ACLU says bathroom sexcapades are none of the gov's damn business!!!!

No the law was over turned the second time because the judge ruled the county doesn't have the right to pass it -- which gets directly to the heart of the argument that you were trying to make that communities have the right to pass their own laws based on what the majority wants -- which time and time again has been been proven to be false.

And my point about politics ruining our judicial system stands -- and if I am wrong, I suppose you'd have no problem at all if the six most liberal Supreme Court justices died in a plane crash and George W. appointed six strict constructionist judges with a religious background and a history of interpreting the constitution on issues in ways only the Ralph Reed crowd would love.

Would you then, after a couple of years under that Supreme Court, still be so quick to play the "well according to courts, the constitution says....." card?

Again, politics have destroyed our court systems but that doesn't change what the consitution said when it was written and its intent, which was to have a small government that doesn't reach into our personal lives and allows us to live as we choose.

 

I quoted him because he masterfully articulated the larger point -- that the government often does the opposite of what it says it is doing when it claims to be protecting us.

And while I can't speak to THA specifically, there are plenty of life-saving drugs and procedures available in Europe that are still on someone's desk at the FDA and the only people in this country which have those available are those wealthy enough to go to Europe to get them.

 

OK zag, we've established you're anti-telling consenting adults what they can't do. What about children?

Is it OK to pass a law telling adults they can't smoke in a car when there are children under 18 in it? Should parents be ticketed for not having their kids in child safety seats or buckled in seat belts?

 

The fact that the court said that a county can't do something that is the jurisdiction of the state has nothing to do with self-government. It simply has to do with jurisdiction. If you want to argue from the Harry Browne standpoint, then do so, but don't gussy it up with irelevant court opinions.
The Constitution -- which guarantees that "politics" will always be part of the judicial process by giving political bodies the right to decide who will be in the judiciary -- was not written for any such reasons. In fact, the original objections to it were that it was too MUCH of a big government document, that the reach of government into the people's lives was too extensive. And it was not written to address "how we live our lives" in any way at all, one way or the other. It was about how we operate politically as a self-governing republic.

 

"Self"-governing being the operative phrase.

And I can't gaurantee what the founding fathers were thinking because I wasn't around but I'd be willing to be their idea of a the judicial branch does not even remotely resemble the out-of-control, politically-motivated, way overzealous activist courts on both sides of the aisle.

That's why I don't buy any argument about the constitutionality of something that begins with "a court said....."

I mean, by that argument all of the bitching you do about "Fredo's" absurd invasions of privacy and constitution-shredding measures post 9/11, almost all of which has passed the sniff test by courts, would be rendered moot.

 

The ideas of the Founders on the role of the courts were mixed. Jefferson was worried. Others, less so. The second generation seemed fine with judicial review as established by John Marshall. And the Founders wrote plenty about what they thought about all of this, You couldn't shut them up.
And unless you're arguing that we should all simply ignore the courts and do what we want, I don't get the last part. I am distressed that the Bill of Rights has no constituency in the Congress or on the Supreme Court. If you are arguing that, well, I look lousy in camo'.