Posted on 12/01/2005 5:59:58 AM PST by RWR8189
On the contrary -- that's the entire point of federalism. The people of each state are free to make such choices via the legislative process. It makes just as much sense for that to be decided at the state level as it does at the national level. You have no problem with each country deciding such things as sovereign actors and you should have no problem with each state doing so under the founding father's concept of federalism wherein each state is as free as an independent nation would be in social matters like abortion where the Congress is given no power to legislate.
One Hundred & Ninety-Nine Barrels of Whiskey v. United States, 94 U.S. 86
Pennsylvania v. $7,000 in U.S. Currency, 742 A.2d 711
Mayo v. Satan and His Staff, 54 F.R.D. 282
United States v. 7 Barrels, etc. of Spray Dried Whole Egg, 141 F.2d 767
7 Fifths Old Grand-Dad Whiskey v. U.S., 158 F.2d 34
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. ONE 1988 PREVOST LIBERTY MOTOR HOME, Measuring 40 Feet in Length, also known by Vehicle Identification Number 2P9M33403J, and Bearing Oregon License Plate H998173, Defendant
We are discussing a matter of history - facts which were generally known and understood formerly which have been obfuscated today.
I'd be much more interested in knowing at what point awareness starts to happen
In other words, you believe that it's permissible to kill severely developmentally disabled children at any time.
Does that make it a human zygote?
Obviously not, since it will never of its own mature into an adult.
Pinpoint the qualities that *accurately* distinguish those entities which you claim have rights from those entities which you claim do not.
A human being in any stage of development from zygote to adult.
Straw man.
Not in the slightest. You are arguing that at some point between zygote and adult the elusively subjective attribute called "humanity" presents itself. before it does, it's OK to kill and after it does it's not.
Unless you're proposing that there is some intermediate half-human stage during which it's half-OK to kill someone, then you have to find a hard dividing line or admit there isn't any.
The capacity for internal state and consciousness in humans is what causes us to distinguish ourselves from everything else we encounter in the world.
So a subjective internal state (consciousness) defines humanity in an objective way to external observers.
This is an argument for infanticide, since infants aren't conscious in any way discernible from that of beasts.
An adult in a coma that is expected to be permanent can also exhibit brainwave activity, every bit as much as an infant can.
two week buffer
In other words, someone who will inevitably mature enough for your liking in a few days is murderable at that given moment.
If someone could temporarily induce their parents into a coma deep enough to efface brainwave activity for a few days, could they kill them then?
Still, there is zero running away from the fact that qualities must be used to distinguish between different entities we come in contact with.
The offspring of human parents with a human genetic code that is in the process of developing into a human adult is unambiguous and unsubjective.
All else is subjective Singer territory.
Anyone who claims that a zygote of 1 day, lacking completely in consciousness, brain activity, and a mind, is identical in terms of human rights to both an unborn infant of 8 months gestation and to a child of 12 years of age helps further, via the patent absurdity of this position, the widespread adoption of Singer's philosophy
Ridiculous. The Lord High Strawman of all straw men.
The fact that a zygote of 1 day is a human being is an objective reality. Singer's system of murder for conveneience is bolstered by your philosophy of fine gradations, buffer zones, subjective criteria, etc.
And don't pretend for a second that you have proposed any objective criteria with your brain wave argument.
(1) Different experts and different doctors will come to different conclusions while observing the same brain wave patterns.
(2) Singerites will make the argument that people whose brains are sufficiently damaged never to fully achieve conscious self-awareness can still exhibit noticeable brainwave activity.
(3) Brainwaves do not and never will "equal" self-awareness - Singerites argue, just as you are arguing, for a buffer zone. For the Singerites that buffer zone is early infancy.
My "special pleading", if you wish to call it that, is for ethics to make sense and be reasonable
The only rational thing to do is acknowledge that there are as many qualitative definitions of human as there are humans and that the only answer is a quantitative one based on biological reality.
A human zygote will develop into a biologically human adult or die naturally in the process.
At no point in that process is there any natural caesura - that process is undeniably multilayered and continuous.
