Thursday, July 21, 2005

I Won I Think

In a Posted commentary on Crawford's Blog dated 7/20/2005 at 11:50 am, Crawford states:

"For the sake of liberty, please read and contemplate the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Founders were speaking to us. They were saying they hadn't thought of everything, that they were, indeed, fallible. They were asking us to expand our rights when we see fit. Paying attention to what they said here is true strict construction. It is our salvation against imperious government. And yet, it has never been cited as the basis for a majority ruling in a Supreme Court decision. It is time to ground the right to privacy in the Ninth Amendment, as Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote in Griswold v. Connecticut."

This is in apparent response to my question, "Where in the 14th amendment does it say we have the right to kill unborn babies?" There was little response to my comments on his blog over there, it appears they just threw up their hands out of sheer frustration at not being able to come up with a reasonable answer.

Crawford himself tried to divert his readers attention from the abortion topic by copying and pasting his next posting in the comments section, to no avail. Then, this morning I returned to his blog to see what kind of responses I received to my query. There were none save for an apology from Sheila for losing her temper at me.

I have also noticed that none of the commentators over there crossed over here to leave comments on my blog. I really don't know what to make of this without thinking I must have won.

One can only surmise why the Crawford followers have now chosen to be silent on this issue, but, if I may venture an opinion, I would like to think I won the argument. I would like to think. But knowing the dogged stubbornness that some people have, even when they are proven wrong, I highly doubt it. Most likely they realize that they aren't getting anywhere by arguing.

In any case, Crawford did apparently change the direction of his argument to now include the 9th amendment along with the 14th to support his belief that "right to privacy" includes the right to kill babies. That argument is even more ambiguous than the previous allusion to the 14th amendment.

But maybe it's just coincidental timing that he decided to post that thought at this particular time.

I don't know, though. I'm just your humble friend and uneducated blogger, so I may just be patting myself on the back, thinking I've won an argument, when all they are trying to do is ignore me in hopes that I'll just go away.

Let me bask in the glory of believing I made a difference just this once. OK?

ADDENDUM: I was astounded to learn that one of my favorite commentators, Ann Coulter is less than happy about the appointment of Judge Roberts to the SCOTUS. So, I read her column. Basically, what she is saying is we don't know what kind of judge he's going to be. I agree. This is too important an appointment to nominate someone whose ideology is unknown. I would rather have him appoint a judge who is known to be a liberal than one we know nothing about. Unlike Ms. Coulter, however, I am disposed to giving the President the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he satisfied himself as to Judge Robert's viewpoints before appointing him. In Ann Coulter's words: "Maybe Roberts will contravene the sordid history of 'stealth nominees' and be the Scalia or Thomas that Bush promised us when he was asking for our votes. Or maybe he won't. The Supreme Court shouldn't be a game of Russian roulette." And on that last statement, I agree.

12 comments:

Poison Pero said...

I'm not quite sure what Coulter is up to, but she's just wrong on this one.

There are no givens in life, and we don't know what anyone will end up. --> For all we know a Democrat U.S. Senator from West Virginia may revert back to wearing a white sheet and cute little cone hat.

These what ifs are nauseating, and we must go with what we know.

And what I know is every solid Conservative I can think of (except Ann) is thrilled with Roberts.

Jamie Dawn said...

Maybe Coulter is just worried about what kind of judge he'll end up being. I'm not worried. So far, I've had no red flags about him.

The issue of abortion can be argued to death. I think it comes down to the fact that pro-abortionists think that a women's right to choose overrides her baby's right to live. We, on the other hand, see the lives of the woman and her baby as two, alive people.

tugboatcapn said...

Can anyone tell me when Roe V. Wade is scheduled to come before the supreme court again?
I was unaware that the supreme court was going to review this case any time soon.
Has new evidence been discovered that I haven't heard about, perhaps something was overlooked in the original hearings that has now been called to the attention of the court?
If so, I hadn't heard of it...

tugboatcapn said...

I know I'm off on a tangient...
Just curious...

Anonymous said...

Mark

While I don’t condone abortions, a majority of the population believes that this is a fundamental question of a woman’s personal privacy.

For the sake of this discussion, let’s say that Roe v Wade is overturned and abortions have become illegal. What are the legal ramifications? Let’s say this has become the new status quo; how do we define it?

After 8 weeks of development an embryo becomes a fetus. Will there be a legal distinction between embryos and fetuses, or will both be granted the same protections?

Will embryo destruction at invetro fertilization clinics also become illegal? Will donors be forced to carry all embryos to term or face prosecution? If the donors refuse and are prosecuted, will the embryos be kept on ice indefinitely and become wards of the State?

Will the government prosecute mothers of aborted fetuses, the abortion providers, or both? What will be their term of imprisonment upon conviction? I suggest that a criminal charge less than murder would undercut the charge of ‘killing babies’ that you allege.

If Rove v Wade is overturned, and this is becoming an increasing possibility, these are among the many questions that will need to be answered.

Mark I’ll admit that I have moral problems with abortions but I also have concerns about the alternatives.

Poison Pero said...

Abortion will never be overturned by the Court....

If it ever goes it will be at the hands of the people........Constitutional Amendment.

I am not an absolutist, but 45,000,000 abortions in the U.S. in the past 30 years is too much.

Since 2000, 1 of every 4 pregnancies has been ended via abortion......ABORTION WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE A FORM OF BIRTH CONTROL --> But that's what it has turned out too be.

If we could get back to the days of "safe, rare and legal" (with the emphasis on RARE) the fight would be much less severe.

But it won't happen anytime soon.....The abortion industry is safe to keep killing fetuses --> Around 1,200,000/year.

Even worse, there are over 45,000,000/year worldwide.

What I want to know is how do these same Liberals fight so hard to keep murderers alive? Oh well.

Mark said...

The main problem, the way I see it, is that both the 14th and the 9th amendment are sunject to an open ended interpretation. There is no direct reference to a Right of Privacy, and certainly not a right to abortion.

Installing conservative judges will not solve the problem. Realisticly, judges shouldn't be able to decide whether we have a right to privacy or a right to abortion based on what the constitution says.
That is the legislative branch's job. Thsy make the laws. The court is only supposed to interpret it in accordance to the language in which it is written. Any judge that tries to legislate from the bench is not doing the job he is appointed to do.

Anonymous said...

You people are so funny.

You just repeat the same thing to each other all the way down and think you're having a debate. LOL

Mark said...

Anon, And the liberals don't? check out the liberal websites. they all say exactly the same thing. Go see what NARAL, NOW, Moveon.org, ACLU, etc. have to say about Judge Roberts. You'd think they all have the same writer.

Anonymous said...

Maybe we can call it BBQ instead. You like BBQ, don't you?

Mark said...

Yoohoo,

Huh?

Mike's America said...

I'm a bit of a textualist when it comes to the Constitution and it's amendments, so I would have to question on what grounds someone feels the 14th Amendment grants privacy or abortion rights.

And before anyone cites the ninth amendment:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. "

Consider the 10th:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. "

Wouldn't it be a better idea to let the people, in their respective states or through the legislature or congress decide this issue?

Unfortunately, those with a more "active" interpretation of the constitution seem to think that only the judiciary can be trusted to decide the issue.

Of course, this turns the intent of the judiciaries role as defined by the Constitution on it's head.