Today is a silly day. Here are some names it truly takes immaturity to appreciate.
In honor of Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, in which the Supreme Court ruled that Pleasant Grove, Utah could reject the request to display a tablet containing the Seven Aphorisms of Summum in a public square, here are some other curios of American jurisprudence.
There has only been one case directly relating to the Third Amendment (billeting soldiers in private homes) Engblom v. Carey, where housing used by corrections officers was used by the National Guard. The case established the National Guard as military when on operations and that renters received equal protections as owners under the Constitution.
But the United States Supreme Court can weigh in on higher matters, such as the nature of tomatoes. In Nix v. Hedden, the court determined that for the purposes of tariffs and taxes, tomatoes were vegetables, because that’s how people serve them. Toy Biz v. United States, asserted that its superhero figures were not dolls because they weren’t really human. Bratz dolls are somehow unaffected.
Allowed to vote in Maryland.
Sometimes people are just stupid. In Leser v. Garnett, the plaintiff argued that the Ninteenth Amendment was unconstitutional because you can’t change the important part of the Constitution, like whether women or blacks could vote, or how the president is chosen. And before that, the State of Louisiana abolished its Supreme Court for ruling that a slave Sally Miller was not really slave, but just a misunderstood indentured German girl. She caused even more fracas when she tried to emancipate her children under the precedent of Partus sequitur ventrum, that the womb determines freedom.
Meanwhile, my hat goes off for the citizens of Rhode Island, the only state to outright reject the Eighteenth Amendment. Stay classy, ‘Lil’ Rhodie.
Are you concerned whether that lustful glance at your sister was a mortal sin, or just venal? Was it on Sunday? Did you look twice? Did you enjoy it? These are all difficult questions, ones that require serious thought.
But some people don’t think they’re useful. They say it’s as meaningless as asking “How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin?” But then the Salamanca School explained that interest wasn’t usury if you were a bank, so a lot of people stopped caring about the debates. They argued that capital can make value. Fairly advanced, perhaps, but they were a little lacking in the biology department. For example, they declared that the giant, fugly rodent called the Capybara was a fish for the purposes of eating it on Friday because it spent most of its time in water, like that fish called a Dolphin.
Of course it was probably more because it was an easy excuse to stuff your face with delicious snub-nosed beaver. But at the end of the day it won’t matter too much – unless of course the rapture is before the return of Christ Triumphant, and not after. Then, all Catholics are screwed.
