> For the better part of US history, there was almost no Constitutional check on state police power

Yeah, that was a mistake which was corrected.

You could just as easily say that democracy doesn't necessitate allowing all people to vote regardless of skin pigmentation, since at one point we had not yet recognized that it in fact does.

My point is that we had a functioning democracy for a century before we decided everyone had ferderal due process rights against state police power.

My point is that I don't accept your definition of "functioning". Was the democracy functioning when only men were permitted to vote? I say not.

Then define "functioning" positively. I'm kinda curious to see what you come up with.

Frankly just something that is a democracy at all. An elite ruling class that votes on things doesn't cut it for me, maybe it does for you.

I realize you have preferences. I, too, wish the world were as perfect as I imagine it could be. But that doesn't actually provide any ground on which we can communicate and build from.

You only have to compromise your definition of democracy if you are starting from the assumption that we must necessarily be included in that definition. In normal conversation untainted by prejudices of patriotism we are perfectly capable of using terminology that represents a state never realized in reality.

"I don't know" would have been acceptably mature response, but hey, I can appreciate bland rhetoric, too.

Bland rhetoric? You are just accusing me of redefining a word beyond usefulness for refusing to compromise standards for the sake of historic revisionism. How is "I don't know" even a response to what you wrote? You didn't ask a question...

I asked you what a functioning democracy was.

You said it's any democracy at all. And then you dropped a bunch of irrelevant drivel about patriotism because it furthered the pedantic argument you had with rayiner.

You never answered the question. Indeed, you refused to answer it.

> Democracy does not rest on a limitation of power.

Democracy doesn't, but liberty and civility does. It's not even about an explicit limitation of power, but a perceived limitation.

If something is unthinkable, it's irrelevant whether some piece of paper somewhere says you can't do it ... it's unthinkable, so it won't happen. The reason all of this is happening is that not only is it very thinkable, but it is outright tolerated by the populace at large ... even glorified.

> ... it's unthinkable, so it won't happen.

To a certain degree, that's true, till someone interprets that as a loophole, thinks it and does it. It's why law constantly evolves --to adapt to new exploits (as well as for get rid of outdated laws.

How about the Bill of Rights?

"The whole of the Bill (of Rights) is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals.... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." (Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789)

The Bill of Rights was not conceived to limit states, only the federal government. It was the 14th amendment and some clever reading by SCOTUS that extended it to states a century later.

Thanks for the addition. So, would it apply in this case to limit such Federal government propositions?

Maybe. This is federal actiom. Killing is deprivation of life. US citizens are generally construed to have due process rights anywhere in the world. So due process clause applies. The question, then, is what process is due? The clause means exactly what is said: people are entitled to due process, not more process than is due. Due process doesn't always mean a trial. It's a sliding scale. The more something looks like something that would require a trial, the more process is due.

What process is due when you go to Yemen and take up arms against the US? Should the government have to apprehend you abroad and bring you in for trial?

If it sounds fuzzy its because it is. The framers used a wiggle word like "due" to give interpretive leeway. If they had meant hard and fast judicial process they would have said so.