vol_scouter

If the CO or troop refuses to pat for this youth, I would recommend that those who feel this to be an injustice quietly purchase the kit. After that, the kit should be bought by the new Eagle and monies refused unless they will be given to every boy achieving his Eagle award. Youth have a sense of fairness and this violates that sense. Treat everyone alike as much as you can. Neil and others have said eloquently that Eagle scouts will likely pay back with interest in the future. After earning my Eagle, I left scouting (now I wish that I had not) and returned when my son became a cub. I have been involved for nearly 20 years now and, if I can get my weight down a little, I hope to be involved until I can no longer physically go to meetings.

Reading the article and the BSA response to queries makes it clear that this is aimed at the values of scouting. I predict that these attacks will increase in the near future with the sharp left turn of the country.

At a camporee in the Big South Fork National Recreation Area in the mid 1990's, we had members of the National Forest service discuss land management, They were quite clear that clear cutting is a GOOD way to manage a forest. The area to be clear cut must be carefully chosen. Proper clear cutting accomplishes what nature does with a fire. So for parts of large scout camps to be clear cut may represent good rather bad management. The parts of the environmental movement want no human management of the land (which is a form of management) but that does not mean that human management is bad. The Great Smoky Mountains have balds that may have been from fires or man made, their origin is unknown, are great for the wildlife as are clear cut areas. The article is one sided and does not reflect the efforts of some councils to wisely maintain their land. Our council sold ~4 small parcels of land a few years ago that were to small for most uses, far from the council, and in at least 2 cases had no access roads. Some industry could have built a small plant on one for all we know. That does not mean that the council was derelict in its' responsibilities or in some way corrupt. Obviously, some councils may deserve the criticism but this seems more of a hatchet job.

scoutldr, I absolutely agree that there is a bias toward doing something rather than not. A patient who presents with a viral upper respiratory will be unhappy to be told that it will run its' course. Most cannot understand that giving them antibiotics will not help them and can lead to more resistant organisms. So physicians will tend to satisfy their patients. That is not good but the level of science education in this country is abysmal at best but that is a whole thread of its own. OGE, I have not argued for physicians to run health care but often practicing physicians are not allowed input which is just as insane. As to my personal biases, please gather that I am leaving medicine (12 years early due to the increasing difficulty in caring for my patients - I have had a distinguished career in medicine) next month and will be only a consumer of medical services as are you. We all have bias and I did make mine clear early in the thread. However, the coming changes will not affect my daily life or income. Hopefully, I am somewhat objective but also informed in some ways that others are not. It is sad what is going to happen to the quality of our medical care.

Beavah, I am not certain that you assertion though the major pharmaceutical companies have developed no new drugs is correct. My understanding is different. However, you are entirely correct that major companies buy up smaller ones for a good product. I do not agree on the patent issue. If you and I patent a new gadget to sell we will patent it, do some safety testing, some marketing research, manufacture it, and then sell the gadget. So we will have a few years between development and selling the product. That gives us many years to re-coup our initial investment. The pharmaceutical industry has those same steps plus the clinical trials that are required by the FDA prior to selling the drug. The first trials can lead to further trials while the patent clock ticks. When finally OK'ed, they have a shortened period in which to re-coup their costs. Furthermore, drugs not uncommonly fail during clinical trials which leaves the company with enormous costs for each product actually brought to market. So if the total accumulated costs for the next product brought to market is X then those costs will typically be re-couped over the years on patent - Y or X/Y. Obviously, the cost to the consumer will be less if Y is larger rather than smaller. I am just suggesting to not assess the time in clinical trials (the time is largely controlled by the FDA) against the patent time. This would decrease the consumer cost. I do not see the pharmaceutical companies as the 'good' guys but they do not deserve the demonization that they have endured. They all try to develop high paying drugs which means a large number of patients such as hypertension and diabetes. Antibiotics and drugs for uncommon diseases are low priority partly due to the patent issues noted above. They are companies trying to make a profit on what they do. Laws affect what they try to develop and market as well as the costs. Some sort of protection to physicians and hospitals to make hard decisions would help to reduce costs. Changing medicare to an indemnity plan where the patient and family know how much they have to cover the surgery/ICU stay/procedure/medical equipment with the remainder to be paid by the patient. That accomplishes what you are discussing without going to the extreme of no coverage. Physicians are spending tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars to show what that know in case of a lawsuit. This needs to be reformed while still protecting the ability of a patient injured from negligence to sue. An example, a patient presents with symptoms of a stroke. In the ER, a non-contrast CT of the head will be done. If there is no bleed, the patient has had an ischemic stroke. The patient will subsequently have an MRI to confirm the stroke. The MRI will only rarely change the management of the stroke but does prove that the stroke occurred. Each MRI is ~$1-2,000.00 so that the extra cost is to protect from concerned that a rare condition would be found that would change the diagnosis and/or treatment. The most likely finding that would change the diagnosis is a tumor in the brain which will cause subsequent problems. Often though not always, when the brain tumor is a metastasis from a primary elsewhere, the delay in diagnosis will not change the eventual outcome. Thus, we spend enormous amounts of money to look for conditions that may not be substantially effected by a delay in diagnosis. If a brain met is not found because it was not looked for will be hard to explain to a jury. Thus, physicians will not take that risk. There must be a happy medium.

