Posted on 06/01/2009 1:08:50 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Cheney Supports Gay Marriage It's not surprising when Vice President Dick Cheney disagrees with President Obama. But it is surprising when he takes a more progressive position than the president.
Said Cheney: "I think that freedom means freedom for everyone. As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay, and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don't support. I do believe that... historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis... But I don't have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that."
Society rewards the institution not the individual.
Cheney is discussing individual rights not society.
Marriage is not about the individual. Marriage is about children and society furthering its existence.
This is why the ABA lawyers are pushing for children to be mere accessories to a marriage and not part of the marriage. This way the ABA can establish the notion that marriage is just adult sexual activity. (and subsequently meaningless)
“Cheney is discussing individual rights not society.”
Which isn’t exactly made clear by the headline or the bent of the article.
I don't know if that has ever been legally decided, however, the premise of the Declaration is that men derive their rights from a creator, they are equal, and have certain inalienable rights, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The Constitution was written to prohibit the Government from intruding on those rights, among many other things. So if the Constitution protect those ideals, I would assume that it would have legal standing because every law that is on the books is base on one of those three premises (supoosed to be anyway).
I dunno, seems like six of one or a half dozen of another, either way they're both being torn to shreds.
I’m talking about here in Montana. I am wondering if you think that only homosexual marraige will assure homosexual rights.
Also, would you be specific about what your book says?
Baloney. This is a modern myth. The Declaration is part of the organic law of the United States.
The organic laws of the United States of America are included in the U.S. Code. These documents include the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Northwest Ordinance, and the U.S. Constitution.[1] These documents comprise the very first part of the United States Code, wherein lies the collected statutes of the United States.[1]
“The Constitution was written to prohibit the Government from intruding on those rights, among many other things. So if the Constitution protect those ideals, I would assume that it would have legal standing because every law that is on the books is base on one of those three premises (supoosed to be anyway).”
The Declaration didn’t invent natural rights theory. It has a LONG history predating that document.
I’d like to think the Constitution was written in order to protect our God-given rights, but that’s one of those airy abstractions that’s neither here nor there. Governments exist to command, and the Constitution presented a government its framers thought was best framed to get people to obey. They also believed in liberty, to some extent. Some would say having a powerful central government at all is an affront to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I am more and more convinced this is so. Then again, I’m not convinced things would be better without one.
Anyway, to get back to my point, the Declaration was all about one thing: declaring independence from Britain. That it did so with flowery language about liberty is secondary. If Americans believe in the Declaration’s philosophy, it does because it had been taught to do so beforehand and was repeatedly convinced to do so afterwards, partly because of the document itself but mostly because of the culture at large.
“Baloney. This is a modern myth. The Declaration is part of the organic law of the United States.”
Yeah, yeah. Legalistic mumbo-jumbo. Here’s the straight dope: the Constitution is the fundamental law of the land. Without it, there is no federal government as we know it. There is no federal government to recognize what has come before. It swiped everything away when it came into existence.
Some previous documents are now considered US code, whatever the hell that means, but only retroactively. Anyway, you tell me what it means that the Declaration of Independence has legal standing. Does that mean that, officially speaking, when after a long train of abuses our government has become destructive to the end of liberty, we’re legally allowed to revolt against it? Fat chance. You can’t codify vague philosophy.
The more telling fact than the present legislation's irrationality is its unconstitutionality. The unconstitutionality stems from its inherent conflict with the Declaration of Independence, the basic instrument which gave birth to our democracy. The Declaration has the force of law and the constitutions of the United States and of the various States must harmonize with its tenets. The Declaration when it proclaimed "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" restated the natural law. It was intended to serve as a perpetual reminder that rulers, legislators and Judges were without power to deprive human beings of their rights.
Unless there had been a Thomas Jefferson who was educated by a philosophy professor to know the primacy of the natural law -- there would be no United States of America. For, if the Declaration had been written by a pragmatist for expedient reasons we never could have enlisted the sympathies and agreement of such a large part of the then world, including members of the British Parliament in our righteous cause. They would know the pragmatic reasoning would be nothing more than pettifoggery, and had no basis in law.
