Re: "constitutional rights"This is Bender, commenting, at 1/17/12 8:43 PM, on an Althouse blog post. The blog post had to do with The City of Angels making certain health related demands on the Adult Film Industry. Calling George Stephanopolous. We now have a case that might cause us to rethink Griswold v. Connecticut. Does the Government have the right, given "the penumbras and emanations of the right to privacy, or some such language" to dictate the use of birth control?
Just an aside here -- but the Constitution does not grant us any rights. Rather, it protects those rights which pre-exist the Constitution and government in general.
Regards — Cliff
1 comment:
My opinion is an emphatic "NO!!" To accord government (Federal or State) that right results in an intrusion on the "inalienable rights" accorded each American citizen by God (whether or not one believes that He actually gives them). Both the Declaration and the Constitution's "Bill of Rights" quite plainly elevates the rights of the one over the rights and desires of the many, WITH THE EXCEPTION that the government may intrude in ways that are "approved by the consent of the governed."
This is the never-ending conflict between progressivism and the classical definition of conservatism which calls for minimal government. It is also the very crux of the conflict in this Presidential election campaign.
One might easily argue that should the Democrats wrest control of the Federal government THIS time, they will alter the role of Government such that individual liberty will essentially be lost except where the ruling government allows.
Today, the argument is about equal that the Constitution is not fixed but is in fact a living document in which the precepts contained within can and should be altered. To take that argument to its logical end will result in America becoming essentially a Constitutional Monarchy or Dictatorship (degrees of severity of control)
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