…not the conservatives.
Chicago Tribune Columnist Steve Chapman writes:
The evidence that the nominee is a right-wing nut stems from positions he took during his years in the White House under Ronald Reagan and in the Justice Department under George H.W. Bush. In one 1990 case, Roberts signed a brief arguing, “The court’s conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion … finds no support in the text, structure or history of the Constitution.” Another time, he noted a “serious problem in the current exercise of judicial power,” as illustrated “by what is broadly perceived to be the unprincipled jurisprudence of Roe vs. Wade.”
We are told that only an ultraconservative, anti-feminist zealot could say things like that. In fact, you don’t have to venture into the right-wing fever swamps to encounter such criticism. You can find plenty of it without leaving impeccably liberal precincts.
Former Watergate prosecutor and Harvard law professor Archibald Cox once wrote, “Neither historian, nor layman, nor lawyer will be persuaded that all the prescriptions of Justice [Harry] Blackmun are part of the Constitution.” The late Stanford law school dean John Hart Ely said the opinion “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.”
Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, who argued Al Gore’s post-election case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000, has said of Roe that “behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.” Even U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, appointed by President Bill Clinton, criticized Roe vs. Wade before joining the court. In 1985, she called it an act of “heavy-handed judicial intervention” that “ventured too far.”
What’s striking is how many supporters of legal abortion have trouble justifying the way the court addressed the issue. So when Roberts faults the court for its overbearing presumption and lame reasoning, he’s not on the fringes of the debate–he’s smack in the middle.
The same can’t be said of abortion-rights advocates. They not only insist that Roe is sacrosanct but pretend the public agrees with them. NARAL Pro-Choice America asserts that “surveys show that 65 percent of Americans support upholding Roe vs. Wade.”
That statement manages to be factual without exactly being true. If you ask people whether they would like to see the decision overturned, a majority says no. But the main conclusion you can draw from that finding is that a lot of citizens are hazy on what the court did in that ruling.
Most people equate overturning Roe with banning all abortions. In fact, a reversal of the decision would simply allow states to decide for themselves whether to ban all abortions, some abortions, or no abortions.
At the same time they indicate support for Roe, Americans favor definite limits on this procedure–including some the Supreme Court has forbidden. “They don’t want all abortions to be illegal,” says public opinion analyst Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute, “but they’re still willing to add considerable restrictions.”
Most Americans, for example, favor waiting periods and parental consent for minors–which abortion-rights groups cannot tolerate. More important, most Americans think abortion should be banned after the first trimester.
In a 2003 Gallup Poll, 68 percent of Americans said abortion “should be generally illegal” in the second trimester, and 84 percent said it should be barred in the third trimester. Under Roe, however, the government has to permit almost all abortions, no matter when they occur.
Steve Chapman than goes on to make the case for overturning Roe vs. Wade:
There’s no way to know if Roberts would vote to junk the 1973 decision. If the court were to do that, though, it would merely let the electorate put its conflicting feelings about abortion into law in a way citizens can live with. Allowing the American people to have their way on a subject that is not mentioned in the Constitution is not extremism. It’s democracy.
Actually .. abortion has already been decided in a fashion that the electorate can live with. Mr. Chapman’s position is simply flawed on this as is your concurrence. There would be a monumental degree more of division, strife, and inequality on the issue of abortion were it turned back to the states where it could be decided 50 different ways. Using the excuse of “it’s democracy” is a mere smoke screen for those like Mr. Chapman .. and you .. who would really rather just outlaw abortion all together. That is the end game. You and he figure you have a better chance hitting at mom & pop in the south and the heartland to outlaw abortion and push your morals in other arenas as well. I would be worried about it all but I’m not. There is no clear indication that Roberts is willing to overturn Roe v. Wade or any other long standing precedent. He’s certainly no Souter .. but he might just be another O’Connor.
