14th Amendment

You mentioned that our rights are inherent that no level of government can infringe on, and that the Patriot Act is wrong, on those two points, I agree with you completely. I was not aware of the 14th Amendment not being ratified, but if that's the case, then it should be removed just for that. 1. "Prior to the 14th Amendment, individuals were citizens of their States, and not of "the United States," of which there was no such thing. " I'm afraid that's not the case. The original Constitution made multiple mentions of citizens of the United States. Article 1, Section 2, Clause 2: No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. Article 1, Section 3, Clause 3: No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen. Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5: No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. Also importantly, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 gives the Federal government the power to: [E]stablish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; In other words, acts of Congress are supposed to define the requirements by which immigrants can be citizens. Only the federal government was supposed to determine who becomes a citizen, not the states. You may be arguing for the Articles of Confederation, but that's not the Constitution, as I'm sure you're aware. 2. What role does the Supreme Court have if it's not to be the arbiter of what's Constitutional? Furthermore, that power is not vested in Congress or the executive branch. So if the SCOTUS's role is to be the arbiter of what's Constitutional, and that power's not vested in any other branch, why wouldn't it be the sole abiter. On Dred Scott, we agree it was a bad decision, but the point remains: They ruled that African-Americans were not citizens. The 14th Amendment made clear they are. 3. Agreed that they would have been better off. You are right that the 13th Amendment negated any effect of the 3/5th rule. 4. The federal government shouldn't be the "defender" of "individual rights" against the states. The Supreme Court should. Nowhere does the 14th Amendment give the feds the role to do what that. Nowhere does the 14th Amendment give the feds the right to pass things like the Patriot Act. I completely disagree with you about Roe and about religious symbols. No, it should not be addressed locally. You said it yourself, our rights are inherent and cannot be infringed on by any level of government. We may disagree on the right to choose, and that's fine, but the underlying premise is that the states should not be able to infringe on our right of privacy. If you want to argue that abortion isn't privacy, that's fine, but assuming it is, the SCOTUS absolutely had a right to stop the states from infringing on that right. I totally reject this dilemma of "move to a different state" vs. "have nowhere to move. " You should not need to move to a different state in order to have your rights honored. They are, as you said, our rights, and if they are being infringed on, whoever's infringing on them should stop. You shouldn't need to be inconvenienced because someone else is infringing on our rights. The other point I made that I didn't get an answer about was school segregation.