PARADOXICAL LEGAL TERMS

I am not a lawyer, and I believe that you don’t need to be one to understand what is written in any document if you have a minimum of intelligence and you are not contaminated either by ideology, politics or lack of common sense. I think that you need lawyers because they understand many legal implications that are difficult to understand by the ordinary lay man mainly because so many interpretations of the law made in the past and the political weight in the decisions that now form the precedents for the new decisions to be made. However, if I don’t take in account these factors, I can say my opinions that although may be wrong or not shared by others, still may be logical and be good enough to challenge those given by justices in different level of the courts. At the end the fact that many times the decision for instance in the Supreme Court are not unanimous means that some of the Justices thought differently than the others and very likely the difference was due either because of ideology, politics, agendas, or like in my case they expressed simply the way they think. 

I am going to transcribe two of the amendments of the Constitution of the United States and I would like you to read them and think about them and the freedom that they give to us as citizens of the Country:

Amendment 4.

Unreasonable searches and seizures.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment 10.

Powers reserved to states or people.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

I have said many times that the beauty of the Constitution of the United States is its length and simplicity. You can read it in no time and I believe any person can understand it, although I agree that maybe because of the reasons outlined above anybody can interpret it as they want, and because of this is the need to have lawyers to interfere with the citizens thoughts.

At the present time (Spring 2012) there are two laws under the scrutinization by the Supreme Court about their constitutionality or lack of it. In other words do these laws conform to the Constitution or not; if they are, we are going to be subjected to them and if not they are going to be void and null.

The way these two laws are known are, the Obamacare and the Arizona immigration law. With many reasons for that, these two laws are controversial, and the two opposing fields in the political arena are in a fight that made necessary for the Supreme Court to intervene to decide their future.  The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed unto law by president Obama on March 23, 2010. Together with the health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 made the health care reform known as Obamacare. A majority of the States, and a number of organizations and individuals have filed actions in Federal Court challenging the Constitutionality for some or all of its elements.  The Supreme Court after hearing oral arguments is expected to rule by the end of June 2012.

The Arizona immigration law was adopted by Arizona on April 2010. The law also known as SB 1070 (Senate Bill 1070) was intended to discourage illegal immigrants from enter or remaining in the State. It expanded the powers of State police officers to ask about the immigration status of anyone they stop, and to hold those suspected of being illegal immigrants.  They can do this with “reasonable suspect” and without authorization by any court. It makes also a crime –a misdemeanor- to not carry immigration papers. Legal challenges over its constitutionality and compliance with civil rights law were filed including one by the United States Dept of Justice. It has reached the Supreme Court.

Why the title of my writing?  Why are there “paradoxical legal terms” related to these two laws? For me a paradoxical is something that is seemingly absurd or self-contradictory. Let’s exam the opposite fields in these controversial laws. We know that on one side like in any other issue are the Democrats, liberals and leftists, and in the other side are the Republicans, conservatives and rightists. The paradox is that they are using the very same arguments to oppose one law and to support the other one.

I am not going to discuss every aspect of the laws because just to read the Obmacare will take almost my entire life; that’s the reason nobody read it in Congress before they approved it. With both laws I am going to use only the two amendments of the Constitution I wrote above, the 4^th and the 10^th.

Reading the 10^th amendment it is very clear to me that if something in the Constitution is not given to the United States it remains in the States or in the people. I read the whole Constitution several times and I found out that Immigration is specifically given to the United States, while the health care is not. This should be the end of it. However, the Democrats are pushing for Obamacare and the Republicans are pushing for the Arizona immigration law. This is paradoxical.

On the other hand, the fourth amendment, very clearly says that we the people have the right to be secure in our persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. And again the Democrats support the Obamacare and the Republicans support the Arizona law. This is not only paradoxical but it goes against everybody in this country. By the Arizona law ANYBODY can be stopped by the State police and the police can ask for proof of legal immigration status without PROBABLE CAUSE. The Obamacare is going to impose on us the obligation to buy insurance (among other things). These things are very paradoxical AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL.