Quote of the day
AnalogKid on Democrats getting his vote:
I’m a full on supporter of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, although I would like less pussyfooting around and more dead terrorists. It is great to have a President that doesn’t treat the murder and assault of our armed forces and our citizens as a crime. I am also happy at the tax cuts that I and 10 million of the working poor received. But other than those, I’m having to grasp at straws for other reasons to be happy with this administration and this Congress.
Ayup.
October 13th, 2005 at 10:49 am
Really, do you think voting Democrat will be better? My complaints with the Republicans is that they are not to the Right enough: limited government, limited spending, originalist judiciary, and staying out of our lives. Voting Democrat would be like going on an ice cream and cookie diet because I’m fat.
The main problem is that almost everyone one of those mental midgets in DC completely misconstrues the intent of the Framers. The Constitution is specifically worded to address the powers of the government, not assign or delineate rights. It is designed to be ‘default deny’ and provide specific limitations on what it can do. It isn’t ‘default permit’ and then limit some specific options.’Default deny’ means here is what you can do, everything else is off limits.
October 13th, 2005 at 11:41 am
I voted for Bush last year because if I didn’t, John Kerry would be president. But aside from whacking Islamofacists, cutting taxes, and letting the AW ban die, this current crop of Republicans are basically pro-life Democrats.
When they start deregulating and making real spending cuts, that’s when I’ll consider them to be Republican.
Until then, the best I can hope for is that they’ll abolish DC’s gun control laws and protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits.
October 13th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
I once posted on my blog that todays Republicans were too far left for my liking. A liberal commented his surprise. Perspective is everything.
October 13th, 2005 at 1:22 pm
People, let’s not be totally and cartoonishly naïve, federal spending is what attracts campaign donations. If politicians didn’t have the power of the purse no one would donate even token amounts. This is equally true for Republicans and Democrats. The only way to curtail spending, absent a draconian campaign law that prevented most people form giving more then a small amount, is divided government.
The idea that either of the two national parties will willingly reduce government spending, simply because it is good policy is wishful thinking at it’s height.
John Kerry would have handled the WoT exactly the way Bush is doing it now, badly, because there is no other way to do it now that we are playing whack-a-mole in Iraq.
The only differences between the national parties are the constituencies to whom they pander.
And I don’t even consider myself to be all that cynical.
October 13th, 2005 at 1:42 pm
I’m really having a hard time putting my beliefs in the terms of Right or Left. I freely admit that many identify my beliefs as Right-leaning, and I guess I can see how someone may believe that. My problem, though, is that I find it hard to believe that there is a spectrum of “equally valid ideas” and one’s position on that spectrum denotes his affiliation.
I don’t think there is a spectrum of valid ideas. I don’t think that there should be a spectrum. The Founders put in place a political system that is effectively apolitical, in my opinion, and today’s arguments are really about whether we will follow that originalist idea or not. To that end, I feel the correct spectrum is more between what is Right and what is Wrong.
Our nation was founded in the idea that the ONLY powers reserved to the federal government are national defense, regulating interstate commerce, and securing treaties. Everything not included in those 3 listed powers, and everything not specifically prohibited to the states, is the power of the states or the people (I love the 10th Amendment). If the people wish to take on anything outside of those realms, it should be done at the state or local levels. In that vein, abortion is a state issue, as it is NOT in one of those three realms.
Anything not following those rules is extra-constitutional. The Department of Education, the weflare programs, Social Security, and any ‘business development’ program are extra-constitutional. If you can point to something in a federal budget that is not covered by the above three listed powers, it is, in my opinion, illegal.
So, in a sense, I guess I see how someone will call me Right-leaning, but only because of the illogical constructs of Left and Right. The correct terms, in my opinion, are Constitutional and Extra-Constitutional. In my opinion, anyone who swears to support and defend the Constitution should be held legally accountable for doing so. There is no room for interpretation, in my opinion.
The Constitution is a dead document. There is no room for reinterpretation. If one looks at the Constitution as a framework by which the Federal government may act, and considers it a ‘default deny’ system (to borrow a network security term), then there is no room to think that any of the ideas or notions have to change with the time. At no point in time should the 1st Amendment’s prohibition of government interference with religion have to be re-interpreted. At no point should any of the specific protections defined in the Bill of Rights be open to reinterpretation without reconsidering our entire form of government. If the Constitution is a specific listing of government powers and prohibitions on government actions, at no point should the government be given the right to do something in violation of those prohibitions. There is nothing that has changed with the time that allows the government to gain more power from the states or the people.
Just had to vent.
