Whacky with the truthiness
There are people over at Music City Bloggers seriously arguing in comments that the Constitution does not guarantee anyone the right to vote. OK, then.
Then, err, find it in the constitution for me. I’m sure it’s right there beside the right to privacy, near the section that guarantees the right of the state to bear arms, just above the right to free health care for everybody. I’ll spare you the search, the right to vote is not enumerated in the constitution. That is, however, not to say there is no right to vote. Rather, it’s just not an enumerated right:
The Constitution contains many phrases, clauses, and amendments detailing ways people cannot be denied the right to vote. You cannot deny the right to vote because of race or gender. Citizens of Washington DC can vote for President; 18-year-olds can vote; you can vote even if you fail to pay a poll tax. The Constitution also requires that anyone who can vote for the “most numerous branch” of their state legislature can vote for House members and Senate members.
Note that in all of this, though, the Constitution never explicitly ensures the right to vote, as it does the right to speech, for example.
Like privacy, voting is one of those unenumerated rights.
Update: BTW, we require ID for all sorts of things (including civil rights). Why is voting different?
Another update: BTW, here’s an interesting list of things not in the constitution.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:09 am
I think of them as rights which, if you assume they aren’t there, make the rest of the constitution meaningless gibberish and therefore, logically, must be there.
The founding fathers surely weren’t perfect, but they weren’t blithering idiots either. If they hadn’t taken some amount of “right to privacy” for granted, the bill of rights would have been arrant nonsense, therefore they must have assumed some right to privacy. Same with voting.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:31 am
Read the way the bill of rights are written: its an order to the government not to infringe peoples rights. ‘congress shall make no law, ..shall not be infringed …’ if you just add government after each time the word infringed or violated it makes it pretty damn clear who they are talking about should do what. It doesn’t explicitly say we have these rights – it just says the government shouldn’t violate these certain rights and all of the other rights they didn’t write down.
As long as the constitution was followed I wouldn’t care if I voted or not. My primary concern about gov’t is that it stops violating my rights – which I would freely give up my ‘right’ to vote to live unmolested by the biggest racket in world history.
Please everyone read the bill of rights. The words are quite clear to me and I know right away that the government is violating many of them and all these excuses and interpretations and bureaucratic edicts are clear violations.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:31 am
One of the reasons the Bill of Rights was external to the Constitution (if you will) is that some of the founders feared that if specific rights were listed, it would be seen in exactly this light. They believed that by enumerating some rights, people would misconstrue the point that there are unenumerated rights.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:37 am
We can’t say idiot at MCB due to the site rules. But they are three main idiots at MCB that will argue with a doorknob. The doorknob always wins but they argue anyway.
Neal Boortz just covered this on his program. There is a proposed amendment to the Constitution to guarantee the right to vote. Boortz ask the question why do we need an amendment if it is already in the Constitution?
This is all a ploy by far left liberals to bring up their favorite subject, Bush stole the election, twice.
Public schools have let this country down. It is scary how stupid some people are. I am surprised at R. Neal. But then again…
The high point is when Constitutional expert Andy Axel drops in for a drive by. It’s worth a read at MCB. Gays are complaining they are being gay bashed, most of the discussion is about voting machines. Apparently the Republicans plan to steal another election. We all know that is the only way they can win.
Register to vote. If you haven’t then read the MCB post.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:46 am
Take a look:
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/political_reform/right_to_vote.html
From the Boortz show.
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
_Jon,
…Which was the point of the 9th amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
IOW, just ’cause it ain’t in here don’t mean you don’t have it.
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Here’s the enumerated protection of the right to vote.
Section 1. The RIGHT of citizens of the United States TO VOTE shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. –15th Amendment to the Constitution
Why is it that many of those who want to make it very easy to vote, also want to greatly restrict or even deny the 2nd Amendment right to armed self self defense–a right which down through history was paramount to maintaining people in SLAVERY??!!
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:58 pm
9th and 15th, just like the others said. Anyone who argues otherwise is a sophist or moron.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I disagree that it’s enumerated not that it doesn’t exist.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Anyone who argues otherwise is a sophist or moron.
There is a third choice. They know and ignore.
