The Cut Amendments [updated 12-19-06]

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

James Madison … made the Bill of Rights a reality. Madison introduced the Bill of Rights into the first session of Congress in 1789, and he used Virginia’s Declaration of Rights as the model. Madison originally supported the adoption of 17 amendments, which was eventually trimmed to 12, of which 10 were adopted….

So, what were the 7 amendments that got cut or the two that almost made it? mjh

[updated 12-18-06]

Walking Raven sent me this link: A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 – 1875. Our beloved First Amendment was originally the third article, preceded by Article I, which specified the number of representatives, and Article II, which specified that pay raises for Representatives and Senators could only apply after an election. Those were the two amendments/articles that were dropped before the Bill of Rights was passed. (Still don’t know about the other 5 of the original 17.)

[updated 12-19-06]

[mjh: I should have just checked NewMexiKen first.]

NewMexiKen: The Bill of Rights

The draft first amendment concerned the numbers of constituents for each representative. It has never been ratified. The draft second amendment was ratified by the required number of states in 1992. It took effect as Amendment XXVII (”No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”)

Towards a More Perfect Union

I believe government should have nothing to do with marriage. Government should only issue “union licenses” as the contract between two individuals, regardless of gender. Marriage should be a church rite performed in addition to the civil union, if the couple so chooses.

N.J. Legislature Votes to Allow Same-Sex Unions By Robin Shulman, Washington Post Staff Writer

With a mandate from New Jersey’s highest court to offer gay couples the same rights as heterosexuals, the state legislature voted Thursday to create civil unions but stopped short of using the word “marriage.”

Gov. Jon S. Corzine (D) has said he will sign the bill into law, making New Jersey the third state, after Vermont and Connecticut, to offer civil unions, which extend to gay men and lesbians all the rights state law affords married people but give them a separate status. [Only Massachusetts has legalized marriage for gay couples.]

The problem is that “separate but equal” status we have rejected in matters of race. Equality requires equal status. Let all couples obtain identical “unions” and leave it to the churches to decide who they will marry. mjh

Crusoe, by George Bilgere

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

Poem: “Crusoe” by George Bilgere, from The Good Kiss. © The University of Akron Press.

Crusoe

When you’ve been away from it long enough,
You begin to forget the country
Of couples, with all its strange customs
And mysterious ways. Those two
Over there, for instance: late thirties,
Attractive and well-dressed, reading
At the table, drinking some complicated
Coffee drink. They haven’t spoken
Or even looked at each other in thirty minutes,

But the big toe of her right foot, naked
In its sandal, sometimes grazes
The naked ankle bone of his left foot,

The faintest signal, a line thrown

Between two vessels as they cruise
Through this hour, this vacation, this life,
Through the thick novels they’re reading,
Her toe saying to his ankle,

Here’s to the whole improbable story
Of our meeting, of our life together
And the oceanic richness
Of our mingled narrative
With its complex past, with its hurts
And secret jokes, its dark closets
And delightful sexual quirks,
Its occasional doldrums, its vast
Future we have already peopled
With children. How safe we are

Compared to that man sitting across the room,
Marooned with his drink
And yellow notebook, trying to write
A way off his little island.

New Congress Is More Trusted Than President

New Congress Is More Trusted Than President By Charles Babington and Jon Cohen, Washington Post Staff Writers

Asked whether they trusted Bush or Democrats in Congress “to do a better job coping with the main problems the nation faces,” 57 percent of the respondents said congressional Democrats and 31 percent said Bush. When the question was broken down to specific problems, such as Iraq, the economy, immigration and the “war on terrorism,” Democrats held clear majorities over Bush. Their lead was overwhelming in the area of health care: 64 percent to Bush’s 26 percent.

More than half of the respondents said it was a good thing that Congress will switch from Republican control to Democratic; 17 percent called it a bad thing and 1 in 4 said it would make no difference. Shortly after Republicans took over Congress after the 1994 election, 48 percent of Americans said the switch was a good thing.

