Legislating Morality

[code1211]

There is no war on women's reproductive rights, at least not in the way you are framing it. If you are talking about BC pills then the right is spot on. If you are talking about abortion then the extremes on both sides are dead wrong and the answer lies in the middle. Strangely enough, that happens to be close to where the line is anyway and the solid truth is that abortion is not going to change anytime soon.

There is a desire to undermine or eliminate the right to privacy by many social conservatives and Christian fundamentalists, and overturn the case law underpinning that right, namely Griswold/Roe/Casey, allowing the states to ban abortion. This is clearly motivated by morality, not an objective understanding of the Constitution or its case law.

’

The case law regarding the unborn is schizophrenic.

If you are trying a case in which the unborn is a "wanted" pregnancy and the mother is murdered, then the unborn is a person and the murderer is very likely going to be tried for two homocides.

If the unborn is an "unwanted" pregnancy, then the mother can define away the personhood of that unborn and abort the pregnancy. What was a life is now a tumor legally. This is even true if the "tumor" is moving when aborted.

Allowing the personhood of a person to be defined by another is not any different in my understanding of this notion than defining a person as a slave or a citizen.

If we are indeed "endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights", then post creation pronouncements on our personhood fly in the face of this very basic guarantee to "Life''...

If I can define the essential attributes possessed by another to either qualify them as a person or not, than that person has no rights and the guarantee to life is empty and our society itself is a lie and a sham.

 

[code1211]

Read them, as well as the anti-federalist papers. Hamilton's view is consistent. General welfare meant then, what it means now. His remedy to excess or abuse of the clause was the ballot.

General welfare as we define it today for the purposes of governmental support of the individual was known as "charity" in the time of our founding fathers.

General Welfare as it appears in the Constitution applies to the Union of States, not the individual. Since Charity to the individual is not power enumerated as being within the purview of the Feds, it is reserved to the States or to the people.

The general welfare of the United States is assured by the general welfare of its citizens.

So arguing, if you are, that giving food stamps, housing, etc. is merely helping the individual you are incorrect. It helps us all by keeping the economy moving, keeping people from living in the streets, and keeping people from committing crimes to eat and feed their children.

All of these things are wonderful and needed and are the responsibility of the various states to maintain and finance.

 

[code1211]

Sure... and who's preventing her right to abort her baby?

Nobody.

So what is the public purpose of forcing a woman to have an unnecessary, invasive, unfinanced, medical procedure? You do know that those states who are trying to enact this are not going to pay for it.

The purpose is to make getting an abortion as difficult and onerous as possible without technically or legally violating a woman's constitutional right to that abortion.

I have heard proponents of the ultrasound, a non-invasive procedure to "view" the unborn, indicate that they only want the potential mother to know that the "thing" she is being shed of is a living and moving entity.

"The word on the street" is that this is only a tissue mass.

Those who campaign against this are campaigning to intentionally withhold information from the person who is going to either abort or not abort a unborn child.

 

[Intense]

I have meant to post this topic for a long time but have failed to do so until I seen Immie recently mention government legislating morality and I could not let another statement like this slide. I have heard time and time again that it is the governments place to legislate morality and that all law is based on this. The worst part is that I hear this mostly from the 'small' government right here on this board. You cannot have a small government at the same time as a government that decides morality. Those two situations are mutually exclusive because a government that is based on determining morality has any and all rights to do whatever it feels is moral at the time.


IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENTS PLACE TO LEGISLATE MORALITY. PERIOD.


It is one of the most egregious things that the government does when it legislates my activities based on what it feels is right and wrong. That was never the place of the government and we should never have given it such an unstoppable power. Now, before you go into making murder or theft illegal and claiming that is legislating morality, it is not. The number one job of the government (and in reality, the only real job of government) should be to protect its citizens rights. It is in that duty that acts like murder, theft and other laws derive their need. It prevents on citizen from infringing on the rights of other citizens.

Personally, if I were to draft a law, the primary question that should be asked is what right does this law protect. If the answer was none then such a law would be meaningless and discarded. If the government can decide what is immoral and moral, how long are you going to wait for the government to decide that YOUR morality is not the correct morality.

