Presedential Election

[Socrates]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1326291238' post='2366893']
False. Maybe you think the idea of a right to privacy is bogus (although I doubt you've read the entirety of the relevant case law) but even if the idea of a right to privacy were baseless, which it isn't, it is still factually false to say the the idea originated with 20th 'activist' judges. The idea clearly goes back to the late 19th century.
[/quote]
The idea of an [i]overarching all-encompassing[/i] "right to privacy" which applies to absolutely everything regarding sex and child-bearing (including the "right" to kill a child in the womb), and overrides the 10th amendment is in fact a 20th century idea, which can be traced back specifically to [i]Poe v. Ullman[/i] in 1961. Levin is specifically tracing here (which can be read in the link posted by StMichael) the process leading up to Roe v. Wade by which Justice William Douglas applied the "right to privacy" to apply to selling contraceptives to married couples in[i] Griswold vs. Connecticut[/i], and then Justice William Brennan applied the "right to privacy" to individuals regarding "the decision to beget or bear a child" - which he and other pro-abortion justices used to apply the "right to privacy" to protect abortion.

Obviously, there is a legitimate right to privacy implied in the 4th amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures - but laws against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government hardly constitute a constitutional right to kill your unborn child by any sane reckoning. It's an obviously bogus line of reasoning used by liberal justices to make the constitution say what they want it to say, rather than what it does in fact say.


[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1326307722' post='2367039']
The idea goes back to, at the latest, 1890 when Brandeis and a co-author (whose name I forget, I believe it begins with a 'W') wrote an impassioned defense of the right to Privacy as an emanation of the penumbra cast by the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 9th Amendments in the Harvard Law Review. Anyone who says otherwise is either a liar (like that repulsive propagandist, Mark Levine) or simply ignorant (like so many internet pugilists). It's incorporation into the formal Constitutional Law Cannon came much later, beginning with the contraceptive laws the court struck down (although Brandeis wrote an impassioned dissent in the cases you cited far earlier).
[/quote]
Ah yes, the infamous "emanation of a penumbra"! (that particular phrase going back to William Douglas in [i]Griswold vs. Connecticut[/i]).

A "penumbra" literally means a partial shadow in an eclipse or the edge of a sunspot, and an "emanation" means an emission of gas.

There is no such all-prevailing right to contraceptives or abortion listed in the Constitution, so the best Douglas can do is argue that it's based on an [i]emission from a shadow[/i] - which comes awful close to thin air. I smell the distinct emanation of bullcrap there.

[quote]This still makes the Right to Privacy's incorporation in Constitutional Law far more institutional and established than the right of the individual to bear arms (a decision I agree with, by the way, but one not even in Constitutional Law before the 30's, where it was denied, and only reversed in the late 20th and early 21st century).[/quote]
Nonsense, as the right to keep and bear arms is explicitly spelled out in the second amendment. (And any quick study of history and the writings of the constitution's framers on the topic, as well as basic grammar, makes clear it did apply to individuals, not some corporate right of the states. Individuals owned and bore arms; states did not. And in the Bill of Rights, "rights" always referred to individual citizens, not governments, which had "powers.")

Edited January 12, 2012 by Socrates

[Socrates]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1326304303' post='2366982']
A quick google search reveals that the argument for a "right to privacy" goes back further than Levin's claims. This site names two 1920's cases that the author states support a right to privacy. Now that's not all the way back to the late 1800's but its much further then what Levin claims.

[url="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html"]http://law2.umkc.edu...tofprivacy.html[/url]

Not trying to argue, but it seems that not everyone agrees with Levin's claim that this argument arose from the abortion debate.
[/quote]
He was specifically tracing the "right to privacy" as applied to abortion in Roe v. Wade. Never before had the "right to privacy" been argued to include anything and everything related to begetting and bearing a child.

[Amppax]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1326330021' post='2367247']
He was specifically tracing the "right to privacy" as applied to abortion in Roe v. Wade. Never before had the "right to privacy" been argued to include anything and everything related to begetting and bearing a child.
[/quote]

but the idea of there being a right to privacy predates what you are talking about. Granted, they took it further (to ridiculous levels imo), but the didn't just "make it up" as you are claiming.

