The Ninth Amendment

[Sun Devil 92]

As Justice Kennedy explained in Lawrence:

“Had those who drew and ratified the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment known the components of liberty in its manifold possibilities, they might have been more specific. They did not presume to have this insight. They knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.”

Kennedy thus acknowledges the Framers' understanding of the nature of citizens' rights as expressed in the Ninth Amendment, and the Founding Generation's wisdom and humility as to not presume to know our protected liberties as some 'finite manifestation,' but rather the codification of fundamental principles of freedom designed to safeguard those protected liberties from government excess and overreach, and give citizens license to defend those liberties.

While I appreciate Kennedy's very clear description of how he sees things (and that is, of course, very important, given his position on the SCOTUS), nothing is every really settled.

Hence the reverse of what he says is also true. Laws that didn't exist at one time may be needed depending on the "truths" of the day.

Those liberties also include the liberty to protect ourselves from that which we feel is dangerous.

What is unfortunate is that the court has gotten into the business of trying to decide that on their own.

Again, the Court is not 'deciding anything on its own.'

The people decide, the people petition the courts for a redress of grievances, the people seek relief from government excess and overreach in the courts, invoking the principles of freedom and justice enshrined in the Constitution and its case law intended by the Framers to safeguard citizens' protected liberties.

The people created the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Ninth Amendment, the Supreme Court is following the will of the people as expressed in the Founding Document.

I'd be very surprised if the plaintiffs in Griswold called out that their "right to privacy" was being violated.

I've been wrong before.

But, if they didn't, your statement is crap.

The people never voted on a right to privacy. One was never discussed. It just suddenly stepped out of the shadows.

Just a bit of history because some people are always claiming the Court wanted to legislate here...

Coming to the merits, we are met with a wide range of questions that implicate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Overtones of some arguments suggest that Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, should be our guide. But we decline that invitation. We do not sit as a super-legislature to determine the wisdom, need, and propriety of laws that touch economic problems, business affairs, or social conditions. This law, however, operates directly on an intimate relation of husband and wife and their physician's role in one aspect of that relation.

The association of people is not mentioned in the Constitution nor in the Bill of Rights. The right to educate a child in a school of the parents' choice - whether public or private or parochial - is also not mentioned. Nor is the right to study any particular subject or any foreign language. Yet the First Amendment has been construed to include certain of those rights.

Griswold vs Connecticut​

I am not saying they do.

I am not saying they don't.

I will say that if Obama said he was white....it still would not make it so.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

Whether that be the case or not, the big disagreement exists around how those rights are identified and made available.

Oh! Now you say the government is in charge of making rights available?

Well...now that you mention it.

I didn't say that.

I said that was the point of disagreement.

Dante, the guy who can't read.

and in a fuller context you've been arguing that the government gets to say whether there is a right to privacy that covers abortions, and covers marriage between same sex couples...you want the government to say whether those rights exist and are available

Garbage.

What I've asked is: What is the correct mechanism for recognizing those rights (or in your world...bringing them out of the shadows) ?

 

[Sun Devil 92]

Post #2:

"Just what rights are they, to which you're you attempting to allude?"

So...you see....you didn't ask it first.

I am sure your high school reading teacher can explain it to you.

Moron.

Dante is the dictionary definition of 'pseudo-intellectual'. I have yet to see him back up an assertion, such as this one, with anything credible.

He chooses only to argue those points that are still open to contention. When something is rammed up his backside (as in argument...not his boyfriend), he takes a Tylenol and convinces himself that he's still right.

As to the rest of this argument, I've heard it 100 times.

I agree with the legality of abortion. But I don't agree to the concept of "reproductive rights". That's a load of crap.

And the story behind the effort to reach this decision is beyond sad.

Yes. I too agree with the legality. I don't like it but I also realize that the government that passes a law that says you can't have an abortion, has also given itself the ability to say you MUST have an abortion. I always come down on the side of individual rights over that of the State.

And, of course, anyone who thinks differently than CJ and Dante is "misguided"...after all the SCOTUS (in this case Kennedy) said so.

Here is what Douglas supposedly said.....

At the constitutional level where we work, 90 percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections.
Read more at William O. Douglas Quotes at BrainyQuote

I find that astounding (if he really said it). I wasn't even aware of it....

more ideological bs

why not as an honest example quote Kennedy and Scalia and all of their crazy statements that are challenged by common sense? Play dueling quotes with yourself

This was about Douglas.

Did you have a comment or was this deflection a purposeful effort ?

 

[Dante]

Whether that be the case or not, the big disagreement exists around how those rights are identified and made available.

Oh! Now you say the government is in charge of making rights available?

Well...now that you mention it.

I didn't say that.

I said that was the point of disagreement.

Dante, the guy who can't read.

and in a fuller context you've been arguing that the government gets to say whether there is a right to privacy that covers abortions, and covers marriage between same sex couples...you want the government to say whether those rights exist and are available

Garbage.

What I've asked is: What is the correct mechanism for recognizing those rights (or in your world...bringing them out of the shadows) ?

Exercising them.

 

[Dante]

When one exercises a right it is either challenged or it is not. Who gets to decide if any right exists regardless of the outcome? Rights are not self-evident to everyone. Rights are abstractions we make real by exercising them. Otherwise they exist only on our minds -- singly or collectively

 

[Sun Devil 92]

Douglas And Black were friends...but apparently didn't agree on this point.

Justices hugo l. black and Potter Stewart criticized the Court for invoking the Ninth Amendment as a basis for its decision in Griswold. The Ninth Amendment, the dissenting justices said, does not explain what unenumerated rights are retained by the people or how these rights should be identified. Nor does the amendment authorize the Supreme Court, in contrast to the president or Congress, to enforce these rights. By reading the Ninth Amendment as creating a general right to privacy, Black and Stewart suggested, the unelected justices of the Supreme Court had substituted their own subjective notions of justice, liberty, and reasonableness for the wisdom and experience of the elected representatives in the Connecticut state legislature who were responsible for passing the birth control regulation.

*************************************

They pretty much nailed. it.

And, of course, some will say...."but they lost".

Which, of course, isn't the point.

Just like we disagree, CJ's claim that "it is beyond dispute" is clearly shown to be crap with this little tidbit.

I recall there being dissent....but I never read this before.

Seems like they pretty much state the "other side".

That means that while Griswold can hold today...it might fail tomorrow.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

Whether that be the case or not, the big disagreement exists around how those rights are identified and made available.

Oh! Now you say the government is in charge of making rights available?

Well...now that you mention it.

I didn't say that.

I said that was the point of disagreement.

Dante, the guy who can't read.

and in a fuller context you've been arguing that the government gets to say whether there is a right to privacy that covers abortions, and covers marriage between same sex couples...you want the government to say whether those rights exist and are available

Garbage.

What I've asked is: What is the correct mechanism for recognizing those rights (or in your world...bringing them out of the shadows) ?

Exercising them.

So in the case of Griswold...they didn't even know what they were exercising.

They just knew that the state was wrong.

Douglas had to explain (well...tell them...seems he explained little) it to them.

That makes no sense at all......

 

[Dante]

Oh! Now you say the government is in charge of making rights available?

Well...now that you mention it.

I didn't say that.

I said that was the point of disagreement.

Dante, the guy who can't read.

and in a fuller context you've been arguing that the government gets to say whether there is a right to privacy that covers abortions, and covers marriage between same sex couples...you want the government to say whether those rights exist and are available

Garbage.

What I've asked is: What is the correct mechanism for recognizing those rights (or in your world...bringing them out of the shadows) ?

Exercising them.

So in the case of Griswold...they didn't even know what they were exercising.

They just knew that the state was wrong.

Douglas had to explain (well...tell them...seems he explained little) it to them.

That makes no sense at all......

Hmm...

Douglas was a politician judge. Jeffrey Rosen explained it in a very succinct way in his book "THE SUPREME COURT: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America"
( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MZHSZ8/?tag=usmb-20 )

I find former Justice Stevens to be a fascinating study on the court...great article below:

If Stevens is shrewd in the majority, he is fierce in dissent. He was especially exercised last term by a case involving death-penalty jurors, which he described to me as “a tremendous change in the law” and which prompted him to criticize his conservative colleagues with extemporaneous comments from the bench...

...He added with a chuckle, “I’d rather assign majorities than dissents.”

It may seem surprising that such a passionate leader of the court’s liberal wing bristles when he is called a liberal. But the fact that Stevens sees himself as a conservatively oriented centrist makes perfect sense given what judicial liberalism has become. There was a time, years ago in the Warren Court era, when liberal justices like Stevens’s predecessor William O. Douglas saw themselves as on a mission to recreate American society along boldly egalitarian lines by discovering newly minted constitutional rights. But for better or worse, this ambitious conception of judicial liberalism has been replaced, like much of political liberalism in America, by a more modest, conciliatory and technocratic sensibility. Even the most liberal justices today have little appetite for the old approach.​

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/magazine/23stevens-t.html

 

[Sun Devil 92]

Well...now that you mention it.

I didn't say that.

I said that was the point of disagreement.

Dante, the guy who can't read.

and in a fuller context you've been arguing that the government gets to say whether there is a right to privacy that covers abortions, and covers marriage between same sex couples...you want the government to say whether those rights exist and are available

Garbage.

What I've asked is: What is the correct mechanism for recognizing those rights (or in your world...bringing them out of the shadows) ?

Exercising them.

So in the case of Griswold...they didn't even know what they were exercising.

They just knew that the state was wrong.

Douglas had to explain (well...tell them...seems he explained little) it to them.

That makes no sense at all......

Hmm...

Douglas was a politician judge. Jeffrey Rosen explained it in a very succinct way in his book "THE SUPREME COURT: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America"
( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MZHSZ8/?tag=usmb-20 )

I find former Justice Stevens to be a fascinating study on the court...great article below:

If Stevens is shrewd in the majority, he is fierce in dissent. He was especially exercised last term by a case involving death-penalty jurors, which he described to me as “a tremendous change in the law” and which prompted him to criticize his conservative colleagues with extemporaneous comments from the bench...

...He added with a chuckle, “I’d rather assign majorities than dissents.”

It may seem surprising that such a passionate leader of the court’s liberal wing bristles when he is called a liberal. But the fact that Stevens sees himself as a conservatively oriented centrist makes perfect sense given what judicial liberalism has become. There was a time, years ago in the Warren Court era, when liberal justices like Stevens’s predecessor William O. Douglas saw themselves as on a mission to recreate American society along boldly egalitarian lines by discovering newly minted constitutional rights. But for better or worse, this ambitious conception of judicial liberalism has been replaced, like much of political liberalism in America, by a more modest, conciliatory and technocratic sensibility. Even the most liberal justices today have little appetite for the old approach.​

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/magazine/23stevens-t.html

Judicial liberalism ? Just what is that ?

Beyond that, Rosen almost sounds sensible in some of his analysis.

 

[danielpalos]

How malleable do you think our Constitution should be? People who prattle on about rights seem to think such abstractions just fell out of the sky. They didn't. They were born with the business end of muskets. So was our nation. Just what rights are they, to which you're you attempting to allude?

Abstractions:
"something that exists only as an idea." - do you agree with the definition Tom Sweetnam ?

Many of the ideas behind rights were born before Englishmen landed on the shores of North America, when muskets had not yet been invented. Our nation was born out of a rebellion; the Colonials demanded more direct and local representation.

What rights did the people who framed and ratified the US Constitution think existed?

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

You're still being awfully vague. Go on, spit it out.

In my case and Cause, it is about no appeals to ignorance of our Commerce Clause regarding our extra-Constitutional, War on Drugs.

 

[Dante]

and in a fuller context you've been arguing that the government gets to say whether there is a right to privacy that covers abortions, and covers marriage between same sex couples...you want the government to say whether those rights exist and are available

Garbage.

What I've asked is: What is the correct mechanism for recognizing those rights (or in your world...bringing them out of the shadows) ?

Exercising them.

So in the case of Griswold...they didn't even know what they were exercising.

They just knew that the state was wrong.

Douglas had to explain (well...tell them...seems he explained little) it to them.

That makes no sense at all......

Hmm...

Douglas was a politician judge. Jeffrey Rosen explained it in a very succinct way in his book "THE SUPREME COURT: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America"
( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MZHSZ8/?tag=usmb-20 )

I find former Justice Stevens to be a fascinating study on the court...great article below:

If Stevens is shrewd in the majority, he is fierce in dissent. He was especially exercised last term by a case involving death-penalty jurors, which he described to me as “a tremendous change in the law” and which prompted him to criticize his conservative colleagues with extemporaneous comments from the bench...

...He added with a chuckle, “I’d rather assign majorities than dissents.”

It may seem surprising that such a passionate leader of the court’s liberal wing bristles when he is called a liberal. But the fact that Stevens sees himself as a conservatively oriented centrist makes perfect sense given what judicial liberalism has become. There was a time, years ago in the Warren Court era, when liberal justices like Stevens’s predecessor William O. Douglas saw themselves as on a mission to recreate American society along boldly egalitarian lines by discovering newly minted constitutional rights. But for better or worse, this ambitious conception of judicial liberalism has been replaced, like much of political liberalism in America, by a more modest, conciliatory and technocratic sensibility. Even the most liberal justices today have little appetite for the old approach.​

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/magazine/23stevens-t.html

Judicial liberalism ? Just what is that ?

Beyond that, Rosen almost sounds sensible in some of his analysis.

Rosen has been at Jeffrey Rosen - National Constitution Center for a while

"Judicial liberalism ? Just what is that?" It is about one's judicial philosophy

Most analysts have deemed Richard Nixon’s challenge to the judicial liberalism of the Warren Supreme Court a failure—“a counterrevolution that wasn’t.” Nixon’s Court offers an alternative assessment. Kevin J. McMahon reveals a Nixon whose public rhetoric was more conservative than his - Nixon's Court​