OldGreyEagle, In a sense, that is what I am saying. It happens every day now. If you are too old and sick, you cannot have dialysis started because no one will pay (except for the very few wealthy enough to afford years of dialysis). Those patients die. IV drug abusers often get a condition called bacterial endocarditis on one (usually) or more heart valves. The infection can lead to the need for the replacement of the valve. They will have their valve. However, if the valve gets infected months to years later, the patient will typically not be offered a second valve. Those patients will eventually die though expensive antibiotics will keep them alive for sometimes a long time. There are now laws at least in my state that allow physicians with considerable review to declare treatment to be medically futile and withdraw treatment even if the family is opposed. I have found that what I do to patients in not ultimately in their best interests but I am forced to provide care that is uncomfortable or worse to a patient whom I know will have a poor outcome. There are worse things than death. I do not want to play G_d but physicians already are placed in a role to make decisions about life and death. I recently cared for a 93 year demented patient whose family member wished her to be resuscitated even though I explained to her on several occasions that if that should occur, the patient would ultimately have a poor outcome. In my experience, this is not moral. It would also result in significant costs. Americans wish to have every intervention performed but to pay little or nothing for the care. Society with physician input needs to determine what is to be paid and then pay the actual costs with a reasonable profit. If the health care system is under the free market, the patients and their families will make most of these decisions. If we are socialized, the decision will be made by partisan bureaucrats who may have little experience.

Beavah, I am sorry that you found no new ideas in my lengthy posts. The problem with the drug innovation has to do with the short time a drug can be sold prior to patents expiring. The democrats have tried to destroy small businesses in favor of large businesses which is much of the same issues for the drug companies that find that they must get bigger in the false market. As I noted, the options for care should be limited by society and physicians. We need to decrease interference from the government making more rules that either produce the opposite effect or have an unpredicted negative effect. A more free market approach can start to bring in competition and will control prices. Other things to decrease costs are to bring back wards of 20-30 beds each that provides more efficient nursing care with fewer nurses. I agree that children deserve care. However, society needs to discuss how aggressive the care should be for severely retarded children who will likely be institutionalized for their entire adult life. I am not saying to with hold care but to with hold more invasive and aggressive care. I think that the issue is that the answers are not what people want to hear. The government is the problem that I live daily and it is certainly not the answer.

Merlyn, Actually, I agree that there should be a constitutional amendment to include air force and space forces (looking to the future). I have little concern that it will pass. I would have no concern before we elected a socialist president. The idea for the country is a strict interpretation of the constitution and for amendments to be made to fix the issues as they occur involving the people in the ratification process. The courts have usurped the proper roles in government.

