[Cialug] Telecom Immunity

[Colin Burnett]

On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 9:53 PM, Todd Walton <tdwalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So, the executive branch is making laws now, by letting the phone
> companies do its bidding, and the legislative branch is being judges,
> by pre-empting a judge's authority to determine what's legal or not,
> and we live in a country that's never had a more blatantly corrupt
> government.

I suggest, to whomever in general, reading Restoring the Lost
Constitution by Randy Barnett:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoring_the_Lost_Constitution

(Caveat lector: it is a constitutional law book written by professor
of law at Boston University: it is not a John Grisham novel.)

In it he argues (quite well, IMHO) that any legislation that reduces
liberty without a strong argument that it protects your remaining
liberties is not a legally binding law.  Probably the single most
amazing dupe by the government on us is that the bill of rights is all
you get.  The constitution is a limitation on government, not people.
Alexander Hamilton called today's status quo 220 years ago:

"I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in
the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary
in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would
contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on
this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than
were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which
there is no power to do? *****Why for instance, should it be said,
that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power
is given by which restrictions may be imposed?***** I will not contend
that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is
evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible
pretense for claiming that power."

The founding fathers understood tyranny better than any of us do today.

"Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it" --
George Santayana.


Colin