MIB
If you want the Constitution to say something one year and something different the next, without its words changing, then the whole document itself is meaningless and worthless and ought to be trashed. Why even have one then?
Amend it. Period. [/QB]

Neptune:
Pre 1954:  Separate but equal (segregation ok!)
Post 1954:  Separate \"inherently\" unequal (segregation bad!)

The words of the 14th Amendment did not change between Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board, but the interpretation certainly did after Brown.

MIB:
How about if I tell you that both decisions had no basis in the Constitution? Or what if the first one did not but the second one did?

A refrigerator box under the bridge: The Kelo Seven prepares for the worst

by Jonathan O'Connell - July 14, 2005
The Fairfield County Weekly

... The U.S. Supreme Court recently found that the city's original seizure of private property was constitutional under the principal of eminent domain, and now New London is claiming that the affected homeowners were living on city land for the duration of the lawsuit and owe back rent. It's a new definition of chutzpah: Confiscate land and charge back rent for the years the owners fought confiscation.

In some cases, their debt could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Moreover, the homeowners are being offered buyouts based on the market rate as it was in 2000.
....

The New London Development Corp., the semi-public organization hired by the city to facilitate the deal, is offering residents the market rate as it was in 2000, as state law requires. That rate pales in comparison to what the units are now worth, owing largely to the relentless housing bubble that has yet to burst.
....

And there are more storms on the horizon. In June 2004, NLDC sent the seven affected residents a letter indicating that after the completion of the case, the city would expect to receive retroactive \"use and occupancy\" payments (also known as \"rent\") from the residents.

In the letter, lawyers argued that because the takeover took place in 2000, the residents had been living on city property for nearly five years, and would therefore owe rent for the
duration of their stay at the close of the trial. Any money made from tenantssome residents' only form of income would also have to be paid to the city.

With language seemingly lifted straight from The Goonies, NLDC's lawyers wrote, \"We know your clients did not expect to live in city-owned property for free, or rent out that property and pocket the profits, if they ultimately lost the
case.\" They warned that \"this problem will only get worse with the passage of time,\" and that the city was prepared to sue for the money if need be.
....

jonathanoc@uwalumni.com

fantomas:
MIB, just for the record, when you refer to the document known as \"Magna Carta,\" it is perfectly fine to use the definite article \"the,\" which would have been appropriate in the original Medieval Latin. (Illa Magna Carta.) Classical Latin did not have a definite article, but Medieval writers used both \"ille\" and \"quidam\" at times to approximate what became the definite article in the Romance languages. So \"the Magna Carta\" is perfectly appropriate, and it has been so referenced in English-language texts for hundreds of years.