Okay, speaking in that hypothetical circumstance, then yes, the Federal laws do apply to the incident. But again you're commenting on the actions of a State Government, whose laws were overruled by the implementation of the fourteenth amendment, and whose actions would be dictated by Article IV Section 4. But that is a tenuous justification without the Fourteenth.Bento Box said:"Comes close enough?" It says, exactly, that the Federal Constitution TRUMPS any state constitution, where enumerated rights are concerned.FFHAuthor said:You have every right to base your argument on the equality clause, but frankly, you would have done better to use the 14th Amendment which actually comes close enough to enforcing the Constitution on the States. But if you wish to ignore every aspect of history related to the creation of the document, every statement made by the individuals who wrote and signed it, and ignore the causes of the very existence of it...do so, but ignorance of all aspects does not make you correct, it simply makes you ignorant, and willfully so.Bento Box said:What? Really? Fucking really? "The Federal Constitution is the law," doesn't mean "the Federal Constitution is the law?"
I'm done with you.
If your whole argument is that the constitution doesn't cover what individuals do, I call horseshit there, too -- if a mob gagged the Phelps family by making them feel threatened (and beating them), and the state was complicit, then that makes this a civil rights issue. The state doesn't get to ignore the single most important right in this whole damn country.
If you look at the entirety of that document you'll see one thing, there is not a single aspect of the Constitution whose language applies to restrictions of the individual except for two places, within the Fourteenth Amendment and that the only crime that you can commit within the constitution, Treason.
If in the entirety of this document, it applied to every American Citizen then why, -why- is every single reference and statement of powers, of duties, responsibilities, and limitations on power, apply to the Federal government, while every right applies to the individuals. The Ninth Amendment expressly guarantees the rights of the individual to everything and anything not restricted or limited within the Constitution. Does that mean Murder is legal because it's not forbidden in the Constitution?
What about the Tenth? If the Constitution was directed at all levels of the United States, why does it give all powers not delegated to the Federal Government or prohibited by it to the States or to the people? It's not speaking of what the states can do with federal permission, it's stating that which the States didn't give the Federal Government Authority over, they don't have authority government.
Taking it all the way, if the Federal Government trumps the legal considerations and power of the states, then why did the States vote to create it, and why do the states have say in ratification of Amendments? Why are Senators under the Constitution appointed representatives of their states?