From: decay@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (dean.kaflowitz)
Subject: Re: Another good reason not to vote for Bush
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 00:21:17 GMT

In article <Bt07FC.ABD@news.cso.uiuc.edu> tbuckley@s.psych.uiuc.edu (Tim Buckley) writes:
> In article <1992Aug14.121734.13578@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> decay@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (dean.kaflowitz) writes:
> >In article <Bsy8DI.4xG@news.cso.uiuc.edu> tbuckley@s.psych.uiuc.edu (Tim Buckley) writes:
> >> 
> >> You are quite right.  However, I really was speaking from the viewpoint
> >> that most of us in this society hold.  I think most of us are willing to
> >> make this assumption as in rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
> >> happiness.  Please note that the right to liberty or the pursuit of
> >> happiness are contingent on the right to life.  The right to life,
> >> though, is not dependent on liberty or the pursuit of happiness.  They
> >> modify the right to life.  All three have been described as inalienable.
> >
> >That one is contingent on the other does not at all prove that
> >the one must be subservient to the other.
> >
> >Rights in the United States are not at all based on what most of
> >us in society hold.
> 
> I disagree with this statement.  Majority rule is the basis of any
> democratic republic.  The Supreme Court is there to make sure that the
> rights that the majority agree to are fairly distributed.  But the
> rights exist because of majority opinion.

Rights in the United States are based on the COnstitution of the United
States.  This was not a democratically arrived at document, but the
product of rather an elite group of the landed gentry.  Additionally,
the majority of the rights we have were not merely defined by a group
of landed gentry, but by a group of white male landed gentry.  Now I
happen to think they did a fine job in many regards, although I think
the retention of slavery and the lack of suffrage for black people
and women was a shame.  Furthermore, you seem to have no idea what the
Supreme Court is there for.  The Supreme Court is there to interpret
the law.  It is the province of that corut to say what the law is.

Let me tell you an interesting fact about  the "majority" and their
notion of rights.  I wish I had the source.  I read this just the
other day.  Might have been in Life magazine, but I'm not sure.
Anyway, a school teacher sent her class out with a copy of the
First Amendment and asked them to run it by people as it were a
petition for a constitutional amendment.  The majority of people
were opposed to it, and the majority of people failed to recognize
that it was the First Amendment to the COnstitution.  In fact, the
majority of people thought it a very dangerous notion indeed.


> >
> >Please tell me where you get a copy of the Constitution with a
> >right to life mentioned, or the right to pursue life or liberty
> >or happiness.  My copies don't mention these and since other
> >people's copies do, I am worried that my copies are all the
> >wrong versions.  Maybe I have an early draft?
> 
> No, Dean, you have a later draft, sort of.  Those rights are
> specifically referred to only in the Declaration of Independence.  I
> think it is fair to say that the Constitution builds on that.  You may
> disagree.  But I think my contention is well founded.  (BTW I'm pretty
> sure that I never stated that those rights were mentioned in the
> Constitution.  If I did I was wrong.  If I didn't please don't misquote
> me.)

The Constitution is not built on the Declaration of Independence.  The
COnstitution is largley based on the philosophy of Locke and others.
The Declaration of Independence has no force in law whatsoever, and
was mainly a political document designed to build support for the
revolution.

I am very disappointed in your  lack of familiarity with American
history and government.  You are writing from an edu site and I
presume are a college student.  Ask your one of the American history
professors if the COnstitution was developed through democratic
means, and whether rights in general were specified via the democratic
means you describe.  That is, you spoke of "what most of us in
society hold."  What most people in society held had very little
to do with the rights delineated in the COnstitution.

Most of those in society who were of voting age were not even allowed
to vote until the 20th century.

Ask that professor whether the Constitution is built on the
Declaration of Independence.  You might note that the COnstitution
wasn't even the first form of government attempted after the
American revolution.  They started with the articles of
Confederation.  I recommend Federalist No. 40 to you.  It is
the only one of the Federalist Papers that really places
any reliance on the Declaration of Independence.  It argues
the case for reorganizing the government and the jurisdictional
question for such a reorganization, and that is why it relies
on the Declaration.  The Declaration was specifically written
to justify such a reorganization in the form of a revolution
against England and the Crown.

Finally, I would personally be very reluctant to speak for what
the majority of us in society hold.  I rather think that those
who make such assumptions are really saying they think thus and
so, so they figure everyone else does.

Dean Kaflowitz

"They must have reflected that in all great changes of established
governments forms ought to give way to substance; that a rigid
adherence to the former would render nominal and nugatory the
transcendant right of the people to 'abolish or alter their
governments as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
safety and happiness.'"
-Federalist No. 40 (Madison).

That bit above, were it run past just about any American, would shock
them as the work of some Commie agitator looking to make a hash
of Nicaragua again or something.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.abortion,alt.politics.bush