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I understand the point you are trying to make but this example is just stupid. How else would the citizentry ‘choose’ besides voting? Not to mention it specifically calls out the ‘right to vote’ in the 15th amendment.
They could choose by gladiatorial combat, or toss of a coin. And yes, the vote is mentioned in the Fifteenth. It simply says you cannot deprive a person of the vote based on race. It doesn’t say you have to give anyone the right to vote.
The reason this seems stupid is because a hard core textualist approach is stupid. It makes no sense not to read the document in light of other factors. My point is that nobody does that; textualism is a sham for supporting a particular interpretation of the constitution, based around a claim that it is not an interpretation at all.
How can you deprive someone of a right they don’t have?
You can’t. But the fifteenth can easily be read so as to say “If you allow people the right to vote, you can’t deny it to a particular person because he was a slave.”
It’s a stupid argument, but a textually valid one.
You don’t ‘allow’ anyone to have a right. A right means no matter what you say I am able to do that act despite what anyone else says.
Not to mention the 17th amendment:
nor the 19th
nor the 24th
nor the 26th
Please stop this stupid hijack. Arguing that the right to vote isn’t in the constitution makes you look idiotic.
The amendment has to be protecting something and privacy is the only thing that makes sense. It also strongly implies that households are something which the government has no automatic right to enter without a reason. To me, that shows an obvious intent to protect privacy. It’s obvious to ME. If it is not to you, then you are welcome to your opinion. The Supreme Court agrees with me, though.
Interpretation of the writers’ intent. There is no necessity for the deciding court to agree that the intent is morally “right,” they only have to sincerely believe that it was the true intent of the writers.
This is not a debatable statement or question. It’s just a personal opinion. I disagree with you. I think it represents an authentic attempt to determine the true intent of the authors and not an attempt to create new law or impose a personal moral code.
Bullshit
No it doesn’t. It isn’t based on ay part of the text of the Constitution even applying a “penumbral” standard of interpretation. There aren’t even the most tenuous implications of such a category as “Ceremonial Deism” anywhere in the Constitution.
Not in the Constitution, the authors weren’t comfortable with any mention of God. They deliberately made a choice NOT to use and deistic or theistic language in the SCOTUS. You will find nothing in any of the writings of Jefferson et al that mention a damn thing about “ceremonial deism.” There is no center for your penumbra to emanate from. It’s a wholly contrived construction designed to save (admittedly minor) Establishment violations from being struck down.
It sure isn’t.
Guess what…those things ARE establishments of religion. Calling them relgiously “meaningless” is nothing but a dodge. There is no such thing an official recognition of a deity which is religiously meaningless. I don’t “trust in God.” I’m not “under God,” and I don’t think it’s meaningless for the government to say that I am. It’s a patent endorsement of monotheism at the very least. The government does not have a right to declare that God exists or doesn’t exist. As soon as it says one or the other, it’s making an official declaration that someone’s religious beliefs are false.
I don’t want it to be broader. As it’s written, t’s already absolute. It CAN’T be broader.
No, I was saying that parents don’t have a right to keep their children uneducated.
And I’ll raise the same three objections to your analysis that I raised in the other thread, objections to which you never did respond. To wit:
And again, I’ll raise the same three objections to your analysis.
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Public schools are not individual institutions, they are public ones. Therefore the wishes of the parents don’t enter into it. Once the state has decided it will educate any kids at all on the public dime then every kid is entitled to that same quality of education and parents don’t have a right to withhold that education. If the parents are withholding information that is necessary for kids to function as adults or deprives them of the ability to go to college or in anyway inhibits them from acquiring the same base level of edcation that is available in the best public school, then the parents are depriving their kids of their rights and the government is failing to protect those rights…
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I already agreed that if some mythical state were to approve a universally shit curriculum for all it’s public schools then no equal protection would enter into it.
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Do they need to fall into a “class” in order to receive unequal protection?
“SCOTUS” should have been “COTUS.”
Damn those precious little acronyms.
First off privacy isn’t the only justification that makes sense. I provided a perfectly reasonable justification without invoking privacy. Let me pose a hypothetical:
A green 2001 Toyota Camry is reported stolen. In an attempt to to find the stolen automobile the Police is towing and impounding every green 2001 Toyota Camry they find and will only give it back if the owner brings proof of ownership. Clearly this is not a reasonable action for the police to take and the seizure would be unconstitutional. There is no breach of privacy here you drive your car in public, the DMV already has you on file as the owner. If the amendment is protecting privacy what argument would you make against this seizure?
The point I am driving at is that this amendment deals with both search and seizure. I can’t say that the fact I own a home or an automobile is private information, anyone can see me driving around or that I enter my house every day. However seizure of these items without a warrent is clearly unconstitutional. Becuase of this I would argue that the justification for this amendment is to protect against deprivation of property (whether it be seizure or the time during a search) without a warrent.
My main concern in this situation is that this judge seems so concerned with flaunting his religious beliefs in his work place, that from an emotional standpoint, his religious obsession interferes with his ability to perform his job correctly. He’s a judge, he’s supposed to be rational and level-headed but instead he’s too consumed with his religious beliefs, which are getting in the way so much as to draw public scrutiny. I see plenty of opportunities for people who have been in his court, past and present, to appeal any decisions he’s made, based upon questionable doubt as to their integrity. Court is not Bible study class nor a pulpit, and vice versa.
You know, Iam more than happy to stop this, and was concerned it was becoming a hijack of sorts, though the fact you don’t see how it is related says something.
My final words on it:
- I do not say the right to vote is not in the Constitution.
- I think the right to vote is clearly implied and implicit in the Constitution.
- Textualists claim they are not ‘interpreting’ the Constitution.
- This position of the textualists is frankly a crock.
- The textualists are being disingenuous when they accuse people of reading privacy into the constitution (remember … how we got here…) while it is possible (thought I think clearly incorrect) in a pure textualist manner, to read the constitution as not including a right to vote.
I am sorry this is so repetitive, but you apparantly have totally missed the point if you think the purpose of my posts was to argue that “the right to vote isn’t in the constitution.”
This is the false premise in your argument.
Textualism is a mode of interpretation. The leading textualist today is Antonin Scalia; the title of the book where he lays out his jurisprudential philosopy is called “A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law” (empahsis added). The title is not an accident.
Textualism is not hyperliteralism, which is what you seem to believe. Perhaps you should endeavor to understand exactly what textualists believe and why before you try to refute them.
Dio, I’m jammed up at work, and will probably be traveling today or tomorrow to a funeral – my grandfather passed this Sunday. I will get to your comments eventually, but it may be awhile.
And just because this kind of nonsense pisses me off, look at the second definition:
- a. A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them.
Context clearly points to using this latter definition (and yes, textualists will look to context when choosing how a particular term should be defined). So spare us this ridiculous strawman.
That’s ok. This whole thing is probably better served in new thread anyway (this one was supposed to be about the judge with the Commandments on his robe, IIRC).
I’m sorry about your grandfather. Have a sfae trip.
Getting back to the OP, it could be argued that even forcing this judge to stop wearing these robes doesn’t help much at all. It’s not like not wearing the robes is going to change what’s going on in his head, and that’s the important venue. People who would not receive a fair trial in his courtroom wouldn’t be able to blame their not receiving a fair trial on his robes, but on his beliefs. The robes are only a symptom of those beliefs, and personally I’d prefer to know whether or not a judge I’m appearing before thinks I’m a dirty heathen.