South Carolina Christians Scream "PREJUDICE!!!"

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Eris
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Post by Eris »

Well, first of all, am I the only person who thinks there's something hilarious about the fellow arguing for gov't endorsement of Christianity going by the handle, American Infidel? :D

More on topic, whether or not the Supreme Court is what determines what makes something constitutional is something that's not been demonstrated conclusively either way, and there's a healthy debate amongst legal scholars and philosophers of law exactly how we should consider that and related issues of legality. They do have the practical final say on the matter, but that sometimes ends up with things like the aforementioned Dred Scott decision in which there's clearly some retarded rulings going on. Unlike the Pope, we do not believe them to be infallible, but whether it's because we rewrite the rules or just reinterpret the rules (fine distinction) when the Supreme Court overrides one of its previous decisions is up for grabs, and in some sense largely academic.

That said, this is pretty clearly violation of the establishment clause, for all the reasons previously listed, and probably some others as well. Oh to be back in the age of Jefferson v. Adams.
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Post by American Infidel »

Patrick Degan wrote:Lie. You simply ignored entirely the fact that Florida's legislature dropped it's "I Believe" license plate measure over concerns of a First Amendment conflict, then tried covering it up with a red herring over their not taking it to court which they were nowhere close to doing, since they didn't even pass the measure in the first fucking place.
Irrelevant. The job function and powers of the Florida legislature are not judicial review and the educational qualifications to make such a review are not required to serve on the legislature.
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Post by DPDarkPrimus »

So people serving as duly appointed members of the United States government do not have to take into consideration rulings on the constitutionality of actions when proposing bills?
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Patrick Degan
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Post by Patrick Degan »

American Infidel wrote:
Patrick Degan wrote:Lie. You simply ignored entirely the fact that Florida's legislature dropped it's "I Believe" license plate measure over concerns of a First Amendment conflict, then tried covering it up with a red herring over their not taking it to court which they were nowhere close to doing, since they didn't even pass the measure in the first fucking place.
Irrelevant. The job function and powers of the Florida legislature are not judicial review and the educational qualifications to make such a review are not required to serve on the legislature.
TOTALLY relevant —the legislators are supposed to take into account the constitutionality of the laws they pass and put up for a governor's signature. That many of them don't and end up dumping their states into court defending goofy laws does not actually negate what should be part of their responsibilities. This also speaks directly to your ignorance of the point being discussed here because you can't be bothered to do your own fucking homework.
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Post by American Infidel »

Alyrium Denryle wrote:No. No it does not. I am a scientist, as opposed to an engineer, and if something violates the laws of physics, one does not waste money trying to test it, one does not try to test whether or not a perpetual motion machine works, for example.

Yes it does. The laws of physics have been observed/tested/whatever and will never change.
The Bill of Rights can change, the laws of governance do change, and how judges/everybody else interpret both change. Therefore; laws always require the judicial review test before their constitutionality can be determined or demonstrated.
The constitutionality of measures like that have been tested over and over again. They are clear violation of the law, and it does not take a court to see it. Just like it does not take going to peer review to tell us that rats do not inherit shortened tails from their amputated parents. You can determine whether or not the idea has merit by appealing to previous tests, unless you have some reason to think that the prior tests were inconclusive.
The constitutionality of this measure and the florida measure have clearly not been tested so it is not a clear violation of the law because it DOES take a court case to see it. See above.
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Post by Patrick Degan »

American Infidel wrote:The constitutionality of this measure and the florida measure have clearly not been tested so it is not a clear violation of the law because it DOES take a court case to see it. See above.
The constitutionality of religioulsy-biased state materials or laws has been tested repeatedly and found wanting, and this is the main reason why FLORIDA BACKED OFF OF ITS OWN LICENSE PLATE MEASURE, SHITWIT. I don't know how many times things like this have to be spelled out to you. Perhaps we should start using simple words for your benefit.
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Post by American Infidel »

Patrick Degan wrote:
American Infidel wrote:The constitutionality of this measure and the florida measure have clearly not been tested so it is not a clear violation of the law because it DOES take a court case to see it. See above.
The constitutionality of religioulsy-biased state materials or laws has been tested repeatedly and found wanting, and this is the main reason why FLORIDA BACKED OFF OF ITS OWN LICENSE PLATE MEASURE, SHITWIT. I don't know how many times things like this have to be spelled out to you. Perhaps we should start using simple words for your benefit.
Same shit, different day. Blah, blah, blah. If they didn't take it to court, you don't have shit.
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Post by Alyrium Denryle »

Yes it does. The laws of physics have been observed/tested/whatever and will never change.


The Bill of Rights can change, the laws of governance do change, and how judges/everybody else interpret both change. Therefore; laws always require the judicial review test before their constitutionality can be determined or demonstrated.
Then your analogy fails you fucktard. If the two are not comparable, you do not get to use the analogy.

