Skeptic wrote on Aug 23 rd, 2002 at 5:23pm: I can tell we'd be on opposite sides in a debate over the origins of rights and what the Constitution does and doesn't do, Dave and I don't think this would be the place for such a ranging debate, anyway. Regardless, I think we're in absolute agreement that polygraphy runs afoul of a number of Constitutional principles. It truly is hard to believe that the Government thinks it a good way to protect those principles. Hi Skep, I'm glad we can at least partially agree. You and I see eye-to-eye on quite a number of things I think. For matters Constitutional, I often refer to what I consider to be the most brilliant commentaries on the origins, history, and interpretation of our nation's founding documents, that being Tucker's Blackstone. As I'm sure you know, the quintessential commentary on English Common Law was Blackstone's Commentaries, which were adapted to our representative republic by St. George Tucker, a luminary in the fields of law, teaching, and commentary. Tucker's comments provide a number of insights into the consensus for interpretation of the Constitution that prevailed shortly after its ratification, after the debates had settled down and the Constitution was put into practice. Several passages in particular support the widely-held view that the power should and does reside in the hands of The People, and that the Constitution does not bequeath such power, but rather limits government intrusion upon it: In governments whose original foundations cannot be traced to the certain and undeniable criterion of an original written compact .... whose forms as well as principles are subject to perpetual variation from the usurpations of the strong, or the concessions of the weak; where tradition supplies the place of written evidence; where every new construction is in fact a new edict; and where the fountain of power hath been immemorially transferred from the people, to the usurpers of their natural rights, our author's reasoning on this subject will not easily be controverted .... But the American revolution has formed a new epoch in the history of civil institutions, by reducing to practice, what, before, had been supposed to exist only in the visionary speculations of theoretical writers .... The world, for the first time since the annals of its inhabitants began, saw an original written compact formed by the free and deliberate voices of individuals disposed to unite in the same social bonds; thus exhibiting a political phenomenon unknown to former ages. This memorable precedent was soon followed by the far greater number of the states in the union, and led the way to that instrument, by which the union of the confederated states has since been completed, and in which, as we shall hereafter endeavour to shew, the sovereignty of the people, and the responsibility of their servants are principles fundamentally, and unequivocally, established; in which the powers of the several branches of government are defined, and the excess of them, as well in the legislature, as in the other branches, finds limits, which cannot be transgressed without offending against that greater power from whom all authority, among us, is derived; to wit, the PEOPLE... ...Here then we must resort to a distinction which the institution and nature of our government has introduced into the western hemisphere; which, however, can only obtain in governments where power is not usurped but delegated, and where authority is a trust and not a right .... nor can it ever be truly ascertained where there is not a written constitution to resort to. A distinction, nevertheless, which certainly does exist between the indefinite and unlimited power of the people, in whom the sovereignty of these states, ultimately, substantially, and unquestionably resides, and the definite powers of the congress and state legislatures, which are severally limited to certain and determinate objects, being no more than emanations from the former, where, and where only, that legislative essence which constitutes sovereignty can be found.-- APPENDIX TO VOLUME FIRST. PART FIRST OF BLACKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES. (NOTE A) I'd be curious what your views are on the subject; perhaps we can continue over on the 'non polygraph related' board. Sincerely, Dave
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