Air Force Academy creates worship area for Pagans, Druids, and Wiccans

"The question whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches."Thomas Jefferson to W. H. Torrance, 1815. ME 14:303"The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:51"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:277"In denying the right [the Supreme Court usurps] of exclusively explaining the Constitution, I go further than [others] do, if I understand rightly [this] quotation from the Federalist of an opinion that 'the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government, but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under which the judiciary is derived.' If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se [act of suicide]. For intending to establish three departments, coordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. For experience has already shown that the impeachment it has provided is not even a scare-crow . . . The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please."Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819. ME 15:212"This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt."Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825. ME 16:114"My construction of the Constitution is . . . that each department is truly independent of the others and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the Constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially where it is to act ultimately and without appeal."Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819. ME 15:214 Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : Sorry for all the edits. Just kept finding quotes I liked and added them.

Got an actual court ruling instead of just quotes by TJ? I suggest you read up on Marbury v. Madison.

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It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds
soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world
And so there was only one thing I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry
Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan
Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On
*not an actual doctor

You are suggesting that I take a court judgment as the authority over the view of one of the founding fathers? Clever.

So to answer my question, you believe that in order for the Constitution to reflect the current popular understanding of religious freedom we need to change the 1st ammendment to be more specific?I am being quite serious with this so please answer.The line of reasoning is that if you say that we would need to change it, it is an admission that we already take into account influences other than the Constitution itself, namely some sense of the founders original intent which is obscure and debatable. It would be an admission that the founders failed to adequatly express their intent in the writing of the Constitution.Then why should we choose one particular interpretation of founder intent, distorted by history, over our modern understanding of what religious freedom means?Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

Why is the ruling of the supreme court of the land inferior to the opinion of an founding father? If the founding fathers didn't want a supreme court then they shouldn't have created one.It's called checks and balances. The legislature and executive work together to create and enact laws while the supreme court is one preventing those laws from violating the constitution.Edited by DrJones*, : No reason given.

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It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds
soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world
And so there was only one thing I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry
Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan
Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On
*not an actual doctor

The very idea of the "popular understanding" makes me shudder. It wasn't popular understanding but the wisdom of centuries in the hands of the most educated men of the day that wrote the Constitution.But yes, the PEOPLE are the final arbiters according to that wisdom.I don't think the founders' intent is all that obscure when you know something about the philosophical and cultural climate in which they wrote the Constitution. It does take knowing more than most of us know to judge these things."Our modern understanding" is degenerate. Too bad. I suppose there's no hope for us.

The Constitution created the three branches equal, it did not grant the Supreme Court power over the other two.To answer your edit, there are no checks and balances when one branch can trump the other two. That was the point of Jefferson's many statements on the subject. The Constitution did not grant the Court that power, he says, and by usurping it they become despots over the whole nation.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I am not trying to be combative but can you answer my question? I'll rephrase, do you believe it should require a Constitutional ammendment to allow what has occurred in the OP?

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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

I haven't thought it through, but it sounds like a good idea to me considering the way things have gone so I'll say yes.

The branches are equal, but not indentical they each have different duties, the supreme's job is to be the ultimate court of the land and to be a check on the other two branches. Where in the constitution do the legislature and exectutive get the power to create/enact laws that violate the constitution? what check is there on this kind of behaviour if not the supreme court?

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It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds
soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world
And so there was only one thing I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry
Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan
Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On
*not an actual doctor

If the Executive and Legislative are acting unconstitutionally, you think the Supreme Court's acting unconstitutionally is going to remedy things?

What other remedy is there short of an armed uprising?

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It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds
soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world
And so there was only one thing I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry
Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan
Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On
*not an actual doctor

Prayer.That's about it.

How something that we can use in the real world?

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It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds
soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world
And so there was only one thing I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry
Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan
Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On
*not an actual doctor

Faith, if people like you ever gained a sufficient political foothold in the US to actually enforce your Theocratic Christofascistic agenda, I would immediately flee the country.You disgust me. You want to turn the US into a Christian version of the United Arab Emirates. You spit on the very notion of freedom, by changing the definition from "the ability to choose for oneself" to "the ability to choose what the Christian majority approves of."You don't have the faintest clue what the Constitution means. Your "opinions" are in direct opposition to the writings of the Founding Fathers, as well as every rational concept of liberty and justice.

quote:

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

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The Constitution does not say "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of non-Christian religion, and shall prohibit the free exercise thereof."The very wisdom of teh FOundign Fathers that you claim to respect resulted in a founding document that respected individual liberty, including the basic and inalienable human right to choose how, when and what to worship according to the dictates of one's own personal conscience, not what the government or Faith has decreed is acceptable. The Constitution says that if I am a Christian, I have the right to worship however I choose. The Constitution says that if I am a Satanist, I have the right to worship however I choose. The same is true of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Wiccans, pagans of all flavors...and if I choose not to worship or acknowledge any of those, I have the right to do that, too.The provision by the Air Force Academy of a place for Wiccans to express their Constitutionally granted right is not a State endorsement of their religion - it is simply granting them the same consideration granted to larger religious groups like Christians and Jews. Our men and women in uniform deserve to reap the benefits of the very same rights they seek to protect. Your stance here dishonors the memory of every fallen American soldier, because you would seek to undo what they fought and bled and died for.How dare you ever claim to be an American when you oppose the basic rights this country stands for.