[Jacquerie]

The following are portions of your comments to this thread.

“I agree, but this discussion, and most of those on the 14th Amendment, ignore the importance of the 10th Amendment.”

“So if there is a right to privacy (and I believe there is) that does not mean we give up the right (10th Amendment)”

“Roe v. Wade is not just that it's immoral (and therefore 'bad') but that it directly violates the 10th Amendment”

“So while I agree that the 9th Amendment provides the room for additional rights than those enumerated, it does not in itself negate an enumerated right - including the enumerated right in the 10th Amendment. “

“Bork, at his confirmation hearings, said he thought the 14th Amendment made the 10th Amendment moot.”

“I see the 9th and 10th Amendments as a pair of rules that must be addressed together.”

“And the 10th says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

“the key to the 10th is to say that anything not explicitly in the Constitution is none of the federal government's business.”

Okay, you are obviously a thoughtful person. I assure you that the Ninth is independent of the Tenth and going on a length about the 10th, 14th and 17th is irrelevant to the Ninth. At the same time you apparently do not believe what I have written regarding the Natural Law basis of our founding, Constitution and the Ninth. They are impossible to understand without familiarity with Natural Law, derived from the law of our Creator.

I bring this up because it was only after reading Levin’s Liberty & Tyranny that I began a study of the philosophical basis of our founding. I avoided internet sites.

Among the books I found informative were, “The Rights Retained by the People,” Edited by Randy Barnett, Cato Institute 1989.

“Written on the Heart,” The Case for Natural Law, by J. Budziszewski, InterVarsity Press, 1997.

[Phlyer]

you apparently do not believe what I have written regarding the Natural Law basis of our founding, Constitution and the Ninth.

It's not that I don't believe what you have written - either in the sense that you understand natural law or that it guided the Framers who wrote the Constitution. It's just that the words as written exist independently of the rationale that led to them. And it's the words as written that constitute 'the law' that governs us.

I also agree that the 9th exists independently of the 10th, but the 10th is not irrelevant. For example: Suppose the 9th is exactly as written, and therefore it includes (by implication, at least) some of those rights you consider "Natural Law" but which are not enumerated and explicit.' But now change the 10th to say, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the United States, to be defined and interpreted by the Congress and the Judiciary."

It changes utterly the value of those 'unenumerated rights' that are implied by the 9th Amendment. They now exist - as they always and inherently exist, as "Natural Law" if that's the way you want to label them - but they are totally subject to federal government control because the federal government has authority and "power" in all areas that are not explictly defined. Therefore our 'unenumerated rights have no practical value except as the imperial federal judiciary deigns to allow us to pretend that they mean anything. In short, an unenforceable right may be noble and logical, but it has no practical value.

The 2nd Amendment is the most fundamental, because the right to bear arms is what makes the difference between citizens and serfs. The 10th should be the next most important because it is what should be keeping the federal government from meddling in 99% of the interactions between citizens. If those two are strongly obeyed by the federal government, the rest - including the 'Natural Law' issues like the right to self-defense - would be respected and reliably available to the citizens.