The right to life exists, it just, unfortunately does not extend to unborn children. It’s not a problem with defining the rights, it’s a problem of defining a person. But don’t let me get in the way of your flip, inaccurate analogy, when I know you’re busy dodging the issues in this thread.
No. If someone asserts that the TEXT of the Constitution, via the Ninth Amendment, protects a particular right, then I’m entitled to explore how he knows what specific list of rights the Ninth protects. If the answer is, "The ones the courts define as existing, " then I’m fine; I am relying in this thread on existing case law. If the Ninth is offered to show that its text protects specific rights NOT defined yet by the courts, then I can certainly offer my own list, which has just as much validity as the next guy’s.
In other words: if you say the Ninth protects “X,” then either it’s your own opinion, just as valid as my opinion about “Y,” or it’s based on some external authority, in which case… let’s hear it. If it’s the courts, then I’m prepared to accept that, as it applies here on my side of the argument.
I, and many others in this thread, can’t get a response from you regarding what this thread is actually about, yet some pinhead hijacks with a 9th Amendment discussion, and you find the time to involve yourself. Funny that.
Not in this Forum. Keep personal insults (even if simply gratuitous swipes at parties you are not addressing) out of Great Debates.
[ /Moderating ]
Kindly check your know-it-all, sanctimonious attitude at the door. I don’t know who you think you’re debating, but if you have any evidence whatsoever that the text of the Constitution doesn’t mean anything to me then put up or shut up. You have no clue how I feel about the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade. To the best of my recollection, and that of the SD search engine as a memory refresher, I’ve never discussed the constitutionality of abortion here, or, for that matter, gun control. So kindly quit throwing around unfounded accusations and stick to the topic at hand, which I think still has something to do with some chilling movement to disallow red and green napkins at holiday parties which oversteps the bounds of your Constitutional rights. Or something.
Not so! If that’s all they sought, then when they got it, they’d’ve dropped their lawsuit. But they haven’t.
YES! And those restrictions have been ruled not violative of elementary school students’ First Amendment rights, and yet they persist in suing the school district anyway – both the NJ parent(s) to whom the ruling applies, and the Plano parents who you keep saying are having their rights trampled on by some mysterious and chilling movement that’s evidenced by overzealous adminstrators who fear lawsuits or threats of lawsuits by the ACLU, but who are happy to modify their policies and make appropriate accomodations when asked, yet it’s your side who’s doing the suing!
Wow. That’s a pretty emphatic disavowal.
Or, rather, it isn’t. It looks like one at first blush, but it’s merely a statement that I don’t know how you feel. But I’m willing to admit my supposition was wrong… if, in fact, it was wrong. Was it?
Is their suit still pending?
Bricker is there any chance you’re actually going to respond substantively to the many, many questions about just what this thread is supposed to be about, and whether there’s anything to see beyond some reasonable dispute about the limits of the Establishment Clause? Or are you going to continue splitting hairs and picking semantic disputes regarding questions at best tangential to what appeared to be your position in the OP?
There are so many of you, and only one of me.
I will ask, again, for a summary of questions, and I will respond.
Apos put it very well:
"So Bricker, now that you’ve modified your position, care to explain if there’s anything worth discussing? You now seem to be saying that appropriate and legal lawsuits about illegitimate endorsement can also have an unintended chilling effect on legitimate religious expression.
Ok… so? We all argee that unintended consequences are bad and that sometimes overly scrupulous government officials go too far, and they shouldn’t. The ACLU agrees with you. Most everyone on this thread agrees with you. More importantly, the same sort of problem exists all over the place: people going too far to enforce a misunderstanding of a law. That’s bad, but I assume that in general you agree with everyone else: that’s bad, but it doesn’t illegitimize people being scrupulous about fighting against real abuses.
So… once you dropped the “war” rhetoric, where’s the debate? Now you seem to be haggling over side debates."
Zoe, Siege…I know I said I’d get back to you, but I’ve had a pleasant and relaxing weekend, and frankly, I just don’t seem to feel the same motivation to argue the thread further right now. I hope you’ll accept my apology as I do recognize and appreciate the time you took to compose your posts to me.
Shayna, I wasn’t really ‘on’ about anything; at least not in the context of your question. Kalhoun was being vague about his (or her) position and making lots of obtuse claims regarding Christians thinking that they ‘own’ the day, so I was trying to cut to the chase and get his/her view out into the open.
Which is precisely my point. You don’t know how I feel, yet you found it acceptable to jerk your knee, make assumptions and post a rude and nasty swipe at me nonetheless. Kindly resist the temptation next time. Thank you.
And speaking of temptation, mine here is to dismiss your question with the reply that it deserves; “it’s none of your business,” seeing as how the point I was making has been made – your supposition could very well be wrong, yet you made it anyway. Bad form, Rick. Bad form.
However, in the interest of putting this hijack to rest, the answer to your question is, yes, you were wrong. At this moment I remain undecided on the constitutionality of Roe. I’ve read many of the debates about it on this board, and at times have found myself swayed by arguments I found convincing on each side of the debate. And that’s all you’re going to get out of me on this unrelated hijack.
