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When the Supreme court overturned a Texas law against sodomy (Lawrence v Texas in 2003), Justice Kennedy cited the European Court of Human Rights . Jeffry Toobin has written in The New Yorker about Kennedy's lawyers without borders approach. Now that undocumented workers are showing their political muscle in the U.S. the good Justice may not have to cross the border to find foreign law.
I just hope he's not boning up on Afghan Sharia law for the court's next capital punishment case.
Chip, that was a weak swing at a pitch way off the plate.
The American Constitution didn't pop up out of a tobacco field in Virginia. Read up on the Age of Enlightment; but be forewarned there is lots of stuff about the European and French guys (horrors!) that Franklin and Jefferson hung out with back in the day. Oh yeah, let's not leave out the Greeks or the Romans, or maybe that guy Hammurabi. Hey, he sorta sounds like an A-Rab!!! Oh yeah and there was this thing written in 1215 called the Magna Carta. What is past is prologue.
J.H.C, you are a pompus ass as prologue!
Hank: Thanks for reminding us of another non-American's influence on American law……..Jesus, or was he from Texas?
Mencken is right, our laws were based 100% on concepts put into action hundreds of years ago in "foreign" lands.
That said, many of the Mexican protestors are believers of teh Aztlan movement. They don't just want better treatment – they want to run the show in the Southwest. I can't support them, nor do I have any sympathy for that point of view.
Hank: I appreciate your support but that's a pretty broad generalization and Mexicans aren't the only immigrants.
I will do some research on the Aztlan Movement though.
The best sign I saw was "If I'm illegal, so are my taxes."
The reason I mentioned Mexicans is that they are the ones currently demonstrating en mass. As you research the Aztlan movement, you will see why they were flying Mexican flags.
My generalization wasn't really all that broad. I was referring the demonstrators – a specific group.
I spoke with my best friend, a Venezuelan doctor practicing
medicine in Southern Colorado, about the Aztlan movement.
He wasn't very charitable in his opinion of them in spite of the
fact that he has met and spoke with their leader whom he found to be a well spoken guy. What I read about Aztlan seemed like just silly rhetoric. My comment as far as the generalzation was that many media outlets were ONLY showing
Mexican flags and creating a possible false impression.
What damned business does the government have regulating the sexual behavior of consenting adults in their own bedroom? I don't care if Justice Kennedy was influenced by Aristotle or Charlie Chaplin. He was absolutely right (and consistant with the Constitution) to strike down these archaic sexual blue-laws that were enacted by Puritan Theocrats who gave not a whit for civil government nor personal freedom.
"The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when the fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression. "
Henry Louis Mencken
1880- 1956
I spoke with MY best friend, a British english professor teaching ESOL in Taiwan, and he wasn't very charitable toward H.L. Mencken, even though he had met the man during a seminar on dangling modifiers.
I've never found guys who went to DSM's (Dangling Modifier Seminars) too terribly interesting or enlightening.
Excuse me, DMS.
European Court of Human Rights is an international standard for human rights law, as part of the US's goal to both hold up this standard in other countries (look at the American Bar Association's work) and its own, it follows the ECHR standards for its own rule of law.