Posted on 10/17/2005 3:43:34 PM PDT by RWR8189
Because of the 14th, the rights afforded under the Constitution constrain the powers of the state. They constitute powers withheld by the people.Please, I am well aware that the 14th constrains the states. My point is that there is no right in the US Constitution to a condom. You may desperately want a right to a condom, and I could care less if you have it. However, I do care when you grow so desperate to gain your “right” to a condom that you begin mangling the US Constitution to pretend that such a right is in there. It isn’t. Should you disagree, please advise me where you find this right.
The limits on searches clearly gives a right to some privacy in one’s home, but the right to be free of arbitrary searches hardly implies the right to licentiousness. Your right to privacy in your home has clear limits, you have no right to beat your children, for example, or deal drugs. What you have a right to is that if the state is to catch you in one of these crimes, it must give you due legal process before busting into your home to search it. That does not imply a right to a condom.
Should there be such a right? Perhaps, but you won’t find it in the Bill of Rights.
patent
I second this. This discussion turned into a great talk among friends about what we think is granted or not by the constitution. I have no idea what Miers would say about this, I just have a reference to "griswald" from Specter, the guy that thinks there is a "super-stare-decisis", that doesn't apply to "bad" rulings that are a hundred years old, but apply to "good" rulings that are less than 40 years old.
Miers could have explained to him EXACTLY what Roberts said, and his comment coming out would have been 'She Loves that Griswald".
They asked a host of political ethicists and professors of ethics whether the process by which Miers was chosen was correct, and they were almost uniform in the opinion that it wasn't.
This is reminiscent of Tom Foley's proceeding with an investigation of the "October Surprise" of Gary Sick, that Reagan made a deal with the Iranian mullahs to hold off releasing the hostages until he was elected, then inaugurated:
It doesn't matter if a crime actually occurred; it is the seriousness of the charges that demand an investigation.
You're a real hoot, you know it?
No one-to the best of my knowledge-is asserting that the person who chose Miers did not stand to benefit if she was chosen for this vacancy.
This is why cronyism is bad, always!
"vetted," rather.
States should have the right to limit behavior especially when it represents a health risk to the general population or when the behavior is associated with an increase in the propensity of individuals to commit acts of aggression against youth, without the Federal government intervening and telling the states that they can't.
Nobody is suggesting that states should be able to monitor the bedroom. They had sodomy laws on the books for decades and didn't do that.
Bear with me a moment. Do you have the right to a donut? Do you have the right to blow your nose? To not brush your teeth?
Do you have the right to chose boxers or briefs? To cut your hair or grow it long? Bleach it, or shave it off?
Beard or no beard, is that your right? The right to wear plaid? The right to close your eyes when someone is talking to you? The right to put on makeup?
Your argument that there is no "right" to a condom is equally applicable to all of the things I list above. And my answer to all is the same. The constitution grants the government NO authority to deny me the use of a barrier to prevent impregnation during sex, or to cut my hair.
The constitution grants specific powers to the states, not rights to us. We have the right to do anything that the state is not granted specific power by the constitution to prohibit.
In a moment of insanity, the people of this great country made the error of passing the 14th amendment, which turned federalism on its head, without meaning to. It wouldn't have to be interpreted as it is, and for years it wasn't, but now it is. It is clear that we meant to ensure that minorities had all of their federal "rights" defended by the state, but that has to apply to all citizens of the states. So now state governments are limited by whatever the federal government is limited.
I disagree with that, but I haven't seen even Scalia making a strong effort to change that. Maybe there is super-stare-decisis.
I have always opposed the application of an "appearance of impropriety" standard.
We do not judge people by appearance, but by their actions. Appearance of impropriety in fact is a way to invite people of low morals to public office by restricting the danger of them actually misbehaving (or more accurately restricting the APPEARANCE of danger of them misbehaving).
Thus 5 senators, including McCain, commit actual acts of impropriety, and he passes a law preventing the appearance of that error -- insultingly arguing that, if he could be corrupted, then everybody could be corrupted.
Well, that is not true. Men of true character can remain true in fact, and don't need to avoid appearances.
Sorry, I know most people like the standard, I just don't. Hot-button issue for me.
>>>Bear with me a moment.
I'd rather not. I have no interest in a deep meaningful discussion on the right to keep and eat donuts.
patent
I understand your position completely- I also despise government meddling. However, we are not discussing politics or political philosophy, but the way in which the Supreme Court has tended to interpret legal precedent. Objection to Griswold does not mean the government should interfere in everything; it simply overturns the "right to privacy" that forms the legal argument for abortion, as well as sodomy and gay marriage, and it is cited by particular left-wing con lawyers as justification for abolishing ages of consent and making pedophilia a Constitutional right. What we think of as "privacy" is one thing, what the Supreme Court means by it is another.
There is no "appearance of impropriety" except in the minds of the anti-Miers hysterics. You get more desperate as the hearings get closer.
I think you can support Griswold and oppose the abomination of Roe at the same time. The two are mutually exclusive. Roberts too said he supported Griswold.
I take the position that the right to privacy was preexisting.
"Preexisting? You wrote in your earlier post that it is IN the Constitution. Where please?"
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. There are two arguments - the one I believe in most strongly is that the right to privacy is preexisting, from English common law and even before.
But I also respect the argument that Douglas made that right to privacy lives in the constitution as indicated by a number of the provisions.
This whole argument has gotten too wrapped up in abortion..we can admit there is a right to privacy without extending that right to include killing your child.
Douglas, writing for the majority in Griswold said
"Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers "in any house" in time of peace without the consent of the owner is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The Fifth Amendment in its Self-Incrimination Clause enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment."
You're in charge of an executive recruiting firm, but you're forced to retire for medical reasons.
So, you have to find a replacement.
Would you put the person directly below you in authority in charge of searching for a new candidate to replace you?
"Sodomy has been responsible for the spread of epidemics of disease through the general population, including HIV, MSRP, Heptatis, etc"
Far more disease has been spread by vaginal sex than by sodomy over the centuries... is the government empowered to ban sex too? Where does the government get this right?
Now, I can see banning sex if the person is known to have HIV but if the person isn't infected then I dont see a risk that would over-ride the person's right to be left alone by the government.
Bias disclosure: I am severel conservative with regard to governmental power and favor a smaller less intrusive government.
Question: What does MSRP stand for besides Manufacturer's suggested retail price?
MRSP should have been MSRA.. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
======================================================== Cute comment. Also meaningless.
Cheney isn't a judge, and he isn't going to be on the SCOTUS for life, even if the ill-advised "short-cut" route in that case resulted in a decent V.P..
These two picks (Roberts and Miers) are disasterous, when one thinks of what could have been. They are scary, from a conservative's perspective, based on 40 years of leftist SCOTUS picks by Republican Presidents.
And the best Miers supporters can offer is that she's a good Christian who has a left-wing past, but isn't likely to do anything too bad on the bench, because the President knows her so well. This in view of, again, the past 40 years of activist SCOTUS judges ...
SFS
Miers ==> DISASTEROUS! I'm too old to "hope for the best" regarding SCOTUS appointments, when I've seen the worst from GOP Presidents my entire lifetime.
SFS
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