From: Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 1997 11:47:54 +0800
To: cypherpunks@ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: Re: Reproductive Rights and State Benefits (fwd)
Message-ID: <199708240347.WAA28140@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Forwarded message:

> From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@amaranth.com>
> Date: Sat, 23 Aug 97 22:00:44 -0400
> Subject: Re: Reproductive Rights and State Benefits

> Well i think that you also have to take into account the political setting
> of the times.

A bunch of people who had just lived through a tryannical foreign rule as
well as a revolutionary war to break that rule. To better understand their
view I will attach the Declaration of Indipendance which is after all the
document that justifies the Constitution (apparently people don't read it
either). The Declaration says why while the Constitution says how...

> The Framers of the Constitution were representatives of the
> States all of which had 1st Amendment protections in their State
> Constitutions. Their concerns were not with the States but with a Federal
> Government overriding rights already protected by the States.

If accepted as fact this provides even less reason for the 14th. As it
clearly does not prevent federal rights over-riding state rights.

 
			       ARTICLE XIV. 
 
Section 1.  All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and 
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States 
and of the State wherein they reside.  No State shall make or enforce 
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens 
of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, 
liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person 
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 


    ____________________________________________________________________
   |                                                                    |
   |          Participation requires more than just bitching!           |
   |                                                                    | 
   |            _____                             The Armadillo Group   |
   |         ,::////;::-.                           Austin, Tx. USA     |
   |        /:'///// ``::>/|/                     http:// www.ssz.com/  |
   |      .',  ||||    `/( e\                                           |
   |  -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-                         Jim Choate       |
   |                                                 ravage@ssz.com     |
   |                                                  512-451-7087      |
   |____________________________________________________________________|

[Note: this document puts to rest forever the question of how our government
       gets its authority and exactly who answers to who and in the first
       two paragraphs even.]


		    In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. 
 
		    A   D E C L A R A T I O N 
 
		  By the REPRESENTATIVES of the 
 
	 U N I T E D   S T A T E S   O F   A M E R I C A, 
 
		    In GENERAL CONGRESS assembled. 
 
 
When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for 
one People to dissolve the Political bands which have connected 
them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, 
the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and 
of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the Opinions 
of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which 
impel them to the Separation. 
 
     We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are 
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, 
and the Pursuit of Happiness--That to secure these Rights, 
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers 
from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of 
Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of 
the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new 
Government, laying its foundation on such Principles and 
organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most 
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.  Prudence, indeed, 
will dictate that Governments long established should not be 
changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all 
Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, 
while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by 
abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a 
long train of Abuses and Ursurpations, pursuing invariably the 
same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute 
Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such 
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. 
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such 
is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former 
Systems of Government.  The history of the present King of Great 
Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all 
having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny 
over these States.  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a 
candid world. 
 
     He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and 
necessary for the public good. 
 
     He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and 
pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his 
Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly 
neglected to attend to them. 
 
     He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of 
large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish 
the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right 
inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 
 
     He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, 
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public 
Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance 
with his measures. 
 
     He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for 
opposing with manly firmness his invasion on the rights of the 
people. 
 
     He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to 
cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, 
incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large 
for their exercise, the State remaining in the meantime exposed 
to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions 
within. 
 
     He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; 
for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of 
Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations 
hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of 
Lands. 
 
     He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing 
his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. 
 
     He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the 
Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their 
Salaries. 
 
     He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither 
Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat o5Ubstance. 
 
     He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, 
without the consent of our Legislatures. 
 
     He has affected to render the Military independent of and 
superior to the Civil Power. 
 
     He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction 
foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; 
giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: 
 
     For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us: 
 
     For protection them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for 
any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these 
States: 
 
     For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 
 
     For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by 
Jury: 
 
     For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended 
Offences: 
 
     For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a 
neighboring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary 
Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at 
once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same 
absolute Rule into these Colonies: 
 
     For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable 
Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: 
 
     For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring 
themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases 
whatsoever. 
 
     He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his 
Protection and waging War against us. 
 
    He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our 
towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 
 
     He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign 
Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and 
tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and 
perfidity scarcely paralled in the most barbarous ages, and 
totally unworthy (of) the Head of a civilized nation. 
 
     He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the 
high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the 
executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall 
themselves by their Hands. 
 
     He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has 
endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the 
merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an 
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. 
 
     In every stage of these Suppressions We have Petitioned for 
Redress in the most humble terms.  Our repeated Petitions have 
been answered only by repeated injury.  A Prince, whose character 
is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit 
to be the ruler of a free people. 
     Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British 
brethren.  We have warned them from time to time of attempts by 
their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over 
us.  We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration 
and settlement here.  We have appealed to their native justice 
and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our 
common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would 
inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.  They 
too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. 
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces 
our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, 
Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. 
     WE, THEREFORE, The Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF 
AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme 
Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in 
the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, 
solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and 
of Right ought to be FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are 
Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all 
political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, 
is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and 
Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude 
Peace, contract Alliance, establish commerce, and to do all other 
Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.  And 
for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the 
protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other 
our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.