Life, liberty, and property are not absolute, but rather have their infringement contingent on due process, in stark contrast with the previous practice of governments to take all three without due process.
Your assertion is that the majority has no business in getting involved in that due process. Your alternative of a judicial dictatorship is most frightening to me.
In reply to your misreading the Ninth Amendment:
You so decree? Amusing.
The framers and ratifiers passed laws showing that they agreed with my, not your reading. The history of the United States over the last 230 years shows that the country has always agreed with my reading, not yours. As evidenced by current law my reading persists in being the accepted one. If you were to put forth a proposed amendment clearly stating your position, there is no time during our history, including today, when it would have passed. Are you still amused? Being in the majority doesn't make me right, but it makes your assertion that I'm making a decree laughable.
You've created this Dungeons and Dragons world, where its you and your reading of the Constitution against all comers, and you can't possibly be wrong, because you're just being persecuted by the masses.
IMHO your desire to stretch the Constitution to protect such things as smoking pot only serves to weaken our Republic. Not because pot smoking will weaken the Republic, but because trivializing the Constitution and our rights does.
It must be done, as your typical reply is made up of straw man type rebuttals, -- best countered by keeping the discussion in context.
Your answer to how you define what constitutes an unenumerated right:
"Life, liberty or property" are mentioned twice in the Constitution as covering our basic rights enumerated or not.
Life, liberty, and property are not absolute, but rather have their infringement contingent on due process,
Quite true. Due process must be used in both the framing & the enforcement of constitutional law, or it is null & void.
Your assertion is that the majority has no business in getting involved in that due process.
There you go again with the out of context 'straw man' bull. I never said that. Majority decisions must conform to our Constitution, is what I said.
Your alternative of a judicial dictatorship [I made none] is most frightening to me.
Your inability to discuss the issues without so tarring your opponents is pitiful, not frightening.
In reply to your misreading [I made no misreading] the Ninth Amendment:
I wrote: -- The 9th clearly says rights do not need to be enumerated. Enumeration "-- shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. --"
The framers and ratifiers passed laws showing that they agreed with my, not your reading.
Feel free to post your examples
The history of the United States over the last 230 years shows that the country has always agreed with my reading, not yours.
Feel free to post your examples
As evidenced by current law my reading persists in being the accepted one.
Feel free to post your examples
If you were to put forth a proposed amendment clearly stating your position, there is no time during our history, including today, when it would have passed. Are you still amused?
I sure am, - more than ever. - Why do you assume an amendment should be needed to what? -- clarify the 9th?
Being in the majority doesn't make me right, but it makes your assertion that I'm making a decree laughable. You've created this Dungeons and Dragons world, where its you and your reading of the Constitution against all comers, and you can't possibly be wrong, because you're just being persecuted by the masses. IMHO your desire to stretch the Constitution to protect such things as smoking pot only serves to weaken our Republic. Not because pot smoking will weaken the Republic, but because trivializing the Constitution and our rights does.
The 'war on drugs' has indeed weakened the Republic, because trivializing the Constitution to enact prohibitions and deprive us of our rights does exactly that to due process:
"-- The full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause `cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution.
This `liberty´ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on.
It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints, . . . --"
Justice Harlan