The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Mr. Bork has this to say:
"There is almost no history that would indicate what the ninth amendment was intended to accomplish. But nothing about it suggests that it is a warrant for judges to create constitutional rights not mentioned in the Constitution. Ely, along with a great many other people, thinks that it is precisely such a warrant. Nothing could be clearer, however, than that, whatever the purpose the ninth amendment was intended to serve, the creation of a mandate to invent constitutional rights was not one of them. The language of the amendment itself contradicts that notion.... If the Founders envisioned such a role for the courts, they were remarkably adroit in avoiding saying so ... What, then, can the ninth amendment be taken to mean? One suggestion ... is that the people retained certain rights because they were guaranteed by the various state contitutions, statutes and common law ... This meaning is not only grammatically correct, it also fits the placement of the ninth amendment just before the tenth and after the eight substantive guarantees of rights ... The ninth amendment appears to serve a parallel function by guaranteeing that the rights of the people specified already in the state constitutions were not cast in doubt by the fact that only a limited set of rights was guaranteed by the federal charter."
Robert Bork, The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law, p183.
"Well, I don’t know what it means and if someone would tell me what it means I would be happy to use it, but I just don’t know what it means. It's as though you had a copy of the Constitution and there was an inkblot on it and you couldn't read what was under the inkblot. I don't think judges should make up what’s under the inkblot."
Robert Bork, speaking on the Ninth Amendment before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 1987.
Like I said, so far as I'm concerned, we can do without another insolent authoritarian on the Supreme Court, in particular one with such self-admittedly dim reading comprehension.
I agree with Bork that the ninth amendment does NOT mean that there are limitless rights which go beyond what the Constitution specifies. And I do not believe according to the Constitution, for instance, that one has a right to abortion, sodomy, homosexual marriage, or the use of illicit drugs for instance (and the list goes on and on), like so many libertarians do, and that does not mean that myself or anyone else who believes thusly, is authoritarian, including Judge Bork. Sorry.
I will repeat, if Judge Bork is authoritarian, so are the founding fathers.
So Bork thinks the Constitution enumerates our rights? Dim reading, indeed.