Did you just write "irregardless"?

As I recall, James Madison's original intent was that the courts not be bound by original intent. Madison also pointed out that the intent of the framers is irrelevant. The framers didn't ratify the Constitution, the people did, through their delegates to the Convention. Good luck figuring out what their "original intent" was.

Irregardless (hehe, sorry KE, just poking you in the eye), The only original intent with which I'm concerned is how the constitution is changed to allow for the evolutuion of this society. It is plainly described in the text.

It allows for gay rights and abortion rights and last rights and property right changes to become legitimately accepted into the fabric of our culture......when these issues are imposed on us by the majority of a small panel of unaccountable judges, they become a stain on that fabric not part of the fabric.

Let there be an official amendment to the constitution specifically delineating gay rights, abortion rights etc. Finding these rights written between the line or by somehow reading the minds of the framers, is rediculous.

Don't forget reproductive rights. The Constitution does not give you the right to rubberize. You only get that right if it's amended to include it.

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I don't like rubberizing.

No, we disagree on the first assumption.

I think they would be okay with all manner of folks. They counted slaves, but did not specify color, for example. The Constitution up through the Bill of Rights is mute on who may vote, it leaves that totally up to the states. This is why Wyoming was able to enfranchise women while other states chose not to. The federal gov didn't have the authority to determine voter qualification until later amendments explicitly removed that right from the states and put it into the Constitution. And so forth.

In the beginning of this country, all of the things not specifically ceded to the federal gov was reserved to the individual states and people. President Lincoln successfully changed our government from a weak federation to a strong one. He did it by force of arms rather than argument. And it stuck, too.

B

Of course they disagreed. they argued for several months. But they signed the constitution in agreement. The arguments of the various people notwithstanding. The document was sent to each state legislature which then debated the document. Some legislatures took a long time getting onboard. But they all signed. The resultant compromise was the common understanding, to which originalist genuflect.

Incidentally, some states signed while explicitly reserving the right to withdraw if they believed union worked to the detriment of their citizens. Jefferson and others verbally acknowledged that as a "right," later politicians disagreed, resulting in a War Between the States.

Here we part company.

I read in the 9th and 10th amendments exactly the rights to which you take exception. That's, all rights not explicitly given to the fed are reserved to teh states and to teh citizens. So if it ain't agin the law of the land and it ain't agin state law, it is okay because it is your right as a free citizen.

Bot

I doubt we part company really. If the desire is to make an issue a constitutional right then it should be done through the process described in the constitution, not through judicial tyranny.

Were this the case, then wether a judge is pro life or pro death or pro golf wouldn't really matter. they'd be bound by the constitution.

The originalist rationale for rejecting a right to privacy seems clear to me. Since there were anti-sodomy laws in existence at the time, the original meaning of the constitution could not have included the fact that individuals had a right to privacy in regards to their sexual lives.

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1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Sure they did...just not with thier anuses

absolutly correct. And that is the scary thing to me about Roe v. Wade and abortion and litmus test for judges. Not the surface issue of abortion itself, but the foundation of a right to privacy upon which Roe was based.

If the court were to overturn Roe tommorrow it would have to rule that we don't have a right to privacy. I don't want the senate asking judges about abortion, ask them "Do you believe the constitution guarantees us a right to privacy?" Let the judge say no and see how much support he gets on the right or left.

Can you make the case that a right to privacy existed in 1789?

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
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1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

I could but not as eloquently as Justice Goldberg in his concurring opinion in Griswold

MR. JUSTICE GOLDBERG, whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN join, concurring.
I agree with the Court that Connecticut's birth-control law unconstitutionally intrudes upon the right of marital privacy, and I join in its opinion and judgment. Although I have not accepted the view that "due process" as used in the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates all of the first eight Amendments (see my concurring opinion in Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 410 , and the dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN in Cohen v. Hurley, 366 U.S. 117, 154 ), I do agree that the concept of liberty protects those personal rights that are fundamental, and is not confined to the specific terms of the Bill of Rights. My conclusion that the concept of liberty is not so restricted and that it embraces the right of marital privacy though that right is not mentioned explicitly in the Constitution 1 is supported both by numerous [381 U.S. 479, 487] decisions of this Court, referred to in the Court's opinion, and by the language and history of the Ninth Amendment. In reaching the conclusion that the right of marital privacy is protected, as being within the protected penumbra of specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights, the Court refers to the Ninth Amendment, ante, at 484. I add these words to emphasize the relevance of that Amendment to the Court's holding.

