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To: wideawake
The Constitution not only does not specifically outlaw the murder of the unborn but it does not specifically outlaw murder of any kind. Are we to presume that any individual state can decriminalize all forms of murder?

Yes. Your quote of the 10th amendment is highly selective. It reserves other rights to the STATES and the people--not just the people. The constitution enumerates the powers of the FEDERAL government--not the powers of the STATE governments (except in limited areas like the requirement that they have a republican form of government).

Your position is that anything YOU think is important is a constitutional right. That is no different than the far-left, living-constitution folks who think that anything THEY think is important is a constitutional right. In other words, you are a 'living-constitutionalist' but you want to control the Supreme Court so that it is YOUR living constitution, not the left's.

That kind of thinking is what got us in the mess we have now--not just in abortion law but many other areas of constitutional law. Under our constitutional scheme, the vast bulk of regulation and criminal law is left to the states exclusively.

15 posted on 12/01/2005 8:17:45 AM PST by ModelBreaker
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To: ModelBreaker
Yes.

What an idiotic claim. The states cannot decriminalize murder.

Your position is that anything YOU think is important is a constitutional right.

Wrong.

My position is the same as the framers - namely that anything presumed to be a universal right by the American people prior to the drafting of the Constitution (the right to own property, the right to life, the right to educate one's children according to one's lights, etc.) is retained by the people after the ratification.

Not anything I personally consider important, but the rights considered basic and obvious by the people of the US before the Constitutional Convention.

hence the ridiculousness of your claim that a state can decriminalize murder.

17 posted on 12/01/2005 8:26:09 AM PST by wideawake
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To: ModelBreaker
That kind of thinking is what got us in the mess we have now...

No, it was a mistake on the part of the Framers that put us where we are now. The Constitution has no effective check on the judicial branch. It is too far removed from the consent of the governed.

The conservative strategy of trying to put a different kind of judge on the courts is a losing one. One the one hand, it has clearly been hit and miss trying to guess the judicial philosophy of candidates. On the other, all it takes is a few mistakes to give us an abomination like Roe.

30 posted on 12/01/2005 8:56:36 AM PST by edsheppa
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