““The court commands no armies, it has no money; it depends for its power on its credibility. The only reason people obey it is because it has that credibility. And the court risks grave damage if it strikes down a statute of this magnitude and importance, and stretches so dramatically and drastically to do it.”
Kind of like creating a right of ‘privacy’ and then twisting and torturing the English language to make abortion legal?
There's a lot of truth to that statement. (BTW when referring to SCOTUS court is always Court.) The Court from the beginning feared being rendered irrelevant if their rulings were ignored. And since they have "no armies" they cannot force their rulings. Thus they have a long history of splitting the baby.
"And the court risks grave damage if it strikes down a statute of this magnitude and importance, and stretches so dramatically and drastically to do it.”
That is the scary part. It sounds like a threat that if the Court does not rule their way, they will ignore the ruling.
I understand why they're sweating bullets.
"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." - Ninth Ammendment, US Constitution
The idea that a right to privacy does not exist because it isn't mentioned in the Constitution is itself unconstitutional. It was the main reason there were opponents to having a Bill of Rights in the first place. People were afraid that by spelling out some rights it would be inferred that they were the only ones we had. And that's exactly what you are doing. But the Ninth Ammendment was added just to prevent people from doing that, and was essential to getting a Bill of Rights passed.
And how many divisions has the Pope? But when 0bamacare knocked down the conscience clause exception to abortion related medical care, the Church found that it had allies all across the religious spectrum.
Reiterating my tagline, the Mandate of Heaven resides in the hearts of men.