Re-shaping the future

[HydrogenBond]

I agree that being a minority religion can be tough if the majority is flaunting their religion. But what is good about religious diversity is that religious holidays do not always overlap. This gives everyone time to express and experience our human diversity. The problem often stems from the parents more than the kids. Kids like to make friends and enjoy learning about each others culture and religion, unless they are taught otherwise. Let the children choose, they would find room for everyone.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

I agree that being a minority religion can be tough if the majority is flaunting their religion.

Its actually not just "flaunting" but insensitivity, and its generally worse when its 90% one religion and 10% ignored minorities. These kinds of places (the vast swath of "middle America") is where the problems usually crop up, and its not KKK like (except at the Air Force Academy ), but just plain old not thinking about people like Hindu's who (as was just posted elsewhere) have many gods. In places like San Francisco / Oakland, there's no majority and the nirvana I think you're talking about does exist, oddly enough.

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

The problem often stems from the parents more than the kids. Kids like to make friends and enjoy learning about each others culture and religion, unless they are taught otherwise. Let the children choose, they would find room for everyone.

Methinks you don't have kids. The cliques and grudges and infighting among 4th grade *girls* in my daughter's class is absolutely unbelievable. Yes they are exclusionary, and its only because the school is heavily integrated religiously (although there's only one black kid!), its not much of an issue. The thing that validates your statement though is that although the kids are bad, the parents can be *much* worse...

Now I'll step back and say for Irish that we're getting a bit off topic and lets take this issue to a new thread... (even though its nemo's fault! whack him for me Irish! )

Cheers,
Buffy

[HydrogenBond]

Maybe if people in America saw themselves as American-blacks, American-Christian, American-Jews, etc., instead of Black Americans, Christian-Americans, Jewish Americans, etc., the children might realize that we are all on the same side. Perpetuating diversity sounds good in theory but it apparently perpetuates distinctions that separates us from each other. This was resolved back in the 60's and 70's but culture unknowingly raised the walls back up due to short sighted thinking and misguided compassion.

[Fishteacher73]

Getting back to the point of the thread.....

The idea of Judicial Review seems to be paramount to having an effective Judicial branch that can act as a balance to the legislative and executive branches. Without this, the judicial branch is nothing more than a lackey for the legislative branch.

The Supreme court is there to rule on the constituionality of certain cases and therefore laws. If it cannot strike something that is contrary to the constitution, it really serves no purpose. There have been great swings in what has been considered constitutional over time. The Supreme Court decided that slaves were property in the Dred Scott case. Slavery was later overturned only by an constitutional amendment. Possibly a slave holder could have sued on the validity of the emancipation proclimation. Who knows...

This just illustrates both the transitional nature of the SC's rules, but also the waves that eminate and continue from certain decisions.

[Southtown]

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

The idea of Judicial Review seems to be paramount to having an effective Judicial branch that can act as a balance to the legislative and executive branches. Without this, the judicial branch is nothing more than a lackey for the legislative branch.

The judicial branch is supposed to be the lackey, enforcing the legislated will of the people. When the SC assumes to discern the validity of the efforts of the other two branches, a battle ensues between the people and the judges, as is illustrated by your slavery example.

The balances on the law-making should be the veto and the ballot box. Sadly it was apostacized in 1803.

[Fishteacher73]

Originally Posted by U.S. Constitution

Article. III.
Section. 2.
Clause 1: The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State; (See Note 10)--between Citizens of different States, --between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.


Article. VI.
Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

These seem to indicate that that the courts have an active role in detremining the constitutionality of such laws and dismissing those that fall short of the current interpretation of the Constitution. This being said, the interpetation of the Constitution and its various alterations can change over time. It is a living document and one that adapts to the changes in our culture, but is also the backbone of individual rights. This balances the rights of the minority.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Southtown

The judicial branch is supposed to be the lackey, enforcing the legislated will of the people.

Actually, the Executive branch is the enforcement arm. If the Supreme Court makes a decision, it has no officers to cause the decisions to be enforced, although if the Executive Branch refused to follow the decision of the court, you'd have a constitutional crisis, which is part of the key to Marbury v. Madison which you linked.

Originally Posted by Southtown

When the SC assumes to discern the validity of the efforts of the other two branches, a battle ensues between the people and the judges, as is illustrated by your slavery example.

Actually, Jim Crow laws were upheld by the court (e.g. post-Dred Scott, most infamously Plessey v. Ferguson), and quite frankly it took until Brown v. BOE for the court to do anything that could be construed as "activist" at all.

Originally Posted by Southtown

The balances on the law-making should be the veto and the ballot box.

So you don't see any point in there being any sort of review of laws based on the Constitution? Should we just throw it away? Its just a "guide" like the Loose Constructionist say, and the Legislative and Executive Branches should pretty much do whatever the majority says?

Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant — society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it — its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates; and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs as protection against political despotism. — John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

You might also want to Wiki Tyranny of the majority" although the examples given there read like a laundry list of the bete noire's of social conservatives....

Cheers,
Buffy

[Southtown]

K. To the chase both of you: Government by the people, or no?

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by Southtown

Government by the people, or no?

Yes, government by the people. That does not mean mob rule though nor does it mean direct government by the people is required. Government by elected representatives of the people or by those appointed by representatives of the people is still government by the people.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by C1ay

Yes, government by the people. That does not mean mob rule though nor does it mean direct government by the people is required. Government by elected representatives of the people or by those appointed by representatives of the people is still government by the people.

South: C1ay and I are of somewhat different political stripes and we both agree here: Our country is based on the notion of representative government--now replicated around the world--and its a good thing. What you seem to hint at it advocacy of direct democracy which has its Pros and Cons (this link has a much more expansive definition of the term than is traditional, so take with salt). The only situations where this really is considered successful is when it is hybridized with the representative form (e.g. California's referendum and recall, which is pretty darn messy and as Ahnold is finding out these days ).

Cheers,
Buffy