Posted on 11/03/2005 5:33:11 AM PST by Veritas et equitas ad Votum
After meeting with Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito Wednesday, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the judge had convinced him that he believes in a right to privacy.
"Although he didn't go quite as far as John Roberts did in his hearing, he satisfied me that he recognized this to be one of the unenumerated rights in the Constitution, and he led me to believe that he felt that it was an established right," Durbin said. "I think he believes in the fundamental right to privacy."
During a 40-minute visit in Durbin's Capitol leadership office, the pair chatted about baseball, their families and growing up as first-generation Americans. Durbin, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he wanted to get to know Alito as a person, as well as to understand his views on key legal issues.
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(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Yes...and that is wrong in what way?
exactly right. a case over the government laws prohibiting consensual marital use of contraception, led to Roe. A case over consensual sex practices between adults (Lawrence) is what the left is using to beat a path to a right to gay marriage. Its not the underyling "privacy" cases in these areas that are the problem, its the crazy extension of the concept to these other things that is the problem.
that's what the conservative justices on the court need to reign in - and I think Alito will be one of them.
In Virginia, at least, but to my understanding, all other states as well, the state legislature has power over every aspect of what can be governed unless that state constitution prohibits the exercise of that power.
Or the federal Constitution prohibits it, like making treaties or coining money, etc.
This is a little understood fact, but it is a fact. It is the opposite of the federal constitution, through which the states created a federal government and allowed it certain limited powers.
The states pre-existed the nation. The states were sovereign. The state legislatures, as the elected representatives of the sovereign people of the state, could pass any law on any topic, unless prohibited by their state constitution.
For example, a state legislature could pass a statute establishing a state religion, and some did.
The Congress was prohibited from doing so, after the 1st amendment was ratified by the states. But the states still could unless prohibited by the state constitution.
What I understand is that the federal government ONLY enjoys such power as given them explicitly within the Constitution.
The 5th amendment says that life, liberty, and property may only be infringed upon in case of "due process". Therefore, a trial by jury of one's peers where the defendant enjoys the right to counsel qualifies as such, and if a jury declares death to be the punishment, I accept its judgment.
I thought the ONLY right to provacy in the Constiution coverd the issuance of search warrents for evidence.
You said: "Because "Rights possessed by citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution" is not the same as rights retained by the people."
You may not think so, but as a legal doctrine, it is exactly the same thing. That is what the Originalist Theory of Constitutional interpretation is all about.
What did the language mean to the people who wrote it and ratified it.
They have the whole issue upside down (as do many "conservatives"). A right need not be enumerated in the Constitution for it to be held by individuals. The format of the Constitution is to list explicitly the various powers and legitimate areas of interest for the government. The onus is on THEM to show how where the Constitution ALLOWS them to invade someone's privacy, not upon the individual to find a provision prohibiting such invasion. Anything not explicitly addressed should be decided in favor of the citizen and against the government.
You said: "What I understand is that the federal government ONLY enjoys such power as given them explicitly within the Constitution."
Quite right.
I think we are getting mixed up over the limited power of the federal government, which we agree on, and the rights of the people.
The federal consitution did NOT create any rights for its citizens. Those rights pre-existed the Constitution.
Because many anti-constitutionalists feared the power of the new federal goverment--that it might some day try to take away the rigths of the citizens--a Bill of Rights was ratified.
The Bill of Rights did NOT create any new rights. It only memoralized some very important ones, so there could be no mistake later, and left others not mentioned alone.
What you said. Also see my post 49 along the same lines.
Therein, Captain Jack!, lies the problem. The government continues to turn the screws down on our freedoms. "Reasonably regulated" is defined as whatever the legistlatures (more and more, the federal legislatures) determine it is.
If "they" decide it is reasonable to regulate citizens and make us pay 90% taxes, then it will be so. And, they will have the power of the state or federal government, which (as I recall) has a very significant military and/or quasi-military arm to enforce it's "reasonable regulations".
One can make the arguement that our rights (be it those declared in the Declaration of Independence or those SPECIFICALLY ENUMERATED in the Constitution) have continued whether away.
The court's intervention is altogether bad, but it seems that all too many "common sense" decisions aren't based on anything in the Consitution. Moreso, the legislatures are routinely overruled by the judiciary in what continues to be an abuse of the ENUMERATED powers noted in that very Constitution. And, worst of all, it seems that most of the decisions that have to do with "privacy" have to do with cutting open unborn babies heads and sucking their brains out; while, decisions that limit our privacy have to do with reducing our ability to arm ourself...with actually firearms or with processes that would protect a citizen from the governments accruing power.
And, no, before you run right off into hyperbole land...we should be interested in (extremely) limited regulation, not reasonable regulation as defined by judges who are not elected and can't (for all practical purposes) be unseated. Or as defined by lawmakers who are no longer representing their constituencies interest, but, instead, representing the special interest of a select minority that happen to have the ability to fill the politicians pockets, errr, election fund.
One can easily make the arguement that judicial activism is precisely what has tied us up into these knots we find ourselves in.
PING
Further supporting my claim, you have based your statement on the phony premise that the Declaration of Independence is law.It sounds like Captain Jack is an Originalist.
Then, you say a concept is unconstitutional because it violates the Declaration of Independence.
Keep writing, you're almost as entertaining as the Democrats!
You also have no right to protection from unreasonable search and seizure if you have no right to privacy.
It is there, but since it is linked to abortion by many, conservatives have a kneejerk, non-thinking reaction against it.
Like boxing?
You said: "If you were to read your constitution you would see that it lists explicit powers and some explicit prohibitions.
If, as you claim, states have the practically unlimited power to regulate from whence did this power derive? If, as you claim, states have the practically unlimited power to regulate why would they have a constitution delineating powers? Wouldn't it be accurate to call a system where the state has practically unlimited powers a tyranny?"
I have read my state constitution and the law is my business. You are missing an essential point: The state and the people are one in the same. The soveriegn people elect their representative govern their state, and the state is then soveriegn too. You suggest that the people do not have the power to govern themselves. But the fact that they are the source of all power must mean that their elected representatives in the state legislature have ALL of that power, unless the state constitution prohibits its exercise.
What the state constitutions do is set up a form or method of government. It confers no power to the legislature because it already has it all. By contrast, the federal constitution says that the federal government has NO POWER except for the specific powers that are set forth in the federal Constitution, a document created by the. states keep in mind. The states were going to give up as little of there power as possible. Just enough for the national govenment to work and do the things that the states could not do well, like wage war or make treaties.
The state governments are not "tyranny" because the legislatures are vested with the soveriegn power of the people themselves. By definition, that cannot tyrrany.
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