[Adrestia]

[quote name='vee8' timestamp='1325962974' post='2364523']
*sigh* only eleven more months to go. You people need far shorter campaign times
[/quote]

yes

[Aloysius]

[quote name='StMichael' timestamp='1326147665' post='2365897']
...
[/quote]
A right to privacy is implied in the 4th amendment and it has generally been laid to rest that American citizens are protected by the Bill of Rights from both Federal and State governments, which is why even State governments cannot enforce a state religion, ban the people from bearing arms, and why state investigations are also bound by constitutional limitations in search and seizure. Paul did not base his argument on Griswald or the 14th ammendment at all, and the application of the Bill of Rights to state governments is long settled precedent that shouldn't be argued against.

Paul actually mentioned the abuse of the interstate commerce clause, noting that it is meant to facilitate trade rather than restrict it. It might be abused often, but Paul's argument is not an abuse of it IMO... though I think the sale of contraceptives probably could be banned by states the same way individual states should be able to decide whether to illegalize the sale of drugs or not. The Federal government is suppose to make interstate commerce possible, not regulate and restrict it. that was the basis of his argument, coming from a social perspective where contraceptives are so largely supported by popular opinion I can see why it seems to make sense.

I like how Paul didn't rest himself on Griswald's basis for their decision, and didn't incorrectly use the 14th amendment, and then I largely recognize that he was really trying to make a point about a political topic that's actually a topic in American politics (ie the Patriot act) rather than a complete and absolute non-issue in American politics (no state in the union even wants to illegalize contraception).

when it comes to Santorum, he has been so far entrenched in the establishment liberal republican party and in the pockets of lobbyists, I can't trust him. and his escalating talk on war with Iran is absolutely inconsonate with Christianity. our lack of diplomatic ties with Iran (and Iran has asked for diplomatic talks a few times, even if it would be a waste of time Christianity requires us to try) over the past 40 years make any war with Iran 100% disqualified from just war criteria, because unless we are engaged in at least some kind of diplomacy (which we have not been for decades) and then that diplomacy fails we are unable to justifiably attack.

[Socrates]

[quote name='StMichael' timestamp='1326259027' post='2366773']
If I have a right to privacy why can't I speak on my cellphone while driving? Or drink coffee while driving? How can a police officer look into my vehicle without due process?
[/quote]
Or buy heroin to shoot up in the privacy of one's own home? Or for that matter, quietly kill one's five-year-old kid in the privacy of one's home?
Obviously, SCOTUS justices are quite arbitrary and inconsistent in deciding where the Penumbra of "Right to Privacy" does and does not apply.


But who are we mere peasants to question the infinite wisdom of the Black-robed Ones, who have been granted the mystical wizard-like ability to divine the mysterious arcane dictates of such elusive ethereal and subtle entities as the Emanations of Penumbra? (Coming soon! [i] Harry Potter and the Emanation of the Penumbra[/i])

[Socrates]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1326290809' post='2366891']
Gingrich and Santorum are both charlatans who prey on individuals like yourself who are so pursadable that you think a token attendance of mass is somehow proof of sincerity. Santorum helped his his friend John Ensign get ahead of the media storm when someone tried to reach out to him (Santorum) for help. Thinking that Santorum was sincere about his piety the husband of the woman Ensign was sleeping with reached out to Santorum. Santorum responded by tipping off Ensign so he could get ahead of the negative media coverage. Gingirch is a serial adultery who is currently married to some home-wrecker who sang in the Cathedral choir while she was flooping a married man. That marriage is a union of false piety and hypocrisy.
[/quote]
Such judgmentalism! What are you now, some kind of religious right wingnut trying to impose your puritanical sexual mores on these people?


If only they were Bill Clinton for whom such behavior was totally amesome.

[quote]Stop being so gullible.[/quote]
Hope! Change!

