The Fifth Amendment says: “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

The Supreme Court’s controversial 2005 Kelo decision brought renewed focus on this clause. Please explain the issues in the case and the majority opinion, highlighting any new or novel interpretations in this decision.

Section 5 of the 14th Amendment? It authorizes Congress to make any laws necessary to enforce the rest of the Amendment. It tilts the scale–deliberately–in favor of Congress over the legislatures of individual states. It creates for Congress a great deal of latitude to write law that enforces the intent of the Amendment.

I see. Our esteemed Constitutional scholar, Mr. Observer, holds a more highly refined “understanding and appreciation” of the Constitution than Justice Powell; than Justice Brennan; than Justice Blackmun; than Justice Stewart; than Justice O’Connor; than Justice Stevens; than Justice Souter; than Justice Breyer; than Justice Ginzburg.

How has the Republic endured these many years without your wisdom?

Dude, get real. It takes quite a load of self-important delusion to convince yourself that you, and only you, carry the light of genuine understand (and appreciation!) of the Constitution, that your personal version outshines the opinions of not just one, but a couple of generations of Supreme Court justices.

Do you clank when you walk?

Article 5, does not carve out a special exception to the 14th amendment. That a liberal court can create such an exemption where none exists speaks more to thier desires than thier fealty to the Constitution.

I’m glad to see you have finally admitted that you support discrimination. Rejecting denial is an important first step towards achieving a colorblind society.

You’re finally starting to get it. Legal discrimination. Constitutional discrimination. As I have pointed out to you time and again, the people we rely on to interpret the Constitution say it is sometimes both legal and Constitutional to take race into account.

Now go away or I shall taunt you another time.

Ask and ye shall receive sir!

The ‘lower-intelligence’ caste of different regions in the world, From ‘Inequality by Design,’ Princeton University Press.

‘The Mismeasure of Man,’ Stephen Jay Gould.

‘The Emperor’s New Clothes – Biological Theories of Race at the Millenium,’ Joseph Graves.

‘Race is an unscientific concept,’ NY Times via Augsburg College -

“We truly are all kin beneath the skin, many scientists are concluding.

The more closely researchers examine the human genome — the complement of genetic material encased in the heart of almost every cell of the body — the more most of them are convinced that the standard labels used to distinguish people by “race” have little or no biological meaning.”

The Times again, via Temple University, similar subject –

“As it turns out, scientists say, the human species is so evolutionarily young, and its migratory patterns so wide, restless and rococo, that it has simply not had a chance to divide itself into separate biological groups or “races” in any but the most superficial ways.

“Race is a social concept, not a scientific one,” said Dr. J. Craig Venter, head of the Celera Genomics Corporation in Rockville, Md. “We all evolved in the last 100,000 years from the same small number of tribes that migrated out of Africa and colonized the world.”

Let me know if you’d like some more. I understand that there are plenty of links that suggest otherwise, but from what I’ve read and seen regarding racial intelligence theories, it appears they are based on pseudoscience and bad methodology.

Am I correct that you are stating that there are no variations what so ever in intelligence between different human genetic subtypes? That the bellcurve for IQ is a constant and identical shape across ethnic, cultural, and racial lines?

I’m stating that ‘different human genetic subtypes,’ as stated above, are purely cosmetic. I’m stating that it’s possible that there are IQ differences between cultures, but that is because ‘IQ’ is an incomplete and flawed measurement of one’s intelligence. Can you pick out an edible mushroom from the poisonous ones in the Papua New Guinean rainforest? Because without the help of a Papua New Guinean, I’d be fucked.

By your loose definition of “legal discrimination”, you must also support the things that I listed. Or dod you support “legal discrimination” of minors?

Parthenon,
“If we are to discount the long-discredited and easily disprovable notion that there is a difference in intelligence or iniative”

If it is easily disproved you should have some really awesome cites. Am I correct that you are stating that there are no variations what so ever in intelligence between different human genetic subtypes? That the bellcurve for IQ is a constant and identical shape across ethnic, cultural, and racial lines?

Zython,
I don’t quite get your question regarding citizens who have not yet reached the age of majority. You presumably have a point, what is it?

So…I take it you support the rights of minors to drive, drink, smoke, and vote?

I’ll admit I’m not familiar with the court opinion in question, but I don’t believe one African-American excelling enough to reach the Senate and then the Democratic Presidential Nomination is enough proof that the work of civil rights (or, put another way, democratizing the blessings of society) is over.

To my knowledge Sen. Obama is, sadly, a statistical outlier in the African-American demographic. I haven’t seen the stats since around 2006 but at that time African-Americans were still making something on the level seventy cents on the dollar that whites were making for the same work, and the difference in household net worth for both them and Hispanics relative to whites was enormous. If I recall the lot of all non-Asian minorities (because Asians are basically already on par with whites) showed a steady improvement, with still a hell of a long way to go. Again, I don’t have a link to support this unfortunately, but most of this is common enough knowledge, I think.

If we are to discount the long-discredited and easily disprovable notion that there is a difference in intelligence or iniative, then, as Sean and Quaker have pointed out earlier on this thread, clearly there has been some past hobbling via discrimination that still has powerful ramifications in the present. Racial preferences are only one possible tool to deal with the problem – I’m kinda partial to Alterman’s idea of class-based affirmative action myself.

You can look it up.

Looks like you? No. Thinks (or lack thereof) like you? Yes.

Interesting that you cite Bollinger. The case Opinion says that in less than 20 years, “racial preferences will no longer be necessary.” Given that we’re already at the point that an African-American is going to end up being a nominee for President (and, as of now, is ahead in the polls) tells me we’re probably already there.

This is what is called “the exception that proves the rule”. The apartheid didn’t disappear overnight when Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa.

You trimmed that quote a bit too close, Farris. Ms. O’Connor stated that as a hope, not an inevitability.