Those *dangerous* Korean War relics

wrote:
Another Poster brought up the issue Native American claims. It
is close to thirty years now (I think) that the Lakota Sioux won
a case against the US government and were awarded an enormous
sum for the land taken in violation of a treaty.

However, they had not sued for money, they sued for ownership
of the wrongfully converted real estate. To take that property
from the current private owners to recomsate the Lakot Sioux
would have done an injustice to the current owneres who bought
it in good faith.

Personally, I don't agree with that precedent, since if I buy
stolen merchandise, I'm held liable. But at this point, Indian
law consists of the courts scrambling to think of a legal
reason Indian claims are in the wrong; the Oneida were tied up
in the legal system for decades, and when they finally got
their day in court, the Supreme Court invoked the laches
defense. It doesn't help much that Rehnquist never saw a case
of Indian law where he couldn't rule in an insane way.
According to the Oliphant and Duro decisions, for all practical
purposes any interracial crime on a reservation basically has
to be taken before an all-white jury.

As far as slavery reparations go, it won't help anyone.

wrote in message
oups.com...

Achieving Independence from Great Britain without War would
have happened eventually too.


Not necessarily.

wrote in message
ps.com...

The "Sixteenth amendment was not properly ratified" argument
mostly revolves around differences in punctuation and wording
betweenthe extant written records of the Congress and various
state legislatures. There are also allegations that some states
the US Secretary of State credted with ratification , have no record
of having ratified the 16th amendment and/or other irregularities.
at the state level, including a failure of the governor to sign the
bill for one or more states.

Have I got that right?

I dscount the 'no evidence argument' as I have no idea how good
the record keeping was. The absence of an extant record does
not prove the measure did not pass and you would suppose that
if a particular state did not pass it, some legislators would have
raised the issue. There are no records of THAT, either, are there?
Not so much as a persoanl diary entry

The 'governor failed to sign argument' is specious because the
Constitution of the United States of America (CUSA) specifies
that amendments are to be ratified by the state legislatures with
no mention of the state governors.
The individual States cannot impose additional requirements for
amending he Constitution any more than they can change
the term of office or impose additional eligibility requiirements
for their Senators and Congresmen.

So this leaves us with the inconsistant wording and punctuation
argument, right?

In the case of the Sixteenth amenment, those inconsistencies
were so trivial as to not allow for any inconsistency in
interpretation,
indeed, we have no way of telling how precisely the words spoken
on the floor of those legislative bodies agreed with the words recorded
and enterred into the records by the clerks. It is a safe bet that
pretty much all legislation of that era, and all previous amendments
as well as the various copies of the original Constitution had similar
inconsistencies particularly when you consider that the promulgation
and acceptance of unifrom standards for English spelling, punctuation
and grammar in legal and academic circles post-date the Constitution
itself.


The Sixteenth Amendment is not part of the Bill of Rights.



However, even accepting that, the Bill of Rights was exceptional.

The Bill of Rights passed by the Congress and submitted to the
States for ratification was not a bill of ten amendments, it was
one (1) amendment with twelve (12) articles. That amendment
was never ratified by the requisite number of states. Some
states ratified a shorter version, with only ten articles. That
shorter version was accepted and became part of the CUSA.

That Bill of Rights, with ten articles was not passed by the
Congress, and then ratified requisite number of states.
The alleged errors that supposedly invalidate the passage of the
SIxteenth Amendment pale by comparison.

The people who argue the sixteenth amendment was invalid,
(and I note that you are not he person who introduced that
notion into this thread) by and large, refuse to discuss this
as they are not honest people.

Later when more amendments passed the enumeration was
changed so that the ten articles of the first amendment became
the first ten amendments. That change was also made without
ratification by the states, and although it plainly has no bearing
on the validity of those or subsequent amendments that change
still looms large when compared with the arguments advanced
against the validity of the sixteenth amendment.


Twelve articles of amendment were sent to the states, ten were ratified in
accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.

wrote in message
oups.com...

Money.


What money did the slaves have?

wrote in message
ps.com...

That's a good point. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits the
confiscation of property for tranfer of ownership to another private
party.


The federal government does not have the powers that are not denied it by
the Constitution, it has only the powers given by the Constitution.

"Gary Drescher" wrote in message
. ..

Whether it did or not, it erected the legal framework that made such
"ownership" possible, and is thus morally responsible.


That's not correct. Slavery preceded the establishment of the US.

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

Achieving Independence from Great Britain without War would
have happened eventually too.


Not necessarily.

The US might instead have gone the route of Canada or
Australia, New Zealand, or, hmm...

The eventual, peaceful independence of the US would seem to have
been at least as inevitable as the eventual, peaceful end of slavery,
but neither would have come soon enough without war.

--

FF

wrote in message
oups.com...

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

Achieving Independence from Great Britain without War would
have happened eventually too.


Not necessarily.

The US might instead have gone the route of Canada or
Australia, New Zealand, or, hmm...

The eventual, peaceful independence of the US would seem to have
been at least as inevitable as the eventual, peaceful end of slavery,
but neither would have come soon enough without war.


If the US had not have achieved independence when and as it did the Queen of
England might, by now, rule the entire planet.

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
wrote in message
ps.com...

The "Sixteenth amendment was not properly ratified" argument
mostly revolves around differences in punctuation and wording
...

In the case of the Sixteenth amenment, those inconsistencies
were so trivial as to not allow for any inconsistency in
interpretation,
indeed, we have no way of telling how precisely the words spoken
on the floor of those legislative bodies agreed...

The Sixteenth Amendment is not part of the Bill of Rights.

Nor is it part of the Magna Carta. So?

As you wil recall, my point is that if one accepts the "Sixteenth
Amendment was not properly ratified" argument then consistency
demands that you also accept that the Bill of Rights was not
properly ratified.




However, even accepting that, the Bill of Rights was exceptional.

The Bill of Rights passed by the Congress and submitted to the
States for ratification was not a bill of ten amendments, it was
one (1) amendment with twelve (12) articles. That amendment
was never ratified by the requisite number of states. Some
states ratified a shorter version, with only ten articles. That
shorter version was accepted and became part of the CUSA.

That Bill of Rights, with ten articles was not passed by the
Congress, and then ratified requisite number of states.
The alleged errors that supposedly invalidate the passage of the
SIxteenth Amendment pale by comparison.

The people who argue the sixteenth amendment was invalid,
(and I note that you are not he person who introduced that
notion into this thread) by and large, refuse to discuss this
as they are not honest people.

Later when more amendments passed the enumeration was
changed so that the ten articles of the first amendment became
the first ten amendments. That change was also made without
ratification by the states, and although it plainly has no bearing
on the validity of those or subsequent amendments that change
still looms large when compared with the arguments advanced
against the validity of the sixteenth amendment.


Twelve articles of amendment were sent to the states, ten were ratified in
accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.

Not quite true, the twelve articlees were all part of ONE amendment.
They were not passed separatly and sent to the states as separate
amendments.

--

FF

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

Money.


What money did the slaves have?

Frederick Douglass and other slaves who worked for wages
had the money they earned, which was turned over to their
owners.

Those who worked for their owners and were not paid wages
would be compensated for the market value of their labor.

Perhaps you are hung up on pedantry turning on the use
of 'returned'. What was taken from them was labor, what
ostensibly would be returned would be money equivalent to
the market value of that labor.

An alternative proposal (from the TV show _The West Wing_)
is to 'return' the value of their labor via income tax credits, also
impractical, IMHO.

--

FF