This is just an excuse to trump up Republicans have to cheat to win elections. Today is the beginning of the Presidential Election and the country will descend into moonbat madness. They have to fire up the base and they think the best way is to say the last two elections were stolen.
It will be a long year.
Here is Fred on Federalism. Worth a look and a link.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Ugh. Just read the “no right to vote” asshats. They are indeed sophists. “no right to be represented as a state even though you aren’t in a state” does not equal “no right to vote.” If that was the case, then Puerto Rico and American Samoa and all sorts of other territories are going to end up with Reps and Senators.
This argument is like saying that since the 1st Amendment just says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” then you don’t really have a right to any religion.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Also, rights apply both to citizens and non-citizens, so get ready for all the absentee votes from Paris and Berlin.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Oh wow, it gets even better:
I think that should read “Republican state officials who, as required by state law, enforced the disenfranchisement of felons.”
You mean… like the constitution says at Article II, Section 1?
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Phelps,
Both the 9th and the 15th make the arguement that the right to vote is unenumerated.
The 9th, obviously, because it specifically states that not all rights are enumerated.
The 15th, because it doesn’t protect the right to vote itself. It only protects certain *new* classifications by which that right cannot be denied.
Again, the argument does not seem to be that you only have rights that are enumerated. Saying that the right to vote is not in the Constitution is not the same as saying you don’t have that right.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Wasn’t the right to vote limited to landowners at various times?
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Check it out. There is a new Godwin law.
Glad to help TennViews get a few readers.
Heh.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
The latest update from MCB is that charging a fee for a photo ID for voters is a poll tax.
I’m serial.
Looks like the campaign to allow illegal aliens to vote is underway. I think I have reached my lowest tolerance for the far left.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Seems to me like a semantics issue. “Not specifically enumerated” and “does not exist” are not the same thing.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I concur. R. Neal’s post, however, does not.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:30 pm
There is no right to vote. Or rather, there is not much of one. There is only the qualification that representation is proportional to those who vote.
So if your state decides to deny voting by means other than race, etc. like they do with residency requirements today, their representation in Congress will reflect that. That means that voting is not much of a right.
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Correct … the “right” to vote is one that is handled under the 9th and 10th amendments at the state level.
The original constitution simply sets the number of representatives and electoral college members for each state based on the census.
As for how the electors and House reps are chosen:
How they are elected is up to the individual state legislatures … and yes, originally only white landowners had the franchise in many states.
Senators were originally appointed by state legislatures … and the President and VP are chosen by the Electors.
So … under the original constitution, only Representatives and Electors were chosen by popular vote … and individual State legislatures/ state consti8tutions decided who got to vote and how the elections were run.
The anti-slavery amendments were added to try to force the states to give former slaves voting rights.
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:59 pm
If your rights were not subject to someone else’s vote, how many would bother to vote?
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
For the most part, sure. But don’t forget the republican guarantee clause of Article IV, Section IV.
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:35 pm
“If your rights were not subject to someone else’s vote, how many would bother to vote?”
Ding ding ding! One post regarding the true intent of the constitution!!
Guys, don’t pigeon hole yourself into the argument about what exactly the meaning of the word “is” is – the better argument is the clear intent in the bill of rights and constitution and from the founding fathers.
The point is we have rights, and voting is merely a tool to help secure those rights, among others. Start seeing the real argument – individual rights vs the state racket.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:47 am
“The latest update from MCB is that charging a fee for a photo ID for voters is a poll tax.” #9 quoting MCB
I agree with them on only this portion of the issue. I register to vote now,and there is no charge. If the card I am now carrying is deemed insufficient evidence of my residence or identity in order to vote I don’t have an argument with it. However, if they want more, let them pay for it. That is what our taxes are for. You do not pay a user fee for a voter registration card, picture ID or not, that is the definition of a poll tax.
January 4th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
At any rate, the rights on the original Bill of Rights are, to me, more important than voting. If I had to choose free speech, my guns , the right to privacy, the right to NOT incriminate myself and the right to a jury trial, etc., I value them much more than voting. With the two establishment parties being so controlled by a globalist/tyrannical agenda at the national level of politics and media, our vote is usually only one of which name brand of “democratic tyranny” or “executive tyranny” we’re gonna get.