnt clause and the independent one has no MERIT.


A persons body is in plain sight, counselor; its CONTENTS are not; try again, indeed.


"Persons, houses, papers, and effects." None of those words is "car," nor does the Constitution anywhere define them to include "car." That they do is a reasonable, an inevitable, INTERPRETATION of them, but indisputably an interpretation. Cars did not exist until nearly a century and a half after the Framers wrote the Constitution; there is no plausible way to argue protecting cars against unreasonable searches "was their intent" OR "what it was that they intended" (even if we accept the ludicrous notion there is a distinction between the two.)


So the Constitution does NOT prohibit unreasonably searching cars, since they did not exist till after the Framers GRANDCHILDREN were dead. Prohibiting unreasonable searches of things they could not even conceive was thus neither "their intent" NOR "what it was they intended" (supposedly two wholly distinct things.) Many things common now were inconceivable in the 1780s, such as rifles that fire more rounds per minute than a whole regiment could then. Since we must understand the Constitutions diction ONLY as its authors did, and they could not imagine automatic weapons, protecting RIGHTS to automatic weapons could not possibly have been "their intent" NOR "what it was they intended," so evidently a federal ban on automatic weapons is completely constitutional. In fact, that is one of the central arguments for such a ban; do you agree with it? Does Scalia? Or is strict literal constructionism no more than a canard to be employed AND discarded as each suits the far rights agenda?

Meaning and usage change over time. Understanding the condition of both when the Constitution was written illustrates that its authors never dreamed of self-propelled vehicles travelling, or guns firing, many times faster than the highest speeds then possible. The meaning and usage of "arms," "persons" and "effects" has grown dramatically since the Constitution codified our security in each. Yet it defies our common sense and documented knowledge of the Framers vision and principles to believe they INTENDED to eternally limit our rights to the extent of their own imaginations. When the Framers affirmed the right to keep and bear arms and security in persons, houses, papers and effects, they knew well the parameters of those words, like all words, would change. They credited US with the sense to use contemporary definitions of the Constitutions words when applied to contemporary practices and objects. Scalia and Co. are fully capable of that where the Second Amendment is concerned; what is regrettable is that they happily and with a straight face intrepret even the EXACT SAME CLAUSE IN DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED WAYS depending on whether the subject is a federal marijuana ban or federal health insurance mandate.


That suggests a failing on your part, not mine, but I will try to clarify: The Constitution said it would take effect only when 9/13 states ratified it, but nearly that many REFUSED to ratify it without a Bill of Rights. What you called the "radical fringe" everyone else calls "Americas Founding Fathers." The Constitution and Bill of Rights were authored by the same man, who evidently did not feel them so extraneous to each other. Only Scalia could seriously contend the Bill of Rights is irrelevant to the Constitution when everyone who completes 11th grade US history knows the latter literally would not exist without the former.


The onus is not on me or anyone to find "a better method," but on those arguing for a federal power to find a constitutional clause granting it. Strict constructionism sets that burden on judicial review impossibly high; I agree it is not only the best but probably only means to review US law—but that is not the standard of constitutionality. The strict constructionist standard is "does the Constitution EXPLICITLY grant the power?", and it grants NO ONE power to review federal law: Strict constructionism dictates everything Congress passes and the president signs is federal law, constitutional or not. The IMPLIED power you INTERPRET from the Constitutions explicit wording is the classic argument for judicial review, but strict constructionism deliberately denies it. "Rebuttal" is a singularly odd way of spelling "concession."


If you mean the ICC cannot logically justify federal marijuana bans on the grounds weed from one state is indistinguishable from that in another, but NOT justify a federal health insurance mandate on the grounds healthcare in one state is indistinguishable from that in another, I at least grant you points for consistency. More than I grant Scalia, who blithely said the ICC did not let the federal government regulate nondescript health insurance roughly a year after just as strongly asserting the ICC DOES let the federal governmentt regulte nondescript marijuana. For my own part, I am leery of ANY rationale, on any subject, treating "regulate" and "prohibit" synonymously; I am fairly certain the Framers did NOT understand those words to share identical meaning.


THAT is the closing argument that the Bill of Rights is extraneous to the Constitution that would not exist without it?! Is Scalitis CONTAGIOUS?

Requiring FL certify election results by the prescribed date is one thing (though doing so via judicial review exercised non-explicit non-literal Constitutional power.) FURTHER prohibiting a statewide recount on the ASSUMPTION it would go beyond the deadline was a bridge too far. That intervened in a state election, which the Constitution explicitly, literally and exclusively leaves to the several states. Even if the FL Supreme Court HAD countervened FL state law by setting aside mandated certification date, strict constructionism grants the SCOTUS no power to overrule them: Judicial review is unconstitutional, the regulator of state elections are solely the states themselves, within which the supreme courts of the several states are the highest authority.

Let us just cut to the chase, and through all the BS: Scalia and his arch-conservative ideologue cronies, despite their public outrage at "judicial activism," think the US Constitution means whatever hyperpartisan thing suits their purposes at any given moment, even if the consequence is that meaning doing constant 180°s at a speed that would shock John Kerry and Mitt Romney.