From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Feb 08 2003 - 02:48:06 MST
Lee Daniel Crocker writes
> > 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.
You probably agree with me that it's best to have a
maximally workable set of decisions made at the lowest
possible level, namely at the level of the individual.
By maximal set, you probably understand what I mean
even if some here do not; whether property rights or
murder are to be respected or not is not included.
(Some things indeed are necessary for an entire
society, everywhere.)
But failing that, and a city or a county collectively
decide to ban abortion, or to allow red-lining, or to
mandate that children must attend school---though I
would oppose each of those myself, I would defend the
right of the level to protect *its* right to decide.
Now failing even that, and at the higher level yet of
the state, a decision along any of these lines is made,
then even though I strenuously disagree with the decision,
the right of the lower body should be defended against
rulings from the higher. That is, I favor the individual
first, then the district, then the state, then the
Federal government, and then (reluctantly) the whole
world.
This is a consistent scheme, and it falls completely in
line with the wisdom encapsulated in books such as Thomas
Sowell's "Knowledge and Decisions". Local decisions can
take into account local knowledge, nowhere so evident and
clear as at the level of individuals.
So it is not clear to me why a large state such as
California finds it necessary to regulate so many
parts of our lives. I would rather they defer these
decisions to lower levels, i.e. the counties and
communities. Then on that level, I would likewise
point out that decisions should *not* be made even
by these bodies, but left to the individual citizens.
By the same token, to force so many decisions at the
*national* level to apply over four million square miles
of territory seems absurd. Despite their enormous wisdom
(even unto overseeing the tiniest details of our lives
it would seem), I cannot believe that nine men and women
sitting in Washington can pass laws and rules that apply
equally well to a small tightly-knit Hasidic community
on Long Island, to the entire Appalachian South, or to
communities in southern California. How the hell can
they say what is appropriate in these diverse regions?
And how the devil is it that they can maintain that
*they* should be trusted in these decisions, but the
people, communities, and states at lower levels cannot
be so trusted?
Lee Corbin
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