Good call. I think that much of that is still valid today, albeit under different living conditions.

Good that you've mentioned the Romans. This may be a bit farfetched, but it could be that views on marriage in Continental Europe differ a bit from the Anglo Saxon tradition since the former have been heavily influenced by Roman law. Christianity has of course had a tremendous impact on our views of marriage, but Roman law has also left its traces that can be followed up to our times. I'm not much of an expert here, but my point is: Romance and religion aside, the Roman conception of marriage as a predominantly legal institution is as much a part of our history as the Christian view.

Well when the earth is only 6,000 years old, it is an easy step to think that everything started with chrisianity. :har:

The same could be said of liberals, who are guilty of far more constitutional "interpretation" than conservatives ever have been.

The US Constitution is a document that was intended to do one thing, and only one thing: limit the power of the federal government. Period. It was drafted by men who wanted to avoid centralization of power, which is why it took so long to ratify, and why it reserves every power it does not expressly grant to the feds to the states and the people. Those who have bothered to read the damn thing, like Haplo, know this. His description of the enumerated powers is somewhat cursory, but he is essentially correct.

That said, the 50 states technically have the right, under the constitution, to create and enforce, or simply disregard, marriage laws. But so do the people. Americans fight every day against the encroachment of state government, regardless of powers reserved to it, but they fight especially hard against the federal government when it comes to preserving the sanctity of the constitution. The founding fathers were prudent enough to forbid the state from taking those rights away, and even those rights are now, and have been, under attack. I grow a little weary of being attacked for exercising my right to defend my rights.

It is true that no-one can truly know the minds of the founding fathers, or their intent when they drafted the Constitution; but the document itself, along with the Federalist Papers and the writings of Thomas Jefferson, who is perhaps the greatest of the founders and who wrote the Declaration of Independence, upon which the ideals of the Constitution were based, make it pretty freaking clear what the intent was.

I would love to know what your interpretation of the Constitution is, because I'm guessing that it has little or nothing to do with the Constitution itself, in letter or spirit.

You did seem to stray a bit, but it is no matter. I apologize for my part in over-inundating you with challenges and questions. I tend to get a bit carried away with my own arguments, rather than considering the station of those I present them to.

However, I really would like to discuss some of the points you presented earlier concerning the original isssue......interracial marriage. Specifically, I would like to discuss the role of genetics in such things, as well as some of the ideas you presented, if you have the time. PM me if you are interested, but know that I will not take exception if you do not. Stay cool, Marc:salute::salute:

For the purpose of that paragraph were I used that phrase.

A constitution gives a general orientation on basic national/cultural issues that more detailed legislatio on national and local level has to take into account. Constitutions are not meant to regulate all details of pratcial implementaiton of specific laws. By that a constitutions adds a certain spirt, a meaning to legislation and decision-making and says something on at what direction it all should go, it can do so as long as the people have a consensus on that the constitution should be the way it is.

Both your American and our German constitution get heavily ignored and abused in practical everyday life potlics, becasue lobbies and pllotical parties have taken over command and put their powerinterest over the interest os state's reason, national interest and the interest of the people.

But a government must think for itself, that is part of the job description, and it must make decisons on grounds that go beyond the ordinary man'S day-to-day-concerns, in order to make sure the national entity as a whole will keep it' structural integrity (gotta love this StarTrek slang), and honour it'S international longterm obligations. A government also must act on behalf of all people and their interests, not just some. The crowd in the streets usually does not think that far into the future, and tends to focus only on specific interests pleasing the one person in question, while all other aspects get ignored. So, a government must also make decisions for situations that had not been forseen at the time of the last elections. The only question is where to draw the line between necessary and in this meaning: legitimiate ahead planning of a giovenrment and in-advance decision making, and where the givernment shall nto do so but should give opportunity to the people to decide something in form of a referendum. The EU dictate of Lisbon for example is such a thing that is stepping beyond this line while being decided on by a few elitist people in the backroom, behind locked doors. But it has so far-reaching tremendous consequences (bigger than anything else since WWII), and shifts the powers so fundamentally, that it should have been mandatory for every nation to asik it's people about it. This is ground not covered by the last parliamentary elections, and thus the retification by a few people behind locked doors is no democratic legitimation. It is an abuse of power, legalising a document allowing even more abuse of power in the future.

