3 ms·

A lot of unconstitutional practices are law in the US http://www.scn.org/ccapa/pa-vs-const.html http://www.scn.org/ccapa/pa-vs-const.html

rayiner 13y ago
That page is about 95% bullshit. For example: the establishment clause prohibits the government from establishing an official religion or preventing the free exercise of religion. It doesn't prevent the government from simply monitoring religious and political groups that may be associated with illegal activity. That argument is ridiculous on its face: if the 1st amendment guarantees freedom of assembly, and gangs are assemblies of people, and monitoring is the same as restricting the freedom, does that mean the government can't monitor gangs? We know that's not what the 1st amendment means for the simple reason that the U.S.G. has performed internal counter-insurgency from the very beginning, and those practices were overseen by many of the same people that drafted the Constitution. There are not a "lot of unconstitutional practices" that are law in the U.S. There are a lot of people who read the words in the Bill of Rights extremely broadly and without historical or legal context, and then put up poorly-designed web pages about all the "unconstitutional" things they have discovered.
- enoch_r 13y ago
  I don't disagree with your overall point, but "We know that's not what the 1st amendment means for the simple reason that the U.S.G. has performed internal counter-insurgency from the very beginning, and those practices were overseen by many of the same people that drafted the Constitution" is not strong evidence. The Alien and Sedition Acts[0] were passed in 1798 and were signed by (Federalist) John Adams. The next (Democratic-Republican) president, Thomas Jefferson, opposed them enough to pardon people who had been convicted under them, but then proceeded to prosecute several of his critics under the Acts before they expired. So yeah, a surprisingly bad beginning for free speech in the US. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts

rayiner 13y ago

That page is about 95% bullshit. For example: the establishment clause prohibits the government from establishing an official religion or preventing the free exercise of religion. It doesn't prevent the government from simply monitoring religious and political groups that may be associated with illegal activity. That argument is ridiculous on its face: if the 1st amendment guarantees freedom of assembly, and gangs are assemblies of people, and monitoring is the same as restricting the freedom, does that mean the government can't monitor gangs? We know that's not what the 1st amendment means for the simple reason that the U.S.G. has performed internal counter-insurgency from the very beginning, and those practices were overseen by many of the same people that drafted the Constitution. There are not a "lot of unconstitutional practices" that are law in the U.S. There are a lot of people who read the words in the Bill of Rights extremely broadly and without historical or legal context, and then put up poorly-designed web pages about all the "unconstitutional" things they have discovered.

enoch_r 13y ago
I don't disagree with your overall point, but "We know that's not what the 1st amendment means for the simple reason that the U.S.G. has performed internal counter-insurgency from the very beginning, and those practices were overseen by many of the same people that drafted the Constitution" is not strong evidence. The Alien and Sedition Acts[0] were passed in 1798 and were signed by (Federalist) John Adams. The next (Democratic-Republican) president, Thomas Jefferson, opposed them enough to pardon people who had been convicted under them, but then proceeded to prosecute several of his critics under the Acts before they expired. So yeah, a surprisingly bad beginning for free speech in the US. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts