From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Fri Feb 07 2003 - 11:25:05 MST
> (Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com>):
>
> Well, it's startling the aplomb with which you dismiss the
> entire strict-constructionist view.
Because the strict constructionist view is inherently
dishonest. The ninth and tenth amendments are very clear,
and they were put there for a very good reason: because
the framers knew the moment they started putting human
rights on paper, some idiot would come along and say
"This one wasn't written down, so it must not exist".
It is entirely appropriate--indeed, it is an ethical
mandate--for the court to enforce rights that are part
of our culture but which may not have been enumerated
in 1789. There's no written constitutional right for
me to marry a black woman, or to buy a condom, or to
school my own children; but the court has rightly
recognized that laws that restricted those things were
repugnant to our notions of freedom, and stripped the
federal government, and the states, of their power to
oppress the people in those ways. An honest "strict
constructionist" would have to favor reinstating those
laws that have been soundly rejected as being against
basic human freedom.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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