Dave wrote:

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:49:31 GMT, JimC said:


Bob, your views are contrary to the long string of appeals court rulings
regarding this matter.


Of course the Courts of Appeals do not, under our system, have the final
word. There was quite a string of appeals court decisions based on Plessey
v. Ferguson, too.



But unless and until until the Supreme Court overturns their decisions
on this matter, the Courts of Appeals decisions are controlling.



- Incidentally, this particular country (the
United States) is NOT governed by or controlled by the Federalist
Papers, and our legal system is NOT subject to them.


You're being disingenuous again. The Federalist Papers are and have been
frequently cited and used as a basis for determining the founders' intent.
Of course I understand that you subscribe to the "modern" view that what the
draftsmen intended is of no relevance today. That is not the universal view,
however.

--- Here's what Thomas Jefferson thought about how the constitution
should be viewed and interpeted today:

"Some men look at constitutions with SANCTIMONIOUS REFERENCE and deem
them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They
ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and
suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I
belonged to it and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It
was very like the present but without the experience of the present; and
forty years of experience in government is worth a century of
book-reading; and this they would say themselves were they to rise from
the dead." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:40

"Those who [advocate] reformation of institutions pari passu with
the progress of science [maintain] that no definite limits [can] be
assigned to that progress. The enemies of reform, on the other hand,
[deny] improvement and [advocate] steady adherence to the principles,
practices and institutions of our fathers, which they [represent] as the
consummation of wisdom and acme of excellence, beyond which the human
mind could never advance." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:254

Jim