gc70;n47861 said:
There was no need to mention the U.S. Congress or federal government in an amendment to the constitution that created both of them and defined their powers and constraints. The Founders were very precise in specifying the parts of the Constitution that extended beyond the federal government and applied to the states.
The point is that the BOR
enumerated the rights of the individuals/states. It was not even primarily a restrictive covenant forbidding action by the fed, though it did that. It is a statement of the INTRINSIC RIGHTS of the liberties of a free people. In that sense, it is more of a philosophical treatise or moral stance than a legislative document....., kind of like the "self evident" stuff in the DOI. At times, it did so by stating this area was "off limits" to the federal/congress. Sometimes, as in 2A, it simply stated it in bold terms like "shall not be infringed." This, far from allowing the states to "manage" and declaring it off limits to the executive, judicial, or legislative branches of the federal government, is rather a flat statement that this right is not able to be suspended by states or municipalities.
gc70;n47861 said:
The Founders were very precise in specifying the parts of the Constitution that extended beyond the federal government and applied to the states.
I am confused by this statement. Perhaps I don't understand what you are saying, but taken on its face, it seems to be diametrically opposed to the BOR, which were not for specifying what areas were beyond the power of the federal government, but rather limiting the restrictive and/or intrusive power of the same. That is, "this is what you can do..... everything else is off limits"
If that is so, then one of the logical jobs of the federal government would be to collectively enforce on individual states any attempts to restrict the freedoms assumed to be our natural rights.
This is the logic of the 14th amendment, which, for all its abuse by a court which has lost its vision, seems to make sense to me.