Well if we are going to live by a strict interpretation of what our founding fathers have written here, we should take the vote and equal rights away from women!!

Ducks heavy thrown objects...

Women's equal rights aren't in the Constitution anyway, and where did the founding fathers ever say that women couldn't vote?

(Not saying they can vote is different than saying they can't vote).

::throws heavy object::

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Very true, but we still needed a Constitutional amendment to convince people that women were absolutely allowed to vote. (If they were citizens of age without felony convictions--that last varying from state to state--of course.)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I found this a curious question, so I looked it up.

In 1874, the Supreme Court decided a case wherein a woman sued the state of Missouri claiming the right to vote under the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment. The court went through a long schpiel detailing the right to vote and the 14th Amendment's affect on it.

They determined that the the Constitution - prior to the 15th and 19th Amendments - did not deal with the question of who could or could not vote. It was a decision left entirely to the states.

The case was MINOR v. HAPPERSETT, 88 U.S. 162 (1874), and it can be found here:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/script...l=88&invol=162

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"It was a crime of passion! Not premeditated dentistry!"

Women already true authority

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So descredo no incrivel

Beauty I’d always missed
With these eyes before,
Just what the truth is
I can’t say anymore.

-- Moody Blues

Must... resist... obvious joke!... Must... resist!

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

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So descredo no incrivel

Beauty I’d always missed
With these eyes before,
Just what the truth is
I can’t say anymore.

-- Moody Blues

Monique... you can be so cruel...

For millennia, women have been in charge and blamed us for everything. Now that we've tricked them into accepting the vote they'll have to take some of the blame for whatever happens.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

It's worse than that. They tricked us into thinking that we tricked them.

I don't care either way. Gender flaunting is tiring to me anyways.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

if you don't go blind first

Agreed. There are two types of government documents - historical and living. The Constitution is an historical document, as are its amendments, beginning with the Bill of Rights. Taken as a whole with any new amendments, however, it becomes a living document (but they won't change the original, ever).

A much better example of a living document is the body of federal law known as US Code. This year's version differs from last year's version.

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol. A human.

Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.

Tell that to the people who want to make naturalized citizens eligible to be President.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Not sure what you mean here.

Amendments do take precedence over the original document, but the original document does remain. If somehow an amendment were to pass making it possible for Ahnold to be President, then that would be constitutional, but the original would still not change.

PS: Looking back at your quote of mugaliens's post, I would guess that the phrase ", are living documents" was an accidental inclusion and should be omitted.

I was looking at it based on the fact that Amendments, to date, have not really changed anything in the Constitution itself and instead deal with issues outside its purview. Were an Amendment passed that made it possible for Ahnold to be President, this would do so. No, the document itself still wouldn't change, but we leave the Eighteenth on the list even though it was repealed.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

That's not a fact though. There are whole paragraphs of the original the effect of which has been nullified because of amendments.

For instance, Amendment XII had this effect, and Amendment XVI had this effect.

Fair enough. Faulty memory--which is inexcusable on my part, given that I just this week finished reading the new edition of Don't Know Much About History, which has the Amendments in the back. I hang my head in shame.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

That's certainly a possibility.

But it's not likely.

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol. A human.

Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.