[ILUG] Eek! McCreevy wants to legalise Software Patents via a US-EU patent treaty

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Braun Brelin (bbrelin at gmail.com):

> It's not as dubious as you think.  If you look back at the history of
> the United States, the indivual states had far more power in the 19th
> century than they do today.  For instance, today, U.S. Supreme Court
> rulings are binding on all 50 states and various territories of the
> United States, this wasn't historically true.  Many states (and
> executive branch authorities) ignored the Supreme Court if it
> conflicted with their wishes, desires and laws.

I don't think that's quite right.  Pre-1868, the US Supreme Court had
full appellate review over any state case concerning a "Federal
question", that term's scope being constitutionally defined; pretty
narrowly at that.  They resisted that jurisdiction at their peril, and
rarely.  The big change occurred when the 14th Amendment's equal
protection and due process clauses[1] caused the Court to rule, over
many decades, that various Bill of Rights restrictions on the Feds newly
applied to state governments, too.[2]  

> It's only because the North won that the history books were written so
> as to cast the U.S. Civil War as a war to free slaves.

Those books have been rewritten a few times, I would say, to suit
current academic fads and historian hobbyhorses.

I'm still eagerly awaiting the Freudians having a go.  Then, maybe
Catharine MacKinnon.


[1] "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws."

This was back when the ruling Republican Party had not yet misplaced all
its principles.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_doctrine