Posted on 04/28/2003 8:19:50 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
The controversy last week over Senator Rick Santorum's remarks about the slippery slope of the Supreme Court finding a right to any kind of consensual sex based on a "right to privacy" in the penumbra of the Constitution, has had one benefit: A well- known liberal commentator on political issues has conceded his naivete about which rights are in the Constitution.
On Friday night's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, Maher admitted: "This has been a learning experience for me. I also thought that privacy was something we were granted in the Constitution. I have learned from this when in fact the word privacy does not appear in the Constitution."
Maher's admission of his naivete came after columnist/author Ann Coulter observed on the April 25 program: "I think what he said was completely defensible and I think it's an important point, which is, you know, the Constitution describes a limited form of government and then there's a Bill of Rights with very few rights. And I think that Americans should start to recognize there are a lot of good things that aren't constitutional rights." Maher then conceded: "You know what, this has been a learning experience for me. I also thought that privacy was something we were granted in the Constitution. I have learned from this when in fact the word privacy does not appear in the Constitution."
You wonder how many journalists share Maher's basic lack of knowledge about the Constitution, a lack of knowledge which may explain much of the bad reporting on the matter.
A right to "privacy" was first broached by the Supreme Court in its 1965 Griswold v Connecticut decision overturning a state ban on birth control and solidified in the majority's Roe v Wade discovery of a privacy right in the "penumbra" of the Constitution in order to find rationale for overturning state bans on abortion. But it isn't in the Constitution.
On March 28, Maher won the MRC's "Ashamed of the Red, White, and Blue Award" at our "DisHonors Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporters of 2002." His winner, from a November 1, 2002 appearance on CNN's Larry King Live:
Maher: "We take pride in being big charity givers. We're in fact dead last among the industrialized nations. We give an infinitesimal amount of our money to people around the world. I think what people around the world would say is it would take so little for this rich country to help and alleviate so much misery and even that is too much for them. We're oblivious to suffering."
King: "And so we are hated because of this?"
Maher: "Yes I think so. I mean, I think, Iraqis, I think, feel that if we drove smaller cars, maybe we wouldn't have to kill them for their oil."
HBO's site for Real Time with Bill Maher, which has aired Friday nights at 11:30pm EDT/PDT: http://www.hbo.com/billmaher/
Starting this Friday, Maher's show will be replaced for ten weeks by On the Record with Bob Costas. But the time slot will still feature left-wing anti-war activists: Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins will be on Costas' first show this Friday.
When posted, this CyberAlert will be readable at: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20030428.asp
Ever notice how it is that eeevil capitalists will provide their political literature for free or at cut rates, whereas whenever you see street socialists with their pamphlets sprawled out on the table before them, they charge for every little piece of paper? What's up with that?
Maybe he'll also realize the Constitution grants us nothing.
The US gives out more foreign aid than the rest of the world combined. Maher is, was, and always will be full of crap. I'll bet the self-righteous little twit doesn't drive a yugo himself.
A right to "privacy" was first broached by the Supreme Court in its 1965 Griswold v Connecticut decision overturning a state ban on birth control and solidified in the majority's Roe v Wade discovery of a privacy right in the "penumbra" of the Constitution...
Can someone define for me exactly what makes up the "penumbra" of the Constitution?
-PJ
Too many "journalists" are willing to share their lack of knowledge about anything and everthing with us.
Of course the Constitution grants no rights to the people. It explictly protects some rights and implicitly protects others. The closest it comes to explicitly protecting privacy is the 4th Amendment's protection of the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searchs and seizures". This does not protect "privacy" in a general sense. It certainly doesn't restrict what sorts of behavior can be illegal, nor what sorts of things can be made "contraband". It just means that the government, at all levels, must have a good reason for searching and/or seizing your "stuff". It also means that they search and siezure action must be conducted in a "reasonable" manner.
Why bother? He just made up his figures on the spot. It takes liberals two seconds to pull their statistics out of their butts and it takes conservatives two months to mine the truth at the library.
Go for it.
Interesting observation but I would also observe that, true to their hypocrisy, these politically immature people insist on uncertainty from their opponents in the form of moral relativism. Although they are certain in their errors they refuse to be nailed down on anything. All is relative.
More important is the fact that our rights are supposed to be safeguarded by the fact of a limited government. If we had a limited government, the Supreme Court wouldn't be parsing commas to figure out if the feds have the power to ban working toilets.
Look up the word. It means something even less than "shadow".
Even though it's great sport to make fun of the term, it really was just a flowery way of saying that the right/protection under consideration is implied by something, or even more than one something, in the Constitution. As someone else mentioned, the 9th amendment, in particular, has a huge penumbra especially in regards to Federal government infringements.
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