The very purpose of the Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the Courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights, may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." —SUPREME COURT OF THE US, WV BOARD OF EDUCATION V. BARNETTE, 319 US 624 AT 638
A citizen's constitutional rights can hardly be infringed simply because a majority of the people choose that it be. --SUPREME COURT OF THE US, WESTBROOK V. MIHALY, 2 CAL 3D 756
There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation, than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong... In fact it is only reestablishing under another name a more specious form: force as the measure of right. --JAMES MADISON
If we can't find a way to put some actual TEETH into these truths, we're going to lose.
So slavery and gang rape are OK because the majority voted for it?
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." Widely (if questionably) attributed to Benjamin Franklin
The very purpose of the Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the Courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights, may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections."
ReplyDelete—SUPREME COURT OF THE US, WV BOARD OF EDUCATION V. BARNETTE,
319 US 624 AT 638
A citizen's constitutional rights can hardly be infringed simply because a majority of the people choose that it be.
--SUPREME COURT OF THE US, WESTBROOK V. MIHALY, 2 CAL 3D 756
There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation, than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong... In fact it is only reestablishing under another name a more specious form: force as the measure of right.
--JAMES MADISON
If we can't find a way to put some actual TEETH into these truths, we're going to lose.
So slavery and gang rape are OK because the majority voted for it?
ReplyDelete"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." Widely (if questionably) attributed to Benjamin Franklin