Ivan tends to be a Russian name. So all Russians are communists?

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"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

(I actually figured that out this time..)


BTW, my name is Sergei Igor Tsovarovich, not Ivan.

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

Commie!!!!! Better dead than red!!!!

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There can be no bystanders in the battle for survival. Anyone who will not fight by your side is an enemy you must crush.

We are at war with forces too terrible to comprehend. We cannot afford mercy for any of its victims too weak to take the correct course. Mercy destroys us; it weakens us and saps our resolve. Put aside all such thoughts. They are not worthy of those in the service of country.

Not really - perhaps I wasn't clear. Another poster touched on it as well.

There has to be some basic understanding of concepts for a society to work at all. For example, a society has to agree on what constitutes murder as opposed to justifiable homicide. Most of us seem to understand that killing someone in self-defense is legitimate but killing someone while you're trying to rob them isn't. Now I'm sure there are some people out there who believe all killing is wrong and you should simply roll over and die when someone wants to kill you and let society figure it out after the fact, but as a society, we consider these people wrong - and slightly insane as well.

The concept extends to our Constitution as well. We have to agree on some base concepts in terms of legal construction and word definition for the document to have any meaning at all, and those word definitions must remain constant. One person may "feel", for example, that because the government is not explicitly forbidden from doing something then it has the authority to do so. He would be wrong in the sense that our basis of government is not designed around that concept.

There are many judicial decisions in recent years which the best legal minds in the world have looked at and said "What the FUCK are they smoking?" Kelo and McCain-Feingold come to mind rather rapidly.

Somehow this nation managed to survive for a couple hundred years without so much confusion over the obvious meaning of the written word. Somewhere in the past 40 years or so, the USSC started to decide that the obvious no longer meant the obvious, and must mean something else.

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In case you were wondering, yes, there really ARE more idiots these days....technology has made natural selection obsolete.

Then we aren't on this planet and the known physical and mathematical laws do not apply.

Meanwhile, back in the real world...

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In case you were wondering, yes, there really ARE more idiots these days....technology has made natural selection obsolete.

I figured since the feds are more than happy to throw money away on things less worthwhile, they'll cough up the funds from somewhere. In an ideal world the government would just stop wasting money and we'd be able to pay for all kinds of things, including competent national security policies.

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Is our children learning? -George W. Bush

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"—Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

"[T]he illiteracy level of our children are appalling."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004

Something is better then nothing most of the time.

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Is our children learning? -George W. Bush

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"—Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

"[T]he illiteracy level of our children are appalling."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004

You'll have to forgive me, Eric, but I have to interject a few comments here.

Number 1, all of the lawyers I have spoken to, as well as folks I know that follow legal matters, found that the Kelo ruling made sense, from a strict, "letter of the law" standpoint. They were right in upholding New London's right to exercise eminent domain. And this resulted in much legislation on the state level (many states) that limited eminent domain to public works, only.

Second, perhaps you could point out some judicial decisions in reference to McCain-Feingold? I am unaware of any, but don't follow judicial matters as closely as some of my chums.

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If common sense were common, we would all have it (including me).

EXACTLY! For example, if politically conservative judges not only overturned Roe v. Wade (which would NOT be "activist" or "legislating from the bench" but merely recognizing that the constitution is SILENT on the matter of abortion) but also declared there to be a basic "right to life" in the penumbras and emanations of the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments, then they would most certainly be guilty of judicial activism.

If politically conservative justices were to rule that not only is gay marriage not a constitutional right, but is PROHIBITED by the constitution, they would be guilty of judicial activism.

If politically conservative justices were to rule that progressive income tax rate structures violate the equal protection clause of the constitution, they would be guilty of judicial activism.

However, one can only credibly and honestly accuse a judge of judicial activism if they adhere to an originalist philosophy of the role of the judiciary. If, on the other hand, you believe that judges are empowered to determine what our "living" constitution means today, regardless of what it has been understood to mean since its ratification, then there is no such thing as judicial activism.

Absent a set meaning to laws, which it is the duty of the judiciary to apply, rather than to create of their own volition, then judicial review itself has no legal legitimacy. The very notion of judicial review is based on the premise that laws have definitive meanings which are subsequently APPLIED to specific facts by the judiciary, and where two laws conflict, there are ancient and established rules for how judges ought to reconcile those apparent conflicts.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

Now you are engaging in sophistry. The courts "make" law everyday without "passing" specific laws. By ignoring the plain and reasonable meaning of laws which were passed or ratified (in the case of the constitution) they are in fact MAKING law.

Roe v. Wade was a clear example of judicial activism. Nothing in the constitution was ever understood by those who wrote or ratified it or its amendments to proscribe laws against abortion. Such laws existed prior to, and continued to be enforced and passed throughout or history. It is simply not an intellectually reasonable argument that the constitution, which is derives its power ONLY through ratification by the states can have a meaning not only unknown to those who give it effect, but contradicting their clearly expressed understanding of it.

Same with the "wall of separation" between Church and State. The very congress that passed the First Amendment, also created the position of congressional chaplain, a post which continues to exist to this day. Any interpretation of the first amendment which argues that any and all public support for religion is a violation is unreasonable, as it is clearly contradicted by the actions and understandings of those who wrote and subsequently ratified it.

The reason you don't here much criticism of "conservative" judges for engaging in "activism" from conservatives is because they generally do not engage in it. You need look no further than the routine denigration of originalist understanding of the constitution by liberals as "irrelevant", or "inflexible", or merely the views of "200 year old rich white men" to understand that insofar as public policy is concerned the Constitution as written and understood for most of our history is a conservative document. By today's political lexicon, ALL of the founders (and the society as a whole) were somewhat right of center politically, and to suggest that the document they gave effect to somehow instilled left-wing policies as a matter of constitutional mandate is simply ridiculous.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane