Ron Paul believes the first amendment applies only to Congress.

[cali]

As if you needed another reason to go "omg" about the little freak.

"He wants to go much further... (10+ / 0-)
He actually believes that the First Amendment only applies to Congress and not the states and that it was specifically written to protect the states from Congress. He believes that the States are free to institute their own religions, suppress free speech via their own courts, and that the federal court system has no jurisdiction in First Amendment matters on the state level.

"It’s important to recognize that the First amendment applies only to Congress. Remember, the first sentence starts with "Congress shall make no law..." This means that matters of religious freedom and expression should be decided by the states, with disputes settled in state courts. The First amendment acts as a simple check on federal power, ensuring that the federal government has no jurisdiction or authority whatsoever over religious issues. The phony "incorporation" doctrine, dreamed up by activist judges to pervert the plain meaning of the Constitution, was used once again by a federal court to assume jurisdiction over a case that constitutionally was none of its business."

Yeah, the asshole's really pro-constitution, isn't he?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/27/82626/692/382/426776

[sakabatou]

1. That's EVIL!

[cali]

3. I won't argue with that

it's also loony and scary. What a turd he is.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. Prior to the 1920s, he's would be correct (but this isn't the 1920s)

The Bill of Rights was written to bind only the federal government. The States were free to have an official religion, censorship, etc.

Only after the SCOTUS read the 14th Amendment as incorporating those rights to bind the State governments as well did the Bill of Rights become universal. It was a drawn out process, with rights being incorporated one by one. Most of the process took place in the 20th century.

So it's just more of that "original intent strict constructionism" nonsense.

He is saying that the incorporation doctrine is unwarranted judicial activism, expanding the 14th beyond its intention.

It's the same argument we hear every day about courts in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, etc.. It only seems more alarming because he is applying the same logic to courts in the 1920s.

[cali]

6. It's pernicious nonsense

and it's another thing too many people don't know about him.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. Of course it is. But it's worth noting that it is precisely the same pernicious

nonsense as someone saying Roe v. Wade is non-binding because it is incompatible with "original intent."

It's selectively disregarding precedent.

The incorporation doctrine is a court creation, just like Roe, and the Bill of Rights was indeed not meant to apply to the States, and did not for the first 150 years.

My objective is not minimizing the horribleness of Paul's argument, but rather to point out that it is no more or less outrageous than all the other RW dismissals of precedent we take almost for granted as a feature of the political landscape.

If court created expansions of rights were all tossed out the nation would be unrecognizable. (Marbury v. Madison is as much "judicial activism" as anything else.)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

10. Scary Addendum:

Since I brought it up, and it's always something cool to be aware of, it's sort of shocking to recall how recently various rights have been held to be unincorporated by the 14th Amendment. As a civil libertarian fanatic, I always find it bracing to realize that many seemingly ancient rights we take for granted are not much older than Brown... the extended civil rights era was not just about race. It was about the civil rights of all citizens. You couldn't buy condoms in CT in 1967. A State could make you testify against yourself in a trial in the 1950s. And the full incorporation of the Bill of Rights didn't take place until the 1960s.

_____________________

Instead of applying the Bill of Rights as a whole to the states, as it might have done through the Privileges and Immunities Clause, the Supreme Court has gradually applied selected elements of the first ten amendments to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This process, known as selective incorporation, began in earnest in the 1920s. In GITLOW V. NEW YORK, 268 U.S. 652, 45 S. Ct. 625, 69 L. Ed. 1138 (1925), one of the earliest examples of the use of the incorporation doctrine, the Court held that the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech applied to the states through the Due Process Clause. By the late 1940s, many civil freedoms, including freedom of the press (NEAR V. MINNESOTA, 283 U.S. 697, 51 S. Ct. 625, 75 L. Ed. 1357 <1931>), had been incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment, as had many of the rights that applied to defendants in criminal cases, including the right to representation by counsel in capital cases (POWELL V. ALABAMA, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S. Ct. 55, 77 L. Ed. 158 <1931>). In 1937, the Court decided that some of the privileges and immunities of the Bill of Rights were so fundamental that states were required to abide by them through the Due Process Clause (Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 58 S. Ct. 149, 82 L. Ed. 288).

In 1947, the Court rejected an argument that the Fifth Amendment's right against SELF-INCRIMINATION applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment (Adamson v. People of the State of California, 332 U.S. 46, 67 S. Ct. 1672, 91 L. Ed. 2d 1903 <1947>). However, in one of the most famous dissents in history, Justice HUGO L. BLACK argued that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated all aspects of the Bill of Rights and applied them to the states. Justice FELIX FRANKFURTER, who wrote a concurrence in Adamson, disagreed forcefully with Black, arguing that some rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment may overlap with the guarantees of the Bill of Rights, but are not based directly upon such rights. The Court was hesitant to apply the incorporation doctrine until 1962, when Frankfurter retired from the Court. Following his retirement, most provisions of the Bill of Rights were eventually incorporated to apply to the states.

[chascarrillo]

4. What a nutcase

Wow.

In case anyone Paul supporters/enablers/apologists are reading, here's the direct link:

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2002/tst070102.htm

That's right. It wasn't in some newsletter that you can spin as the words of some flunky using his name. This is on his congressional website. Amazing.

[laconicsax]

5. But he's against the war!

That makes him better than any of Dem candidates who voted for the war at any point.

:sarcasm:

on edit: I'd also like to point out the inherent humor in the statement that judges, whose careers have been based on knowledge, understanding, and interpretation of the law don't understand the law as well as a guy whose life ambition was to poke around in women's parts.

[C_U_L8R]

7. Ron Paul has done a great job diluting the GOP

Of course he's kookoo bananas and bursting at the seams with right wing nonsense...
and that's what attracts the flies, I mean freeps. Heck of a job there Ron Paul : - )

[HughBeaumont]

9. I don't get it. Are there people here who still CARE about this racist Reaganite?

Not to mention he's a flat taxer, a horrid idea that once again lets the rich off scot free while the rest of us pay.

[killbotfactory]

11. And he's raised millions of dollars

unbelievable.

[bullwinkle428]

12. "Similarly, the mythical separation of church and state doctrine

has no historical or constitutional basis."

Oy vey...and people are thinking that Huckabee is the fundamentalist wacko that we have to worry about!

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

13. the cranks never stop... Just start your own damn country!