Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com> writes: It appears to me that your comments to Michael are based on your views on the undesirability of the way the US judicial system operates in practice today. Michael is merely offering his expert opinion on how various questions would likely be interpreted by the current legal system. Black Unicorn also tends to get flack from various people for stating what I am sure is a realistic view of the way that certain legal questions would be viewed by judges, the supreme courts etc. Personally I am grateful to any one with legal expertise giving input to legal questions on list. Greg Broiles also adds useful comments in this area. Screams of "and you think this is a good idea?" and "but what about the constitution" are misdirected; I strongly suspect each of the three posters I mention above share your distaste for the redefinition of meanings and blatant disregard for the fairly clear meanings of the constitution. Adam -- Now officially an EAR violation... Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/ print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`

At 12:45 PM 1/13/98 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:

Do you accept that the Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the land and therefore the ultimate legal authority within its borders?

Jim - you and I are political theorists, and you're asking a political question, though I'm not sure what kind of question you mean. Froomkin's a law professor, though he's also got political opinions. To a lawyer, the answer is that the Constitution ultimately means whatever you can talk the Supreme Court into saying it means, or whatever you or your opponents can talk a lower court into saying if the court's opinion is strong enough that the loser decides it's not worth spending the resources to appeal, and the Supreme Court has decided all sorts of things over the years depending on the political climate. Many legal and political theorists have opinions about Marbury vs. Madison and the other cases in which the Supreme Court decided that the Constitution said they're the ones who get to decide what the Constitution means; you may have opinions about that, or you could be asking Froomkin what he thinks about it. On the other hand, the Constitution is a political compromise between a bunch of long-dead politicians, in which they offered the public a deal that they'd mostly stick within its limits if they agreed not to ignore or overthrow them. So you could be asking if he thinks it's a good compromise, or you could be asking if he's a Loyal American who agrees not to overthrow or ignore the Constitution (as opposed to one of them pinko Commies), or you could be asking if he's a Loyal American who believes the Government isn't sticking to their end of the bargain and therefore deserves to be overthrown. Or you could be asking a Lysander Spooner question about whether he thinks a bunch of promises made by a bunch of long-dead politicians have any authority over either the politicians or the people today. So which question are you asking, and why? Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639