You dont get to have your cake and eat it to.
The constitutionality of this measure and the florida measure have clearly not been tested so it is not a clear violation of the law because it DOES take a court case to see it. See above.
No. There has been enough precedent on the matter to tell rather easily. Yes. We use a precedent system, where we apply prior decisions to determine the probable legality of an action. Here, we use the three pronged lemon test

1) Does the law have a primarily secular purpose? The answer is no
2) Does the law have the effect of helping or hindering religion? Yes. By specifically singling out christianity for special treatment, it serves as a legal endorsement. Had they done something like authorize "I Believe [insert ideological symbol here]" then it would have been perfectly legal.
3) Does the law entangle government with religion. In this case the answer is yes.

This fails all three prongs, on their face. It does not take a court to say "this is probably unconstitutional" a trained monkey can do it. In this case, a biologist who likes to read supreme court briefs for fun can do it.

We do not NEED to test every single law. It is not a violation of the power of the courts for the legislature to think to themselves "This is probably unconstitutional and we should not pass it and waste taxpayer dollars in legal challenges"

Just as it is not a problem for science when we say "I cant synthesize Meta-nitrotoluene from toluene because the methyl group is an ortho/para director for the nitro-group"
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Post by Patrick Degan »

American Infidel wrote:
Patrick Degan wrote:
American Infidel wrote:The constitutionality of this measure and the florida measure have clearly not been tested so it is not a clear violation of the law because it DOES take a court case to see it. See above.
The constitutionality of religioulsy-biased state materials or laws has been tested repeatedly and found wanting, and this is the main reason why FLORIDA BACKED OFF OF ITS OWN LICENSE PLATE MEASURE, SHITWIT. I don't know how many times things like this have to be spelled out to you. Perhaps we should start using simple words for your benefit.
Same shit, different day. Blah, blah, blah.
Rather concise description of your posting history since page two of this thread, actually.
When ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.
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People pray so that God won't crush them like bugs.
—Dr. Gregory House

Oil an emergency?! It's about time, Brigadier, that the leaders of this planet of yours realised that to remain dependent upon a mineral slime simply doesn't make sense.
—The Doctor "Terror Of The Zygons" (1975)
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Post by American Infidel »

Darth Wong wrote: The whole point of a scientific experiment is to generate objective data. All this tests is that 9 particular people (several of them hand-picked by the sitting president for their ideological temperaments) have a certain opinion. Why do you think I brought up the Dred Scott example? Did that "experiment" prove that black people have no constitutional rights?
That's true.

More importantly; how can the first amendment be interpreted with final authority by anybody if the opinions of justices are continually changing? It can't. The judicial review experiment is always going to be necessary.
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Post by Patrick Degan »

American Infidel wrote:More importantly; how can the first amendment be interpreted with final authority by anybody if the opinions of justices are continually changing? It can't. The judicial review experiment is always going to be necessary.
The difference, which you won't get through that thick skull of yours even if it got knocked in by a brick, is that certain things are so clearly violations of both the letter and spirit of the law that they will not stand a chance of passing judicial review and get shot down each and every time they do come up to waste the court's time.
When ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.
—Abraham Lincoln

People pray so that God won't crush them like bugs.
—Dr. Gregory House

Oil an emergency?! It's about time, Brigadier, that the leaders of this planet of yours realised that to remain dependent upon a mineral slime simply doesn't make sense.
—The Doctor "Terror Of The Zygons" (1975)
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Post by Oni Koneko Damien »

American Infidel wrote:Yet another profane and vitriolic response to something you were too stupid to understand.
Yeah! Seize that moral high ground, that'll show'im!
We are not going to agree and I'm not going to waste any more of my time posting on this thread.
I'll note that you have made no less than EIGHT posts since this claim. Way to keep to your principles, cumstain.

I eagerly await anything from you that isn't either 1) Whining about your intellectual and ethical superiors pointing out your stupidity, or 2) Continued maintainance of your growing wall of ignorance.
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Post by Metatwaddle »

Knife wrote:Hmm, lets see; Freedom of Speech? It's a government license tag and it actually doesn't belong to you it belongs to the state.
Not always, in my state. They auction off old Delaware license plates. Low-numbered license plates have sometimes gone for over $100,000.
No. There has been enough precedent on the matter to tell rather easily. Yes. We use a precedent system, where we apply prior decisions to determine the probable legality of an action. Here, we use the three pronged lemon test

1) Does the law have a primarily secular purpose? The answer is no
2) Does the law have the effect of helping or hindering religion? Yes. By specifically singling out christianity for special treatment, it serves as a legal endorsement. Had they done something like authorize "I Believe [insert ideological symbol here]" then it would have been perfectly legal.
3) Does the law entangle government with religion. In this case the answer is yes.
I'm not sure this is as obvious as you think. Your use of the word "primarily" here is incorrect; as long as the law serves some secular end, it's OK for that prong. The "primarily" thing comes up in the second prong, the one about advancing/inhibiting.

I also think you're off base on entanglement. The government is not interfering with any religious organization's ability to operate as it sees fit, and no religious organization is interfering with the government's ability to do its job. I don't think you have a violation of the third prong.

The real problem, and the reason why it probably won't work, is the second prong: does the law have a primary effect of either inhibiting or advancing religion? Yes, it clearly does have the primary effect of advancing religion. In addition, treating Christianity differently than other religions (text is permitted for Christianity only) would not fly.
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