Small government was Re: [extropy-chat] EMP Attack?

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The limiting factor of this being that the Senate cannot validly
> confirm treaties which violate the Constitution. For example,
> "Congress
> shall make no law..yadda yadda, the abridgement of free speech",
> therefore a treaty that limited the free speech rights of Americans
> would be invalid on its face and unratifiable by the US Senate.

Except that treaties are considered hierarchically equal to, and
therefore exempt from the limits of, the Constitution.  Ratifying a
treaty is not "making a law" in that sense, even if it is essentially
similar in many other ways.

If you want a horror story, google on the abuses that loophole has
created.  Start with "NAFTA sovereignty".  Even the CATO Institute's
report downplaying the threat to US sovereignty makes no mention of the
Consitution overriding it - and one would think they'd be all over that
point if it did indeed apply.

> Kyoto was signed, but was never ratified.

Not disagreeing with that.  Like I said, we rejected it.  I'm just
pointing out that the impositions it would have created were among the
reasons we rejected (did not ratify) it.