Congress can add whatever they want to the Constitution: they just have to make it an Amendment. In that scenario, Supreme Court and President can’t do jack. Congress can also repeal any Amendment past 11 (not considered part of the Bill of Rights): so Congress could repeal the Amendments that outlaw slavery in theory… or make it possible for a State to leave the Union.
However… about the Supreme Court ruling something unconstitutional… it’s been ignored… during the Civil War no less:
Congress can’t amend the Constitution by itself. To pass an Amendment, you need 2/3 of both houses (not just a simple majority), and then it has to be ratified by 3/4 of the States. That would be “with the consent of the States”.
And sure, there have been times when the rest of the government basically ignored the court. But none since the civil war that I know of. And if the military starts ignoring the Supreme Court over an issue like “whether or not Texas is part of the US”, I’d have to call that a revolution (via military coup).
If Congress (the House and the Senate, by themselves) were to just pass a law saying that admitting some state was a mistake and kicking them out, I don’t think that would hold up.
Actually…that’s not true: The Bancroft Treaty with Germany. It was still in effect until 1980s even though Germany was defeated twice and occupied simply because there was no suspension/cancellation.
That’s because it was beneficial the US. Treaties that aren’t beneficial to the US, are ignored or suspended, without formality in doing so. This is just another example of “winner’s rules” clause.
I’ll give you a good example of the US picking and choosing things with treaties:
[url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/09/AR2009030900956.html]Remember this when Chinese military was screwing with US intelligence ships?[/url]
Yea… about that… [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_on_the_Law_of_the_Sea]US didn’t ratify[/url]. So we go around whining when other nations break a law we exploit, but aren’t part of at all, so aren’t protected or can benefit. Funny how we forget that part. Yea… let’s imagine if the Chinese parked a spy ship off the coast of California. :roll: I’m not saying the US should ratify the law… I’m just pointing out when we pick and choose, simply because we can… and we do this to a country like China, who’s a rival, who can do some damage if they wanted to. We do much worst with countries we occupy. Like Japan. Ask Okinawa or Yokosuka. They’ve been protesting violated treaties and promises for decades. They’re right too. But hey… we won the war, remember?
Ramstein is Germany’s thorn with Americans.
Native Americans can put them all to shame though. It’s amazing how we made them all American citizens - without them wanting it and/or under threat of the gun - so they couldn’t claim international sovereignty, and all those Indian Treaties that weren’t beneficial the US, could be thrown out the window. When a Indian Reserve was discovered to have some valuable resource on it - relocate, relocate, relocate. Or kill 'em if they resisted. Either or. [url=http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=algeria_ford]Not that Native American Sovereignty means anything[/url] (this sometimes makes the news when Indians want to grow hemp, build a new casino near Vegas on their reserves, or they find some rare minerals in a nearby mountain… sometimes…).
Even more funny… we whine when the Israeli bulldoze Palestine homes… or when the Chinese force Tibet monks to move somewhere. [url=http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/898586b1dc7b4043c1256a450044f331/25eeac288211bee9c1257181002a3cfb/$FILE/G0641251.pdf]We ignore it when we do it.[/url]
Hate to interrupt a fascinating discussion, but the idea that there was a secession clause in the Texas Annexation is a myth. It just isn’t there. Texas doesn’t, and never has had, any more right to secede than any other state. Technically, there wasn’t a Treaty at all. The US Congress passed a resolution to annex, and Texas agreed to be annexed, but there was no treaty in the sense of an agreement signed by multiple sovereign states.
South Korea is proposing a Reunification Tax to pay for the economic disparity between the two Korea. I suppose the money will be sent to North Korea, so they can build more nukes and threaten to annihilate their southern cousins. :roll:
I can not understand why Koreans keep deluding themselves, that giving North Korea free money, is going to solve their problem. Don’t they see they’re being extorted?
Probably it’s because poor Darth Jong-il really needs the money, his serfs… err workers are too busy “holding a rifle in one hand and a hammer in the other (…) in the spirit of delivering sledgehammer blows at the US imperialist aggressors” to indulge in wasteful activities like growing foodstuffs :roll: …