Hal, The financial outcome was due to the loss of employment resulting in the inability to obtain insurance coverage. That is not fairly all relating to health care since the employment component is not the problem with the health care arena. Most states require automobile insurance for everyone who owns a car. Most states then have hard lines companies for those at greatest risk. By requiring everyone who owns a car to have insurance, the risk is spread over many people. A similar program would likely be a good idea. The insurance should all be individual, no group plans, so that the risk is spread among everyone in society. Group plans must be outlawed so that the companies are responsive to the needs of the insureds rather than the company. State and federal governments can supplement those who can not afford the insurance out right. I care for people everyday who have no third party payor that I know will never pay anything for their care. I am sympathetic. Right now, if I am out sick for more than 90 days, I will be fired. Like most Americans, we will be in financial trouble quickly thereafter. I understand. More direct government regulation will only make the care worse 9as it already has) and the costs to increase. Lisabob, I did listen to some of the reports but not all. The comparisons that I heard were between different ideas of socialized systems. I true market system was not considered when I listened. It was well done for what it covered. Like much of NPR stories, the issue I have is with what is covered and subtle slants. In some ways that is more dangerous than out and out lies told on the networks. While true some of the 'fixes' were for a problem, the fixes seldom have fixed the problem addressed or the fixes caused different worse problems. re-read my posts about physician report cards. I work in medicine and I am heart broken that it is being destroyed. As others have pointed out, new medical innovations come mainly from America because of profit motives. Medical improvements cost money and socialized systems do not want to pay more because health care is already breaking the budget. Human nature always wins in the long term, so we will end up in the same place. Wait until a few years when a loved one is dying from an infection that there are no antibiotics to treat because all of the drug companies went out of business because they were no longer able to make a profit. When that occurs, think back to this time and the warnings against a socialized system that has never worked and will never work.

The comparison between the multiple sclerosis patients in the UK and the US is not as much about the health care system as the work environment. MS is a variable disease where some have relatively minor intermittent neurological symptoms to a debilitating illness no matter how the patients are treated. So to compare the outcomes and attribute them to the medical care is a TOTALLY false argument. It has no meaning. NPR is a fan of socialism and slant their coverage to reflect those values. I have been under socialized medicine and later have worked in both systems. The country was horrified at the problems at Walter Reed - that is socialized medicine. As to the argument of countries leaving socialized medicine, many have cut back or are considering a more free market approach. To draw a conclusion that because people are not clamoring to get rid of socialized medicine means that it is good then the Russians who wish to return to a totalitarian dictator led communist state. The argument comes down to are you for freedom, liberty, and personal responsibility versus government control of our lives with socialism or communism, loss of freedoms (which Bush certainly dramatically moved forward), and no responsibility for our actions. This country is dying. I can no longer provide high quality care for my patients due to government intrusions. It will only get worse.

Most insurance companies no longer insure health, they only manage company's plan with no actual risk themselves. They can be easily bought off by allowing them to manage the government run programs. They get a sure income stream at no risk. The Clinton's missed this in the 90's. I doubt that Obama will make the same mistake. The pharmaceutical companies are a different story. Since the left and the news media has demonized them so much, they may not have enough political clout to prevent a change. Hospitals and professionals are not rich enough nor well organized enough to prevent this disaster from occurring. When socialized, the public will get worse care that takes longer to deliver and will cost more. Unlike now, the public will have no alternatives. Obama is sending signals through Daschle that he wants a British style system. That is a two tier system where the elite wealthy class can purchase what they wish in the way of health care and the public suffers with an inferior system.

I cared for a patient from Canada traveling in my area who had a small stroke. He had a prior stroke due to carotid artery disease that resulted in a carotid endarterectomy (CEA) on one side. My work-up revealed that the opposite side was now critically stenotic (narrowed) causing his stroke and he needed a CEA on that side. He would be at high risk of another stroke. The vascular surgeon would perform the surgery in a few weeks after the stroke had some time to heal (otherwise he may have bled into the prior stroke area when placed on anticoagulants for the surgery). The Canadian insurance pay. The family was absolutely astonished because in Canada it required a 2 year wait despite being at high risk for another stroke. That is not good medical care for a routine surgery. I had a patient who came here just prior to WWII who later developed breast cancer. One day she related to me the concern for her sister who was still in Great Britain. She described a lesion on her breast that she said looked like an orange peel. Her sister had told the primary care physician that her sister had a history of breast cancer. The appearance of the sister's breast is called peau d'orange and is considered pathognomonic for breast cancer - which means when you see this sign you an make a diagnosis of breast cancer. It is a classic finding. The patient did not have a mammogram ordered and the lesion was watched for some time. Then a 'knot' appeared on her calf that was biopsied revealing breast cancer (shocking finding right). She was then told that she was too far advanced to have chemo (probably a correct call) and sent home to die with pain meds. Daschle has sited the British system, NICE, as the system that we should emulate. Physicians are punished if their patient population costs the system too much (as are many HMOs here). The physician in GB, in my opinion, was controlling costs by waiting for the disease to become too far advanced too treat. Narcotics are cheap. Mammograms and the findings that they lead to are expensive. Those who want socialized medicine think that they will get the current system only a little better for no cost to them. The reality is that they will get a far worse system that will cost society much more though it could be partially hidden by taxes. Socialism has never worked and will never work because it is contrary to human nature. I know that the best medical system in the history of the world will soon be a footnote in history for a socialist ideal. It is truly sad that we have so rapidly deteriorated to this state - caused by the same government that says trust me, I will fix it. The government will fix it the same way as it caused the banking collapse. I know that this seems all doom and gloom but that is the way that most physicians medicine going.