Hey .. this is a representative republic you know. NOT an actual democracy in the true sense of the word. If it were, we’d not have representatives passing legislation, we’d go to the polls to vote on every decision that the Congress now makes. Clearly, this wouldn’t work. You and I may be both fairly well educated on current affairs regardless of our personal viewpoints on the specific issues. However, whether it’s a good thing or not, the average citizen isn’t so well educated. They often don’t even vote on their politicians based on much other than their personalities. I surely don’t trust them to make laws that morally impact every other citizen on a daily basis. Our founders new that fact too. Which is why we elect legislators to make decisions for us with the federal government supreme over the locals. Works better. Keeps us more unified than we would be otherwise. And — keeps rights equal across the board. Which, I re-emphasize .. keeps us less fractured as a nation.
Myke, the women killed by legal abortion certainly aren’t able to live with Roe. Nor are the women murdered by boyfriends who can’t tolerate the fact that abortion is readily available and legally sanctioned and their stubborn girlfriends refuse to submit. Nor are the 5 abortion staff who have been murdered by nutcases.
The postabortion women who live with anguish most of us would rather not even imagine are, technically, living with Roe every day of their lives. They’re far less than grateful for the “right” that left them scarred for life.
The only people gaily going about “living with” Roe are the people who make a living agitating the public about abortion. The people who struck and killed 14-year-old Sandra Kaiser when she leaped into traffic due to post-abortion anguish hardly benefitted from Roe. The woman who found Gladyss Estanislao unresponsive in a college restroom and the doctor who rushed in to perform futile CPR didn’t benefit much. The orphaned children of Patricia King, Guadalupe Negron, and other moms killed by abortionists are not exactly beneficiaries of Roe, either.
Roe stinks unless you make your living shooting off your mouth about it. For everybody else, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.
Christina ..
The problem with your ardent position against Roe v. Wade is that it does NOTHING to solve any of the problems that you described. They are quite real issues. I do not deny the validity of the horror stories that you point out. However, overturning Roe will do nothing to solve those problems. It would simply create a hodgepodge of varrying laws on abortion in 50 different states and an inumerable amount of local bodies regarding abortion, whether it was legal, and under what circumstances it was (or not). I can’t see how this would help anything at all. If anything, it would likely exacerabate the problem as it would lead to a vast inequality among states regarding abortion leading to ever worse back alley abortions in states where it was illegal and poor women couldn’t afford to travel to a state where this was not the case. Also, this very thing would create an inequality of access as the wealthier women in states where it was illegal could simply fly to one where it was.
There is no perfect solution to the issue of abortion. Illegal or not, it will remain a ‘hot button’ issue with many here divided. The only suggestion I’d make if I could be so bold to do so is that Roe needs to be kept legal but more restrictions need to be put in place. My problem is that it’s simply to easy for a medical professional to be able to perform abortions and it’s to legal for a woman to get one. Minors especially shouldn’t have such easy access. But … keep relgion out of it. This isn’t a theocracy and hopefull never will be. One’s religious philosophies should not come to bear when deciding the legality of a personal, moral issue such as this. This isn’t the Taleban and I don’t want it to be.
Myke,
Roe vs. Wade continues to be a very contentious issue, it has not, contrary to your belief, unified the country at all, in fact, it has made it more polarized. Giving people a say, allowing them to vote on the issue, atleast lets them feel like they are included, a part of the process.
As for putting restrictions on it, you seem to forget that putting restrictions on it becomes especially difficult when it is a Supreme Court decision, afterall, how do you put restrictions on a ‘constitutional right’? If you favor putting restrictions on it, than that is just one more reason to favor allowing the states to decide, since it becomes vastly easier to do so under state laws than federal rulings.
But again, I must stress our fundamental difference, indeed, the fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats. I, as a Republican, trust the people, you,as a Democrat, trust judges. Simple as that.
HP ..
I’m not a democrat. I’m an ardent independent! I agree with them on more issues lately as to me it seems the Bush administration has helped shift the country much more farther to the extreme right than just simply to a more conservative point of view. Extremeism exists within both philosophies and neither does anybody any good.
You’ve got to get away from this partisanship that disallows you from seeing any other point of view. I don’t look at you as being a republican therefore I know all of your positions. I look at you as a conservative whose positions, though not necessarily in line with mine, are from your personal ideology. Towing the party line and espousing the party rhetoric is half the problem with the atmosphere of rancor in American politics. I hate it. On both sides.