October 13th, 2005 at 6:01 pm
J.J. Horner:
Setting aside for the moment the issue of whether or not it’s correct, the problem with your constitutional interpretation is that it’s completely and totally unworkable, and almost no one really wants to live in a country goverened according to such a philosophy. (Take a quick poll to see how many people would be willing to completely abandon social security, guaranteed student loans, unemployment insurance, and all the other “unconstitutional” things that benefit people, and you won’t find too many.) In fact, if your constitutional interpretation had won out, the USA would have crumbled after a scant 72 years. And even if the Civil War didn’t sink us, the Great Depression would have.
The problem with the Constitution is that it’s never as cut-and-dry as people (on all sides) try to make it. It’s not a document that was written by people who wanted a strong, centralized federal government, and it’s not a document that was written by people who wanted to avoid this. It’s a compromise document written by factions of people, some of whom wanted the former and some of whom wanted the latter. Look at the debates (continuing to this day) concerning what the religion clauses of the first amendment are supposed to mean. You look at the writings of the framers, and you can cherry-pick to support either side (although it’s pretty clear what Jefferson and Madison thought), but the reality is what we have is a compromise between those disagreeing factions.
So what you have isn’t people arguing about whether or not this extra-Constitutional power or that extra-Constitutional power belongs to the federal government, but what precisely those Constitutional grants mean, and more importantly, who gets to decide what they mean (the legislature or the courts). What constitutes “commerce?” If money changes hands in exchange for an abortion procedure, then that’s absolutely commerce. What constitutes “general welfare?” What constitutes “public use?” Talk about plain-text readings and “original intent” all you want, the fact is there’s a lot of room for debate as to what these terms mean and what they include, whether or not you appeal to “original intent.”
Yes, people can and do stretch these almost to the breaking point, but the larger point is that the clear-cut, plain-to-see, easy-to-understand-and-interpret Constitution of your mind doesn’t exist in real life.
October 13th, 2005 at 6:22 pm
First off, thank you very kindly for the linkage, Uncle.
Next up, I don’t think that you followed the link, JJ. Please do.
I didn’t say that voting Democrat would fix the problem, I said that voting for the right Democrat could fix the problem and proceeded to outline what I think would make up the right Democrat.
I also said that a Democrat of my description is basically a unicorn, nice to think about, but alas, a fantasy that will never happen (except maybe on Opposite Day).
I do consider myself to be pretty cynical about politics, which is somewhat sad, seeing as how my first vote in a national election was only a little over a decade ago.
But I’m not so cynical as to not vote and the fact that SOMEONE is going to get my vote is what the national Repubs need to realize. They seem to believe that I’m either too ideologically hateful to vote for a Dem or that I’m too stupid as an independant voter to not vote Repub. I don’t know which one it is, but I’m insulted either way.
Yes, the Dems are far too disrespectful of my rights and of my sensibilities to get my vote at this time, but if say, the Zell Millers somehow find a way to take over the party in the next three years (which is a decent amount of time, politically), I may just fill in the little circle with a D next to it.
Or even worse, folks who are more cynical than myself will just stay home on election day.
October 14th, 2005 at 5:00 am
tgirsch,
“(Take a quick poll to see how many people would be willing to completely abandon social security, guaranteed student loans, unemployment insurance, and all the other “unconstitutional” things that benefit people, and you won’t find too many.)”
Take a quick poll to see how many are in favor of Free Beer being added to the Bill of Rights; you’d probably get a few “Aye” votes on that one, too.
Doesn’t necessarily make it right, or anything.
October 14th, 2005 at 8:19 am
tgirsch,
I’d lay even better-than-even odds that just about everyone wants less government interference in his life.
Ask anyone whether they want the government to tell them if they can have kids, where to sleep at night, or what charities to support, and they’ll give you a resounding ‘No’. Unfortunately, we have that now. The government is constantly telling people that they can have kids whether they have the ability to support them or not. The government is telling people whether they can keep their house, keep their income, or keep their land (Kelo decision). The government is also telling people that they must give to out-of-work crack-heads, “Being Gay” seminars, bridges to nowhere, and misplaced welfare recipients.
We have exactly what we rebelled against in England. We have a monolithic over-arching power that has decided to tell us what is right and wrong, rather than the other way around. We are told to give to charity in terms of “services to the poor”. We are told to plan for government assistance at retirement.
I would bet that most wouldn’t accept some of the demands placed on them if the demands were more plainly spoken, and directed at individuals, specifically. But take the money to DC, mix it all together, take out generous amounts for running the federal government (the three listed powers), take out even more for stuff not considered one of the main three, take out more for government run charities, and then unevenly distribute to pork projects and we are suddenly happy with how the government spends “its” money.