Gern wrote: "Imagine telling grandma, sorry, that chemo is pretty expensive and you know, you aren't going to be feeling that great after it anyways. Besides, you've had a good life and reached your expected life span." What do you think happens in socialized countries right now? Here in the US hemodialysis cannot be started under certain conditions one of which is age (though there is no age that it is stopped just because you are that age). Socialism brings rationing to everybody but the wealthy. People wait for procedures and surgeries in Canada for years that are done next week here. If you wish rationing, keep supporting socialism for the health care system and you WILL have it. That is part of the reason that I am leaving. BTW, almost ever physician who has practiced a number of years that I know is considering or has considered leaving the field - a sad comment.

Hal, I am a physician who has practiced for 22 years and is leaving well before retirement because of the worsening mess that makes it more and more difficult to care for patients. I have lived in Denmark and worked at a VA for a short time thus seeing socialized medicine up close - it is not a good system. I got the article from a professional email and went to the Massacusetts Medical Society website. It is as good a study as one is likely to get on such a topic. I have no relationship to the pharmaceutical industry except I prescribe. Gern, We already have in essence a single payor. A true single payor would hopefully eliminate some paper work but all of the other problems remain. The republicans di not have the courage to recommend returning the system to the free market. No other country has made this work, we will not either.

Interesting. The top four shows are 2 conservative and 2 liberal. Obviously, there is no need for a fairness doctrine.

NC, You are correct about the transplant list. I am glad that you son received his heart transplant and is doing well. Transplants are paid for eventually by the public either through higher insurance premiums or by government paid plans. So the public in essence has decided that UNOS should provide the framework. It is a good program but in my view there are still some issues. The recipients must change their habits for a period of tie to qualify - 6 months I believe. However, the long term recidivism rate is high for many addictions. Also, should I be given similar opportunities to have a transplant if the reason is due to my habits (even things like not controlling obesity related hypertension and diabetes) versus a disease or condition that the patient in not way caused? That to me is a societal issue. Society could ask UNOS to change the selection criteria to reflect societal values. I am not saying that it must or should be changed, only that society pays and should through some process set some of the general standards or adopt the current ones. Transplants are expensive initially and the recipient will usually be costly to the healthcare system in the long term as well. I fear that our rush to socialism will ultimately result in the loss of the option of transplants as simply too expensive - that would be wrong and a tragedy. Socialism has never really worked. Return medicine to the free market and the costs will decrease.

Almost forgot, get rid of the report cards and ratings of hospitals and physicians. Many of the hospitals who advertise 'Top 100' such and so paid to be on the list. Many of the lists have to do with profitability and not quality measures that are poor measures at best. Some examples: Occasionally after a myocardial infarction (heart attack), the muscles that keep the mitral valve from being pushed back into the left atrium by the left ventricle can be involved. If those muscles, the chordiae tendinae, are involved, they can rupture leading to sudden flail mitral valve. Without emergency surgery, the death rate is essentially 100%. With emergency surgery, ~20% will survive. However, the report card will show a high mortality rate for those who save that 20% of patients. More and more cardiothoracic surgeons are no longer doing the procedure so that now the 20% who would have lived will die. Another example, a patient goes from a good medical community to a world renowned hospital to get a valve replacement. The valve is replaced with problems and a few days later the patient goes home. The patient develops a fever after returning home and goes to the local good medical center that also does valve replacements. They determine that the valve is infected, a condition called endocarditis. The local hospital calls the world renowned center that will routinely refuse the transfer because the local hospital can handle the infection which likely occurred at the time of surgery. The patient may require another valve replacement at the local hospital in a much more difficult procedure with a higher morbidity and mortality than the first valve replacement. So guess what, the endocarditis will be attributed to the local thoracic surgeon even though they had no involvement. If the valve has to be redone, the higher morbidity and mortality will also be attributed to the local surgeon who inherited the problem. Results: the local surgeon and hospital get a worse report card. The world renowned center does not have its own problems count against them and they will lecture the 'inferior outlying hospitals' about how to do a better job. No I am not a surgeon of any kind. Also, nothing in the previous posts is presented as medical advise or standard of care. The representations are as I understand from other professionals relating their personal experiences. Even in posts for scouting, we are paranoid of lawsuits.

baschram645 has a good idea that will never happen. Ted Kennedy had the best medical community in the world in Boston but went to neurosurgeon at Duke considered to be the best in the world to resect high grade astrocytomae. Do you really believe that kind of option would be available to the rest of us. Do you think that senator Kerry would stoop to going to a clinic with 'us'. The Kerry who told the press that he understood the average person while he was skiing on his private ski slope, complete with lift, on his private mountain. Beavah, The health care system is badly broken. The primary reason is that the free market has no role. Insurance companies set their rates based on medicare rates (often ~1.3 times medicare). There is no negotiation with medicare and little with insurance companies. So health care providers (physicians and hospitals) cannot set prices based on their cost of doing business. Medicine is already heavily socialized - that is why it is failing. The Massachusetts Medical Society studied the costs of defensive medicine. Their conclusion was considered a very conservative estimate at $1.4 billion dollars for Massachusetts alone and that the actual figure is likely considerably higher. There must be some sort of reform that does not prevent a patient harmed by true negligence to be justly compensated. That said. The system must be reformed so that physicians can feel that they do not have to prove every diagnosis beyond any doubt. Patients have to be responsible for their own health issues. For example, in many states a patient told that they should have some test done does not have the responsibility to get the test done. The ordering physician has the responsibility to be sure that the test is done. That adds much cost. In the 1960's, medicine was paternalistic with physicians making decisions for their patients. That was wrong but now physicians have no real ability to use their knowledge and experience in order to provide appropriate care. Patients who are elderly and/or quite ill should not be resuscitated if they suffer a cardiac or respiratory arrest. Physicians should be able to make some of those decisions. Families want 'everything' done because they have no financial burden (in fact they may be spending much the elderly person's social security checks). Insurance covers your car for large losses but not routine maintenance. Your homeowner's does not cover painting your house but does if it burns down. Health insurance should not cover 'routine maintenance' of our bodies. The policies should have rather large deductibles and cover serious illnesses and not more minor problems. The system is breaking due to reporting requirements. Hospitals have RNs who do nothing but check charts to see if mandated documentation is done on a daily basis. Nurses and physicians spend less time with their patients because of ever increasing reporting requirements. These requirements are not improving safety and outcomes as they are claimed to do. Hospitals are for sick people, not hotels with gourmet coffee and being waited on hand and foot. Society must decide if everyone deserves to be saved or to have all treatments. We transplant organs in patients whose disease process will cause the new organ to fail in the same way as their own failed. That does not make good sense but the system is told that it must be blind to the reason for organ failure. So an IV drug abuser with heart failure gets the same chance for a transplant of an organ that failed because of his actions as an innocent teenager born with a defective heart. Society must decide what to do. Much of the medical dollar is spent treating very pre-mature infants alive and the elderly. Many times, professionals know that the outcome for an elderly patient will be death but are forced to keep them alive for weeks or months before they die as expected. They could be kept comfortable and allowed to die with some dignity. Get the government out of health care!!!! Ban all groups health plans!!! Require everyone to have individual health insurance that allows only small variations in premiums based upon health issues. Change them back to indemnity plans that pay so much for a given procedure or illness. For many things then the market comes bcak into play and will adjust costs. Allow hospitals to charge what it costs to have a hospital room for a day. Insurance companies keep room rates low so that hospitals have to charge inordinate amounts for other items. People can understand that most hospital rooms cost more than $1,000 per day with all of the skilled employees and equipment. The insurance companies realize that forcing hospitals to cost shift makes the public unhappy with the hospitals instead of other aspects of the health care system. Most do not realize that the US and Japan (I believe) are the only countries that allow the pharmaceutical companies to make a profit. Canada and European countries have laws requiring the pharmaceutical companies to sell medications at cost. So we have to pay for the profits. All other countries should allow profits as well which would dramatically lower our costs (that is why drugs are cheaper in Canada). Before you say that we should do the same thing, remember that companies are in business to make a profit. When they no longer can make a profit, they cease to be in business. We need new drugs especially antibiotics. The FDA can require pharmaceutical companies to perform expensive clinical trials until the FDA is satisfied that the drug can be released. All the while the patent clock is ticking often resulting in a very few years to recoup the development costs of the drug, to make a profit, and fund new drug development. Almost no one else has the same hurdle. I would propose that the patent clock ceases while the drug is in clinical trials so that the companies will have a longer time to cover those expenses etc. I could go on and on. The one thing that I am certain of is that following Obama into more socialized medical system will make things worse - not better. Take the word of a 22 year professional who is leaving the profession because it is increasingly difficult tocare for my patients.