HP … you mistake something. I don’t ‘distrust the people’ as you’ve so often asserted. I vote in local, state, and federal elections myself. I fully believe that a large amount of issues can and should be decided at the local level. I simply am congnizant of the fact that some issues shouldn’t be decided locally. Some should. Some should not. The ones that should not (for me) are the ones that affect Americans across the board. Local zoning laws. Deciding how far a tatoo parlor should be able to locate in proximity to a church or school is easily a local issue. Separation of church and state is not. Equal civil rights are certainly not. Abortion is not. Any issue that affects a right that all Americans should have (or not) no matter what state they live in is a federal issue. It’s clearly why the federal government reigns supreme. It’s why federal law and the federal constitution trumps all state and local legislations and constitutions. And it’s clearly a major reason our nation has remained largely free of true ethinic, regional, and religious difference that plague many other nations around the globe. We can peacefully hand power from one political party and have it peacefully transfer back 4 or 8 years later and no one skips a beat. I firmly believe we are lucky to have a system that protects minority and majority rights .. never allowing either to trump the other. We’ve remained much more cohesive, though never perfectly so, than we might otherwise have. It’s a vast and diverse land. Dealing to much authority back to the local levels would create chasms, inequality, and a breakdown of the our nations cohesion as a people.
Funny thing is, as much as we differ as a people, I’ve always felt in the past that we all still felt a kindred spirit as Americans, no matter our differences. The harsh right I don’t think cares. As long as their points of view wins. And that’s sad. And scary.
BTW — to answer your question. It’s not near as difficult as you make out to put restrictions on what is otherwise a constitutional right. We have free speach. But you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre. You can’t incite hate. You can’t incite violence. You can’t threaten violence or loss of life. ALL restriction on Bill of Rights #1. Your point on that is moot, sir.
Ok than, let me restate, the fundamental difference between you and I is that on moral issues I trust the people, and you trust judges. A fundamental difference that parallels the difference between Republicans and Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals.
As far as constitutional rights, you’re right, it is not impossible, but it is very difficult. Just look at how hard it has been to put reasonable restrictions on abortion, be it the partial birth abortion ban, parental consent, or even the Unborn Victims of Violence act, all things taken to the Supreme court, and some of them even struck down by the Supreme Court, yet they would have all been completely allowable had the citizens been able to vote on these issues.
HP-
Thank you so much foer explaining to me what I as a liberal democrat believe, if only I could understand myself as well as you understand me.
Why is the court or congress or government even involved in moral issues. When the government starts impeeding upon my freedoms (I really don’t distinguish the branch of government doing the impeeding - After all, why does a congressman like Tom DeLay have so much impact upon my life, I did not have an opportunity to vote for or against him). To me, here is the things that seperate Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. (if I can be so bold as to perscribe your beliefs to you like you have done for me). Republicans and conservatives beleieve that the government should tell people based upon their own religious beliefs what is right or wrong. When it comes to individual (as opposed to corporations) they believe that the governmennt should be allowed to tell you how to live your life. They can tell you who you marry, what medical procedures you use, what kind of conntraception you use, what kind of sex you have. They as elected officials have the right to tell you as a private citizen how to run your life what you can do in your bedroom, in your doctors office in the confines of your own home. They believe in legislating morality and banning things that they do not believe is moral whether it harms other living people or not.
While democrats and liberals believe that the government has no business in your bedrom, your doctor’s office etc. When it comes to private matters within your own family, home and body, it is not the governments business to tell you what you can do. When it comes to matters of individual rights liberals actually believe in a small government, conservatives believe in a large governement, big-brother type government.
I didn’t say all liberals believe that, or that one must be a liberal in order to believe it, but only that it is a fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives. I think that is a fair statement to make. It’s like saying liberals are for affirmative action, whereas conservatives are not, that doesn’t mean all liberals are for affirmative action, or that all conservatives are not, but that that issue tends to seperate along those lines. Same with moral issues and who decides.
