Hello:

What rights do you think the 9th Amendment refers to? If there aren't ANY beyond the first 8, WHY did the Founders write the 9th? Could gay marriage be one of them?

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

excon

Some EVOLVE quicker than others. I mean how would you feel if your slaves, and people you have kept in a closet suddenly told you to screw yourself?

Funny then that the 9th wasn't cited as a reason for the gay "marriage " decision. Actually the 9th has never been used to justify the protection of any right not included in the original Bill of Rights. I've read about the Bill of Rights and it's creation for a long time and I've never found anything specific as intent behind the 9th. It reads almost like a disclaimer . The disclaimer coming from the concern that some founders had ,that enumerating some rights in the amendments would exclude other rights that people in a free nation are entitled to.

Maybe the 9th should be rewritten to state : 'The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, therefore people are entitled to whatever the liberals at the time think is right.'
What you think "the people " really thought that gay "marriage" is a right ? That isn't the case whenever gay "marriage " was voted on .

Nahh ;it wasn't the 9th .The court made it's decision by the use of pretzel twisting logic in their interpretation of the 14th Amendment . If you believed that it was justified under the 9th then it would've been up to the people;as the text of the Ninth plainly says,to find and codify the right ,instead of judges imposing it on the people .

Hello again, tom:

I'm glad you brought it up.. Of the 10, which right do you think Americans would affirm with their vote?? The right to give criminals lawyers?? Nahhh... The right against cruel and unusual punishment? Come on... The right to remain SILENT? Nahhh... The right to due process?? Of course, not. The right to burn a flag (free speech), or paint a cruficix in puddle of urine?? Dude..

Isn't it a good thing that we don't VOTE on rights??

excon

So you are content with unelected ,appointed for life judges making the call on which un-enumerated rights are actually rights ? On what basis do they decide it when the clear language of the 9th is :The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

That is exactly why they did not use the 9th as a rationale .Instead they dug deeply into the penumbras formed by emanations of the 14th amendment .

The (th amendment has nothing to do with gay rights. Im not even sure where your trying to make the connection to it.

Just for argument sake what are the rights retained by the people?

How about a right to work or have a place to live whether a boss or landlord likes gay people or not.

Where does that right come from, how about the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It seems to me these things are infringed everyday under intrepretations of that Constitution

The manure pile is getting deep...

Employers have the right to employ people that actually work and aren't a distraction or cause distractions. Creating special privileged minority classes does no good for the majority or the employers forced to hire them. Because I've seen too many cases where a certain "protected " class does not hold up their end of the work and when disciplined or threatened with firing to bring their work up to the level expected of everyone else... they start throwing around the "Special privileged class" card as an excuse... to shield themselves from the requirements everyone else has to meet.

Doesn't always work... and sometimes others who do pull their own weight have to forgo pay raises because the people not carrying their own weight tries to sue the employer. Those legal fees come at someones expense. Raises and dividends to Shareholders specifically.

I've worked for a lot of places....and all managers care about is that the work gets done on time or before (as well as to or above required standards). They don't care who sleeps with whom (as long as its not with coworkers) , or what color the people doing it are, or what bits they may or may not have under their clothes.

But some people (a minority of them) feel they are entitled to do less..or not work to the standards everyone else has to because they are "Special". They don't last long anyplace I've worked. Because what they don't do everyone else has to work harder to pick up the slack....and everyone else WILL make sure they do their part or make them want to go someplace, ANYPLACE else.

Don't see that right anywhere either. People have the right to contract together, you could call that employment but each side of the contract has the right to a fair outcome, so there is no right of exploitation which is an assumed right of the ruling class and employers.

I don't know where this idea you have that people want to do less. People want a fair outcome and will do less when they feel they are exploited or not valued. Obviously people will do less if they are allowed to or clear and fair goals are not set. There is a right of a fair days work for a fair days pay but often such contracts are one sided

Oh there are lazy people that will do as little as they can get away with... and it has nothing to do with being exploited. I've known far too many of them at far too many different employers. There is no right to what ONE person considers a Fair days pay. The market determines what that is... and there will always be those companies that are willing to pay more for the people that deserve it. If you aren't happy that Company "A" will only pay $10 an hour for someone to push a button every 45 seconds... go look for another company that is. You will find one if you are good enough at pushing that button.

Anyone that stays at one employer their entire career isn't going to get a broad experience base... (which is worth more), nor are they going to get the best wages long term. You have to be willing to change jobs... develop a larger skill set and parlay that larger skillset into better higher paying jobs at employers that need that bigger skill set.


But without knowing how to do more than just one task, you just aren't worth that much money. You have no versatility.

The first 10 amendments where actually done together as a compromise between the Federalist and the Anti Federalist and had to be done to get the US Constitution approved. Without them added, (at the time of approval by the states, the US Constitution would never have been approved.

The concern was actually the opposite of gay marriage, it among others was to protect the rights of the State, and only allow the Federal Government the power, not very specifically given to it,

Such as marriage, which was a state right, not a Federal right given.

Yes everything is compromise but you would think after 200 or so years there would be greater enlightenment after all these state soveriegnty issues were some what resolved by the civil war and continue as an ancharicism

No they weren't . The Constitution had a series of post war amendments to deal with the issue that caused the war ;specifically to guarantee the rights of the freed slaves. Federalism was not abandoned . Oh the progressives complain about it loud enough ;until issues like pot legalization and nullification of the immigration laws via so called 'sanctuary cities' come up . In those cases they are all for state soveriegnty .

Your premise that Federalism is a product of an unenlightened time is absurd.

The rights of former freed slave and their descendants (As well as other minorities, and as history reveals women, who are a true majority) is at best still a works in progress and far from being resolved but will be if we continue to be MORE enlightened, and INCLUSIVE.

We may not know where the evolution of a society originally starts but we do know it never ends. In the context of a whole society(s) some evolve faster than others, which in itself is the basis for policy/social conflicts. As was pointed out the diplomacy of compromise during past times didn't just stop with those compromises but merely laid the groundwork for more compromises to come.

Despite the conflict we do have a process loud and raucous as it may be that allows us to move forward (slowly at least) without another bloody continental civil war, and that's progress I would say.

No my premise is that retention of state rights is the product of an unenlightened time. When you get unification you should have true unification, This doesn't only apply to the US, you can see the cracks in the European Union as individual states attempt to force their rights

Unification such as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? They completely abandoned federalism for a centrally planned political and economic system.

Layer upon layer of government is inefficient, there are certain things that can be administered locally and something's that should be administered centrally. But you cannot have the "this is ours", "this is yours" debate going on, or you collect the taxes and we will spend the money, that leads to a blame game. Communications have revolutionised the way things can be administered and government needs to catch up

The landing of 10,000 Syrians will certainly make right wingers heads explode. A beachhead for jihadism has been established, is there no common sense in the world

http://theconservativetreehouse.com/...-30-years-old/