Talk Elections

Have at it.  I'm especially looking forward to hearing from our "strict constructionist" friends.

the bill of rights is a safeguard of the rights of the people, it is not their source. is not an exhaustive list of the rights retained by the people. if you read it in conjunction with the tenth amendment, it makes sense.

What I'm getting at is that this, put together with the Fourteenth Amendment, really belies claims that there isn't a right to privacy in the Constitution, that there isn't a right to marry in the Constitution, etc.

     Or rather, those rights may not be in the Constitution, but people nevertheless possess them.

Or that those rights may not be specifically mentioned, but bubble terms imply them?

The Tenth Amendment is still in the Constitution, you know.

The idea that the Ninth Amendment is a blank check, allowing the government to do whatever it wants, is absurd.  But that doesn't really matter, since of course the Constitution is just a "lump of clay" for us to morph into what those in power we want.  If we're going to buy that argument, we might as well just not have a Constitution at all.

I could bring up some quotes and junk during the ratification, but it wouldn't matter since they're all just "commentators" we don't have to listen to, according to some literary theory best suited for a poem or Moby Dick, rather than the founding document of our nation.  That idea is so absurd, and so dangerous to liberty, because it essentially rules the Constitution null and void.

Well, you see, by your reasoning the ninth amendment gives people the right to kill you.  Sweet dreams.

In all seriousness, the ninth amendment does not establish complete anarchy, as it would by your interpretation, what it says is that the mere fact it states that government does not have jurisdiction over the free exchange of ideas or one's private home and life, among other things, does not give it carte blanche to declare jurisdiction over everything else, even though the "rights" to those things are left unstated.  Like most of the rest of the Constitution, it's ignored.

some elements of a right to privacy are implied by the Bill of Rights. no part of the Constitution deals with marriage - it is only when there is unwarranted discrimination by the government that it could conceivably be an issue, even with the fourteenth amendment.

     They don't have to be implied, even. There are rights that are established by statute. The text of the Ninth Amendment seems to me to just be saying that something doesn't have to pop up in the text of the Constitution for people to be able to claim it as a right.

How about a right to abortion? I think everyone, supporters and opponents, can agree that, regardless of the privacy rights explicitly in the Constitution, abortion is not contained in those explicitly contained.

Anyway, the 9th Amendment is as much a blank check as the 10th Amendment is a restriction on the power of the federal government. They can be read to mean whatever you want (give or take away whatever power you want) because they were added, not because they were good policy (or for any policy reasons at all), but because the Framers needed some of the more ardent Federalists and Anti-Federalists aboard. As a result, they have no attached legislative intent (other than getting states to ratify the Constitution), and judges can do whatever the hell they want with them since the wording makes no attempt to clarify.

Of course a right to abortion cannot be inferred from the privacy concerns addressed in the Constitution. Anyone who uses the Constitution to support abortion does not take its intended meaning seriously. The 9th amendment is not a blank check for the federal government to do what it pleases, simply because the bill of rights is a charter of what Isaiah Berlin called "negative liberties". There is no implication of a right to anything being provided by the government outside of its enumerated powers. The focus in the bill of rights is on what the government may not do to you. All of this is dependent on an idea of natural right rather than rights being granted by the government.

There's a clear inferred right to privacy and bodily autonomy inferred from the penumbras of the 4th, 9th, and 14th Amendments.  Read Roe (one of the most bold and creative, and I like boldness and creativity, interpretations of the Constitutions I've ever had the pleasure of reading).  William O. Douglas was the man, unlike so many of these current Justices that think they have to be bound by Framer's intent.

So you're a Scalia fan, since he believes that as well?   I like Scalia ftr.

Ah, you mean one of those justices who have no place anywhere near a federal court?

I'm not a Scalia fan but I certainly hold him in higher regard than, say, Clarence Thomas, who views the Constitution as a totally frozen artifact from a bygone era like Morgan does.

The problem with the ruling is not whether the rights to privacy or bodily autonomy exist. Regardless of whether or not they do, neither right inherently has relation to the issue of abortion unless you make the assumption that a fetus is not also a living person, who would be equally entitled to the right of bodily autonomy should it exist. The question of the personhood of a fetus is the single most important question in regard to abortion, and it seems to be one that is often easily ignored, including in the ruling and the left's support for it.

I'm going to go rob an old lady.  You see, the laws pertaining to robbing old ladies are really open to creative interpretation beyond their original intent.  After all, I have really good reasons to rob that old lady, and she's a cranky old coot anyway.

The Constitution is a set of laws setting out the framework of our nation, restricting the power of the federal government, and ensuring that the rights of the people are preserved.  The only reasonable way to interpret it is through a reading of the text and why it was put there.  To "re-interpret" it with no regard to historical or textual fact is dangerous, and it usurps the very constitutional framework of our nation.

We might as well just not have a Constitution at all, if it's going to be rendered meaningless in this way.  We could be like the Roman Republic, and rely solely on precedent and whatnot.  And then I can laugh when our nation goes the way of the Roman Republic...

I believe I've said this before, but I'd be perfectly fine with this.

Or, you know, like the United Kingdom, which is the same way.

     Not a system I would rather like to emulate, given the tendency of politicians through the ages towards incredible abuses of power.

Fair enough. I'm just pointing out that having an informal constitution isn't the end of the world.

Well as PiT pointed out, it creates a system that is prone to abuses of power.

Seriously, though, I've always, always favored Parliamentary Democracy over the bizarre government system we got saddled with, and the only way to switch would be to trash the Constitution and start over.  Sadly, I know that'll never happen, but whenever people do trot out that line "we might as well not have a Constitution at all," it doesn't really resonate with me.  Why would I want to keep the document that enshrines our sh**ty form of government?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the United Kingdom hasn't had an autocratic regime since roughly one hundred years before our Constitution was written.

And, of course, there have been no notable abuses of power in the US since the adoption of the Constitution.

William Pitt the Younger disagrees.  :P

Seriously, though, the guy suspended Habeas Corpus, public political meetings were banned (except those for the express purpose of petitioning Parliament, and even those were limited), dispersed armed forces throughout the countryside, and other lovely measures.  He might have just been Prime Minister, but he had some pretty autocratic power.

All that happened before Britain was a democracy, anyway. The existence of Parliament alone did not make it so. Britain certainly has had no major abuses since 1832 (a rather arbitrary designation for the beginning of democracy in Britain, but it was a process).

???

The Left doesn't ignore the question of personhood. The Left has clearly answered that question with the position that the fetus is not a person, and some leftists aren't afraid to state that outright. Some support abortion even if they disagree over the personhood issue. I'm sure many people would say "well, OK, the fetus isn't nothing, but it's still not a person, and I'm still for the right to abort it."

Where is this coming from?  When has anyone said the 9th has anything to do with alllowing the government to do anything at all?