An abortion provided in one state is not interstate commerce. The federal government isn’t in charge of all commerce, just in charge of regulating interstate commerce. Abortion not done while crossing state lines probably wouldn’t apply.
At some point, the intent and intention of the Constitution changed. Look at the wording up to and including the 15th Amendment. Until that point, the Amendments were specific prohibitions on the Goverment from doing certain things. The First Amendment contains the phrase “Congress shall pass no law”. The Second prohibits the government from abridging our right to guns. The Third prohibited the federal government from quartering troops in our homes. The first half of the 15th prohibits them from denying our right to vote. The second half explicitely laid a power on the Government. The 16th gave a power. The 17th changed procedures. The 18th gave a power and took away a right.
I think you stumbled into my argument with the line about “room for debate”. In my opinion, we are supposed to look at the writings of the Framers and determine what the original intent was. The Federal government was explicitely denied the right of directly taxing the people. The wording and phrasing was reinterpreted so that a Constitutional amendment could be put in place to lay what I consider a direct tax on the people. The Courts decided it wasn’t a direct tax, as it did not directly tax property. That is a prime example of what constantly trying to find new meaning in the Constitution gives us.
This is the very definition of judicial activism. Regardless of what Schumer, Leahy, and Kennedy want to you to believe, the Constitution does not provide rights to anyone. A judge can not adequately interpret the Constitution and “take away rights”. There is no specific listing of rights in the Constitution.
I guess my point is that by deciding that the Constitution is open to interpretation, we declare it a “living document”. By considering the Constitution to be a living document, the only way to go is down. We had everything before, with a federal government that was unable to take anything from us. It can’t get any better.
I appreciate you taking the time to debate this with me.
October 14th, 2005 at 11:44 am
Tam:
That’s beside the point, really, but point taken. What I meant, however, was even among people who study the Constitution and care about what it says and what it means, rather than just the general public, you’ll find these sentiments.
J. J.:
Which makes me wonder why in God’s name anyone would ever vote for a Republican. Because with the notable exception of gun rights, the Republicans are the ones who are most concerned with interfering with your personal life. They want to control what types of sex you can and can’t have; what you do with your own body; how you make your end-of-life decisions; what kinds of books and TV shows and movies you should be able to see; whom you can and can’t marry; the list goes on and on and on. (This, by the way, is why so many judicial “conservatives” so frequently disparage the right to privacy — because that right stands in the way of their ability to regulate all of those things.)
Last I checked, it was primarily the Republicans who wanted to divert tax dollars to private charities.
Again, last I checked, it was the Republicans who opposed abortion and were more likely to oppose many forms of birth control, not the Democrats.
I’m not a big fan of that particular decision, either, but the government’s ability to take land was written into the Constitution by the framers. And if you take the strict reading you’ve asked for, there’s nothing wrong with Kelo, because the fifth amendment merely states that if the land is taken for public use, then just compensation must be given. It says nothing at all about whether or not land can be taken for other uses, or what must be done by way of compensation in such cases. This is a great example of why following the letter of the constitution at the expense of the spirit of it, as you seem to call for, is so dangerous.
Aside from the fact that you’re holding up the particularly egregious examples as if they’re typical, we’ve tried the whole “government stays out of it” thing in the 1920’s and 1930’s, and the result was not pretty. Sure, we’d all be happier if there weren’t abuse of the system (or, frankly, if we were merely better about cracking down on such abuse), but I doubt very many people would prefer a society without the safety net. Travel the Caribbean sometime if you want to see what that looks like.
No, we have what we (collectively) want. If the things the government is doing were really pissing people off that much, we’d collectively vote the bastards out. But by and large, most people want the very programs you rail against. And the comparison to the English colonies is totallly invalid, because the colonies had no say in their governance. Voting the King out of office wasn’t an option for them. Voting the president (and the legislature) out of office is an option for us. Things aren’t the way you want them not because of some oppressive government, but because you’re in the minority in wanting them that way. Ultimately, that’s what democracy is. You’re free to vote against the powers that be, and you’re free to convince others to do likewise. But the fact that things aren’t your way doesn’t make the government oppressive.
Church/State separation opponents like to point out that the phrase “separation of church and state” doesn’t appear in the constitution. They’re right. But then, neither does the phrase “interstate commerce.” The phrase “commerce among the several states” does appear, but again, what precisely does that mean? And who gets to decide what it means? Nonetheless, I’d tend to agree that an abortion within a single state cannot be regulated by the federal government. As such, federal “partial-birth” abortion bans are clearly unconstitutional. As to the state-level bans, whether or not those are constitutional is largely dependent upon whether you think personal autonomy can be regulated. That is, to allow for abortion bans at any level, you must argue that the government does have the right to inject itself into your personal affairs. Which is what you were railing against earlier. (Now you haven’t stated that you oppose abortion, and you may not — I’m merely talking about the Constitutional issues.)