That is correct, bureucracy is a living cancer, so is what aristoteles warned of as the oligarchies forming up. You probably cannot avoid it, a perfect demoicrartic system probably is an unstable condition in that it cannot last. Like what gets borned is domed to grow, to come of age and to die again, so democratic systems mature, blossom during a short age of climax, and then degenerate in this or that form of hidden tyranny. We see it in the US, we see it in the EU, and I do not know a single exclusion. that'S why I refuse to claim democracy to be the holy grail of politics. With the right (="good") people in the right place I can easily imagine to arrange myself living in a different form of state, like an ancient Greek tyrannis. Problem is, like in democracy: what to do if the offices get taken hold of by corrupted characters? Democracy offers no answer to it, but the present shows us how a system of corrupter characters even in a democracy can successfully avoid to get removed from power. You can vote against them, but strangely you don't and don't get rid of them nevertheless, they stick on you like dogsh1t on a boot. you remove one fella from an office, and see him faling the ladder uowards to another office, while his former office gets taken over by another felly from within that system, usually not being any less corrupted.

as I said, democracy can work only in small communities, where they canot become non-transparent.

The US constitution's intend is expressed and summarised in the preamble:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Not more, not less, James.

Full text here

I have read it myself, too, and by chnace I did again so just recently. It's just that the thing does a loittle bit more than just limiting the government's powers. It also has a lot to say on where the powers of the government lay, of congress, and the various branches of administration.

Before you can limit powers again, you must define them.

I think that this also is about different mentalities, and that Americans tend towards feeling a bit like laying in trenches all the time. I think that has historic reasons, anjd is connected to the settlement era and the fact that back then most people were essentially up on their own and could not expct assistance or help that went beyond help from their most immediate neighbours (who maybe still lived miles or dozens of miles away). The US formed up very diffeently as a national entitiy, then the European states did, and migration played a very different role as well, leading to a different understanding of "identity". That'S why it makes no sense when some Americnas sometimes shake their heads about those Europeans having problems with the integration of migrant, and say that if it worked so nicely in the US, why doesn't it in europe.

I think it was before you and Haplo entered the forum, maybe 3 or 4 years ago, then we had a discussion on the flag of the US and when and how and if one could offend it, and penalties for that, etc etc. At that time I saw a long doumentation feature about just this on TV, and there was a guy who said something that caught enoiugh of my attention that I memorised what he said. His claim at first sounded paradoxical, but I now think he is perfectly right. He said that Amerians are so conservatoive patriots, becasue they do not share the European's feeling of national identities. In other words, europeans tend to be nationalists (in good and bad), and Americans tend to be patriots to compensate for the absent feeling of national identity. He also linked it to the phenomeneon that the standard American usually is described as being the more mobile people, compared to the standard European, willing to chase around over longer distances and caring less for establishing an achored home, a harbor to which to return. Social research shows that it is a staistical fact that americnas are far more on the move, then eurppeans are. In this regard, Americans seem to feel more "homeless", nervous. I think this also is for historic reasons and dates back to the founding era of the US, and then is formed a solid condensate in culture and behavior, maybe even now encoded in the genes, who knows.

Or what you think yourself the constitution is about! ;) In parts you are right, but I think you have a tunnel view on just this one aspect of "preventing centralised power". Even the original motivation of the pilgrims to leave europe, which was not so much to reach for a new state of life, but to escape from an existing one, can be compared to the spirit the constitution breathes, but then shows to be beyond this limited scope of preventing centralised power for the sake of prevention itself. It all goes a bit beyond just this, and one may conclude that sooner or later qualities get mentioned that reduce the lijmitation of centrlaised power from a self-purpose to a mere tool to achieve these other qualities. Freedom, for example, or "happiness".

What's there?

It is the cursory nature of the interpretation combined with the definitive assertion (with caps lock no less) that makes it essentially incorrect.

No. That is an oversimplification.