[jejones]

"Right to Privacy... let's see, Right to Privacy..."
Hmm....Don't seem to really find that in the Constitution....

I recall that one of the arguments against the Bill of Rights was that people would think that only rights explicitly enumerated existed. The Ninth Amendment was supposed to prevent that, but evidently it doesn't always work.

[puroresu]

The Bill of Rights was designed to protect the people from having their rights infringed by the federal government. Several rights were listed (free speech, for example), but a concern arose that the federal government might assert that it could restrict rights not listed. In other words, they might claim that the listing of certain rights as being beyond federal intrusion meant the feds could intrude in areas not listed. The ninth amendment was designed to solve that problem. It says that the enumeration of certain rights as being protected against federal restriction does not deny or disparage the existence of other rights.

But you'll notice that the wording of the ninth amendment is entirely negative. It doesn't grant any rights at all. It merely says the federal government can't deny that other rights exist. Whether they exist or not is left up to the voters of each state.

In other words, the judiciary has zero authority under the ninth amendment to federally impose a "right" on the states. That's why it took constitutional amendments to abolish slavery and give women the vote, for example. The Supreme Court couldn't, under the ninth amendment, declare that a right exists not to be enslaved, or that women have a right to vote. The ninth amendment prohibits the federal government from restricting a right granted by a state. It absolutely does NOT authorize the federal courts to recognize rights not mentioned in the Constitution and force them on the states (as they did today).

And, no, the 14th amendment does not federalize the 9th amendment. That's a fabrication by "liberal" judges to expand their own power, and the power of the federal government. Again, that's why it took a constitutional amendment to give women the vote. There is no federal judicial power against the states under the 9th amendment.

[unspun]

The "right to insert one's penis into another man's rectum, before bringing it and its diseases back to one's wife" is still not something I find, either in the Constitution or in any other realm of sanity.