I wish I could see whether or not you have a straight face. I cannot believe that we’re at post #586 and you don’t even know the status or disposition of one of the cases that you’ve been holding up as an example of your point, whatever that may be. Don’t you think it would be prudent to know whether the modifications to the policy made by PISD were accepted by the plaintiffs and the suit dropped, or whether they still feel encumbered by the policy and are seeking further clarification from the courts before you try to hold it up as a cite?
Yes, the case is still pending. The plaintiffs are unsatisfied with the portion of the policy that affects elementary school children and are seeking to expand the distribution policy to mimic that afforded to upper-level students, and the church is funding their suit.
Oh, and in case you’re at all interested, here are some pictures from this year’s (2005) Christmas party for students in the School-Age Parent Program. The PISD Grinch seems to have overlooked the Christmas tree and the green table cloths at this one. Here are some more. Boy, Santa is sure a cutie, even letting the grown-ups sit on his lap! One of the Middle School Curriculum Projects in their 7th Grade Language Arts Department on becoming an effective writer, included a report on Christmas Sayings and Superstitions. Since you seem to be so concerned about this something vague against Christmas and its impact on “traditional” Christmas symbols and rituals, like colors and candy canes and such, I’d love to know which of those you plan on implementing in the coming year. Perhaps if your wife brings home the Christmas holly first, you’ll let her rule the house for the year. And when you’re done with it, you’ll feed your Christmas tree to your cow.
Hello, Starving Artist! I hope you’re enjoying a Happy New Year!
:dubious:
But where is Jesus?
I wasn’t being vague about anything. That was my interpretation (and still is) on your take about how non-christians should behave about a secular holiday. I thought I was clear about that. Your request that we treat the holiday with the same reverance a believer does equates to you believing you “own” the day.
That’s what I’m saying. Not everyone in this thread seems to be agreeing.
If we all agree on this, then I’m done. It’s not what I started with, but it’s what the discussion has led me to believe. If everyone else agrees, then we’re done. But I don’t believe everyone else agrees. I think there are people who believe there has been no cases of government officials going too far, that EVERY curbing of religious expression by government officials is correct.
I don’t agree that there’s any unwarranted chilling effect. The Wal-Marts and so forth aren’t going the “Holidays” route out of any fear of the ACLU but just to try to widen their market. Any chilling effect on state endorsements of religion is completely appropriate and is, in fact, the POINT.
So no, I completely reject any assertion that there has been any significant chilling effect, intended or otherwise, on any legitimate religious expression. Any unwarranted intimidation has come entirely from religionists.
There you go, MaxTheVool.
Since it apparently takes at least two times to get a response from Bricker,
I’ll just repost my problems with his point:
The problems with his point are, as I see it: 1) he’s blaming the movement to guard against the establishment violations for the chilling effect, which is just plain silly. He’s done this before, by decrying those seeking same sex marriage through the judicial branch as somehow responsible for the resulting backlash. 2) he’s downplaying or ignoring the multitude of governmental agencies that continue to attempt to actively circumvent the establishment clause; 3) he’s taken a long time to make the point and relied on poor examples and hyperbole’ and 4) he hasn’t shown me a reason to actually care. Whatever minor chilling effect exists, if any, is an inevitable result of the difficulty of determining what is an establishment of religion, and should not be blamed on those seeking to enforce the establishment clause. All in all, it’s a profoundly silly, sorely overstated point, but a point nonetheless.
Let’s distinguish between thinking that none of your examples rise to the level of “government officials going too far” and thinking that no such examples exist.
There are some examples of this occurring: A child was prevented from finding a quiet space to pray to Mecca during lunchtime. Another student was prevented from wearing a Star of David. Another school prevents wearing symbols of “Wigga” such as pentagrams. From the same link, a fourth school prevented students from wearing shirts with Satanic messages. And yes, from the same link, a fifth school prohibited the wearing of all neck jewelry, “religious or otherwise,” and in so doing got sued by a Christian girl who found the policy imposed an unconstitutional ban on her religious expression.
I’ve spent about fifteen minutes Googling, including Googling the Rutherford Institute’s website directly, and I’m having a lot of trouble coming up with policies that are specifically anti-Christian. Most of the things I come up with are specifically against the practices of particular Christian religions, not against all religious practices. I hear rumors of a school at which kindergarteners were prevented from praying at lunchtime, but I can’t find the specifics.
Daniel
Actually, can I get some clarification? Should I rephrase the last bit of this quote as “Every curbing of government officials’ religious expression” or “Every curbing by government officials of religious expression”? If the latter, then my examples all apply; if the former, then they don’t, but neither do most of the examples you’ve given.
Daniel
Why is it silly? That is the source of it, is it not?
They were responsible for the backlash. Seeking same-sex marriage through the judicial system intead of the legislative system caused a backlash that gave us innumerable state constitutional amendments and arguably handed the White House back to Bush in 2004.