But don’t you see? This is precisely my point! You talk about “original intent” as though the framers were of one mind about the constitution, but this is simply not so! Madison, for example, didn’t even want to include a bill of rights at all. What you wind up with, then, is a historical fishing expedition, where people try to find writings that support what they want some clause to mean, and then they cherry-pick those writings. But “original intent” is largely a myth. And even if it weren’t, do you really want to impose 18th century ideals on modern society? Hell, if Jefferson didn’t think lynching was “cruel and unusual,” then it isn’t! See where this leads?
And that brings me to another point: because the constitution was written largely as a compromise document, parts of it were intentionally left inspecific. “Cruel and unusual” is intentionally vague, because contemporary standards should be used to determine what this means. That’s the whole point of not listing specific punishments that are to be prohibited.
That’s quite an odd interpretation. The Federal government was indeed denied the right to tax the people. And said government wasn’t working, so the Constitution was amended to change it. You can’t have an unconstitutional constitutional amendment. No “rephrasing and reinterpreting” is needed to amend the constitution. In fact, such an amendment was needed precisely because no amount of rephrasing and reinterpreting could allow for such a tax. You would think that you would be 100% behind such a method of altering the constitution, even if you don’t like that particular alteration.
That’s open to a bit of debate. What it does is explicitly prohibit the government from infringing upon certain rights; the difference between “prohibiting the infringement of rights” and “guaranteeing rights” is negligible, in my opinion. And of course, there’s this little thing called “the fourtheenth amendment” (perhaps you’ve heard of it) which extends these protections/prohibitions to the state and local level.
Here we’ll have to agree to disagree. I view the Constitution in very much the same way I view, say, scripture. Taking too narrow a reading is every bit as dangerous (and every bit as wrong) as taking too broad a reading. And I think virtually everyone feels this way about the Constitution — they simply disagree about what constitutes “too narrow” and “too broad.” I don’t advocate for simply making things up out of whole cloth in terms of constitutional powers/protections/prohibitions, but I don’t advocate for strict constructionism, either. The key, as with anything else, is balance.
No problem. And I appreciate the civility of tone.
October 14th, 2005 at 2:04 pm
This is what I *LOVE* about blogs.
I wouldn’t get to witness this level of interaction anywhere else in the world.
Awesome.
Thanks to all.
October 14th, 2005 at 4:35 pm
tgirsch,
Again, thanks for having this discussion. It is refreshing to have a discussion where I’m not called a bigot, homophobe, or racists because I don’t believe we have to explicitely grant rights onto a certain minority. I believe the federal government has NO ability to grant rights, because we were all given those rights from our Creator (I know, extremely Christian of me, but I’ll get into that later). As for your differentiation between preventing infringement and guaranteeing rights, there is no difference. I wasn’t alluding to either. I was referencing the most basic source of our rights, which is NOT the Constitution. We are endowed with rights, according to the Declaration, by our Creator. Therefore, to assume that we must look to the Constitution for a right to privacy is indicative of what I consider a monumental misunderstanding of how our nation was formed.
For the record, I do not believe abortion is any different than murder. I think the same statutes should prevent both. I do not believe we can shake the Constitution like a Magic 8-ball and find a right to privacy in a document that was not designed to grant rights. I believe that life is the right that should be exercised by all, and abortion steals that ability from a living, soon-to-be-breathing human being. I do not believe the legality of abortion should be decided at the Federal level, and I will work tirelessly to encourage my local state reps to create state law to prohibit it. I do not think I have the right to go to another state and decide their laws.
It is my understanding that the Founding Fathers approached the task of forming a government with at least two major underpinnings:
1. Governments can NOT give rights, as only God (our Creator) can give rights.
2. Governments are supposed to provide for the free exercise of our God-given rights.
As for point one, you are correct. I am a sinning Christian (aren’t all Christians?). I subscribe to the belief that our nation was founded under Divine Providence. I believe that God’s greatest gift to us all was the ability to CHOOSE to follow him. That also means we have the right to NOT choose his way. In order for us to exercise that most basic of rights, we had to have a form of government that protected our ability to exercise that right. Effectively, prevent us from being taken over and get out of our way. Regardless of what we choose, we are honoring God by making a choice. That choice may, in my understanding, lead us straight to an eternity of DNC Conventions with long Al Gore speeches, but we are celebrating God’s gift when we choose to not follow as much as we are when we chose to follow. When the Danbury baptists pushed for the 1st Amendment to explicitely deny the government the right to intefere with our most basic form of rights, they were providing an ability for all of us to make the right or wrong choice.