Therefore the only objective standard is to defend all human life in all stages from conception to natural death.
Anything else is playing God and putting one person's whim above another person's life.
Non sequitur is the Latin for the term "does not follow." An argument is considered a "non sequitur" if the conclusion does not logically follow from the posted premise. I've made the case that your argument was a non sequitur not because it was wrong, but because the conclusion had no basis in the premise you posted (i.e., Congress hasn't overruled the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, so therefore Congress has no authority over the Supreme Court).
I'd say it is clear that the court's lack of enforcement power can never be an effective check. We rightfully cherish the rule of law. For the Congress and Executive to arbitrarily ignore court rulings would be a disaster.
There was an interesting "separation of church and state" case that played out in the Federal courts about 15-20 years ago, in which a public high school student in a southern state (I think it was Alabama) filed suit against his school to keep a Baptist minister from leading the students and fans in prayer before every home football game. The Federal court determined that the minister's actions amounted to an unconstitutional establishment of religion on the part of the school. The case got a lot of attention at the time as one of those landmark "free exercise" cases in the Federal courts, and the ruling was immediately appealed. The appellate court upheld the decision, and the minister was ordered to cease and desist immediately.
The minister and school district considered additional action in the Federal courts, but the matter was really taking a financial toll on all of the people involved. So they pretty much decided to ignore the Federal court ruling and go on as if nothing had ever happened. The minister publicly announced that he was going to get on the stadium P.A. system before every football game and lead the student body and fans in prayer -- and if the Federal courts had a problem with it they should just come on down to Alabama the following Saturday and have him arrested.
He basically told the Federal courts to "f#ck off." And "f#ck off" they did, since he's apparently continued leading his prayers to this day. The student who filed the suit in the first place was probably a strident, snot-nosed undergraduate in the sociology department at Berkeley or Harvard by the time the appeals were exhausted anyway, so who the hell even cared by that point.
This was not an "arbitrary" decision to ignore a court ruling, either. This was nothing more than ordinary people telling the Federal courts to leave them alone.
A motor home is recognized as a "defendant" in U.S. courts. LOL.
You put scare quotes around federalism as if it is a concept that you don't agree exists. It most surely does.
As to your hypothetical, states do that now. A person who kills a policeman in Texas will receive the death penalty. A person who kills a policeman in Massachussetts will get only life imprisonment. That's treating a class of people differently based on who they are.
I put quotes around it because the application of federalism is what is being discussed here -- and you'll probably find seven different interpretations of it right here on this thread. They can't all be right!
As to your hypothetical, states do that now. A person who kills a policeman in Texas will receive the death penalty. A person who kills a policeman in Massachussetts will get only life imprisonment. That's treating a class of people differently based on who they are.
The fact that states have different sentences for the "same" crime is not relevant to this issue. The fact that states pass laws that apply to crimes against law enforcement officers as a separate class of citizens could be (which is why I don't like those laws to begin with), but these laws really apply to law enforcement as an institution rather than as a class of people. The reverse is also true when a law enforcement officer is an accused criminal instead of a crime victim . . . many states hold law enforcement officers to higher standards when it comes to crimes, meaning a police officer who robs someone at gunpoint will often face a stiffer punishment than an ordinary citizen who commits the same crime.
I note that you continue the non sequitur with this statement:
Congress hasn't overruled the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, so therefore Congress has no authority over the Supreme CourtIn the second place, I have never made that argument which is clearly false.
In the third place, I have made clear that I'm not talking about Congress but about the governed, the citizens of this country. I have said this twice, once in the post you originally responded to and then again later to make it clear. The point is not subtle so I hope you get it now.
Now, you have found one case which I will accept as an instance of the courts having been ignored. (I am appalled at this case by the way.) Yes, it is clear, and I have not disputed, that the courts have no constitutional power to enforce their decisions. But, surely you are not going to pretend that such an outcome is common. It cannot be because, as I have argued, arbitrarily ignoring court decisions undermines the rule of law and I do think Americans hold that dear. Do you dispute that?
