Help ratify the Liberty Amendment!

[cwelsch]

good idea; at LEAST a decade away from being plausible

[cwelsch]

It would require massive spending cuts or a sales tax.  The government took in $793.7 bn from personal income taxes in 2003, $22bn from estate and gift taxes.  They're not going to just cut $800bn from the annual budget, they're going to need a new tax.

[cwelsch]

I would hope any genuine civil libertarian could separate political debate and free speech from "insubordination."  Christ, what a mini-fascist thing to say.  Acting like the states are pupils and the federal government is the principal.

[cwelsch]

Abortion is legal because in Griswold v. Connecticut the Court found that a birth control law harmed the privacy of married couples.  Privacy was found to exist in the "penumbra" (look it up, chillins) between the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 9th Amendments.  In other words, Douglas said those rights suggested an inherent right to privacy.  Abortion falls under this heading, and the 14th both secures privacy (under Due Process clause) and guarantees it from the states.  That's how they did it.

Of course it's wrong, though.  The right to life extends constitutionally to all 'persons' and makes no exceptions for those conceived but unborn.