As far as abortion or gay marriage, I don’t see them as religious issues. I never once used a religious argument to prove my side on either of those issues. I believe that the pro-life position and anti-gay marriage position, could be arrived at by simple logic, not necessarily by biblical reasoning. In fact, many many religious people, even within the Christian community, don’t hold pro-life or anti-gay marriage views, and there are many non religous people, myself included, who hold to pro-life and anti-gay marriage views. For example, there is the Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League.
Or to say it another way, many on the abolitionist side were Christians and argued against slavery primarily on religious principles, but that didn’t make slavery a religious issue. One could still argue against slavery on non-religious grounds. So just because a large majority argues against something on religious grounds, that doesn’t make the arguments behind that position ipso facto religious.
To paraphrase the conservative hero - “Well, there you go again”. You are simplifiying an entire group of people and putting them into one big box. The highest ranking democrat in the country is not pro-choice. So how do we all speak with one voice.
The issue of the courts vs. the elected officials, just ain’t that hiigh on my list. It isn’t a core belief that I have. What is a core belief is that even democratically elected officials can overreach and trample on the personal constitutional rights of the individual. That is when it is the court’s job to place a check on the legislature and overrule an act of an elected body.
As far as the religious point, most of the legislators who try to overturn Roe v. Wade are basing it upon their religious beliefs, the leadership, like Bush, Delay, Frist, Santorum, Hastert are all willing to quote versus of scripture to support their beliefs and religious groups are the ones feeding their coffers. Which is fine, I have no problem with that if they want to live their life abiding by their morals that is fine. Even if you derive your morals through your own sense of reasoning without religion fine, go ahead live it up.
My problem is when the government no matter what branch tells me the morals I should follow and what I should do in my own home. That is the central argument I have. Government should stay off of my back and not tell me what is moral or not, and if the congress rights a rule that restricsts these rights, it is the courts job to stop them and put the check in place that the founding fathers wrote into the trilateral constitution. That belief is a lot closer to my core then whether I trust judges vs elected officials.
Michael,
I’m curious, what specifically about categorizing things under the liberal or conservative banner bothers you? Based on your response, one could conclude that there is nothing that could be classified as liberal or conservative. Does not the name liberal or conservative mean anything? I mean, if we are going to throw the words around, we must assume there is some shared beliefs and shared philosophies behind the two. Granted, that doesn’t mean that every single person that calls oneself a liberal or conservative has to hold every liberal or conservative belief, but that doesn’t mean we can’t classify certain beliefs under the liberal banner and certain beliefs under the conservative banner.
The reason I classify ‘who decides moral issues’ as a liberal/conservative issue, is because that is primarily how it is being played out. COnservatives tend to support the ‘originalist’ judicial philosophy, whereas liberals tend to support the ‘living constitution’ judicial philosophy. Leaving the merits of each aside from the moment, the clear difference between the two judicial philosophies is that the ‘originalist’ philosophy leaves moral issues to the legislators, whereas the ‘living constitution’ leaves it to the judges. So I may be simplifying, but I am accurately simplifying.
As far as your distinction on ‘religious issues’, I see it as begging the question. Everybody, be they religious or non-religious, has a worldview that they adhere to, and neither one has the ability to classify the other as more open. Both impose on the other, and both are mutually exclusive. I’ve explained this here before, but basically anytime you support a law that involves morality, you are pushing someones ‘morality’, be it relgious morality or secular morality, onto the other.
This issue about not trusting “the people” effected the framers of the US Constitution that they built within it some safeguards to protect the minorities from the majority. The Bill of Rights is one safe guard and the electoral college is another. There is juts cause and good reason not to trust “the people;” they are often times wrong and act on emotion.
So the mistrust of “the people” would not be unique to “Democrats,” provided they do not, in fact, mistrust “the people”. And if they did they’d be in line with the framers of the US Con.
Whether or not moral issues should be left up to the people is not explicitly stated in the constitution. Conservatives would say the constitution is in favor of letting the voters decide, liberals would say the constitution is in favor of having the courts decide. Both sides claiming conflicting views.
