On the contrary, absolutely correct.
Who amends the Constitution?
[list=A][li]The Supreme Court[/li][li]Congress[/li][li]The states, or the people[/list][/li]
Because they are both in the Constitution. The purpose of the Constitution is to define the functions, scope, and limits, of the federal government.
Regards,
Shodan
The Vice President is mentioned in the Constitution. So why not let him assign rights?
You can’t words you wanted in various sections and bring them all together and claim constitutional authority. We’re talking about textualism after all. You have to read the words as they were written.
So once again, what the Constitution says is “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” No mention of the states having any role in the enumeration, creation, or recognition of rights.
Because the Tenth Amendment gives that power to the states or the people, and not to the federal government.
We have Madison’s explanation of the purpose of that amendment. We also have the Tenth Amendment, which explicitly says that all powers not assigned to the federal government belong to the states, or the people.
The Ninth Amendment does not assign any powers to the federal government. Madison (the author of the amendment) says explicitly that the assumption that the federal government has control over un-enumerated rights would disparage those rights. See the explanation above.
Regards,
Shodan
I will not waste much time with you, having done that too many times in the past. Just one example
I will simply mention I find it very telling about your honesty that you found it necessary to snip the Madison quote, completely ignoring the first part, which stated: "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 the enumeration; and it might follow, by implication, … "
By snipping out that part, and only quoting the part after “by implication”, you get rid the point Madison was actually making, that the concern that by enumerating certain rights, other rights could be disparaged, was protected against by the 9th Amendment. With your “creative” editing, you don’t have to acknowledge that the 9th Amendment specifically states that unenumerated rights should not be denied or disparaged simply because they are unenumerated.
Typical Shodan.
Good, then we need not expect you to repeat nonsense over and over.
The point of the Madison quote is exactly what I said it was. Madison says, quite clearly and specifically, that the purpose of the Ninth Amendment is to counter exactly the mistaken notion that you have been pitching.
Un-enumerated rights are not - repeat, not - under the purview of the federal government. They are not. That’s what the quote says. They are not. Not.
The idea that un-enumerated rights are under the purview of the government disparages them. So Madison put in the Ninth Amendment, because un-enumerated rights are not to be disparaged by thinking the way you do. They are not to be disparaged by the false notion that they are under the control of the federal government.
So, as ever, I am right, you are wrong, the Madison quote proves it, and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
Regards,
Shodan
The Ninth Amendment also does not assign any powers to the states. You just made that part up.
You took one word in the Tenth Amendment and invented your own meaning for it. By claiming that the states have the power to determine rights, you’ve taken away the people’s rights that exist in the Ninth Amendment. If I said the Tenth Amendment gives states the power to regulate firearms, could I take away the people’s right that exists in the Second Amendment?
My guess is you’re going to claim that’s different. It isn’t but you’re going to say it is.
If you’re so sure, why did you feel the need to snip the quote? Why did you find it necessary to take out the part of the quote that dealt with Madison’s view of the meaning of the Ninth Amendment, and instead only quote the “by implication” part?
I’m pretty sure we all know why.
Repetition does not equal truth.
Madison’s quote says exactly what the 9th Amendment says: unenumerated rights are not to be denied or disparaged simply because they aren’t enumerated. The fact that the quote includes a reference to the fact the General Government isn’t the repository of these unenumerated rights, doesn’t mean it goes to the states. Those rights, those natural rights that the founders were so clear on existing, were instead retained by the PEOPLE, not the States.
No, it doesn’t. Disparage means “to lower in rank or reputation : degrade”, not “give the federal government power to define and protect rights.” The federal government is more than able to define, create, protect and uphold rights not enumerated in the constitution. None of those things “disparages” unenumerated rights. What the 9th Amendment means is precisely what it says, they can’t deny or disparage those rights. In fact, the opposite is true, not allowing Congress or the Supreme Court to define and protect those unenumerated rights does “deny or disparage” them.
I thought you weren’t going to waste time repeating nonsense.
:shrugs:
Get back to us if you ever develop a new argument.
