One constitutional argument that’s always confused us around here at Constitutional Accountability Center is the claim that there’s no right to vote in the Constitution – a claim even made by some of our progressive friends. In a recent piece in the Atlantic, Professor Garrett Epps explains the origins of this claim and offers an extensive (and persuasive) rebuttal. It’s well worth a read. http://theusconstitution.org/text-history/1621/yes-there-right-vote-constitution
Winston Smith, what's up? I lost track of you on the last page of Orwell's 1984 novel. You are the very type of person the conservatives and constitutionalists were fighting against all the way through the 1990s - and up until 9 / 11 gave this POLICE STATE mentality a foothold. I fully reject this pee test, blood test, hair sample, MVR check, health records check, credit check, background check, driver's license, Socialist Surveillance Number .... ooops, "Social Security Number," National ID Card, E-Verify mentality that has jeopardized the Bill of Rights. It's little more than Hitler's tattoo idea on steroids and was put into place by those who envision the absolute POLICE STATE. The hard stark reality is that IF the events of 9 / 11 had not taken place, the conservatives and constitutionalists were poised to get rid of the 16th Amendment and the income tax - which would have given most of you a 30 percent pay raise right off the bat. It would have eliminated the possibility of a National ID Card. The income tax is a plank out of the Communist Manifesto AND the Socialist Surveillance Number / "Social Security Number" based National ID Card is Hitler's tattoos on steroids that will be used to control and patrol certain segments of society. And, just as the most likely victims of the so- called "Patriot Act" are Americans, the 24 / 7 / 365 womb to the tomb surveillance, prove this - prove that mentality supported by LafayetteBis will also be Americans. There is a much more effective way to deal with the immigration issue. It does not involve this registration of human beings, National ID, quotas, etc. As Benjamin Franklin observed: "He who would give up essential Liberty for the promise of temporary Safety deserves neither Liberty nor Safety." The reason is simple: Once you've gone down that path and traded your Liberty, you wind up with neither... which is what the puppet masters want in the first place.
References to Supreme Court cases are not exactly things you can dismiss as my "blogger buddies." I merely Googled a key phrase and when it explained the same thing I would say to you, I used it. If you want a legal treatise or for me to prepare you memorandum of law, I suppose we could do that. Just for chits and giggles, I would refer the posters to read these links: http://www.fairvote.org/right_to_vote_faq http://www.salon.com/2013/05/23/voting_is_not_a_right/ https://www.theatlantic.com/nationa...tion-actually-say-about-voting-rights/278782/ http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/adding-the-right-vote-the-constitution Seems to me, you are the only person in America that don't know this stuff.
The Atlantic article is very interesting. "But whatever Section Two of the Fourteenth Amendment means, it really can't mean that everyone must be allowed to vote. It penalizes states that withhold the ballot but does not require them to grant it. The Fifteenth Amendment, however, does speak specifically of "the right of citizens of the United States to vote. In this form, it will appear a total of three more times, each time now protected against abridgment, as an individual right "of citizens," one that can be enforced by both courts and Congress. Yet courts and citizens remain oddly am- bivalent about it; it is common to regard voting as a "privilege," an incident of citizenship granted to some but not all. The "privilege" over the years has been made dependent on literacy, or long residency in a community, or ability to prove identity, or lack of a criminal past. None of these conditions would be allowed to restrict free speech, or freedom from "unreasonable" searches, or the right to counsel, even though each of those rights is mentioned once in the Constitution. The right to vote of citizens of the United States remains a kind of stepchild in the family of American rights, perhaps because it is not listed in the Bill of Rights, and perhaps because Americans still retain the Framers' ambivalence about democracy. In the Fifteenth Amendment, the right to vote is not to be "denied or abridged on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Note the second verb. Many things might "abridge" a right without "denying" it altogether. Whatever the status of the right as a right, it is apparently quite strictly protected from any kind of limit--any kind of limit, that is, based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The target is clear--racial restrictions on voting, or restrictions of the voting rights of former slaves. It is commonplace, thus, to describe the amendment as aimed solely at racial restrictions on the right to vote."
You are correct, I don't subscribe to the absurd paranoia of the extremist alt right! There is no AFFIRMATIVE right to vote because the right to vote is a natural right. Just as there is no affirmative right to bear arms or free speech or freedom of religion. All of those rights are PROTECTED by the Constitutional RESTRICTIONS on the government from DENYING you the right to vote, bear arms, freedom of speech, religion, etc, etc. That the extremist alt right doesn't comprehend this fundamental concept as to HOW the Constitution is actually written to protect our rights FROM the government is not my problem.
I'm not hardly on the alt right. But you are definitely wrong. The United States Supreme Court says there is no "right to vote," and, furthermore, it was not the intent of the founding fathers to have any such right. You can stomp your feet all you want and rail against paranoia, the right, etc. but you are wrong on every level. And one don't have to be on the right to point that out to you.
You are entitled to your erroneous opinion but the only the right to vote is mentioned 5 times in the Constitution!
Mentioning it does not create it. In any event, it is called a "right" but is more of a privilege. The founding fathers never intended for everyone to be able to vote; therefore, calling it a "right" is a stretch. We cannot force you to be right.
That's a nothing burger. More like the the Democrats are trying to tamper with the outcome of an election by making up fake news.
Denial of reality on your part does not alter the reality that the Russians have altered the outcome of the election. Why do you want to have the Russians control your president?
Disrupting NATO was in the Russians best interests and harmed America's reputation with the rest of the world. Literally everything that Trump has done has harmed America.
Please provide credible substantiation for your allegation that the rest of the world agrees with the harm that your beloved Twittler-in-Chief has done to NATO and America's foreign relations.
There are jobs that Americans won't do...at the wages being offered for them. Remove the opportunity for companies to violate the law by getting illegal scabs and the wages will rise to attract American workers. Frankly, that's a win/win for America's working class, so it always surprises me that so many people hate the working classes so much that they want to import foreign labor to take their jobs.
I side with RPA1. That's a start. In a legal / lawful / de jure / constitutional Republic - especially ours the employers own the jobs they create. Just as it is unconstitutional for the government to tell the employer they must hire X number of black people, women, LGBT types, etc. it is equally unconstitutionally to mandate an employer deny jobs to foreigners.