We began our legal life as a Nation and a State with the guarantee that these were inalienable rights that come not from the State but from an external source of authority superior to the State which authority regulated our inalienable liberties and with which our laws and Constitutions must now conform. That authority alone establishes the norms which test the validity of State legislation. It also tests the Constitutions and the United Nations Convention against genocide which forbids any Nation or State to classify any group of living human beings as fit subjects for annihilation. In sum, there is the law which forbids such expediency. It is the inalienable right to life in the nature of the child embryo who is "a human" and is "a living being".
Inalienable means that it is incapable of being surrendered (Webster's Third New International Dictionary). Thus, the butchering of a foetus under the present law is inherently wrong, as it is an illegal interference with the life of a human being of nature.
The report of the Governor's commission explanation that it was not dealing with "morality" but only law, overlooked the fact that it turned its back on the law -- the natural law reiterated in the Declaration of Independence. The reasons given for the enactment of the present abortion law are irrational from a medical, scientific and factually objective analysis. There is no need for abortion except in very limited medical circumstances.
Chapter 127 of the Laws of 1970, authorizing abortion "on demand" is a resort to expediency which is recognized everywhere as the death of principle. The rationale of the majority opinion admits that customs do change and the Legislature could, if it should in the future be the attitude of the Legislature, do away with old folks and eliminate the great expense the aged are to the taxpayers. This, of course, would parallel the Hitler laws which decreed the death of all the inmates of mental hospitals and also decreed that for [p894] many purposes non-Aryans were nonpersons.
I should also hasten to add, though I implied it before, that the implimentation of the Constitution was a sort of coup, and was not legal in any way according to the system of government that then existed. Some of the laws passed in the previous system were kept as a matter of convenience (who knows how much trouble could have arisen had the Northwest Ordinance been erased). Some, like the Declaration, it said, hey, we like this, it has historical significance.
This ignores the fact that at the time the Constitution was adopted, we had a much longer history as Britons than Americans. You could just as easily say our “fundamental principles” go back to Plymouth Rock or the Glorius Revolution or the damn Magna Carta as an independent America. Because though the Declaration is said to have technically started an “independent America,” the Constitution was not just an American document, it was a document that created what is known as the United States of America, which never existed before.
Now, once the U.S. exists, it is perfectly free to look back and determine for itself what it considers fundamental to itself. And historians can say there’s no difference between the Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation and the United States of America. But to me, the U.S. is something completely different, something new. And it came into existence when the Constitution was ratified. Not a moment before. The Constitution is the fundamental document. That’s it.
There is not a thing vague about the fact that our rights to life and liberty come from our Creator, and not from any man, that those rights are unalienable, and that the protection of the same is the primary reason for being of human government.
These Declaration principles are in fact the basis of American liberty. Remove those principles and America is dead.
I agree.
On social issues, gay issues and marijuanna issues, suddenly the conservatives act like lefties...govt control in private affairs. what happened to indvidual rights and states rights? We are not talking about murder across state lines, here or interstate commerce or defending our borders or taxation...all federal issues.
It really comes out hypocritical when conservatives are ok with states rights on guns and no problem with alcohol/ tobacco or gambling being legal, but look out for what happens if the drug is marijuanna or suddenly they are in the bedroom.
No, I am not a Libertarian...just pointing out the hypocrisies.
If the government gets out of the marriage business then I don’t what gay people do.
“The unconstitutionality stems from its inherent conflict with the Declaration of Independence, the basic instrument which gave birth to our democracy.”
Idiotic, self-contradictory statement. If something is unconstitutional, by definition that means it is at odds with the Constitution. The Declaration has nothing to do with constitutionality. And democracy, in one form or another, predates independence.
“The Declaration has the force of law and the constitutions of the United States and of the various States must harmonize with its tenets. The Declaration when it proclaimed ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’ restated the natural law”
This is akin to saying natural law has the force of law. if but so it were true. But you know as well as I that broad philosophical conceptions have little relation to the law as it works. It all comes down to legislators, executives, and judges, and what their heads tell them is right. I’ll bet none of them go re-read the Declaration before they make up their minds.