Well.... let the scathing criticisms begin

The Model Penal Code (MPC) is a statutory text which was developed by the American Law Institute (ALI) in 1962. The Chief Reporter on the project was Herbert Wechsler.[1] The current form of the MPC was last updated in 1981. The purpose of the MPC was to stimulate and assist legislatures in making an effort to update and standardize the penal law of the United States of America. Primary responsibility for criminal law lies with the individual states, and such national efforts work to produce similar laws in different jurisdictions. The standard they used to make a determination of what the penal code should be was one of "contemporary reasoned judgment" — meaning what a reasoned person at the time of the development of the MPC would judge the penal law to do. The ALI performed an examination of the penal system in the USA and the prohibitions, sanctions, excuses, and authority that are used throughout. The MPC was a combination of what the ALI deemed to be the best rules for the penal system in the United States. Since its formulation, the MPC has played an important role in standardizing the codified penal laws of the United States.

Key Features
[edit] Element Analysis

Under the MPC, crimes are defined in terms of a set of "elements of the offense," each of which must be proven to the finder of fact beyond a reasonable doubt. There are three types of elements:

conduct of a certain nature,
attendant circumstances at the time of the conduct, or
the result of that conduct.

The elements are those facts that:

are included in the definition of forbidden conduct as provided by the statute, or
establish the required culpability, or
negate an excuse or justification for such conduct, or
negate a defense under the statute of limitation, or
establish jurisdiction or venue.

All but the last two categories are material elements, and the prosecution must prove that the defendant had the required kind of culpability with respect to that element.
[edit] Mens rea or Culpability

One of the major innovations of the MPC is its use of standardized mens rea terms (criminal mind, or in MPC terms, culpability) to determine levels of mental states, just as homicide is considered more severe if done intentionally rather than accidentally. These terms are (in descending order) "purposely", "knowingly," "recklessly", and "negligently", with a fifth state of "strict liability". Each material element of every crime has an associated culpability state that the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

Purposely. If the element involves the nature of the conduct or the result thereof, it is his conscious object to engage in that conduct or cause the result. If the element involves attendant circumstances, he is aware of the circumstances or believes or hopes that they exist.
Knowingly. If the element involves the nature of the conduct or the attendant circumstances, he is aware that his conduct of that nature or that the circumstances exist. If the element involves a result, he is practically certain that the result will occur. Further, if the element involves knowledge of the existence of a particular fact, it is satisfied if he is aware of a high probability of the existence of that fact, unless he actually believes that it does not exist.
Recklessly. A person consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the element exists or will result, such that its disregard involves a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a law-abiding person would observe.
Negligently. A person should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the element exists or will result, such that the failure to perceive it involves a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe.

If an offense requires a specific kind of culpability, then any more severe culpability will suffice. Thus if an offense is defined in the form, "It is illegal to knowingly do X," then it is illegal to do X knowingly or purposely (a more severe state), but not to do so recklessly or negligently (the two less severe states). Strict liability means that it is illegal to do something, regardless of one's mental state. If a statute provides only a single kind of culpability for a crime, that kind of culpability is assumed to apply to all elements. If no culpability is stated by statute, a minimum of recklessness is assumed to be required. The MPC declines to use the common terms "intentional" or "willful" in its specification of crimes, in part because of the complex interpretive history of these terms. However, it defines that any (non-MPC) statute in the jurisdiction's criminal code that uses the term "intentionally" shall mean "purposely," and any use of "willfully" shall mean "with knowledge." If a law makes an actor absolutely liable for an offense, the actor can only be guilty of what the MPC calls violations, which only deserve penalties of fines, and no jail time. See sections 2.05 and 1.04.

Use

The MPC is not law in any jurisdiction of the United States; however, it served and continues to serve as a basis for the replacement of existing criminal codes in over two-thirds of the states.[3] Many states adopted portions of the MPC, but only states such as New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Oregon have enacted almost all of the provisions.[4] Idaho adopted the model penal code in its entirety in 1971, but the legislature repealed this action in 1972.[5]

Model Penal Code - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Laws Here are Rooted in the Consent of The Governed. There is usually an Ethical or Moral connection, not to be confused with Dogma. Murder, Theft, Assault, are unethical. Yes there are Unethical and Immoral Actions that are not Illegal.

 

[FA_Q2]

We really need to come to a clear consensus as to the purpose of government. A government limited to protecting our rights will be a very different one from a government that exists to supply us with an arbitrary list of 'public needs'.

This one statement is key to we are talking about and at the center of what I believe in. To my core, I believe that government exists to protect my rights and above all, I see that as the reason this nation came into existence in the first place. People came here escaping persecution and perusing freedom. Freedom that can only be attained with a government that such is the paramount purpose of its existence.

 

[NYcarbineer]

So what is the public purpose of forcing a woman to have an unnecessary, invasive, unfinanced, medical procedure? You do know that those states who are trying to enact this are not going to pay for it.

The purpose is to make getting an abortion as difficult and onerous as possible without technically or legally violating a woman's constitutional right to that abortion.

