Posted on 09/04/2004 3:25:40 PM PDT by outlawcam
hmmm.... seems we ought to repeal the 14th amendment. ...
I've seen no evidence that this actually has a chance of passing. All of the Dims, the media, and many Pubbies fallaciously cry about separation of powers and infringing on the judiciary's authority. People don't know; it's not a common sense thing like marriage is, so its chances of success are far less likely, IMO.
I agree.
The problem, my dear paine, is that your interpretation of the 14th amendment is in part under question.
The 14th is as clear in its language as the 2nd, imo. The principle behind both amendments are protecting our individual freedoms. Those who 'interpret' them otherwise are letting their single issue agendas trump logic.
In many posts you rely on your interpretation of what that means. I hate to tell you this but many disagree with your understanding of that amendment.
They would also hate to have to tell you ~why~ they oppose life liberty & property rights, no doubt.
I am much stricter (restricting myself to meaning of the words of Constitution and taking them in their strict sense only) in understanding that amendment. It is my position that unless you restrict yourself to the explicit immunities listed in the Bill of Rights, you open up the door to judicial fiat and usurpation as outlaw claims has happened, and with whom I agree.
You both ~claim~ these ~marriage~ 'usurpation's' have happened, but I see no proofs. I see no individual rights violated.
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What of the right of the unborn to life? Is this not properly safeguarded by the laws of the states. Or are we simply to let go the discussion of when that right begins and bow down in deferment to the judge. If the unborn have no such right, then that should be decided by the legislature (legislative deference). If they have such a right, then if anything the courts should defend it according to your argument. The right to life is more fundamental and prior to the right to liberty. For without it, liberty is impossible, wherefore in the canon of inalienable rights listed in the Declaration and the 14th amenmendent it holds primacy of place.
The courts have expanded the powers of the feds as much as the other branches, and in the case of abortion they have expanded it as much as any amendment might. Likewise in the case of the meaning of "marriage."
The meaning of marriage is not a Constitutional issue worthy of an Amendment. -- The meaning of murder/abortion is a matter of common law that should be decided by juries.. Not fiat prohibitions.
And contrary to your opinion, the point is not about taxes, insurance, etc., the point is about the meaning of words themselves and whether judges have the authority to rewrite not only the constitution, but the dictionary. Judges have never had such "authority" in our system.
Just as amendment is not the best answer to this judicial usurpation, neither is simply establishing a fair tax (which is a great idea nevertheless). We musn't make more laws for judges to interpret but curb judicial taste for defining words like marriage and not defining or placing in our Constitution words like emanation, penumbra, zone and privacy.
To deny that we have an inalienable right to a private life, liberty, and private property is mind-boggling in my estimation. Why on earth do you reject one of your most precious freedoms?
To be blunt, liberty is a non-right without first life. Why do you reject the right to life?
I don't. You make a false claim that I do, because you believe that the life within a pregnant woman should be protected by government from conception.
Such a concept ignores the pregnant woman's rights.
Or I should ask, less rhetorically, why do you think it the judges role to say when life begins and when the right to life begins?
In our system, neither judges nor legislators get to to say when life begins and when the right to life begins. That function is best left to juries at murder trials.
I agree it is not for the feds. That does not mean that it is not for the states to defend the right to life.
I agree. Let States defend fairly both the rights of the mother & child, and the controversy ends.
Unfair and prohibitive laws on abortion, by States, led to this mess. An Amendment attempting to criminalize early term abortion would create an even greater Constitutional mess.
Judges have removed the abortion/murder question from juries, from political debate, from discourse.
Backwards.. -- In early term abortion, they were forced to do so by fiat State 'laws' that violated individual womens rights to a trial by jury. Women were being declared criminal because of prohibitions on abortion.
What we have are two fundamental rights in apparent clash.
Exactly. -- And at conception, and for 2 or 3 months after, a womans Constitutional rights trump those of the life developing within her.