“Unless there had been a Thomas Jefferson who was educated by a philosophy professor to know the primacy of the natural law — there would be no United States of America.”
Pah. There were several other authors in addition to Jefferson. And hasn’t history taught us that Washington, not Jefferson, was the indispensible man? Besides, might makes right in the real world. The patriots’ cause was won not by rhetoric but by arms.
“We began our legal life as a Nation and a State with the guarantee that these were inalienable rights that come not from the State but from an external source of authority superior to the State which authority regulated our inalienable liberties and with which our laws and Constitutions must now conform”
There are thousands, if not millions, who would strongly disagree with that. We were not A nation, never A state, except in a very limited and temporary sense. We were a collection of states, if you will. It took the Constitution to make us a nation.
“That authority alone establishes the norms which test the validity of State legislation.”
B.S. Nobody tests federal legislation against that standard. They test it against the Constitution.
“Inalienable means that it is incapable of being surrendered (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary).”
Really, it means rights are incapable of being alienated, that is, transfered to another.
You’re arguing against the only firm foundation for American republican self-government and liberty.
You know what we’re really talking about here? The difference between positive law and natural law. The distiction is as old as Aristotle. The Constitution and the Declaration alike are positive. That is, they were the product of the wills of legislators. They were written and issued by quasi-legitimate authorities, and only gained more legitimacy over time.
Natural law, on the other hand, can be said to be the will of God or nature, and does not depend on any specific iteration, legitimate or otherwise, to be true. Though the Declaration gave voice to such eternal truths, it is not these truths itself. To say that the U.S. government is bound to respect these rights by the Declaration is ludicrous. It isn’t even bound by the high-falutin’ phrases in the Constitution. All governments, everywhere, are dependent upon their officials and their subjects to ensure natural rights are enforced. Positive law, largely because its point is to command and to be obeyed, is impotent as regards the large-scale preservation of liberty.
Cheney does NOT support gay marriage. All he said in his comments was they he wants States to decide. That is the same view as most people. He even made a point of saying he doesn’t want Federal involvement (which the homosexual militants are demanding). Sodomy rights activists like Andrew Sullivan are spinning what Cheney actually said to pretend that he supports their lifestyle. All you have to do is listen to Cheney’s exact words to see that is a lie. He loves his daughter like any parent does. But that doesn’t mean he in any way approves of her lifestyle practices or how she might injure the innocent child she has taken into her home with her lesbian sex partner.
But you’re arguing against the statements in our founding documents that iterate the natural law, upon which any and all positive law must be based to be truly legitimate.
“Chapter 127 of the Laws of 1970, authorizing abortion ‘on demand’ is a resort to expediency which is recognized everywhere as the death of principle”
You don’t think the Continental Congress telling Jefferson, “We’re thinking about breaking away from Mother England, go write up something for us to vote on, will ya?” had anything to do with expediency? The colonies (or some of them, anyway) were already at war, for pete’s sake.
I know what you’re saying, and I think you’re right. Of course if, say, Texas would assert its 10th Amendment rights, then the “full faith and credit” clause is not applicable.
Texas could say, “We recognize you’re married in Massachusetts. Fine. But you’re not IN Massachusetts now.”
I know once a camel’s nose is under the tent, the whole carcass follows.
Cheney, though, is right in the Constitutional sense.
Sadly, we’ve strayed from the Constitution...today’s Hussein Motors takeover demonstrates that.
I think conservatives really need to find a way to, instead of co-opting the liberal position of a “federal solution” for issues (which is what we seem to sometimes seek for abortion or gay marriage), communicate a truly federalist solution.
The strongest argument for a happier, healthier nation is that kind of system. I even think average, non-involved voters can be persuaded. Hard to argue with the “let that state try it...if it works, then your state can vote on it.”
The 50 laboratories idea can be much more appealing than the “one size fits all” solution of Federalists on both sides of the political spectrum.
Just mho.
RD
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