The Glade 4.0

Because freedom is un-American. Terrorists hate us for our freedoms, so we got rid of them. FDR gave us the new freedoms, so lets use those..

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

And there are a fair number of decisions and juridical positions wherein the Courts are wrong. The First Amendment says what it says. If Dancing is Speech when it comes to performing Hairspray in Central Park, it's Speech when it comes to dancing at the Jefferson Memorial. We can play that game, if you want ...
It doesn't have to help my position when your position is completely indefensible. The First Amendment says what it says.

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No it doesn't. No amendment "Says what it says". It elucidates a general principle, not a literal absolute.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

And this is why people think you have no business being in law enforcement ...

After all, you just said, "The Constitution's more like guidelines ... really."

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I'm curious what your standing is on slander, libel and the commonly mentioned "yelling fire in a crowded theatre." If you go strictly by the first amendment, wouldn't all of these be perfectly legal? I realize that many of the damages on these are solved through civil redress, but in my mind these are three easily identifiable cases that the first amendment doesn't cover, at least not completely.

I'm sorry, but from what I saw in that video, that protest does not qualify in any way as "peaceably."

Oh quit your whining.

First of all, I am not the issue. Stick to the issue at hand, Khross. You're acting like a petulant child.

Second, it is pretty much guidelines. Some parts of the Constitution are very narrow and specific, such as the length of terms of elected officials.

The first ten mendments are not (possibly excepting the second and third) and leave themselves open to great interpretation, with subjective terms like "cruel and unusual", "reasonable", and even "speech". You already tacitly acknowleged that "speech" isn't literal by saying "well, if dancing is speech for X purpose, it's speech all the time", but then all of a sudden it's got to be a literal absolute at "no law". How perfectly convenient. Apparently the court is only "wrong" to go off the absolute literal meaning when it disagrees with Khross.

See, unlike certain people here who are overly impressed with their own intellect, I recognize that the writers of the Constitution realized they did not need go into great detail because those coming after could figure out what the document meant in the context of the problems they faced. They most likely did not think anyone would seriously sit around and try to use the exact literal meanings of anything as a bludgeon to force their views on everyone else.

Thankfully, those of you who do only get to rant angrily on the internet since most people don't take such a view seriously.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I am sticking to the issue at hand. You spend a lot of time flouting your law enforcement connections and status. Consequently, when you say the Constitution (and particularly the Bill of Rights) should not be subject to a literal interpretation, this indicates you have a flawed understanding of law and legality. Indeed, your positions on such things are why people question your viability as a law enforcement officer.

The Constitution, and any other valid law, are not meant to be interpreted. Defining them as loose documents in the sense you're now arguing makes them meaningless and useless as law. I'm not sure who taught you Constitutional Law; I'm not sure how much of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers you've read (or of the diaries from both Continental Congresses and such); but I can assure you that you have some patently ridiculous notions on the nature of law and legality.

Likewise, you have some seriously poor reading skills today, seeing as how I pointed out that even if we accept the current juridical position on what constitutes "speech", the Courts have regularly defended the actions in question here. That's kind of how conditionals work:Making a statement about the status quo does not mean I necessarily agree with the status quo. However, Hairspray's open air performances in public venues were held up in the courts as "speech" and "protected speech" at that ...

Pointing out the inconsistencies in juridical policy merely serves to strengthen my argument: that anything but a strict, literal reading of the First Amendment is meaningless for purposes of law. In fact, that pretty much goes for every law ...

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Interesting, because a whole lot of constitutional lawyers, judges, and legislators disagree.




I'm no expert, but it occurs to me that a review of the Constitution indicates that qualifications for local law enforcement are left up to the states, or local jurisdictions. I'm actually curious: are you familiar with the local laws and qualifications for law enforcement in DE's jurisdiction? What qualifications do you possess that qualify you to make such an assessment, or is this an opinion tossed out and unjustified?



Are you a Constitutional lawyer? What qualifications do you possess in this regard?



Ideally, I agree that's how it should be. Unfortunately, reality does not support this. If you pay attention, you'll realize that even a literal reading of a document can easily generate varying interpretations, and more importantly - application. Furthermore, it should be clear that people, in general, don't operate that way - making the ideal a pointless exercise.