Unless we take Hobbes preLeviathan view of fundamental right: the right to everything even another's body.
A woman has a very fundamental right to her own body, newly pregnant or not. `
WHat are you talking about. Please explain.
I don't. You make a false claim that I do, because you believe that the life within a pregnant woman should be protected by government from conception. Such a concept ignores the pregnant woman's rights.
The woman has no right to kill the life of another within her. The child a woman carries is her child, yes. It is not her. She has a duty to bring that child to term. And yes the law can say she has that duty. Without duties, rights devolve into mere license. Duties are a burden that we ought to undertake happily though at times perhaps with difficulty. Just as we have a duty to defend the Constitution and its principles the principal of which is the right to life.
You would prefer that the Supreme Court define what are rights and what are not and not the people. I think it servile and unrepublican so to defer. Of course, there are some rights that are clearly articulated in the Bill of Rights. However, the rest must be left to the states and the people themselves as articulated by the 9th and 10th amendments. I am not one who thinks that the 14th has overturned these. If it be so (which seems to be the case in practice), the 14th ought to be overturned --- of course that concedes that it was ever ratified in the first place :)
Which I find rather strange, since Keyes has written extensively about how he doesn't consider Bush a fellow conservative either.
Keyes is a man who portrays himself as such a moral purist that he has the right to condemn anybody who dares to vary from his convictions one bit.
Yet he displays the same political pragmatism which you describe as "tact", during an election?
I describe that as amazing hypocrisy that makes him far less moral than anything he's accused Bush of.
Good job responding to my point, which was that Keyes has been fully behind the president since his reelection campaign began.
I don't. You make a false claim that I do, because you believe that the life within a pregnant woman should be protected by government from conception. Such a concept ignores the pregnant woman's rights.
In our system, neither judges nor legislators get to to say when life begins and when the right to life begins. That function is best left to juries at murder trials.
WHat are you talking about. Please explain.
You have to learn to follow overall context in debate. -- Cherry picking remarks from our dialog and asking for 'meaning' is what's confusing you.
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The woman has no right to kill the life of another within her. The child a woman carries is her child, yes. It is not her.
At conception, and for 2 or 3 months after, a womans Constitutional rights trump those of the life developing within her.
She has a duty to bring that child to term. And yes the law can say she has that duty.
Nope, our Constitutional law, -[see the 10th & 14th Amendments]-, says that the governments only have powers as delegated. -- Your imagined 'duty' is not an enumerated lawful power.
Without duties, rights devolve into mere license. Duties are a burden that we ought to undertake happily though at times perhaps with difficulty.
You're preaching that unless newly pregnant women follow your version of 'duty', they are being licentious. - Preach what you like, but keep it out of our law.
Just as we have a duty to defend the Constitution and its principles the principal of which is the right to life.
The Constitution defends the rights of ALL, even newly pregnant women.
At conception, and for 2 or 3 months after, a womans Constitutional rights trump those of the life developing within her.
You would prefer that the Supreme Court define what are rights and what are not and not the people.
We 'defined' our Constitutional rights long ago. You want to redefine them by decreeing that early term abortion is murder. Let a jury decide that issue, in the american way.
I think it servile and unrepublican so to defer.
Hype.
Of course, there are some rights that are clearly articulated in the Bill of Rights. However, the rest must be left to the states and the people themselves as articulated by the 9th and 10th amendments.
You've misread the intent of those Amendments. States do not have the power to decide what our unenumerated rights shall be. They can only reasonably regulate individual behavior using due process of Constitutional law. Prohibitions & decrees are not due process.
I am not one who thinks that the 14th has overturned these. If it be so (which seems to be the case in practice), the 14th ought to be overturned --- of course that concedes that it was ever ratified in the first place.
There you have it. You want to overturn a clear Constitutional principle. -- We have unenumerated rights to life, liberty, and property, that no level of our governments have ever been empowered to infringe upon.
You're willing to do all this just to control early term abortion? -- You still can accuse others of being "unrepublican"?
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