You say that like it’s a good thing. You approve of being owned? And, through your representatives in government, owning others?
When the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. That sounds like a bit more than a rhetorical flourish, at least to me.
The Ninth Amendment mentions rights that are not created by or protected by the Constitution. So the Constitution says explicitly that there can be rights not created by the Constitution.
History didn’t add anything - the idea of natural rights is right there at the founding of the Republic. It’s right there in black and white, and all the signers of the DoI attested to their consent.
Regards,
Shodan
DrCube,
I simply state it as a fact (that can be independently confirmed).
Crane
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Regards,
Inigo Montoya
No. You’ve created a definition of the word “fact” that is nonsense. A fact isn’t dependent upon independent confirmation. A fact is simply something that is true. This isn’t Schrodinger’s constitution after all. You also make the mistake of equivocating between all of the rights contemplated by the constitution and our laws. Some rights are natural rights, and some other rights are legal rights. Concluding that certain legal rights are created by statute does not eliminate the concept of natural rights that are pre-existing.
You say this again, and again it is false. This is not true and it never has been true. You are wrong. For example, here is the 1st Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It doesn’t say, The people are granted the right to peaceably assemble. It simply says that Congress shall make no law respecting the right… The right that already existed.
SCOTUS has said regarding the 2nd amendment: The right to bear arms* is not granted** by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. * This directly contradicts your false statement. Until you recognize this fact, all other analysis you conduct will be tainted by this misunderstanding of constitutional jurisprudence.
Yes, I agree that our government has failed to do its job of protecting rights many times for many people throughout its history. That doesn’t change the fact that our nation’s founders wrote a constitution that was firmly based in the concept of natural, god-given rights. Nor does it mean that such human rights aren’t worth fighting for. This is Great Debates, you can stake out a moral position here even if history shows it hasn’t always been followed.
Originally Posted by sear
According to the 9th Amendment, if it was legal, a right on Dec. 15, 1791 it should be legal & a right today, unless otherwise specified.
I will quote our 9th Amendment in its entirety.
Yet S claims:
?
The meaning of the 9th Amendment is unambiguously clear, and is precisely as I initially stated it.
Your reason for posting your unsupported contradiction remains a mystery to me.
But perhaps the more important question is why (to my knowledge) the 9th Amendment has seldom if ever been used as a Constitutional law basis for a law suit.
DrCube,
Then rights are God given and cannot be abridged, amended or denied by men
even when serving in the military.
Crane
Bone,
OK, then by what process do you determine that something is true?
Crane
Because the Ninth says that rights are not brought into existence by being enumerated in the Constitution. They belong to the people whether they are enumerated or not.
The Ninth is not a source of rights. It is a rule on how rights are to be understood in the United States. That’s why it is not used in lawsuits - it talks about rights that aren’t enumerated. Only enumerated rights are under the protection of the federal government. The power to define other rights is assigned to the states, or the people, in the Tenth Amendment.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m not Bone, but the process by which it is determined whether or not a right exists belongs to the states, or the people, if the right exists without being enumerated in the Constitution, or to the Supreme Court if it is.
Regards,
Shodan
The question is: how do you determine something is true.
Crane
A person’s right to bear arms is as fundamental as the person’s right to vote and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. I believe the American people agree, and the results of the 2016 election showed that the rowdy, ultraliberal members of Congress and their backers among the anti-gun lobby, progressive constitutionalists, and hard-left, militant base activists had overreached.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sear
“According to the 9th Amendment, if it was legal, a right on Dec. 15, 1791 it should be legal & a right today, unless otherwise specified.” s
Nor is any other legal right in the U.S., enumerated or not.
Not exactly.
Instead, it merely makes the point that the rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution are NOT to be construed as a comprehensive list.
If you were right, Article #9 would be the one Article in our Bill of Rights that is not enforceable law.
My legal consultants informed me the Constitution’s Preamble is not enforceable law.
They did not mention the 9th Amendment in that exclusion.
It would be quite peculiar to include ONE article in the entire amended Constitution that is not enforceable law, if all the rest of it is enforceable.
It would be illogical to add one article to our “supreme law of the land” (Art.6 Sect.2) that is not enforceable, if all the rest is.
The 10th is fine.
But it does not negate the 9th.
The Founders would not have included it in our list of laws, if it had no bearing in law.
I am going to take a completely different tack on the 2nd Amendment. I believe that it is more of a state right than in individual right. (Theoretically) States are in their own way sovereign entities and as such can enforce laws on treason or insurrection. The second amendment allows the state to have a militia and arm them, thus it would be unconstitutional for the Federal government to disarm the militia. It sounds archaic now but it makes a lot of sense (IMO) given that the second amendment can be interpreted as the State protecting itself from the tyranny of DC threatening “the security of a free State”. The bottom line is that the second amendment allows any state to define what its militia is and protect their rights to bear arms as appropriate. So for example Kansas has a law that declares every man 18 or over as a member of the militia so the Feds should not be allowed to say “No that only applies to Natl Guard units.” and implement Federal regulations in Kansas.
Yes I am a Federalist.
Sc #195
I think using the right to privacy re: Griswold and Roe v Wade did create a right to birth control and abortions with the Ninth Amendment as a source.
Bone,
“The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.” Bone#185
OK - please demonstrate that your statement is fact or as you put it “true”.
Crane
Got it. The government reserves the right to violate these divine inalienable rights when it gets really scared. And the difference is…?
FWIW, I wasn’t citing Carlin as a source. It’s just that I happen to share his cynicism. But I’m sure you knew that.
The fact that rights exist doesn’t mean they can’t be infringed. And vice versa.