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It's a strawman. Santorum specifically referenced a SCOTUS decision that overturned a STATE law(Griswold v. Connecticut ). He was clearly making a States power case.
ABC's Clintonista George Stephanopoulos tried to pidgeon hole Romney with that line of questioning and he correctly pointed out that there was zero states that are trying to outlaw contraception. Romney correctly panned the question as silly.. and it is .
Stephanopoulos raised the issue in the debate with Mitt Romney and gave Santorum credit for not recommending states ban contraception. The candidates said it wasn't an issue, Georgie is the one who pressed it, and pressed it and pressed it.
NO, I don't think it was a viable line of questioning, I think it was an attempt to make the candidates look foolish. It didn't work.Quote:
ROMNEY: Should this be done in the case -- this case to allow states to ban contraception? No. States don’t want to ban contraception. So why would we try and put it in the Constitution?
With regards to gay marriage, I’ve told you, that’s when I would amend the Constitution. Contraception, it’s working just fine, just leave it alone.
Anyone who is concerned about this should not be concerned about what Santorum would do except perhaps the question of who he would appoint as judges. As we all know ,judicial fiat is the preferred method of social change for progressives.
Hello again, tom:Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Knowing that that's exactly what President Santorum will do, you STILL have the balls to diss Democrats for doing it. I didn't think you were THAT one way.
excon
Its okay for conservatives to engineer social change through the judiciary, but not progressives??
So how are you liking "corporations are people too"?
Tal ,that's the 1st amendment for you .I know you guys don't like it so much unless you can limit the free exercise clause.
No Ex ,Santorum would appoint judges who are originalists . He would not appoint judges who decide what rights are based on the penumbras of the hidden words in the Constitution.
Hello again, tom:Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
And, they would set out right what's wrong by judicial FIAT.
excon
What they wouldn't do is divine rights out of whole cloth ;and then overturn the laws of the states that the people's representatives made , based on these rights that the judges found in the hidden meaning of the words of the Constitution .
Sorry Tom, I forget its okay if the right does it, but no one else. Forgive me please!!
Just like a mandate is a great idea when repubs want it, but when Obama wants it, its crap. Like Sotomayer excusing herself from the decision to come because she argued the case as an GC, but Thomas can't even though his wife is employed by the other side of the case. What a farce. Another righty snow job, just like the primaries. Just like Santorums BLAH people.
I think you mean Kagan .
I don't make a big deal about recusals because there are no firm rules on them. But here is one thought. Kagan orgasmically whoooped for joy when Obamacare was passed . As solicitor General she was intimately involved in the process of getting it passed.
She was involved at a supervisory level with strategizing to defend this law. One could argue that it is a conflict of interest for her to now be making judicial decisions on laws she was involved in creating .
Ginnie Thomas on the other hand is a lobbyist for a tea party affiliated group. I don't see any comparable conflict of interest for Justice Thomas. Now if Ginnie Thomas was involved in her work with filing an amicus brief related to the case then of course Justice Thomas should recuse himself . But that is not the case.
The truth of the matter is that the left knows there is probably a legitimate reason for Kagan to recuse herself ;so they are making a bogus claim about Thomas to try and even the score.
My best guess is that Obamacare will be declared constitutional even though the mandate is clearly unconstitutional.
As ususal the left's claim of expansive powers of the Federal government can be found in their broad interpretation of the commerce clause to include all manners of human activity ;and the 'necessary and proper 'clause and the power of Congress to tax endlessly for any justification it finds in the 'best interest ' of the nation.
The die was cast in this case in the recent circuit court opinion by Judge Laurence Silberman.
Silberman concluded that courts should show great deference to legislation passed by Congress, so long as such laws are designed to address “national problems" that the courts should “presume” that when Congress acts, it does so constitutionally.
It is nonsense of course ;but , he is held in high esteem in conservative circles and I suspect some of the conservatives on SCOTUS will buy his argument. I don't think one or two recusals will change that.
