Reply #211: speaking of deaf dumb and blind.

[wyldwolf]

to deny that a call for a Second Bill of Rights from the PRESIDENTIAL bully pulpit is not to be interpreted as a CALL for CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

To think that is insanely deaf, dumb and blind.

Calling for a constitutional amendment is a very powerful thing. Did FDR ever mention this again? No.

Is the patient's bill of rights a call for a constitutional amendment? No.

And besides, FDR said, "We have accepted (PAST TENSE), so to speak, a second Bill of Rights ..." Is he saying that the second bill of rights was already in effect?

Ask yourself this - why did no one else think he was calling for constitutional amendments? Where are the historians and biographers commenting on his grand call for an amendment to the US Constitution?

No, this was no call for a constitutional amendment and this is in no way implying he wanted to see it as such.

Unless, of course, the America Library Association is calling for a constitutional amendment:

http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/statementspols/statementsif/librarybillrights.htm

...or Students For Academic Freedom:

http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/abor.html

...or Digital Consumer.org

http://www.digitalconsumer.org/bill.html

But let's put this whole silly argument to bed:

Cass R. Sunstein, the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School and the author of more than a dozen books, including After the Rights Revolution, Designing Democracy and most recently, The Cost-Benefit State, had this to say concerning FDR's Second Bill Of Rights:

Roosevelt did not argue that the Constitution should be amended to include the "Second Bill of Rights." But he did believe that social and economic rights ought to be seen as a defining part of our political culture...

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/sunstein-economicsecurity.html