[fight_truth_decay]

Maher has turned around alot since the onset of the war in Iraq. Denouncing those that continued to speak out against the President and the war 'after' its onset.

No Boys and Girls.. Bill has not been cancelled, Maher has just taken his act to Broadway opening May 5 @ the Virginia Theatre.

[biblewonk]

constitution ping.

[Brett66]

I think what people around the world would say is it would take so little for this rich country to help and alleviate so much misery and even that is too much for them.

This clown is obssesed with foreign aid, it's like some sort of utopian fulfillment for him, despite all evidence of how it's misused. He's just plain weird.

[Uncle Miltie]

"I have learned from this when in fact the word privacy does not appear in the Constitution."

But we can still slaughter about a million babies a year on the basis of a "privacy" right that does not exist. Roe v. Wade is make-believe law based on judicial fiat, not constitutionality.

[jwalburg]

We take pride in being big charity givers. We're in fact dead last among the industrialized nations.

What's the real scoop here. Doesn't the U.S. give out billions in foreign aid? Where can we find figures of this?

[Pete]

"Yes I think so. I mean, I think, Iraqis, I think, feel that if we drove smaller cars, maybe we wouldn't have to kill them for their oil."

I simply cannot find the words to describe the stupidity and political blindness exhibited by his statement.

[Billthedrill]

"Frequently wrong, but never in doubt" describes a number of these pundits perfectly. I keep in my briefcase one of those little Cato Institute pocket copies of the Constitution which has proven invaluable in political debate - it takes 45 minutes to read it from cover to cover, including all the amendments and the Declaration of Independence to boot. For an investment of 45 minutes Mahr and his fellow travelers could actually know what they're talking about for a change. But it can be uncomfortable to find out, for example, that freedom from religion does not appear in the First Amendment and that the Second isn't as murky and cryptic as has been claimed. For the politically immature, uncertainty is merely a sign of weakness, and it is more comfortable to be certain than to be right.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

we're not granted anything by the Constitution. He's still an idiot.

[fight_truth_decay]

The Court first enunciated the right to privacy in Griswold vs. Connecticut, a 1965 case in which the Court ruled unconstitutional a Connecticut birth-control law. Justice Douglas, writing for the majority, argued (plausibly enough) that marriage was so important that the state had no business interfering with the privacy fundamental to a healthy relationship between husband and wife.

"We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights - older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred."

While privacy is not among the rights explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, the Supreme Court has nevertheless ruled that a fundamental right to privacy is clearly found in the penumbra (shadow) of the First Amendment. Or the shadow of the Third Amendment. Or the Fourth. Or the Fifth. Or the Ninth. Or maybe it's the Fourteenth. Or perhaps it emanates from all of them; it's hard to tell with shadows.Daily Cnservative

[js1138]

The question is not whether the word privacy is included in the constitution, nor whether it is implied. The question is whether privacy is a natural right, and therefore included in Ammendment Nine.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Here is another one for you Maher; neither constitutions nor governments grant rights.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

it would take so little for this rich country to help and alleviate so much misery

No shortage of socialist-speak in that line! Perfectly true, too--leaving aside the fact that we're already taxed to the point of diminishing returns, and that even so there's still plenty of "misery" (as in, people living at a standard of living no better than that of a prosperous American farmer, circa 1820) to go around.

[Mike Darancette]

I also thought that privacy was something we were granted in the Constitution.

One time on Mahr's ABC show some Hollyweird Liberal stated that the Supreme Court was Constitutionally under the Justice Department and that Ashcroft would tell them what to do.

The Airhead was not corrected.

[cruiserman]

I also thought that privacy was something we were granted in the Constitution.

Maybe he'll also realize the Constitution grants us nothing.

[OldFriend]

Wonder how much money little bill gives to charity. Real charity that helps needy people, not organizations that sound good but just exist to help themselves.

[Political Junkie Too]

The controversy last week over Senator Rick Santorum's remarks about the slippery slope of the Supreme Court finding a right to any kind of consensual sex based on a "right to privacy" in the penumbra of the Constitution...

A right to "privacy" was first broached by the Supreme Court in its 1965 Griswold v Connecticut decision overturning a state ban on birth control and solidified in the majority's Roe v Wade discovery of a privacy right in the "penumbra" of the Constitution...

Can someone define for me exactly what makes up the "penumbra" of the Constitution?

-PJ

[FreePaul]

You wonder how many journalists share Maher's basic lack of knowledge about the Constitution,...

Too many "journalists" are willing to share their lack of knowledge about anything and everthing with us.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[El Gato]

I also thought that privacy was something we were granted in the Constitution.

Of course the Constitution grants no rights to the people. It explictly protects some rights and implicitly protects others. The closest it comes to explicitly protecting privacy is the 4th Amendment's protection of the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searchs and seizures". This does not protect "privacy" in a general sense. It certainly doesn't restrict what sorts of behavior can be illegal, nor what sorts of things can be made "contraband". It just means that the government, at all levels, must have a good reason for searching and/or seizing your "stuff". It also means that they search and siezure action must be conducted in a "reasonable" manner.

[SarahW]

One point - our rights are not limited to those enumerated in the bill of rights....

In fact at the constitutional convention, many were opposed to a bill of rights on the basis that the government might point to it and attempt to limit rights to those on the list.

So they stuck in a clause specifically to avoid that... the constitution makes plain that the listing is in no way meant to limit or disparage other rights retained by the people.

For Ann Coulter to say "We have a list of very few rights" is the worst fear realized. She's mistaken, and in a big way.

[birdsman]

You mean that the Constitution doesn't give us a right to privacy? Wow! Next thing you know, someone's going to say that the phrase "seperation of church and state" isn't in the constitution either!