Gern, Whatever was said, both men were trying to say the correct 35 words. In my book, anyone trying to impugn the validity of his presidency on the flubs deserves your title of wingnut.

Thank you for the explanation. Too bad our news media died this past year. With that understanding and your sense that the guy has the requisite tools, I will have to change my mind. Nobody wants the economy to sink into a depression. I just don't want a further socialist republic. I am still waiting for the left to scream about the bombing of a sovreign nation that is an ally to boot. Oh, I forgot. He is a liberal so he was justified whereas a conservative would be skewered. Unlike some of my friends, I will not have a bumper sticker saying "He's not my president" despite being concerned about the direction of the country. On a positive note. I applaud Obama for preventing his staff from getting raises and banning many of the lobbyist practices. He is doing some things well. Much of the issues that many of us are most concerned about he has not yet dealt. So I may end up cheering him on many fronts. I hope so.

All due respects to Beavah, for whom I have the greatest respect, I tend to agree with Eisely. Geithner should be the Secretary of the Treasury. I my view, what he did was purposeful and therefore dishonest. If we know that he is dishonest from the beginning, how can we be expected to trust him? Surely out of ~300,000,000 citizens there is some else who would do as well or better than what I would characterize as dishonest.

If the pleasure you are experiencing is from others misfortune, then in the case of the president it is all of our misfortunes. BTW I remember bumper stickers saying "He's not my president". The left did not like what Bush's stated policies (and before it was over neither did the right as he destroyed our personal liberties and went more rapidly down the path to socialism). The left was not supportive and often rather vitriolic in voicing their lack of support. That was as it should be and criticism of Obama's stated positions is appropriate as well. As Obama's presidency proceeds, we will see what are his actual policies. The left adores this guy but everyone does not have to do so to be a good patriotic American just as the left correctly pointed out with the last president. Don't worry, you will hear little criticism since we no longer have a news media in this country. We only have left wing propoganda machines and one slightly to the right. If Geithner (sp?) was nominated by a Repubilican president, he would have been said to be not very bright or a crook. The news media parroted the democrats by saying an 'honest mistake' even though he got letters from the IRS that he ignored. So don't worry, Obama will be treated gently because the left finally has their socialist president.

To the liberals on the list (I will not call them names as others have done to conservatives): Obama attacked a sovereign nuclear power today in a move that could be likened to the bombing of Cambodia by President Nixon. I am sure that the liberals will be decrying the move which could broaden the war. They will be shouting 'warmonger'. The media will be covering the action 24/7. The media is relatively silent including Fox. Don't worry, Obama will have little covered dissent.

Beavah, You are correct, the birth certificate is issued by the state. It is available in the hospitals where it is filled out by the attending physician. It is not official until stamped by the state. I never said that it was issued by the hospital. It is available and filled out there. So we are in agreement I believe.

Merlyn, As usual, when faced with the problems in your argument, you resort to insults. You ignored the rest of the facts and commented only upon a supposition. So to be more direct, Madison was for the states having a state sponsored, endorsed, or supported religion if they so desired. His writings are clear. The First Amendment was written to prevent the federal government from establishing a federally mandated religion while allowing the states to do so if they wished. There are two clauses, the first is dealing with non-establishment and the second says that no laws shall be promulgated "prohibiting the free exercise thereof". The left wishes to ignore the second clause. As to the courts, there were many rulings that upheld slavery though not really constitutional. The courts are not always right. As I citizen, I do not have to agree with a court ruling but I must abide by the ruling until it is changed by other rulings or a law.