I have heard proponents of the ultrasound, a non-invasive procedure to "view" the unborn, indicate that they only want the potential mother to know that the "thing" she is being shed of is a living and moving entity.

"The word on the street" is that this is only a tissue mass.

Those who campaign against this are campaigning to intentionally withhold information from the person who is going to either abort or not abort a unborn child.

That is medically irrelevant. That is nothing more than using an unnecessary medical procedure for propaganda purposes to advance a partisan political agenda.

 

[Intense]

We really need to come to a clear consensus as to the purpose of government. A government limited to protecting our rights will be a very different one from a government that exists to supply us with an arbitrary list of 'public needs'.

This one statement is key to we are talking about and at the center of what I believe in. To my core, I believe that government exists to protect my rights and above all, I see that as the reason this nation came into existence in the first place. People came here escaping persecution and perusing freedom. Freedom that can only be attained with a government that such is the paramount purpose of its existence.

Exactly. Only those things are connected to Ethics and Morality. What you abuse, you lose.

 

[NYcarbineer]

So what is the public purpose of forcing a woman to have an unnecessary, invasive, unfinanced, medical procedure? You do know that those states who are trying to enact this are not going to pay for it.

The purpose is to make getting an abortion as difficult and onerous as possible without technically or legally violating a woman's constitutional right to that abortion.

I have heard proponents of the ultrasound, a non-invasive procedure to "view" the unborn, indicate that they only want the potential mother to know that the "thing" she is being shed of is a living and moving entity.

"The word on the street" is that this is only a tissue mass.

Those who campaign against this are campaigning to intentionally withhold information from the person who is going to either abort or not abort a unborn child.

Then why don't they also require women to watch a movie of a birth, and a caesarian, and a medically necessary late term abortion, etc.,

every time a pregnant woman decides she's going to have a baby?

 

[Intense]

The purpose is to make getting an abortion as difficult and onerous as possible without technically or legally violating a woman's constitutional right to that abortion.

I have heard proponents of the ultrasound, a non-invasive procedure to "view" the unborn, indicate that they only want the potential mother to know that the "thing" she is being shed of is a living and moving entity.

"The word on the street" is that this is only a tissue mass.

Those who campaign against this are campaigning to intentionally withhold information from the person who is going to either abort or not abort a unborn child.

That is medically irrelevant. That is nothing more than using an unnecessary medical procedure for propaganda purposes to advance a partisan political agenda.

And how many unnecessary Medical Procedures do you propose the Greater Society foot the Bill for??? I mean, really.

I do support a Noninvasive Ultra Sound, so we would agree there.

 

[FA_Q2]

We really need to come to a clear consensus as to the purpose of government. A government limited to protecting our rights will be a very different one from a government that exists to supply us with an arbitrary list of 'public needs'.

This one statement is key to we are talking about and at the center of what I believe in. To my core, I believe that government exists to protect my rights and above all, I see that as the reason this nation came into existence in the first place. People came here escaping persecution and perusing freedom. Freedom that can only be attained with a government that such is the paramount purpose of its existence.

Exactly. Only those things are connected to Ethics and Morality. What you abuse, you lose.

As I see it, they have nothing to do with your ethics or your morality. That is the entire point. My freedom is not tied to your ethics and, when your ethics gets into my government, my freedoms are threatened.

 

[FA_Q2]

Those who campaign against this are campaigning to intentionally withhold information from the person who is going to either abort or not abort a unborn child.

That would only be true if those people were campaigning to have such a procedure unavailable to the person in question. That is not the case. What they are talking about is not FORCING such a procedure.

This IS a case of morality though. These people view what the woman is doing as immoral and, through force of law, they are trying to force a person face their morality. Of course, those on the left will scream about such as they should.


Then out of the other side of their mouth, they demand that birth control be offered for free. Little do they seem to realize that the principals in are the same.

 

[Intense]

This one statement is key to we are talking about and at the center of what I believe in. To my core, I believe that government exists to protect my rights and above all, I see that as the reason this nation came into existence in the first place. People came here escaping persecution and perusing freedom. Freedom that can only be attained with a government that such is the paramount purpose of its existence.

Exactly. Only those things are connected to Ethics and Morality. What you abuse, you lose.

As I see it, they have nothing to do with your ethics or your morality. That is the entire point. My freedom is not tied to your ethics and, when your ethics gets into my government, my freedoms are threatened.

