Posted on 10/15/2006 6:55:12 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Justice Antonin Scalia on Sunday defended some of his Supreme Court opinions, arguing that nothing in the Constitution supports abortion rights and the use of race in school admissions.
Scalia, a leading conservative voice on the high court, sparred in a one-hour televised debate with American Civil Liberties Union president Nadine Strossen. He said unelected judges have no place deciding politically charged questions when the Constitution is silent on those issues.
Arguing that liberal judges in the past improperly established new political rights such as abortion, Scalia warned, "Someday, you're going to get a very conservative Supreme Court and regret that approach."
"On controversial issues on stuff like homosexual rights, abortion, we debate with each other and persuade each other and vote on it either through representatives or a constitutional amendment," the Reagan appointee said.
"Whether it's good or bad is not my job. My job is simply to say if those things you find desirable are contained in the Constitution," he said.
Scalia's comments come as the Supreme Court this term will hear closely divided issues involving partial-birth abortion and school integration. They are expected to test the conservative impact of the court's two newest members, Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
Scalia, 70, has consistently voted to limit the use of race in school admissions and has called for the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing a woman's right to abortion to be overruled. But his influence was often limited by moderate Sandra Day O'Connor, who cast deciding votes on those issues against him.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson defined government's role, "The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government."
God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.
"Resistance to tyranny is obediance to God." -- Thomas Jefferson
I absolutly LOVE this guy.
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:7TNMgFGD2DoJ:etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/biog/lj08.htm+declaration+of+independence+as+legislation&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=5
Life of Thomas Jefferson
8. Declaration of Independence
Yes it does. It falls under defence of the country.Abortion does not.Wanna try again?
Doesn't mention a Marines Corp. either.
Or a Coast Guard, or FBI, or Department of Education or appelate or district courts or a page system or an income tax (specifically).
Thomas Jefferson
Nice quote, but it doesn't prove the statement:
The Constitution validates the Declaration of Independence as a document of legislation.
But really, thanks for playing.
Article I, Section 8: Congress must provide for the Common Defense.
Ok, that's still Thomas Jefferson. We're looking for where "The Constitution validates the Declaration of Independence as a document of legislation."
Once again, thanks for playing.
Life of Thomas Jefferson
8. Declaration of Independence
Still fixated on Jefferson. Smart guy, wrote the Declaration and all, but still doesn't speak to The Constitution validates the Declaration of Independence as a document of legislation.
So I'm still going to disbelieve that the Declaration has any legal standing.
I say that not by way of speculation, either, but because that is in fact what they themselves said they were doing. If you read the debates in the federal convention, if you read the extensive debate that took place without doors after the convention was released to the general public for ratification in the thirteen states, you will find, running throughout that debate, a set of common assumptions and principles which were common not only to those who advocated the Constitution, but also to those who opposed it. They took a different view of whether or not, in fact, the Constitution of the United States, as it was prepared by that federal convention, would satisfy the requirements of justice. But their sense of what those requirements were was unanimous. There was a unanimous understanding that the aim or end of the exercise was a government that respected the basic rights of human beings, for the sake of which they declared, all of them, the American Revolution had been fought.
So I say that because it might come as a surprise and shock to some people, but there was no dispute in principle, when the Constitution was being debated and ratified, about the standard of judgment that was to be applied when you asked yourself whether it should be accepted or rejected. You read through the Federalist Papers, you read through the works of Brutus and others who opposed the arguments being made in the Federalist, and they all had common ground. They were all, perhaps, coming to some different prudential conclusions about whether what the Constitution proposed would in fact safeguard basic rights, respect what they commonly agreed to be the principles of small 'r' republican government. But they agreed in believing that the aim or end of the exercise was a frame of government that would respect those principles. There was, to put it simply, a common idea of justice which animated them all.
I think in the end it was, in fact, that adherence to a common idea of justice that made it possible for the Constitution to be adopted, and for that adoption to be respected in the beginning in spite of the very real differences that existed about whether the Constitution was a good one or a bad one, one that would last and serve liberty or one that would, in fact, erect an edifice to destroy it. And very strong opinions were expressed on one side and the other about this point of prudential judgment. What was not in dispute, however, was what the principles of judgment ought to be, what the idea of justice was, which animated those who engaged in the debate.
So it was God who did it. Flowing beard, robes, burning bushes. Got it.
Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated -- The Borg
"Now that means that if you were a thorough-going originalist, you would have to take the principles stated in the Declaration very seriously. Because, apart from those principles, you would not even be able to apply to the Constitution of the United States its right name, which is that it establishes a republic. So when I hear folks, or hear of folks, who cavalierly dismiss the Declaration, in terms of its relevance for constitutional interpretation, I have to scratch my head. It's sort of like somebody looking at an architect's drawing and saying that you can understand what it means apart from any understanding of the principles of engineering. Generally speaking, this is absurd.
And in this specific case, it is also absurd. That from the point of view of logic; if you want to get to the original intention, then you must take seriously that philosophy of government which formed and informed that original intention. If you do not, then you are maybe going back to find out what words the Founders used, but you are refusing to consider the meaning which they ascribed to those words.
They raise fewer children than we do. The causes of this are to be found, not in a difference of nature, but of circumstance. The women very frequently attending the men in their parties of war and of hunting, child-bearing becomes extremely inconvenient to them. It is said, therefore, that they have learnt the practice of procuring abortion by the use of some vegetable; and that it even extends to prevent conception for a considerable time after. During these parties they are exposed to numerous hazards, to excessive exertions, to the greatest extremities of hunger.You can Google keywords to determine the source.
Also, the Virginia Bill of Rights:
http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/virginia_declaration_of_rights.html
But USSC did not use the 9th amendment to come up with a right to privacy I mean a right to abortion...... They simply made it up. They and everyone knows they did but they do not care....... It was very shotty reasoning. It was more or less a legal fantasy....And the country have been fighting about it ever since.
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