Dave wrote:
On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:29:15 -0500, Marty said:

That would be: "When the Court "discovers" new rights which no rational
person could believe were in the minds of those ratifying the
Constitution or applicable amendments, they have changed the document
without following the procedure called for to change it"

The bit about "no rational person" rather implies mental incompetency
does it not?

Nope. It implies rejection of the intent of those ratifying the Constitution
or the amendment as the standard for interpreting the document. Far from
suggesting incompetence, it suggests a willful but entirely competent desire
to claim constitutional sanction for what amounts to no more than their own
policy judgments.


Ah, "intent", always boils down to that doesn't it? Personally, I,
perhaps stupidly, believe in the moral integrity of the men and women
who make it to the bench of the Supreme Court. If they make a decision
that I don't agree with, I am sure they are making it out of a sincere
belief in its' legality, and not because they have some nefarious intent
to rewrite the Constitution. I feel the Founding Fathers set the system
up the way they did precisely because they knew that times would change,
society would evolve and events would occur which they had no way to
foresee, hence the need for a body with the power to in effect, "guess"
what they might have done.

Hopefully they will do it in a wise and just way, and further leave any
really large changes to Constitutionally defined amendment process.

I still say, if you are going to suggest, that the Supreme Court renders
decisions based on intent that no rational person could see, most
certainly implies that those rendering the decision are in fact
irrational and thus not mentally competent.

Cheers
Martin