I am amazed at how blithely you dismiss the Bill of Rights, Iky. Why do you hate America? Why do you have such contempt for the vision of the Founding Fathers?

[quote]

Let's see...the vision of the Founding Fathers...
oh, you must mean like Founding Father John Adams and the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts.

While Jefferson did denounce the Sedition Act as invalid and a violation of the First Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights, which protected the right of free speech, his main argument on its unconstitutionality was that it violated the Tenth Amendment:[citation needed] "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Jefferson more strongly argued the Federal Government had overstepped its limits in the Alien and Sedition Acts by attempting to exercise unjust powers. Virginia and Kentucky passed resolutions openly denouncing the acts; Federalist-dominated state legislatures rejected Jefferson's position through resolutions either supporting the acts or denying the ability of Virginia and Kentucky to circumvent them.[1]

The judicial redress for unconstitutional legislation under the doctrine of judicial review was not established until Marbury v. Madison in 1803. The Supreme Court in 1798 was composed entirely of Federalists, all appointed by Washington. Many of them, particularly Associate Justice Samuel Chase, were openly hostile to the Federalists' opponents. The Alien and Sedition Acts were not appealed to the Supreme Court for review, although individual Supreme Court Justices, sitting in circuit, heard many of the cases prosecuting opponents of the Federalists.

To address the constitutionality of the measures, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison sought to unseat the Federalists, appealing to the people to remedy the constitutional violation, and drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which called on the states to nullify the federal legislation. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions reflect the Compact Theory, which holds that the United States is made up of a voluntary union of states that agree to cede some of their authority in order to join the union, but that the states do not, ultimately, surrender their sovereign rights. Therefore, under the Compact Theory, states can determine if the federal government has violated its agreements, including the Constitution, and nullify such violations or even withdraw from the union. Variations of this theory were also argued at the Hartford Convention at the time of the War of 1812, and by the southern states just before the American Civil War.

The Sedition Act expired on March 3, 1801, coinciding with the end of the Adams administration. While this prevented its constitutionality from being directly decided by the Supreme Court, subsequent mentions of the Sedition Act in Supreme Court opinions have assumed that it would be ruled unconstitutional if ever tested in court. For example, in the seminal free speech case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the Court declared, "Although the Sedition Act was never tested in this Court, the attack upon its validity has carried the day in the court of history." 376 U.S. 254, 276 (1964). In a concurring opinion in Watts v. United States, which involved an alleged threat against President Lyndon Johnson, William O. Douglas noted, "The Alien and Sedition Laws constituted one of our sorriest chapters; and I had thought we had done with them forever ... Suppression of speech as an effective police measure is an old, old device, outlawed by our Constitution."[2]

Grays Harbor,

Just a bit if introspection regarding B.O. and his "thugs" over the last couple years...

Agree re:

- Campaigner-in-Chief (e.g., extraordinary exploitation of teleprompters);

- Complainer-in-Chief (e.g., 18 months later still beating up previous administration in a largely classless and useless manner);

- Comedian-in-Chief (e.g., yes, at times even better than Jay Leno);

- and, Union-boss-in-Chief (e.g., executing corrupt and ill-advised open-door policy for SEIU, UAW, etc. leadership to invade White House);

But, disagree re:

- Commander-in-Chief (e.g., truly leader of the "not ready for prime time players" as he and his advisors fumble and bumble seemingly every event or issue requiring leadership, character, an ability to listen, and/or apply a high-level intellectual capacity as a result of Chicago-style arrogance and gang-like style)!

We need to have a real President ASAP!

We need to have a real President ASAP!

Welcome aboard.



We have a community organizer. What else do we need?