So without getting into the merits of each sides argument, it is a fundamental difference that on moral issues, conservatives (on average) are for the people deciding, liberals (on average) are for the courts deciding. Whether allowing voters to decide other issues is good or bad is beside my point, my point only deals with moral issues. And on moral issues, it is conservatives who trust the people, and liberals that don’t.
Again HP you are speaking for liberals, which I consider myself one and you are not stating my view. I am not for the courts deciding the legality of my moral behavior. I am for me deciding the morality of my behavior. If my behavior affects nobody but me, than it is not an elected officials place to tell me what I can and can not do.
Myself and most liberals I know do not want the courts to decide what we can do. If a legislative body writes an unjust or unconstitutional law and an individual gets arrested for breaking that law, you have the right to a trial, during that trial a court can rule that the law is unjust and impinges upon your legal rights. It would be a scary country to me if we have no place to save yourself from an unjust law.
I think it more accurate to state that conservatives tend to want the Court to remain silent and inactive on legislation that they consider to be morally right even if it be unconstitutional.
Michael, Observer,
That is the rub, you, and liberals in general, claim to believe that, but what about abortion? Abortion clearly, at least to us on the pro-life side, affects some third party. So the whole belief in ‘as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else’, and the ‘courts are there to protect the minority views’, seems a bit disingenuous when liberals state it with regard to gay marriage but ignore it with regard to abortion.
Is abortion a constitutionally protected right? Most liberals believe it is, most conservatives believe it is not. Is gay marriage a right granted by the constitution? Most liberals believe it is, most conservatives believe it is not. Does the death penalty qualify as ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ that should be forbidden by the constitution? Most liberals believe it is, most conservatives believe it is not. etc etc…
So the question here is, who decides these moral issues? Most liberals believe in a judicial philosophy that makes the judge decide moral issues like these, most conservatives believe in a judicial philosophy that pushes it back to the legislaters and voters. Hence, liberals favor judges, conservatives favor people.
“Abortion clearly, at least to us on the pro-life side, affects some third party. So the whole belief in ‘as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else’, and the ‘courts are there to protect the minority views’, seems a bit disingenuous when liberals state it with regard to gay marriage but ignore it with regard to abortion.”
-HP
A point of correction HP, the courts are not here to protect “minority views,” rather they are there to interpret the law and make sure that legislation is inline with the Constitution. If the majority wishes to unconstitutionally impose their morality or will on the minority it is the duty of the Court to check that unconstitutional foray.
And I don’t think it disingenuous at all; for the “third party,” in this instance, has no rights under the constitution; the framers did not make a Bill of Rights for the human fetus. What you seem to want to do is exert your will over the will of a mother who wishes to terminate her pregnancy. Why should the majority have a say in what the mother does to her body? The human zygote, no matter how much you argue otherwise, is not a person and is not privy to any rights afforded to persons under the Constitution.
“Is abortion a constitutionally protected right?”
-HP
Well, as it stands now yes it is a constitutionally protected right, but the right is not absolute. I think the state can regulate after the first trimester, and abortion is only allowed in the third trimester if the life of the mother is in danger. However, I am not sure of this.
“So the question here is, who decides these moral issues?”
-HP
It seems that you think that “moral issues” should never be considered by the Court. Just about every legal issue could be considered to be a moral question of sort. The Jim Crow laws of the south, the interment of US citizens of Japanese ancestry, etc., etc.
Again, if the topic or issue involves restricting the constitutional rights it is the duty of the court to make just that injustice. So, I do not agree that “Most liberals believe in a judicial philosophy that makes the judge decide moral issues…” At least, you have not made a compelling argument to support your argument.
For the record, when I use abortion as my example, I am using it in the same way that abolitionist referred to slavery. In other words, in abortion, just like in slavery of the past, there is a third party involved that must be addressed first. When most people I discuss this with use the term ‘minority rights’, they would apply those rights to slaves during slavery, arguing that the court is there to protect the slaves rights over the rights of property owners. So in that same respect, I am arguing that the unborn childs rights should be respected. But those who argue for minority rights with regard to slavery, refuse to apply it to abortion. To respond that the slave is ‘a full person deserving of all the rights of every other citizen’ and the unborn child is not, is to beg the question, since that is exactly what the pro-lifer believe with regard to abortion, and that is specifically what the slave owners denied in the slavery debate. Hence the disingenuous.
