In
bignews3.bellsouth.net> wrote:>> In
bignews4.bellsouth.net> wrote:>>>> It doesn't say PEOPLE nor PERSONS in that amendment at all. Does
>>>> that mean it doesn't apply to either? Woo-Hoo, big loophole there!!!!
>>>
>>> Since the terms noormally apply only to persons, I see no soophole.
>>> Can you cite an example of bail or fines being imposed on an entity
>>> not a person during that era?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Again, look at the last two amendments in the Bill of Rights:
>>>>
>>>> Amendment IX
>>>> The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not
>>>> be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
>>>
>>> Your point?
>>> The statement seems clear enough to me.
>>
>> My point is that it doesn't say "persons" or "the people in their
>> persons" which is the nonsense that you claim makes up the magical
>> Founders phrase for "individuals". When you turn to a crowd of 20
>> people and announce "You people now have the right to a free ice
>> cream cone!" all 20 are going to be (correctly) under the impression
>> that you are going to give them a cone - not one for the crowd. If
>> the rights not specifically enumerated in Article 9 - which is
>> EVERYTHING in the known universe that isn't impossible, illegal, or
>> otherwise specified in that very short document - were meant only
>> collectively then it would be impossible for any individual to
>> actually enjoy those rights except as some airy fairy metaphysical
>> exercise in philosophy appreciation. That is clearly not what the
>> Founders meant. The Founders meant ALL the people had those rights
>> individually. And they meant ALL the people had a right to keep and
>> bear arms - the rest of the Second Amendment, short as it is, is just
>> there to explain why - not how.
>
> But if you will actually read the constitution, or other contemporary;
> you will find the terms "persons" and "in their persons" used to
> specify the individuals within the corporate noun "people". This is
> not, as you suggest something I have made upl Iti s there in the
> constitution. Read it.
I did. And as I just said before "the people in their persons" is a
truncation. Look at that phrase every time it appears and it always
enumerates a list like "the people in their persons, places, or things"
or "the people in their persons, their arms, their legs, and their shoes.
" There is no magic phrase "the people in their persons" that defines
some separate state of being from the "The people" and the "The people"
are clearly the individual citizens of this country which means that any
right found to exist among "The people" exists for an individual citizen -
not as an abstraction but as a fundamental right. The people have a
right to be secure in their homes from unreasonable search and seizure.
This means YOU right now and always, not just the majority of us on any
given day. The people have the right to keep and bear arms. This means
YOU unless you have done something very specific to sever that right,
like be convicted of a felony, not the other way around.
>>>>
>>>> Amendment X
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Clearly, the people, as entity made up entirely of individuals
>>>> have not just SOME right but ALL RIGHTS unless otherwise
>>>> specifically delegated to something else.
>>>
>>> Precicely.
>>> They have these rights as an entity made up of endividuals and not
>>> as the individuals that make up that entity, just as I said.
>>
>> Baloney. The right to build a birdhouse in your own backyard is not
>> mentioned in the Constitution. Article 10 covers it. It covers it
>> for real. Not for an "entity of individuals" which would by
>> definition require more than one person - but for one single person
>> at a time.
>>>
>>> When the Constitution wishes to distribute a right to individuals it
>>> speaks of the people (a corporate entity)
>>
>> Wrong. The Constitution doesn't distribute right - it holds them to
>> be self-evident and inalienable.
>
> You speak of the Constitution "delegtating rights; then quarrel with
> my use of the phrase "distributing them to individuals. Isn't that
> rather self-contradictory?
No. My point is that the Constitution defines certain rights - although
it explicitly says that it is not doing so in any way, shape, or form so
as to diminish many other rights not so enumerated - AND then it
delegates certain powers.
Individual rights are held inalienable by the individuals - not granted
or entrusted to them by the Constitution.
>
>> The Bill of Rights doesn't DISTRIBUTE
>> rights. It sets forth which rights have been VOTED on and approved
>> by the representatives of the people ("ratified" amendments, Hello!)
>> and it says there are many, many, many other rights that it doesn't
>> even need to bother to list.
>
> The issue is which of these right it speaaks of as being delegated
> (your word) to individuals within the corporate entiey of "the
> people"
> and which are held by "the people" as a group.
What do you mean "your word"??? It's Madison, Franklin, and Hancock's
word, among others. I didn't make it up.
Amendment 10
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.
>>
>>> "in their persons" (as the
>>> individuals making up that corporate entity), This is inkeeping
>>> with the general literature of the time. (Which you have still not
>>> mentioned, though that was what you based your original claim on.)
>>
>> I'm not going to hold a lit. course here on the use of the plural
>> throughout the centuries. I'll just stick with Shakespeare, "We
>> speak, and our voice is Imperial."
>
> This is a corporate usage,, such as a King or Queen might use
> asserting the right to speak for a nation as a whole.
That's all well and good in 2007 but when this document was written in
1776 (and when Henry V said that quote in 1415) kings and queens weren't
just tourist attractions for constitutional monarchies. There were
other entities that had competing interests and real serious power that
had to be checked. The king, the queen, the nobility, the state, the
military, the clergy, and the people were all very, very different
things and the people - especially as individuals - had very few
individual rights. The United States Constitution reversed that. It's
not just some feel good corporate mission statement. It means what it
says.
>>>
>>> So when the very same Founders who wrote that in 9
>>>> and 10, in turn write a short sentence in 2 saying the people can
>>>> keep and bear arms they clearly mean individuals.
>>>
>>> No.
>>> They would have said persons or the people in their persons; as they
>>> do throughout the Constitution and in all literature of the 18th.
>>> century. They were not illiterate.
>>
>> You; however, are. The only time the Constitution uses the phrase
>> "the people in their persons" is at the start of an enumerated list
>> of which "persons" is only the first of several items - "the people
>> in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" or "the people in
>> their persons or delegates"...
>
> Precisely.
> These are rights held by individuals under the constitution.
No. That phrase is used to enumerate lists within a statement of a
larger right. "The people in their persons..." is a sentence fragment,
not a different class of "The people".
> They do not require acting through an elected or appointed group
> representative; but each individual person, in his or her own right
> may act for himself or herself in claiming them. Local authorities
> may, under the constitution elect to extend to individuals further
> rights to act on their own; but only these are actually secured by
> the constitution.
That is straight through the looking glass. Name one single example of
"right" which any local authorities have elected to extend to any
individual to further act on their own that is simultaneously secured by
the Constitution??