In order to provide for us to make that choice, they formed a government and wrote the Constitution to provide for us the most latitude. A very, very limited Federal government, with specific prohibitions. A reading of the 10th Amendment answers every remaining question. We have the right to make any follow-up laws at the appropriate level. If we mess it up at that point, it is our fault.
Now, I know this is a very religious way to interpret things. Some may think that I’m no different from a Muslim by considering our nation a religious nation. To refute that point, consider what the Bible says about non-believers, and what the Koran says about unbelievers. Consider what our form of government is allowed to do regarding religion, and what a Sharia-based government would do regarding religion.
Our form of government was created by Christians (or Deists), so that we would have a place to exercise the most basic of Christian rights: the right to choose or not choose God. Speech, assembly, guns, privacy, freedome from self-incrimination,etc, are all protections that we all must have in order to secure our ability to exercise our God-given rights.
There is a limit, however, but it should be imposed at the most local level. If a community of people gets together to determine we should not have gay porn in our 70’s clothing stores, it is well within the community’s rights. We have the freedom of assembly to get up and move. Laws should be created at the most basic level to allow for the individual, or a community of individuals, to create the environment they feel most reflects their beliefs. It is done at the lowest governmental level as possible, so as not to turn into what we have today.
I personally don’t like legislating morality. It, in my opinion, violates the most basic of our rights. However, if a group of people want to get together and set rules for their neighborhood, there is no prohibition.
As for Madison, I believe he thought a Bill of Rights might lead someone to believe the Constitution is a listing of rights, which is why the 9th was put in place. I happen to believe it is redundant. If a government is prohibited from interfering with our ability to freely exercise our rights, why must we then specifically tell them what they cannot do, again? There is always a balancing act between allowing a community to define itself and allowing for the free exercise of rights. As long as that is done at the most local of levels, we have better odds of it working correctly.
Also for the record, my religion may decide my own actions, when I am in control, but I do not believe my religion should be imposed upon others. If a majority of my neighbors believe the same way I do, our will can impose restrictions, but not religion. If I’m in a minority, I’ll live with it, or move. I can not force someone to choose God, but I have a say in my environment, just as you do. It borders on tyranny of the majority, but it is a battle we fight everytime we vote.
Please do not take my references to religion to be any kind of judgement upon you. I make no assumptions about how you may or may not believe, and if my wording says otherwise, please take it in the spirit with which it was meant. I seek only to understand and be understood (the Covey is strong with me).
Thanks, again. More later, as I’m in a hurry.
October 19th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
J.J. Horner:
Late, I know, and you may never see this; however, I must respond:
Actually, that seems very Deist of you, not Christian. I’m not aware of very much scripture that discusses “rights.” That’s an Enlightenment concept, almost wholly unrelated to Christian dogma/doctrine.
But the Declaration is not a legally binding document, was never “ratified,” and does not dictate our governance. The Constitution does that. So what you seem to be arguing is that rights are totally irrelevant to our governance? That seems an odd view.
If that’s the case, shouldn’t you then extend that logic so that all miscarriages are investigated as manslaughter? I can certainly see opposing abortion, but classifying it as “murder” is just heavy-handed rhetoric. Aborting a six-week-old fetus is even in the same league as killing a child, or an adult, or some other fully-formed and fully-cognizant being. Of course, we’re simply not going to agree on this.
What if that “other state” outlaws firearms?
Actually, the Qu’ran is generally much more forgiving of non-believers than the Bible is. Perhaps you should brush up on both.
Consider further how similar “our form of government” would be to Sharia-based government if we allowed the Dobsons and Robertsons and Falwells to make policy. Speck/plank alert, there.
It seems that you contradict yourself here. Freedoms without rights are meaningless and vice versa. You can’t protect freedom while being agnostic on rights. The two go hand-in-hand. Thus, in order to protect freedoms, the Constitution must concern itself with rights. And if the Constitution is unconcerned with rights, then how come they call it the Bill of Rights?
He did indeed fear that the list would be viewed as all-inclusive. He feared that people might, oh, I don’t know, decide that since a right to privacy isn’t explicitly listed in the Bill of Rights. Not that this could be particularly relevant to today’s debate, or anything… 🙂
Here I disagree most strongly. Having “rights” decided on a community-by-community basis leads to factionalism, and ultimately to Balkanization.