Well what do you know a judge who doesn't want to rewrite the constitution
I just love the comments of Peter Wreith, perhaps the most right wing politician in Australian history. The Australian people don't want to have something vague put in the Constitution, they want the Parliament to make the decisions and the courts to throw it out, they don't want something wishy washy put there forever. The Australian Constitution has only been altered nine times.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Hi Tom,
I think this is a sign of the times. Very few people will 'buy' original intent because it is nearly always impossible to determine original intent. In the vast majority or cases original intent can mean what ever you choose it to mean.
As you point out the progressives on the other hand will pick words that can be interpreted in a variety of ways and use that to claim the constitution is a flexible document.
The only other alternative I see is a claim to historical language(for the want of a better term). It is of course possible to claim with a reasonable degree of certainty that words used in the historical context of 1700 had a definable meaning. The problem is that we are not living in the 1700's. Perhaps we would be better off if we were, but we're not.
Tut
I won't quibble over the difference between historical language and intent. The fact is that there are copious amts of supporting documents to determine intent.
If you look at the language of a series of decisions by SCOTUS you will see that beginning with a case before Griswold ,and a couple after ,the justices cleverly added words in their decisions that were seen as a 'precedent' for advancing an ultimate goal that came to fruition in the 'Roe v Wade' abortion case the launched the Great American genocide. In all these cases Planned Parenthood ,an organization that makes it's living killing babies and dispensing contraception,was intimately involved .
Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
What you have said is not relevant to my position.This is because I didn't put forward for any position here. I was pointing out the arguments. You should have stuck to supplying the supporting documents. This was the issue at hand.
If you are suggesting that ,a few words interpreted here and a few words added there have resulted in genocide then I am in agreement with you.
Just for the record I am against abortion.
But again, abortion was not the issue. What have you got to support original intent?
Tut
The so called right to privacy was not something the people were demanding ;nor was it implied in any of the amendments except where it specifically banned the government from acting (ie the 4th amendment protections against unreasonable searches .Just that wording alone is more than enough proof that the founders didn't think there was a right to privacy.)
Nor was the "people" demanding such a right. There was at best a very few people in Connecticut that objected to the laws of the state regarding contraception. It was Planned Parenthood that twice concocted court cases in conjunction with the ACLU . Their amicus in the 'Poe' case provided the ,language for the majority opinion ;and it was 1st introduced by a dissenting opionion in 'Poe v. Ullman'.
Melvin L. Wulf, a lawyer for the ACLU claims credit for first raising the idea .
He later explained his strategery:
Judges dislike breaking entirely new ground. If they are considering adopting a novel principle, they prefer to rest their decision on earlier law if they can, and to show that the present case involves merely an incremental change, not a wholesale break with the past. Constitutional litigators are forever trying to persuade courts that the result they are seeking would be just a short step from some other case whose decision rests soundly on ancient precedent.
Since the issue of sexual privacy had not been raised in any earlier case, we employed the familiar technique of argument by analogy: If there is no exact counterpart to the particular case before the Court, there are others that resemble it in a general sort of way, and the principles applied in the similar cases should also be applied — perhaps even extended a little bit — to the new case.
In other words they make it up as they go along giving the judges the cover to move the ball along to their ultimate objective of changing the constitution while pretending to uphold it.
Justice William O. Douglas wrote for the majority in the Griswold case that the right was to be found in the "penumbras" and "emanations" of other constitutional protections.
Now you talk of clear language ? What the hell was that supposed to mean ? A penumbra is an term describing the partial shadow in an eclipse or the edge of a sunspot . Emanation is a scientific term for gas made from radioactive decay . Somehow he managed to twist the language to make it mean that there are hidden meanings in the words of the Constitution .