But even so, it is again not the main point. I am talking about effective checks by the governed on the judicial branch. The judicial branch is too far removed from the consent of the governed. They do not serve us but rather their own evolving interpretation of the Constitution. It is a failing of the Framers that this is so.
And please, don't reply if you can't stick to the point or intend to misrepresent my argument again.
If the U.S. Supreme Court had anywhere near the "power" that is ascribed to them by conservative legal experts like Mark Levin and Ann Coulter, that limp-wristed mediocrity wouldn't be out running around in Rock Creek Park without a security detail.
Congress has any number of avenues through which to overturn Supreme Court rulings, and the fact that it has not done (or even broached the subject of possibly doing so) is (to me) compelling evidence that they don't see the Supreme Court as an out-of-control institution hell-bent on diminishing the authority of the legislative and executive branches of government. It's hard to make the case that one branch of government is usurping power from another when the branch whose power is supposedly being usurped isn't even voicing a mild protest about it.
So let's wrap this up with a summary that appears to flow well from a logical standpoint.
1. Congress has any number of perfectly legitimate means at its disposal to deal with the assumption of extra-constitutional powers on the part of the judicial branch of the Federal government.
2. Congress has not acted on even a single one of these means to deal with the assumption of extra-constitutional powers on the part of the judicial branch of the Federal government.
3. Therefore, we can conclude that Congress has no interest in dealing with this assumption of extra-constitutional powers on the part of the judicial branch of the Federal government.
As far as the executive branch is concerned, I would make a compelling case that much of this administration's actions in the conduct of military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq has been specifically aimed at eliminating the Federal judiciary as a potential obstacle. The use of civilian contractors for military operations overseas, the use of off-shore detention/processing facilities for enemy prisoners, etc. are pretty much an admission on the part of the executive branch of the U.S. government that the U.S. judiciary can't be trusted to act in the best interests of the country.
You don't strike me as a moron and yet are unable to follow along. You're not even supporting your own off topic argument. Why has the administration gone to such great lengths to avoid judicial scrutiny in the WOT if they could simply ignore any inconvenient court decisions? In fact, how has it helped them? Haven't the courts taken up these cases anyway? Haven't detainees gotten their claims before the court? Aren't military tribunals also before the court? I will bet that these purported secret prisons will be the subject of court scrutiny before too long. Further, isn't it the case that the administration has complied with the court's rulings against them? Don't you agree they will comply with future ones?
I guess it is possible that you're being just too subtle for me. In clear and simple language, tell me what specific, *effective* constitutional means the people have to control the courts.
Having said that, it should also be noted that probably no more than 0.001% of the voting-age adults in this country are ever directly affected by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling anyway -- which probably explains the real lack of any concern about a renegade court that is supposedly usurping the power of the legislative and executive branches.
Why has the administration gone to such great lengths to avoid judicial scrutiny in the WOT if they could simply ignore any inconvenient court decisions?
There would be a potential political price to be paid, and the administration has simply avoided the problem altogether by doing this overseas instead of in the U.S.
In fact, how has it helped them? Haven't the courts taken up these cases anyway? Haven't detainees gotten their claims before the court? Aren't military tribunals also before the court?
Detainees at Guantanamo Bay have had some recourse in the U.S. courts, but that's a U.S. military base whose existence is known to a lot of people and where the inmates have been given legal representation. Nobody in Abu Ghraib or one of those mysterious CIA detention centers in eastern Europe has had any access to U.S. courts.
I will bet that these purported secret prisons will be the subject of court scrutiny before too long.
And I will bet that they won't. U.S. courts have no jurisdiction there, especially if the detainees aren't U.S. citizens. That's why they were put there in the first place. Even someone like "International Law" Breyer would have a hard time keeping a straight face while claiming that the U.S. Supreme Court has any jurisdiction in an Eastern European country where suspected terrorists from the Middle East are held and interrogated by foreign intelligence officials (you can be sure that there won't be any sign of U.S. officials at these places if the story gets any legs).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.