Posted on 02/14/2004 1:43:51 PM PST by gawd
That's a commendable trait for a politician, however having the cagones to make a decision for what they believe is best for the country as a whole is what they were elected for and is why they make the "big bucks" and are handed the helm on our behalf.
The argument had a suspiciously amoral quality to it.
William Flax
Isn't the inherent definition of a conservative as one who wishes to "conserve?"
Conserving the covenants of the U.S. Constitution would be a logical activity of a "conservative."
With that being the said, I present Amendment IX:
"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Isn't obvious that a right "retained by the people" is to be "married" and/or have a sexual relationship with the person of your choice without any government interference?
If you do not like the "libertarian" nature of the 9th amendment, which is clearly part of the Bill of Rights, and thus wish to ignore it or demean it's significance, then do not be surprised when your oppenents, the liberals, ignore and demean the free exercise of religion clause of the 1st amendment, the right to keep and bear arms of the 2nd amendment, the security of your personal effects of the 4th amendment, the protection of your property stated in the 5th amendment, and your right to home school in the 9th amendment.
Remember, being free, loving liberty, and espousing the virtues of freedom applies to everyone as individuals, not to the majority, as defined by a "democracy."
Free people make their own choices and government has no business, jurisdiction, or power to the contrary.
NOPE, because the very people that wrote the Constitution made Sodomy a crime in their own states. EXPLAIN that. If the people that wrote the Constitution thought that homosexuality was a guarenteed right then I don't think they would have been so quick to make it illegal. Keep in mind they also banned: Adultery, Sex outside of marriage, Blasphemy, and Pornography. All of these things are libertarian "rights".
So who is more in tune with the Constitution. Modern Libertarians or the men that wrote it?
Not one libertarian has even been able to explain that little problem.
The founders understood that for Liberty to truely be Liberty then restrains must be placed on it. OTHERWISE liberty becomes license, and that is the problem we are at today.
"The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure, than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty." John Adams
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams
"Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom." Patrick Henry
Most of the Founders drew upon the ideology of Burke. Here is what Burke had to say about liberty.
The distinguishing part of our constitution is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate seems the particular duty and proper trust of a member of the House of Commons. But the liberty, the only liberty I mean, is a liberty connected with order; that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle. — Edmund Burke
In some people I see great liberty indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude. But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.— Edmund Burke
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite he placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot he free. Their passions forge their fetters.— Edmund Burke
License is NOT Freedom, our founders understood this. As Judge Learned hand commented:
And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.
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