Posted on 08/11/2003 11:45:05 AM PDT by jmc813
If this means the judiciary's doing its duty to prevent legislatures at any level from diminishing the peoples' individual right to liberty of conscience and action with the sole caveat that they not infringe the equal rights of others, then I am for it and Mr. Paul is mistaken regarding the broad expanse of our freedoms and their several watchdogs.
Among the many founding lights who instruct us in this we may take Hamilton in Fed #78:
"There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid."
...
"If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not to be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution. It is not otherwise to be supposed, that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people to substitute their WILL to that of their constituents. It is far more rational to suppose, that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body."
...
"This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of those ill humors, which the arts of designing men, or the influence of particular conjunctures, sometimes disseminate among the people themselves, and which, though they speedily give place to better information, and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency, in the meantime, to occasion dangerous innovations in the government, and serious oppressions of the minor party in the community."
1996 was Dole's schism campaign.
And there's every expectation that a legislature's job is to debate ANYTHING that is a potential danger and legislate those things that seem so imminently dangerous that a majority agrees is dangerous.
And if you have an incurable disease that is passed sexually, then what you do sexually is of interest to the rest of us.
You also do not have the right to discharge a firearm in a backyard if you live in a subdivison with houses nearby.
Same principle.
Paul is a consistent libertarian with a grasp of the Constituion, something the libertines simply loath when it is coincident with their ideology and hate when it isn't.
As it applies to those relations only, the laws don't exist for the protection of children that might result, but because it regards such conduct as abominable in and of itself - despite the fact that the very same behavior is perfectly legal for unrelated persons. So by the criteria you've laid down, the law in question is guilty of "inequality".
By the way, that link you provided is not to a list of incest laws, but of marriage laws. I would wager a large amount that in all the states, sexual relations between family members is illegal, regardless of fertility.
1. The legislature has the burden to consider/discuss any behavior.
2. The legislature has the burden to legislate ONLY on those that have a clear, imminent impact on the community.
Defending against an attack on the community, whether from Islamic Terrorists, Chinese missiles, or disease nurturing behavior, is the primary function of government.
Not the same thing, incest laws exist to stop the possible creation of genetically defective offspring.
It is the same thing. Allowing genetically defective people to procreate (especially if they have the same defect) greatly increases the likelihood of genetically defective children. But there's no law against it that I'm aware of.
They detailed their agreement on paper, and went through with it.
There are no laws in England against that.
There is no possible way in a society to enact laws to cover every specific "what if" that you can come up with, and still be considered a "free society", and we should not be governed in accordance to the lowest possibility, or to avoid the least likely circumstance.
You are down to trying to justify the violation of the constitutional tights of millions based on some far-fetched "what if" about an infinitesimal portion of th population.
No thanks.
Would you mind substantiating any of these generalizations you keep throwing around?
That's not the whole story, and like the rest of your posts, far from the truth. Laws against parent/child incest are set in place to avoid the very real possibility of sexual abuse prior to the age of consent as well as the reasons you listed above.
Come back to me when you can base your argument on something other than your imagination.
So it's not considered illegal when the child is above the age of consent? And how do you explain laws against sibling incest?
Yes, it's a scholarly method of inquiry: When someone lays down a principle in one area, he should be asked how it applies in other areas. If he can't come up with a solid answer, it's usually a good sign that he hasn't thought his principle through as far as he should have.
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