Arathain:

I don't have to be anything to have an informed and rational opinion on the subject. That said, since you keep making appeals to popularity and appeals to tradition, what exactly is your point? We should keep doing things as we are because that's how they are done?

But, it's obvious from your post you think law and regulation should be fluid instead of static. Apparently because you believe human beings are themselves dynamic entities, you believe the constructs they create will be inherently so.

Let me know when a Natural 1 becomes a Natural 20 in D&D.

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That's calculated by using the height of the dm screen, the need to advance plot and the dms poker face minus hours played and mountain dew consumed.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

If laws don't mean what they say - can anyone who takes this position tell me the point of having laws?

Is it to pretend we have a society where we are all equal? Is it some guideline with no consequences that judges should consider because going too far against this too fast is likely to upset the peons?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Appeal to tradition = how things have always been done.
Appeal to popularity = how people want them to be done.

How things have always been done + how people want them to be done = REALITY.

Khross = Unrealistic Idealism.

You'll notice, if you had read my post, that my views on what should be done do not reflect reality, and are closer to your views. So, don't go inventing viewpoints for me.

However, you're taking your unrealistic idealism, and using it to question the qualifications of someone else's profession, because it is based on reality instead of your unrealistic idealism. To me, that is not only taking your views too far, but is also unreasonable and impolite.



And in what way is it obvious? Because I specifically said the exact opposite?





Interesting. I cannot think off the top of my head any significant construct that HAS NOT been dynamic. Can you?



I have no idea what you are talking about.

You know what they say, "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Still, fluid law is better than no law.

I'm full of fluids right now.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

No Khross, you are not sticking to the issue at hand. So far all you have do is make the whiny, and totally absurd assertion that only "cops and politicians" don't hold the idea that the Amendment is some sort of absolute, and complain that I personally don't belong in law enforcement. You are not discussing the issue; you are whining.



You spend a lot of time flouting your academic credentials



Except that they are only flawed in the views of certain people here on the Glade, who do not represent the public at large. Indeed, the average viewpoint here is one of pointless opposition to authority simply because it is authority more often than not - yours included.



False.



On the contrary, it is the only way to make them useful. Absolute uninterpretables lead only to absurdity.



No, Khross, I really don't. My views are based ont he ways the courts have been interpreting law since our founding.



First of all, judicial inconsistency in no way supports a literal interpretation; that simply does not follow. Second, you have not shown any inconsistency; you have created an inconsistency out of thin air by focusing only on dance as speech while totally ignoring other areas of jurisprudence that are relevant.

So, if you really want to discuss the issue, shut the **** up about my reading comprehension and my law enforcement status, and I'll shut up about your academic status. Or is it just too **** difficult for you to discuss anything anymore without having to make it about the other person?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Fluid laws are piss. They are not law they are antithesis of law. Might as well have the only law is "we will do what we feel like" - at least it would be honest.

There was a time when men had an understanding of the effects of bad policy and would do something about it. I suppose until the tv the internet and the beer stop flowing people won't really care if they treated as the children of drunken parents.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

DE has never understood the difference between talking about what should be and talking about what is. Its as if he cannot understand the idea of morality at all. He has no ability to fundamentally understand the concept or motivation of changing how something is now.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

That isn't true. He has a concept of what should be that is different from what is, it's just that his concept of what should be is light on liberty and justice for people not in law enforcement, government, or the military.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

My concept is not the least bit light on liberty or justice for anyone. I realize it's a lot easier to think that, though, than confront how unrealistic and unworkable a lot of the ideas of "liberty" and "justice" that get tossed around here are.. and how easy they are to champion when we all know they're never going to happen.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Fiat declaration precariously balanced on flawed ideology.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Fiat declaration precariously balanced on flawed ideology.

See? I can declare your ideology flawed because it's not the same as mine too!

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Interesting viewpoint. I find it a bit odd, though. Unless I'm inadvertently misrepresenting your position, you support a strict, literal reading of the Constitution. The Constitution clearly defines the process by which it can be changed. Thus, the Constitution, by design, is a fluid document.



I'm trying to figure out what this means and how this relates. Are you saying that you're drunk, or everyone else is drunk?

There's a difference between alterable and fluid.

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/facepalm

You can facepalm all you want, Arathain; but my statement is true. The two aren't synonymous; they certainly aren't synonymous with regard to law.

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