Yes and no. Laws are rooted in the Consent of the Majority, within reason. Ethics and morality are part of the formula. You are confusing that with Dogma. What goes on in your head, is between you and your Maker. When you take without compensation, consent, mutual agreement, you violate, Ethics, Morality, the Law. The Law can be Limited, Yes, but it still based on Right and Wrong, for the most part. When One does Harm, there is more question, rather than less. Can I use the Law to get You to Live up to My Expectation? That seems more like an abuse, with exception. Can I use the Law to compel You to stop for a Red Light? Can I use the Law to compel You to act against your own Conscience or better Judgement? That's debatable. What happens when Morals and Ethics compete or contradict? That's are what Courts are for. In Theory, the Law is to Establish and Maintain Justice, while knowing It's Limits. Still, the Law would not Exist without a Sense of Justice, which is in the Realm of Morals and Ethics. I think we are just playing with words here.

 

[sparky]

??

Care to explain?

sure, i was responding to this>

it is reserved to the States or to the people.

an example might be my state being the first to legislate civil unions

the 'backburn' was we were flooded with rich gays who took advantage of us being the only state in the union offering this

it was not w/o it's social effects here

so elevate this to conjecture, Fred Phelps , M Moore, R Santorum , Rush L (et all extreemists) gets to spearhead legislation in any given state

i'll wager some heated debates.....

~S~

Ahh.. ok. Thanks for the clarification. I don't really think most opposition to 'legislating morality' is vested in the 10th amendment, although the 10th does prevent centralizing it, which I suppose is better in balance. The 9th amendment applies more clearly, but honestly we can't depend on the Bill of Rights to protect us from the moralizers.

The best course for getting government back under control is do re'constitute' the concept of limited government, at both the federal and state level. That's why I'm glad the OP opened this discussion with observations about the purpose of government. A government tasked with protecting our rights, ie freedoms, has no business telling us how to live in general.

We really need to come to a clear consensus as to the purpose of government. A government limited to protecting our rights will be a very different one from a government that exists to supply us with an arbitrary list of 'public needs'. The two missions are very different and largely contradictory. We're seeing this conflict in spades in the health care reform debates, where efforts to make government responsible for our health care inevitably violate our freedoms.

well dblack, i would only say i'm agreeable to your stance , to the extent of extreemes , being that i'm a somewhat cowardly conservative afraid of radical changes

but the fact that some issues are hitting the wall means changes , and some of those changes i fear aren't going to be too popular

there's a variety of factions out there, all thinking in some direction they feel is best for us all, but rarely are they accepted by us all

case in point, check these folks out>>>

Friends Of the Article V Convention

~S(cowardly conservatives of America)parky~

 

[dblack]

Yes and no. Laws are rooted in the Consent of the Majority, within reason. Ethics and morality are part of the formula. You are confusing that with Dogma. What goes on in your head, is between you and your Maker. When you take without compensation, consent, mutual agreement, you violate, Ethics, Morality, the Law. The Law can be Limited, Yes, but it still based on Right and Wrong, for the most part. When One does Harm, there is more question, rather than less. Can I use the Law to get You to Live up to My Expectation? That seems more like an abuse, with exception. Can I use the Law to compel You to stop for a Red Light? Can I use the Law to compel You to act against your own Conscience or better Judgement? That's debatable. What happens when Morals and Ethics compete or contradict? That's are what Courts are for. In Theory, the Law is to Establish and Maintain Justice, while knowing It's Limits. Still, the Law would not Exist without a Sense of Justice, which is in the Realm of Morals and Ethics. I think we are just playing with words here.

Well, I think you are. But I don't think the point of the thread is to debate the meaning word "Law" (btw, what's the deal with all the capitalized Essences?). Rather it's to discuss what kind of laws we want government passing and enforcing. Those can be focused on protecting rights, or enforcing conformity to broader moral codes.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

This one statement is key to we are talking about and at the center of what I believe in. To my core, I believe that government exists to protect my rights and above all, I see that as the reason this nation came into existence in the first place. People came here escaping persecution and perusing freedom. Freedom that can only be attained with a government that such is the paramount purpose of its existence.

It depends on what one means by ‘government.’

If by ‘government’ one is including the courts, then yes, to a degree.

But it’s not the fundamental responsibility of the legislative or administrative components of government to protect one’s rights, it’s the responsibility of both those entities to act in a manner consistent with the Constitution, and their acts are assumed to be Constitutional until such time as a court says otherwise. However, it is not uncommon for government to act in such a manner that may conflict with individual liberty, where government believes its acting in a manner consistent with public safely or policy.

When government acts in such a manner we believe is in violation of our civil liberties, citizens may access the Federal courts to seek relief from such excess; the courts belong to the people, it is the venue in which they exercise their First Amendment right ‘to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’

 

[sparky]

Exactly. Only those things are connected to Ethics and Morality. What you abuse, you lose.