Regards,
Shodan
Ahh, classic Shodan. Ignore what you can’t refute, claim victory, and use ad hominems. I really didn’t need yet another example of your inability to debate honestly. Although I admit the “Disparage” doesn’t mean “disparage” it means “the federal government can’t get involved at all, even if it is not disparaging” dishonesty was new.
You are misreading Madison’s meaning. By “assigned into the hands of the General Government” he means surrendered, or given away, to the federal government. (To assign means to convey in this context.) Madison is saying that the unenumerated rights haven’t been surrendered any more than the enumerated ones have. Both varieties are protected against governmental infringement.
Again, the most obvious explanation for the 9th Amendment (and the one Madison is actually giving) is that it was to cover the possibility that the drafters’ list of rights didn’t cover all the rights that should be protected; that they didn’t remember them all. The 9th is a catch-all.
This is entirely true, and entirely irrelevant to the argument that the government has the power to enumerate rights. The government has no such power.
Madison is saying that enumerated rights are under the protection of the feds. Un-enumerated rights may, or may not, exist. The power of determining them belongs to the states or the people. And not the feds.
The Ninth is not a source of substantive rights - even non-textualists agree on that.
Regards,
Shodan
DAMMIT!! If only the framers had included an Amendment that would refute the idea that the unenumerated rights could not be DENIED federal protection or DISPARAGED by not being protected by the federal judiciary like enumerated rights.
Damn those founders for not saying something like: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Why then Shodan would be completely wrong.
No, I said a new argument.
Regards,
Shodan
Hamlet: Ahh, classic Shodan. Ignore what you can’t refute, claim victory, and use ad hominems. I really didn’t need yet another example of your inability to debate honestly.
So then your argument is that the framers were saying, “Hmm, we may have forgotten to list some rights, and if we did, TOO BAD, the federal government is not bound to protect them! Suckers! (Psych!!!)”
Well, one of us is making things up. A hint: it’s you.
I did not say the Ninth gave powers to states. I said the Tenth did. Here -
The Ninth is not a source of substantive rights.
Regards,
Shodan
The Ninth Amendment is not a source of substantive rights? That’s exactly what it is. That’s exactly what it said it is. And it doesn’t even say anything else to confuse the issue. I can’t imagine how the text could be made any clearer and more direct.
Although apparently the framers needed to write it like this: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. This means what it says, Shodan.”
No doubt, you’d be muttering that they might have meant some other Shodan.
That is what they do. They claim that the government doesn’t have the power to recognize that such rights exist, new or old, or to vindicate those rights.
In short, they ignore the explicit text in favor of their own political viewpoint of the era.
Question, Shodan:
If a state passed a law mandating sterilization after two children, would that be constitutional, in your reading of the Constitution?
Shodan, let’s take an example - let’s use the right to travel between states.
Now nowhere in the Constitution is there an explicit right to travel. So it’s definitely not an enumerated constitutional right.
I think most people would agree that it’s a pretty basic right, that it’s always been a right since the time the Constitution was written, and that people in the United States have this de facto right. So I think it’s an unenumerated right.
Which makes it the kind of right that the Ninth Amendment covers. The Ninth says we have rights that exist but are not enumerated in the Constitution. So I’m saying that the right to travel between states is a Ninth Amendment right.
Now if such is the case, the Ninth Amendment is clear on who that right belongs to. Rights like this are reserved to the people. So the right to travel is a right held by the people.
Now let’s say that the state of Massachusetts decides that too many people are leaving the state and moving to some southern state. So Massachusetts passes a law which makes it illegal for a resident of Massachusetts to move to another state.
According to your arguments here, Massachusetts would be able to do that. The Tenth Amendment gives Massachusetts any powers not held by the national government and that, according to you, includes the power to determine what rights exist. So if Massachusetts declines to recognize that a right to travel exists, then that right does not exist in Massachusetts. The states have the power to decide what rights exist.
So how do you reconcile the right to travel being held by the people with Massachusetts’ power to decide the right to travel does not exist in Massachusetts? How can the people hold a right if they need the state’s permission to have that right? If the states have the power to deny its residents their Ninth Amendment rights, doesn’t it also have the power to deny them their First and Second Amendment rights?