In concuring opinions Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote a Ninth Amendment justification for the decision .Justice John Marshall Harlan II and Justice Byron White wrote that privacy is protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
With this twisting of the language and the constitution ,any state ,disregarding what the people's representatives passed (so much for the phony 9th amendment justificiation) ,was forced to end any restrictions on the sale of contraceptives.
Justice Hugo Black,hit the nail on the head in his dissent.He attacked the way Douglas had turned constitutional law into semantics by replacing the language of actual rights with the phrase “right to privacy.” He wrote, “The Court talks about a constitutional 'right of privacy' as though there is some constitutional provision or provisions forbidding any law ever to be passed which might abridge the 'privacy' of individuals. But there is not. There are, of course, guarantees in certain specific constitutional provisions which are designed in part to protect privacy at certain times and places with respect to certain activities".....
“I like my privacy as well as the next one, but I am nevertheless compelled to admit that government has a right to invade it unless prohibited by some specific constitutional provision."
It gets better... this case was used as the 'precedent' (in the same playbook as the Melvin L. Wulf strategery ) to advance the cause of the right to an abortion.
In Eisenstadt v. Baird Justice William Brennan added this new expansion .
“If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.”
Moving the ball along.
From that it wasn't hard to conclude that the decision whether to bear or beget a child would include the right to snuff out the life of the baby .
I'll throw the argument back to you . You cannot find plain language in the Constitution ;the 4th ,9th ,14th whatever that justifies the taking of innocent human life under any circumstances let alone the convoluted rationale as the "right to privacy" .
Keep it simple, a judge deciding the case of his spouses boss STINKS.
Make whatever argument in any languge you want! It don't look good, and like a fix to me!
You must be holding your nose not to smell what the court is cooking! Like the fox telling the farmer, "I will guard your chickens"!
Tal ,I don't write the ethics laws. Since there doesn't seem to be anything that compels Kagan to recuse then I have no problem with Thomas sitting in on the decision.
Don't worry . For reasons already stated ,I don't see the court overturning the law that will put the final nail into the country's coffin.
Your gloom and doom at a changing world is so noted. The guys on the right running for president scare me the same way.
Lol... have you checked out the new Chief of Staff Jack Lew??
He's a bankster!! Lololol He was chief operating officer of Citigroup Alternative Investments in 2008 . That group was involved in proprietary trading, and was involved in shorting the housing market as the bubble burts!!
The President just screwed up his whole campaign message.
LOL, should be the rights kind of guy, a money man that knows the system.
Nah... the vast majority of the 1% types are northeast Democrats or Hollywierdos .
Lew is replacing William Daley who was himself a Wall Street insider(JPMorgan ).
When he went into OMB from Citi he replaced Peter Orszag;who left for a position in Citi. (the Obama revolving door)
The difference between Lew and Daley is that Daley was brought in for at least the illusion that the President was trying to straddle the middle .
This guy Lew is a lefty to the core. He used to work for "progressive populist" demagogue Senator Paul Wellstone. He should fit in well in the Obama White House... at least if he gets Michelle's seal of approval.
Hi Tom,Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Wouldn't this at best be totally impractical? At worst, a very bad idea?
I think there was an obvious realization that to actually specify rights in a constitution is all very well, but what you will end up doing is excluding other rights not specified. Isn't this the reason the 9th Amendment was added? You have certain specified rights, but the 9th also leaves the door open for entitlements.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
This is always going to be a problem when common law comes into conflict with constitutional law. If you get a lawyer clever with words then constitutional law will probably win. This is regardless of the fact that a common law has been demonstrated as being a good law.
Don't really see an answer to that one.
As stated earlier I don't believe that any constitution can adequately cover all our 'rights'. To attempt to make it do so would be a very bad idea. This is why we have the prevision of entitlements as well.
To be honest I don't know. It is frustrating. Things might be different if we were doing mathematics. But we are not. We are doing language. Some words,don't have precise meanings. Meanings can change depending on the context we find them.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Tut
Give those founders a break. These are the guys that said all men are created equal, while owning slaves.