As far as regulating abortion goes, the state does not have the power you think it does. In fact, congress has tried repeatedly to ban partial birth abortion, to no avail. When something is considered a ‘constitutional right’ by the Supreme Court, it places that right so high that only the most extreme applicatios can be regulated. In this case, not even partial birth abortion, can be prohibited. So a women has every right to go into an abortion clinic, be it because the father recently left her, or for even the simple fact that she has pregnancy typical stomache aches, and get an abortion as late as the third trimester. And there is almost nothing congress can do about it. That is the level Supreme Court decisions are taken.
As far as moral issues and the courts, no I am not against the supreme court deciding all moral issues, only those moral issues that are not the original intent of the constitution.
Here, let me explain to you, in a bipartisan manner, the different judicial philosophies being debated in congress.
Liberal justices believe in a ‘living constitution’, meaning that the constitution evolves with time, and what it meant yesterday does not necessarily mean what it means today. So, for example, todays meaning of the constitutions ‘privacy clause’, interpreted with todays meaning of the word privacy, leads one to conclude that the constitution is for abortion, based on privacy. Whereas the ‘original’ intent of the privacy clause may not have been abortion, or even implied abortion.
Conservative justices, on the other hand, believe in the ‘originalist’ judicial philosophy. They believe that a law means exactly what it meant when it was written. It does not evolve over time.
This is why conservatives claim that it is liberals with their ‘living constitution’ that have politicized the courts. It is only with ‘living constitution’ judges that ones personal views matter. For example, if a ‘living constitution’ judge personally believes that abortion is murder, than s/he will be a lot less likely to agree that privacy implies abortion. Or if a ‘living constitution’ judge strongly disagrees with homosexuality, s/he would tend to rule different in the Texas Sodomy case than a judge who saw homosexuality as acceptable. Or, to give another example, that judge will be less likely to rule that gay marriage is giving equal rights to gays.
However, with ‘originalist’ justices, it doesn’t matter what ones personal views are. I, as a pro-life advocate, can rule in favor of abortion if that was what the citizens voted on and enacted into law. Or, for example, I can rule against homosexual marriage yet be a strong believer that homosexuals deserve to be allowed to marry.
In other words, ‘originalist’ judges don’t care about their personal views, or todays moral views, they care about what the law meant when it was written, nothing more, nothing less.
On the other hand, living constitutional judges interpret ‘todays morals’ and interpret the constitution in todays moral light. So under todays meaning, gay marriage denies gays the right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’, or ‘equal rights’, or violates the “no state abridging the priveledges of citizens nor depriving liberty” clause.
Clearly we can agree that at the time the constitution was written the “no state abridging the priveledges of citizens nor depriving liberty” clauses did NOT mean that homosexuals should be allowed to marry. It may mean that today, but it certainly did not mean that than (which is precisely why several states banned it). If, however, you think that law is wrong, that homosexuals should be allowed to marry, than go about changing the law. Convince your fellow voter, get the law put on a ballot, and vote on it, as many other states had already begun before the court ruled in its favor.
You see, I am not against the Supreme Court doing its job. I am just against the Supreme Court taking newly arrived at morals, morals that many people disagree on, and taking them as true, as fact, and than using that to decide what is constitutional and what is not.
Todays moral issues, especially todays hotly debated moral issues, should be left up to the people to decide, not judges.
A few quick points on this to HP –
First, I find it some what amusing that the 3 people who spoke against you on this thread all had one common theme running concurrently through our arguments and you never seem to address on this or other threads. You always seem to sidestep the very well placed point that we who are against the conservatives, Republicans, or whatever you want to call them deciding how we should act morally, religiously, sexually, or otherwise in our own private lives. Like mentioned above, I have no problem with you deciding that you want to live your life in a very conservative manner. On the other hand, you and other conservatives would prefer to legislate your own morality on me and every other citizen of the country. Why is that? Why MUST you not have the compassion to let people live their own lives? Why MUST you and other conservatives strive to shove your own personal morals own everyone else’s throat? Why is that? As I’ve said before, if any one thing at all leans me to the left, that is it. And personally, I find it quite ironic considering the fact that the republican party has always had as part of it’s mantra “less goverment” when in fact they are MUCH more intrusive into citizens daily lives and the current administration has balooned the size and cost of the federal government in comparison to the previous democratic presidency.