As I see it, they have nothing to do with your ethics or your morality. That is the entire point. My freedom is not tied to your ethics and, when your ethics gets into my government, my freedoms are threatened.

Yes and no. Laws are rooted in the Consent of the Majority, within reason. Ethics and morality are part of the formula. You are confusing that with Dogma. What goes on in your head, is between you and your Maker. When you take without compensation, consent, mutual agreement, you violate, Ethics, Morality, the Law. The Law can be Limited, Yes, but it still based on Right and Wrong, for the most part. When One does Harm, there is more question, rather than less. Can I use the Law to get You to Live up to My Expectation? That seems more like an abuse, with exception. Can I use the Law to compel You to stop for a Red Light? Can I use the Law to compel You to act against your own Conscience or better Judgement? That's debatable. What happens when Morals and Ethics compete or contradict? That's are what Courts are for. In Theory, the Law is to Establish and Maintain Justice, while knowing It's Limits. Still, the Law would not Exist without a Sense of Justice, which is in the Realm of Morals and Ethics. I think we are just playing with words here.

man, justice, law, ethics and morals just aren't expressed as synonymously these days as they used to be Intense....~S~

 

[Katzndogz]

The term General Welfare was supposed to mean the general welfare of the nation, not that Tiesha gets her government check on time. That would be individual welfare, not connected to the needs of the Federal Government. The government can get along just fine if Tiesha has to get a part time job.

If that were true then someone would have challenged such laws a long time ago and got them declared unconstitutional.

When these laws were put into place the intention was to help those so unfortunate they couldn't help themselves. Primarily widows and their children. Not the merely lazy looking for a hand out. When these laws were passed there was a collective sense of morality. Having another baby wasn't career advancement. They had a sense of personal responsibility. There was a sense of SHAME (we don't recognize the word today) in taking public money. The term general welfare has always referred to the welfare of the nation and the individual states not individuals themselves. There is no Constitutional right to theater tickets because it would make you happy.

Modern welfare didn't come into being until FDR conceived his idea of a Negative Bill of Rights. Something obama relies on to this day. A list of what the government must do for the individual regardless of their ability to do for themselves.

 

[code1211]

The purpose is to make getting an abortion as difficult and onerous as possible without technically or legally violating a woman's constitutional right to that abortion.

I have heard proponents of the ultrasound, a non-invasive procedure to "view" the unborn, indicate that they only want the potential mother to know that the "thing" she is being shed of is a living and moving entity.

"The word on the street" is that this is only a tissue mass.

Those who campaign against this are campaigning to intentionally withhold information from the person who is going to either abort or not abort a unborn child.

That is medically irrelevant. That is nothing more than using an unnecessary medical procedure for propaganda purposes to advance a partisan political agenda.

If this is medically irrelevant, why is it ever performed? In any other -ectomy type of procedure the doctor is encouraged and almost without exception required to explain what is happening and what is being removed.

Are you saying that in this one case, the doctor must be restrained from explaining what is being removed from the patient's body?

Are there any other removals or procedures that need to be done without the the patient's full understanding of what is happening? Forced sterilization? Frontal lobotomy? Euthanasia?

Medical procedure absent patient fully informed consent is more appropriate to Nazi Germany than 21st Century USA.

 

[code1211]

The purpose is to make getting an abortion as difficult and onerous as possible without technically or legally violating a woman's constitutional right to that abortion.

I have heard proponents of the ultrasound, a non-invasive procedure to "view" the unborn, indicate that they only want the potential mother to know that the "thing" she is being shed of is a living and moving entity.

"The word on the street" is that this is only a tissue mass.

Those who campaign against this are campaigning to intentionally withhold information from the person who is going to either abort or not abort a unborn child.

Then why don't they also require women to watch a movie of a birth, and a caesarian, and a medically necessary late term abortion, etc.,

every time a pregnant woman decides she's going to have a baby?

Those things are relevant in a remote sense. The ultra sound is a here and now this is really happening kind of a thing.

I happen to support the legality of Abortion because it is expedient and i don't intend to take care of every unwanted child that comes to term. However, justifying the legality of the procedure in our legal system is an empty exercise in false justifications. There is no appropriate legal base for killing an infant, born or unborn.

There is no moral justification for this either.

Societally, there is no remedy for this problem and so we, as a society, have banded together to rob the unborn of their rights in favor of the imagined rights of irresponsible and probably stupid women who have no clue and we allow them to define a living entity as a tissue mass.

This is an excellent example of something that is legal, immoral and wrong.

 

[sparky]