In the poll, more than 4 in 5 Democrats said the latest change in control of Congress is good, as did 55 percent of independents. Even 23 percent of Republicans called the change a good thing.

Two-thirds of those polled said Bush “should work mainly to compromise with the Democrats” in Congress rather than pursue his own agenda. …

The public gave relatively low marks to the Republican-controlled Congress that ended last week, with 37 percent saying they approved of how Congress was doing its job and 57 percent disapproving. The Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted Dec. 7-11 by telephone among a random national sample of 1,005 adults. The margin of sampling error is three percentage points.

House Win Adds Insult to Injury for DeLay

House Win Adds Insult to Injury for DeLay By Sylvia Moreno and Chris Cillizza, Washington Post Staff Writers

Former congressman Ciro Rodriguez’s victory in a House runoff election Tuesday in Texas not only allowed Democrats to pick up their 30th seat of the 2006 elections but served as a final rebuke to one of the architects of the Republican House majority: Tom DeLay.

The former congressman from Texas was the mastermind of a 2003 redrawing of congressional lines in the state that led to the removal of six House Democrats in the 2004 elections.

Two years later, DeLay’s fortunes have suffered a near-total reversal, as the redistricting map that once seemed certain to cement his legacy and GOP majorities for years has instead led to the end of that career and may well be a building block for a reenergized Democratic Party in the state. …

“The genius of Tom DeLay is now seriously in question,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. …

If DeLay decimated Democrats in 2004, he also seems responsible for their revival. …

“Before this election, DeLay was in the grave with dirt on top of him,” [Matt Angle, a Democratic strategist,] said. “This is a final repudiation of DeLay’s arrogance and bullying ways.”

China and Darfur

China and Darfur Washington Post editorial

Sudan has been subject to U.S. sanctions since the 1990s. It has been condemned in numerous United Nations resolutions, and Western firms that do business there risk alienating customers and investors. And yet a $4 billion complex of offices, parks and hotels is rising at the confluence of the White and Blue Niles, complete with the new sail-shaped headquarters of Petrodar, a Chinese-Malaysian-United Arab Emirates oil partnership. Thanks to these investors, along with Kuwaitis, Saudis, Indians and Pakistanis, Sudan’s petro-economy is flourishing. This year the economy is expected to grow 13 percent on the back of oil exports, most of which go to China.

So Sudan’s government feels it can ignore Western revulsion at genocide because it has no need of Western money. But the bigger question is why China, along with Sudan’s other Arab and Asian partners, feels free to trample on basic standards of decency. …

In recent weeks, fighting has intensified in the region and spilled into neighboring Chad; refugees are fleeing to the Central African Republic, which is embroiled in its own internal conflict. A regional catastrophe is brewing that could be worse even than the past three years of killing. …

Imagine the newspaper ads leading up to the Beijing Games in 2008: Human rights campaigners will call on the world to boycott the Genocide Olympics.

66% Think U.S. Spies on Its Citizens

66% Think U.S. Spies on Its Citizens By Dan Eggen, Washington Post Staff Writer

Two-thirds of Americans believe that the FBI and other federal agencies are intruding on privacy rights as part of terrorism investigations, but they remain divided over whether such tactics are justified, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday. …

Compared with June 2002, for example, almost twice as many respondents say the need to respect privacy outranks the need to investigate terrorist threats. That shift was first evident in polling conducted in January 2006.

That sentiment is still a minority view, however: Nearly two-thirds rank investigating threats as more important than guarding against intrusions on personal privacy, down from 79 percent in 2002. …

Sixty-six percent of those questioned said that the FBI and other agencies are “intruding on some Americans’ privacy rights” in terrorism investigations, up from 58 percent in September 2003. Thirty percent think the government is not intruding on privacy.

Support for intrusive tactics has dropped even more significantly during that time. A bare majority, 51 percent, feel the tactics are justified, down from 63 percent three years ago.