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Antonin Scalia, a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice, has died:
US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia - one of most conservative members of the high court - has died. Justice Scalia's death could shift the balance of power on the US high court, allowing President Barack Obama to add a fifth liberal justice to the court. The court's conservative majority has recently stalled major efforts by the Obama administration on climate change and immigration.
Justice Scalia, 79, was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. He died in his sleep early on Saturday while in West Texas for [a] hunting trip, the US Marshall service said. Justice Scalia was one of the most prominent proponents of "originalism" - a conservative legal philosophy that believes the US Constitution has a fixed meaning and does not change with the times.
Justice Scalia's death is, unsurprisingly, now being widely reported.
From the San Antonio Express News:
According to a report, Scalia arrived at the ranch on Friday and attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found a body.
[...] The U.S. Marshal Service, the Presidio County sheriff and the FBI were involved in the investigation. Officials with the law enforcement agencies declined to comment.
A federal official who asked not to be named said there was no evidence of foul play and it appeared that Scalia died of natural causes.
A gray Cadillac hearse pulled into the ranch last Saturday afternoon. The hearse came from Alpine Memorial Funeral Home.
Most major news outlets are covering this story, including CNN [video autoplays], The Washington Post, The New York Times, and NBC.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday February 14 2016, @07:38PM
It's also worth noting that there are a number of other times when "the people" are granted rights by the Bill of Rights.
That too is a fundamental mistake of understanding the US Constitution.
The bill or rights, or rather the entire constitution does not GRANT rights to the people.
The people are assumed to have these rights, and the constitution restricts the government from taking them away.
It was precisely because this was misunderstood that Amendment 10 was added:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Many states (5 or 38%) ratified with conditions (demands, really) that amendments be added to make perfectly clear that specific things left unsaid in the original constitution be added to the Constitution, (not changing any of the original text, simply adding the bill of rights). Even at that early date, people understood the likelihood of a federal power grab and over reach.
To that end, almost the first order of business was the construction by congress from those demands, the first 12 amendments to the constitution and the submission of those to the states.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @10:04PM
The bill or rights, or rather the entire constitution does not GRANT rights to the people.
The people are assumed to have these rights, and the constitution restricts the government from taking them away.
It was precisely because this was misunderstood that Amendment 10 was added:
That's pretense. We've seen that Amendment 10 is toothless and that the presence of the Bill of Rights has turned out to be necessary to preserve those rights which we supposedly have automatically.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 15 2016, @01:51AM
Well you are exactly correct.
There was argument at the time (Federalist Papers) that the bill of rights was unnecessary, because the body of the constitution would itself prevent government from usurping all rights and powers.
Turns out what little freedoms we have today are almost wholly dependent on and hang by a thread from those first ten amendments, each of which is watered down daily. What should have been a mere redundancy turned out to be an absolute necessity.
One wonders if we would not be better off has the Original First amendment had also passed. The Original Second Amendment did pass. In 1992, as the 27th.
The First amendment [teachinghistory.org] would have limited the size of a US Representative's constituency to about 40,000 people. Had it passed the house would be composed of 8074 representatives.
Of course that's too big to get anything done. Oh, wait......
It might also be too big to bribe.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.