Subject:
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Re: "The Constitution is what the judges say it is"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 16 Oct 2001 09:10:23 GMT
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Viewed:
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254 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Marchetti writes:
> Scott writes:
> > It does not sound all that great when you describe it like that?
>
> Well, that's human history for you then. It's not the case that your
> country has anything better to offer, I know. It's trial and error, and so
> on...sometimes justice doesn't come quickly, or even at all.
>
> The Constitution is NOT what the judges say it is. That's only accurate in
> part. There are many other factors at play in this equation. You have
> managed to point out that the system in the U.S. is fallible and that there
> can be slippage in the meaning of specific language. Those are good, if
> obvious, points that do nothing to deride the inherent value of the U.S.
> system of law.
>
> All I can respond to the issues of fallibility and slippages in language is
> that this is precisely what you learn in first year Contracts at law school.
> Contracts, even social contracts, are subject to misunderstandings and
> miscommunications -- yet at the heart of each contract is an attempt to have
> a "meeting of the minds" at to what precisely the parties were trying to
> achieve. Hashing out those meanings is not necessarily an easy matter. All
> we can hope for is to reach a happy balance between common understandings of
> what things mean and an appropriate amount of wordiness in an attempt to
> cover for risk planning/management.
>
> [BTW, I got all of my knowledge of the subject from the leader of the Clan
> MacNeil Association of America, Ian R. MacNeil, who was my professor in
> first year Contracts at Northwestern University School of Law. MacNeil is
> THE authority on the subject of the Relational Theory of Contract. For more
> on him see: http://macneilgroup.com/moreclan.htm and
> http://www.northwestern.edu/univ-relations/media/news-releases/1998-99/*events/contsymp-events.html]
>
> So, the U.S. system may not be that great -- but what do you offer in
> exchange for it?
The problem with your system is the huge inequalities in your country.
Political power is bought and sold like cheese at a cheesemongers. People
keep guns to protect themselves from there *own* government. Your healthcare
system is derided across the developed world. These are all caricatures I
know, but these are very real criticism of your "system". They are the
reason that I would feel less free in the USA.
I feel no need to carry any sort of weapon. I feel no need to have a
contingency plan to deal with an armed intruder in my own home. I feel no
need to teach my kids "respect" for guns. What about those freedoms Richard?
Does the US system allow you them?
Scott A
> Every system is fallible to one degree or another.
> Perhaps what makes any system worth keeping is its ability to bend in the
> direction of righting wrongs. And by wrong I only mean that which deprives
> anyone of a substantive right. By this measure, the U.S. system seems very
> adequate to me in many respects. I'd rather tinker with it slightly than do
> away with it altogether. The core of our laws, the U.S. Constitution, has
> only a few passages I'd prefer to have removed from the document -- and most
> of these have to do with the various statuses of natural persons. Overall,
> it's a rather brilliantly written document that is poorly understood in the
> same way the Bible is misunderstood -- we'd get far fewer disputes on the
> matter if people would just read the damned thing!
>
> In the end, the U.S. Constution is actually what we all say it is. And I'm
> willing to stick with that rule of law, thanks!
>
> -- Hop-Frog
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