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- Newsgroups: sci.crypt
- Path: sparky!uunet!psinntp!fasttech!zeke
- From: zeke@fasttech.com (Bohdan Tashchuk)
- Subject: Re: Finally! We're getting somewhere.
- Message-ID: <1992Nov9.124254.1417@fasttech.com>
- Organization: Fast Technology
- References: <1992Nov5.102744.28493@fasttech.com> <BxFF18.1oA@constant.demon.co.uk>
- Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 12:42:54 GMT
- Lines: 59
-
- I was going to mail a reply to this, but decided that it might be of some
- interest to foreign readers.
-
- This doesn't have that much to do with sci.crypt anymore. Stop reading now if
- you're not interested in the politics behind why so many here are opposed to
- key registration.
-
- In <BxFF18.1oA@constant.demon.co.uk> slangley@constant.demon.co.uk (Simon Langley) writes:
-
- >However, our constitution is, as you imply, not written, and for this reason,
- >the final say on our laws belongs to the elected representatives of the
- >people rather than a group of unelected Supreme Court judges. Our system
- >has served us well for 350 years, how is the US system "safer"?
-
- First of all, if your system worked all that well in the 1770's, my email
- address today would also end in ".uk". But it doesn't. So, "well" is quite
- relative. In my opinion the US is the older republic.
-
- Just in case you aren't aware of it, a lot of people over here didn't think
- the system was working well at all 216 years ago. We wrote down some of
- our complaints against your leader, in another great document titled the
- Declaration of Independence. A direct quote:
-
- 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.
-
- It doesn't sound like your "elected representatives" were limiting the King's
- power all that much at the time. I won't type most of the rest in, but here
- are some really juicy parts:
-
- He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with
- manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
-
- 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 harass our people, and eat out their substance.
-
- He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns,
- and destroyed the lives of our people.
-
- This is great stuff. It's what epics are written about. The guys who signed it
- took it all pretty seriously, since they ended with:
-
- And for the support of this Declaration [...]
- we mutually pledge to each other our lives,
- our fortunes and our sacred honor.
-
- -----
-
- It's easy for a legislature to change laws. It's MUCH harder to change our
- written Constitution. Our system is safer because it has more "checks and
- balances". In order to take away a fundamental right (without passing a
- Constitutional amendment), first the Congress would have to pass an
- unconstitutional law, and then the President would have to sign the law,
- and then the Supreme Court would have to uphold the law.
-