preamble (was Re: Markoff on Clipper III)

[Cerridwyn Llewyellyn]

At 10:20 AM 7/15/96 -0700, you wrote:
>At 3:50 AM -0700 7/15/96, Duncan Frissell wrote:
>>At 09:35 PM 7/14/96 -0700, David Sternlight wrote:
>>>Did you miss the part in the Constitution about "provide for the common
>>>defence"
>>That's a meaningless part of the Preamble.
>
>Anyone who thinks substantive parts of the Preamble are "meaningless" is
>deserving only of contumely. Perhaps you should review your high school
>civics course--you did have one of those, yes?

I think what he meant (not that I'm trying to speak for him) is that
the preamble was intended as an explanation of why the constitution was 
written, and not to be taken as an actual part of the constitution as such.
//cerridwyn//