[TWohlford]

"The devil is always in the details..."

Okay, then let me play the devil here...

I know I'm gonna get flamed here by people who don't see my point, and that's okay... but does anyone else see a schizophrenia when it comes to this whole "privacy rights" thing?

Privacy Rights are a sacred thing when you're talking about the Patriot Act, but are a bogus act of judicial activism when talking about Roe?

I mean, conservatives have to get this straight. On one hand, we talk about minimal government involvement in our lives, but then when something like Shivo comes along we plead for the SCOTUS to send in the Army. We talk about intrusive government when it comes to property rights, but then we raise holy hell when somone opens a nudie bar.

Yes, yes, I agree with conservatives on their points that I raised (above). However, when you invoke "privacy rights" to back OUR side, I can only shudder when I think that the same argument is used in Roe V Wade!!

[supercat]

Privacy Rights are a sacred thing when you're talking about the Patriot Act, but are a bogus act of judicial activism when talking about Roe?

Roe v. Wade has little to do with privacy, and some of the follow-on decisions have nothing to do with any reasonable meaning of the word. Something like Lawrence v. Texas would be a better example; there, the Supreme Court was deliberately put in a tough situation and should have bent a few procedural rules slightly instead of being pressured into a wrong decision.

IMHO, the fundamental question in Lawrence, which should have been up to a jury to decide, was whether the conduct of the defendants was in any meaningful way worse than other conduct by other people of which the police were aware and did nothing. The proper thing for the Supreme Court to have done would have been to remand the case to jury trial with such instructions. I am well aware that it is highly irregular for the Supreme Court to mandate a remedy other than what petitioners request, but such a course of action would have been better than either letting the prosecution of Lawrence stand or acquitting him outright.

IMHO, many "crimes" should be defined in such a way that what is forbidden is performing the act in such a fashion that a reasonable person would expect that others may be bothered or offended by it. If an act is performed in such a way that nobody knows about it, there's no crime; if such an act is discovered (and causes offense) by a chain of events the actor could not have reasonably foreseen, there should also be no crime. The question for the jury would then be whether the actor should have reasonably foreseen the discovery of his action.

[George W. Bush]

Privacy Rights are a sacred thing when you're talking about the Patriot Act, but are a bogus act of judicial activism when talking about Roe?

Roe depended on the '65 Griswold decision about a right to contraceptives and information (barring states from outlawing them). Both were loosely based, largely on imagination of the justices, around a fictitious application of either the Ninth or the Fourteenth amendments (the legal scholars are still arguing over where the right to privacy is actually found). In this article, Barr is discussing the Fourth Amendment's application. So legally, Barr is discussing a more fundamental and far better established right than we see with Griswold/Roe.

I mean, conservatives have to get this straight.

We do have it straight. Keep reading and you'll get it straight too.

[PghBaldy]

Good points. I too am somewhat concerned about warrentless wiretaps if a diabolical President (like a Clinton or a Dem) were in office. I have seen no evidence that Bush uses these supposed egregious powers to punish or harm innocents for malevolent purposes.

[Still Thinking]

I generally agree with you that law-and-order "conservatives" are a little hypocritical on this issue, but I think you have Roe wrong. Despite the fact that liberals have framed it in a privacy context, that's a smoke screen. The real problem is that someone gets killed. Privacy cannot be stretched to cover murder.

[MinnesotaLibertarian]

I mean, conservatives have to get this straight. On one hand, we talk about minimal government involvement in our lives, but then when something like Shivo comes along we plead for the SCOTUS to send in the Army. We talk about intrusive government when it comes to property rights, but then we raise holy hell when somone opens a nudie bar.

This mirrors my sentiments exactly. If we're serious about small government, than we need to be serious about small government! No more nanny state laws!

One comment I will make on Roe is that there are those who are pro-life, and those who are anti-Roe. The two groups overlap quite a bit, but are not one and the same. I personally favor both overturning Roe v. Wade and legal abortion (on a state level). Most liberals are pro-choice and pro-Roe, most conservatives are pro-life and anti-Roe, and I'm assuming nobody is pro-life and pro-Roe, but there are those of us who favor both small government and privacy rights (not legislating on abortion) and a respect for federalism and state's rights (overturning Roe).

I know that I'm going to regret posting that since I'll be flamed by people who don't realize that my position is essentially the same as theirs (leave it to the states), but that's how it goes sometimes.

[lesser_satan]

I agree with the spirit of your post, but I don't think the privacy argument should even enter into the abortion debate. By that logic, it would be OK for you to murder your wife as long as you do it in private. Conservatives made a mistake that may prove fatal in swallowing the hook on that one. Whether there is or isn't a "right to privacy", people want there to be one. Allowing the other side to use it as a strw-man in the abortion debate was extremely ill-advised.

[mugs99]

Either we all are free or none of us are. When we tolerated Nixon's violation of the Bill of Rights to declare a War On Drugs libertarians warned that this was a slippery slope that would lead to the loss of our rights. It has done just that and none of us are free now. I don't know why this surprises anyone.
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