See, HP — the above .. it’s been pointed out to you by me and several others and you fail to address it. Is it because you realize the conservative movement truly does want to force personal morality on everyone and you don’t have an argument against this? Is this something you simply acquiese to?
Also, I think you and every other ’strict constructionist’ or ‘originalist’ in regards to the Constitution are fooling yourselves if you really believe that it only says verbatim word for word as written. Man, it was written over 200 years ago! Do you honestly think it could truly work for our current modern society without the flexibility that every successive court has built into it? It’d be a moot document and the Supreme Court would effectively be a neutered branch of government if it was not a flexible document. It was written succinctly by the framers so that it could and would be adaptable as the country grew. Do a little history man. You’ll see that to be true. Furthermore, if it was to ONLY be interpreted based on EXACTLY word for word what it was intended to cover at the time then most of it would be moot as the framers surely didn’t invision virtually any part of how our society would evolve. Again.. they wrote it succinctly for a purpose. It covered the basics. It set up checks and balances. It was designed to evolve. It is why the very nature of it has led to very little need to amend it over the years unlike virtually every other unstable constitution on the planet.
One final note, I would concur with the comments above also in that the courts protect the rights of the minorty as well as the majority. Neither has the right to force their personal morals on everyone else which is what your own philosophy would do if given free reign regardless of whether or not you would ever admit it. You simply can’t seem to separate the issue of abortion from the broader picture. Everything goes back to this one issue for you. It truly seems to cloud every other issue.
For everyones information, Myke’s comment above was marked for spam, so I logged in as him, and reposted it here. Damn spam filter!! I think I am going to get another one, cuz this one is getting to be a hassle.
Myke,
I have answered your argument, I have answered it several times, to which you refuse to rebut it. So here, so were very clear, let me give you the contradiction in the liberal argument, abortion.
In abortion there is no neutral sides, either the unborn child is a person deserving of all human rights or it is not. To a pro-lifer, like the slavery debates of the past, you are not being tolerant, you are forcing your views onto a third party. Can you please address this?
But here, lest you accuse me of being unable to seperate abortion, let me give you another example, of what I mean by mutually exclusive morals. Lets say that tomorrow I formed a group, a group that likes to have sex in public. Not just missionary, but all sorts of various other acts. And we were disgusted by the current laws prohibiting us from doing this, so we tried to change the laws.
When we encountered those opposed to allowing the law changes, we immediately invoked your argument, “don’t enforce your morality on me”. Would that be a fair response?
I say no, no because changing those laws are not just affecting them and their group, but society at large. In other words, you are affecting the environment of those opposed to you and where their children grow up. Laws affect peoples moral upbringing, and also what goes on in public affects everyone around them. So there is no ‘tolerant’ moral system, all moral systems are ‘intolerant’ in so much as they affect society around them.
So the question is how to settle these mutually exclusive views, views that everybody has a right to have? That is the question here, not whether one is more tolerant than the other.
Alfonso,
Que Paso? Sorry I hadn’t been around in a few weeks, I am just finished with finals. Whew, I have a whole 2 weeks off until I start again, that is if I get accepted to one of the programs I applied to in May. Otherwise, I may have to wait until spring.
It looks like you have a “hot” topic going on aqui, pero yo vuelvo. Como es la Familia Cons.? Necesite mas sites?
Observer #18,, does that mean you favor strict constructionist justices? You are opposed to legislating from the bench, verdad?
hey W.NM.,
I’ve missed you. But as a person who gets all swamped in school work as well, I understand.
No, ahora no necesito ninguna websites, yo estoy poniendo el ‘conservative familia’ en pause, por lo menos hasta que soluciono algunas de estas otras problemas que tengo orita. Like this spam filter problem. I’ll let you know though, thanks!!
