The Sheriff wrote:
At 8:26 PM -0800 1/10/98, Bill Stewart wrote:
Umm, no, freedom doesn't work like that. If you open a *private* establishment, you have the right, according to the constitution, to deny *anyone* the right to enter or eat in your restraunt.
I don't see freedom of association listed anywhere there; you might construe it as a "taking" or something, but it'd be a stretch. Also, there was a really appalling court case in the 1890s (Plessey vs. Ferguson), in which the Supremes ruled that states could require segregation with separate but equal accommodations; it was somewhat overturned by Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, but the idea that the government can tell you how to run your business is long established (after all, we'd need much smaller governments if they couldn't be interfering in business.)
Firstly, something being long-established doesn't make it right. SO, let's look at it this way, regarding the freedom of association.
These arguments are all smoke and mirrors unless we figure out where authority lies (? ;-) As far as I'm concerned freedom of association is implied by freedom of assembly. To assemble in this context obviously means to associate. If it doesn't, then what the hell is it? To come together in order to work things out? Is that association? In the context of assembling for commerce, commerce is just assembling and agreeing on the terms of free association. The authority of a Supreme Court was challenged by Thomas Jefferson, who speculated that if such a court were the ultimate arbiter of justice, then a tyranny of the judiciary would follow. So who ultimately judges? I should think having a federal body judge the constitutional limitations of the federal government is an obvious conflict of interest. In any case, anyone willing to read the constitution and do just a little bit of homework will find out that the constitution is a *limitation* of the powers of the federal government, not a broad grant. This design of the Constitution was seriously undermined when Roosevelt stacked the Supreme Court in order to judge that Social (in)Security was constitutional. In their decision they decided that the welfare clause was a broad grant of power to federal government. This flies in the face of more than 100 years of judicial readings of the constitution, not to mention logic. If the federal government was given a broad grant of powers in the Constitution, why did it outline only specific powers? (In fact, exactly this argument was put forth when Madison(?) was questioned on the intent of the welfare clause -- didn't the Supreme Court justices, with their intellectual clout bother to research the writing of the designers of said document?) [little know fact: Earl Warren, noted Supreme Court "Justice" was the designer of the Japanese-American Prison camps in the US during WWII] If the US Constitution is a contract with the people on the scope and nature of their government, then I at least want an outside arbiter of that contract. All references to Spooner's "The Constitution of No Authority" aside, if it is not a contract then were living on the other side of the looking glass, Alice. Before someone starts spouting off on "our living constitution"(TM) someone please tell me why they didn't strike out the conflicting parts of the constitution when they "grew" it? Something like "amendments number one, two, five, nine and ten should be amended to read "unless we say otherwise". Alterations of public law almost always specify the previous laws that are struck down. In fact, if memory serves, the repeal of prohibition specifically alters the amendment that created it. (It is left as an excercise to the reader to figure out why prohibition needed an amendment to the constitution while prohibition of other mind altering substances did not ;-) Have a day. Jim