Nothing written by man is in stone, but they tried. They probably hoped the next generation of Americans could do better. So it doesn't matter what they meant in the constitution, they covered as many bases as they could, and left room for improvements.
Tal yes give them a break indeed . They craftfully put a timeline on the life of the slave trade even as many of them were slaveholders . The compromise said that Congress could consider the end of the trade in 1808 (giving the nation the time needed to form before the contentious issue tore the new Repubilic apart .)
In addition they added the much mistakenly maligned 3/5th compromise. People today who scoff at this compromise fail to appreciate that this clause significantly weakened the South's ability to use it's population to gain power in the country. Southern states fought for slaves to be counted in terms of representation. The 3/5th compromise had every five slaves counted as three individuals in terms of representation. It had NOTHING to do with a slave being less than a person as the modern history misreads the act.
I assure you ;the founders ,even the slave holders ,were ahead of their time .They foresaw an end to the trade ;and their work in the next 80 years would've made for a peaceful transition... if only SCOTUS hadn't screwed it all up with the Dredd Scott decision which rendered all the careful compromises mute.
Great spin, but totally BOGUS. The south had no intention of giving up big profits through exploitation of free labor, and wanted to spread there influence on new emerging states. Sure they compromised on paper but in reality, they were going to scrap any plan and fight to keep their power, money, and property.
The war was over states rights true enough, the right to own other humans. That's why they felt the need to secede from the country, the law be damned, they had their guns, we had a war. They lost, and we are still moving socially away from slavery. Except now its money in the hands of the few, taken off the backs of the many. That's what the election now is about.
Righties are still flying the fear flag, and think its about their rights, which of course trumps everyone else's.
CorrectQuote:
The war was over states rights true enough, the right to own other humans.
That's where you are wrong. The Missouri Compromise had settled that issue and would've been the eventual death knell of the slave trade as more free states joined the union. The Dredd Scott decision made the Missouri Compromise null and even worse ;made every citizen in the country a criminal if they helped an escaped slave. It was that act of the life time appointed oligarchs that was most responsible for the war.Eighty years of compromising (beginning with the Constitutional Convention) down the drain. In one fell swoop,compromise was found to be unconstitutional. All the hard work by the founders and subsequent members of Congress destroyed by an absolutely suicidal and constitutionally wrong decision.Quote:
The south had no intention of giving up big profits through exploitation of free labor, and wanted to spread there influence on new emerging states.
Nice rant, but doesn't even come close to the reasons behind seccession or the seizing of federal property by the south. Moreover the Missouri compromise nor the Dredd Scott ruling did anything for the slaves themselves, just the legal rights of the masters, and the states right claim that they could make their own rules.
They were wrong. Just as the social engineering by republican governors is wrong. Then as now it was an over reach by conservatives to retain power, control, and MONEY, that adversely affect PEOPLE, and I would submit as evidence the business model sold as capitalism that has been subverted by those that say profits over people, that like slavery, is an unsustainable path forward.
Not against capitalism per sey, but the application, and affects on REAL live people is no better than the socialism practiced in large areas of the world today. Even worse, it's the weakening of the social safety nets by those same people that's the most disgusting and shows the intentions of the 1% to return to the good old days of socio-economic supremacy by the ruling class, on the backs of the new slave class.
It was wrong then, and even more wrong now.
So in other words you don't revere the document created by those 1%er slave holding right winged founders .
That certainly explains why the left treats it like toilet paper.
Wanting to make it mean what it says is hardly disrespectful, but its acknowledging its but a structure to build on as MORE facts become evident.
Not like the self proclaimed righties who wish to use it as a means to get what you want at the cost of others.
I think its you who wrap yourself in god and the flag who are disrespectful to us all by not making room for other ideas that are not your own. That's what the founding fathers envisioned. The growth and evolution of a society that keeps thriving to be more perfect. Not stay stuck in the ways of those who exploit for gain, at the expense of the rest of the population.