The Court stated many years ago that the Due Process Clause protects those liberties that are "so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental." Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105 . In Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 666 , the Court said:


"For present purposes we may and do assume that freedom of speech and of the press - which are protected by the First Amendment from abridgment by Congress - are among the fundamental personal rights and `liberties' protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States." (Emphasis added.) [381 U.S. 479, 488]

And, in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399 , the Court, referring to the Fourteenth Amendment, stated:

"While this Court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty thus guaranteed, the term has received much consideration and some of the included things have been definitely stated. Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also [for example,] the right . . . to marry, establish a home and bring up children . . . ."

This Court, in a series of decisions, has held that the Fourteenth Amendment absorbs and applies to the States those specifics of the first eight amendments which express fundamental personal rights. 2 The language and history of the Ninth Amendment reveal that the Framers of the Constitution believed that there are additional fundamental rights, protected from governmental infringement, which exist alongside those fundamental rights specifically mentioned in the first eight constitutional amendments.
The Ninth Amendment reads, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The Amendment is almost entirely the work of James Madison. It was introduced in Congress by him and passed the House and Senate with little or no debate and virtually no change in language. It was proffered to quiet expressed fears that a bill of specifically enumerated rights 3 could not be sufficiently broad to cover all essential [381 U.S. 479, 489] rights and that the specific mention of certain rights would be interpreted as a denial that others were protected. 4

In presenting the proposed Amendment, Madison said:


"It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard urged against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the [381 U.S. 479, 490] last clause of the fourth resolution [the Ninth Amendment]." I Annals of Congress 439 (Gales and Seaton ed. 1834).

Mr. Justice Story wrote of this argument against a bill of rights and the meaning of the Ninth Amendment:

"In regard to . . . [a] suggestion, that the affirmance of certain rights might disparage others, or might lead to argumentative implications in favor of other powers, it might be sufficient to say that such a course of reasoning could never be sustained upon any solid basis . . . . But a conclusive answer is, that such an attempt may be interdicted (as it has been) by a positive declaration in such a bill of rights that the enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." II Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 626-627 (5th ed. 1891).

He further stated, referring to the Ninth Amendment:

"This clause was manifestly introduced to prevent any perverse or ingenious misapplication of the well-known maxim, that an affirmation in particular cases implies a negation in all others; and, e converso, that a negation in particular cases implies an affirmation in all others." Id., at 651.

These statements of Madison and Story make clear that the Framers did not intend that the first eight amendments be construed to exhaust the basic and fundamental rights which the Constitution guaranteed to the people. 5
While this Court has had little occasion to interpret the Ninth Amendment, 6 "[i]t cannot be presumed that any [381 U.S. 479, 491] clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect." Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 174. In interpreting the Constitution, "real effect should be given to all the words it uses." Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 151 . The Ninth Amendment to the Constitution may be regarded by some as a recent discovery and may be forgotten by others, but since 1791 it has been a basic part of the Constitution which we are sworn to uphold. To hold that a right so basic and fundamental and so deep-rooted in our society as the right of privacy in marriage may be infringed because that right is not guaranteed in so many words by the first eight amendments to the Constitution is to ignore the Ninth Amendment and to give it no effect whatsoever. Moreover, a judicial construction that this fundamental right is not protected by the Constitution because it is not mentioned in explicit terms by one of the first eight amendments or elsewhere in the Constitution would violate the Ninth Amendment, which specifically states that [381 U.S. 479, 492] "[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." (Emphasis added.)

Wouldn't Scalia and friends reject that argument because anti-sodomy laws at the time of the framers applied to married and unmarried alike, therefore giving governments the right to interfere with the marital act? Griswold is inventing the right??
I agree with the result of Griswold, but I don't see how it can be argued that the Constitution had that intent originally.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13