Don’t be a stranger, stop by whenever you can.
“does that mean you favor strict constructionist justices?”
- W.NM
I am unfamiliar with that term; please provide a definition of “constructionist justices.”
“You are opposed to legislating from the bench, verdad?”
-W.NM
Of course, that is not their charge.
“To respond that the slave is ‘a full person deserving of all the rights of every other citizen’ and the unborn child is not, is to beg the question, since that is exactly what the pro-lifer believe with regard to abortion, and that is specifically what the slave owners denied in the slavery debate. Hence the disingenuous.”
-HP
Whoa. *Fans the smoke the belched from ears*
I disagree. Even if the slave maters argued that slaves were not persons they were going against the science of the time and the US Constitution. The US Constitution recognized the Black slave as a person on two separate occasions. So, there was no scientific question as to that, whereas science does not recognize the human zygote to be a person.
“As far as moral issues and the courts, no I am not against the supreme court deciding all moral issues, only those moral issues that are not the original intent of the constitution.”
-HP
WTF? There is no way that the designers of the US Con could have conceivably known which moral issues would be considered by the Court. Which moral issues were “not the original intent of the constitution” and which were?
“Conservative justices, on the other hand, believe in the ‘originalist’ judicial philosophy. They believe that a law means exactly what it meant when it was written. It does not evolve over time.”
-HP
Well, it was Conservative justices that suspended the First amendment during war time (WWI). Where in the Con does it say or is implied that the right to free speech is suspended in time of war?
This is where I get confused. So, which decision was constitutional Plessy v. Ferguson or Brown v. Board of Education? Why is separate but equal ok at one time but not in another?
“Clearly we can agree that at the time the constitution was written the “no state abridging the priveledges of citizens nor depriving liberty” clauses did NOT mean that homosexuals should be allowed to marry.”
-HP
Do you have the debates to support that? Did they also mean that Blacks and Native Americans should not be derived liberty? Clearly, they did not. So, I guess it’s time to break out the leg-irons. While my knowledge of who law works in this country I think your understanding is even shaker than mine.
Even if the slave ma[s]ters argued that slaves were not persons they were going against the science of the time and the US Constitution.
No, the science of the time recognized them as human beings, not as persons. The definition of personhood, as I am sure you know, has a philosophical basis, not a scientific one. And based on the philosophy of the time, black ‘persons’ were not considered equal to ‘persons’, just like todays philosophy that dictates unborn human beings as not equal persons to born children.
There is no way that the designers of the US Con could have conceivably known which moral issues would be considered by the Court. Which moral issues were “not the original intent of the constitution” and which were?
I clarified my point earlier, with this statement, “You see, I am not against the Supreme Court doing its job. I am just against the Supreme Court taking newly arrived at morals, morals that many people disagree on, and taking them as true, as fact, and than using that to decide what is constitutional and what is not”.
As far as judicial activism goes, I am not arguing that conservative justices are perfect, only that they are the less of two evils.
“No, the science of the time recognized them as human beings, not as persons. The definition of personhood, as I am sure you know, has a philosophical basis, not a scientific one. And based on the philosophy of the time, black ‘persons’ were not considered equal to ‘persons’, just like todays philosophy that dictates unborn human beings as not equal persons to born children.”
-HP
True, “person” is a social construct and not a scientific classification or term. However, the US constitution, which means its framers (some of whom owned slaves), recognized Black slaves as “persons;” that is very clear and undisputed. So again, your analogy is a poor one. For even the slave owners recognized Black slaves as persons, even if they deemed the person who weren’t entitled to the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. You see, their status of personhood was never in question. Nothing you wrote will alter that fact.
Observer,
There are persons, and there are persons. True, the framers of the constitution recognized blacks as ‘persons’, but they did not, as you imply, recognize them as the same ‘type of person’. In other words, it’s exactly like the abortion debate, where (most) everybody will grant that the unborn child is a human being, but not a person. In the same way, slaves were considered a person, but not equal in personhood to white people. In other words, they were not considered the type of person that deserved the right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.