Sorry Tom, I won't be dismissed because I ain't got as much money as you, nor be pushed aside while you do your thing, and make rules to make sure I can't do mine. Nor will I worship long gone man as you do.
The founding fathers were flawed humans trying to do the right things, not gods. Nor are we now. But you do whatever you please because that's what I am going to do, no matter who ends up being the Prez, or the laws they pass.
I won't hold it against you for kissing the Romney butt. But when he takes your pension, social security, Medicare, and tells you to go back to washing dishes for a living, don't say I didn't tell you so. When he takes your job, and home unless you are his slave to his system, don't say you weren't warned.
When he leaves all his loot he got off your back to HIS grand kids, don't cry foul. But you guys will holler, and that's the insanity of the right wing. Seen it before, and this time is no different. That's how we got Bush, and if you want to wear a 3 corner hat, and whistle Dixie, fine, do it, but don't get mad if I don't join you.
I ain't crazy enough to join a group that works openly against MY best interest. So go ahead, and vote for the one percent to screw the rest of us. The conservatives are GREAT at using my rights for toilet paper.
Thanks... the idea that Romney is a conservative that I'd butt kiss is the laugh of the week .
Bottom line.. the founders set up a method to change the Constitution. You would rather have life time appointed judges do the dirty deed than through the amendment process or the elected representatives.
LOL, maybe its time to tweak many aspects of the system, you think? And if Romney wins the nomination, you mean you won't support him?
That's what he means if Romney wins the nonimation Toms going to vote Obama or sit in his lounge room whinning
That's what happened in 2008. Boy did the right get pissed, and wa-la, the Tea party gets born, and gives birth to a motley cast of characters.
What's worse, most of the present list of candidates cannot even figure out how to get on the ballots in all the states! No telling what will happen next to the republican party.
One doesn't have to "butt kiss" to support the eventual nominee. I'll support whoever it is before I'd cast a vote for Obama.
Its certainly your right to vote for a guy who made his money leveraging companies for their assets, including pensions, and hoarding it for his grand kids silver spoons. But knowing a guy who is laid off and his job sent to India, is scary and even scarier, is that could be you, but for the grace of the corporations putting profits over people.
Now I am not against capitalism, but don't tell me its just business when you take my lively hood, and promise to take my safety net too, and call me a lazy SOB!!
Just saying.
Dude, I've been unemployed thanks to people who valued money over people. Been there done that more than once. I just picked myself up and moved to the next adventure. I don't care how Romney made his money but I do know in business that's your job, to produce more than you cost. It's life. I'd much rather take my chances in a free, capitalist America than the socially engineered utopia envisioned by the moron-in-chief.
You know it's funny that so many people are sweating over the possibility of Europe imploding but want to take us down the same path. I take that back, it's not funny - it's stupid.
Hello Guys:
When Mitt Romney Came To Town. Starring the devastated, the foreclosed, and the unemployed..
I'd give it a thumbs up. As a dedicated OWS'er, I couldn't agree with Newt MORE. Bwa, ha ha ha ha.
excon
That's what the Mittster is selling, but look at the policies of the EU for yourself, and then look at Mitts rhetoric. There is no difference except the right blames it on the left. Haven't you even read the 59 page tax policy he touts? I go with free capitolism, but NOT total extraction. And while you think it's a matter of going to the next adventure, EXTRACTIONISM, severely will limit your options, and opportunities.Quote:
Originally Posted by speechlesstx
But then changing the business model, or any mention of changing anything triggers conservative right wing push back. But Mitt ain't no conservative, he is a businessss man. You will find that out after the primaries are over, and he stops throw you guys the red meat rhetoric you so crave.
I'm not expecting much red meat from Mitt, but a little is a whole lot more than we're getting from the current occupant. Oh, and I'm ready to change the business model. Stop spending what we don't have and make the lazy SOBs get a job instead of sucking the life out of me.
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