[4588686]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1326415465' post='2367980']
Such judgmentalism! What are you now, some kind of religious right wingnut trying to impose your puritanical sexual mores on these people?[/QUOTE]

You're an intelligent man. You know perfectly well that I was criticizing the hypocrisy of these two charlatans and not advocating conservative sexual ethics.

[QUOTE]If only they were Bill Clinton for whom such behavior was totally amesome.


Hope! Change!
[/quote]

I think Bill Clinton should have been impeached.

[ThePenciledOne]

Paul.

[InPersonaChriste]

I'm so glad I am Canadian.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1325969073' post='2364566']
straw man.



Right. So Britain and France, both of whom had had an entire generation (and in the case of France, the nation itself) crippled in a massive war a mere decade before should have launched a massive ground campaign, against international law, into central Europe based on the hyperbolic speech of an Austrian fascist who wanted to annex traditionally Germanic parts of Czechoslovakia and Poland, when neither country had yet rebuilt itself to a point where they were really capable of launching such a ground campaign. That's an obvious course of action.

It's very fashionable to pretend that the only thing necessary for the prevention of the mass slaughter that was the second world war would have been for Chamberlain to have had a bit of spine but the hard truth is that there were no good options for dealing with the resurgence of Germany and we don't have any sort of guarantee that attacking Germany early would have had any better an impact in the grand scheme of things. Fascism was an organic movement and much more popular in even Western Europe than we like to pretend when we write histories of the region. And the fact is that for most of the buildup the western powers did a not awful job of trying to contain Hitler while they rebuilt their capacity to fight a serious land war against a historically massive industrial power (fighting wars takes a tremendous infrastructure than broken and bankrupt countries have difficulty furnishing in an instant).

We know in hindsight that taking Hitler out early was probably the best option but that was far from obvious at the time. And the particular circumstances that led an obscure Austrian fascist to power in post-WWI Germany an the geopolitical implications of this power grab do not, contrary to the chattering classes on cable news, provide some Rosetta Stone through which we can view contemporary current events and act with perfect knowledge.

People said the same thing about the USSR's incursion into Afghanistan. It was an act of expansionism, just like Hitler's early expansion into Czechoslovakia, and we must do exactly what we failed to do with Hitler, right? Wrong. Taking on the Russian's directly would have been disastrous. Particularly since, rather than a virile act of expansionism by a resurgent Russia, the invasion into Afghanistan was, although we didn't know it at the time, the last desperate bid of a failing regime to shore up its southern security. But we must fight the Russians, right? Indirectly, at least? Well, that's what we did. And it worked well at the time. Until that particular decision significantly led to the deaths of 3,000 Americans two decades later. So we should have stayed out, right? Well. Maybe not. By sucking Russia into a long, unnecessary war in Central Asia we helped expedite the collapse of the regime. And who knows what would have happened if Russia had collapsed a decade later than it did with different acts holding the reigns of power (and access to their nuclear arsenal).

International relations are opaque and the 'right' thing to do is never obvious. Stop pretending otherwise.
[/quote]

Except that we now have the benefit of learning from history.

[Amppax]

[quote name='Norseman82' timestamp='1326500498' post='2368591']
Except that we now have the benefit of learning from history.
[/quote]

Forgive me, but I was under the impression that the discipline of history pre-dated World War II.

[Socrates]

[quote name='InPersonaChriste' timestamp='1326434477' post='2368236']
I'm so glad I am Canadian.
[/quote]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zey8567bcg[/media]

[4588686]

[quote name='Norseman82' timestamp='1326500498' post='2368591']
Except that we now have the benefit of learning from history.
[/quote]

Yes. What we learned from history is that Hitler was an evil flupper mupper and Stalin was even worse. That's about it. We don't know what would have happened had we invaded. The situation was not simple and still isn't. Chamberlain wasn't asleep at the helm. He was using appeasement with the hope of stalling Hitler while the UK, a country utterly devastated by the first War, built back up their capacity to wage war. That's not to take away from Churchill. For all his faults the world can be grateful for, to paraphrase Hitchens in his review of Buchanan's book, a man like Churchill who fundamentally and categorically could not bear to share this world with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. But it is still not clear what should have been done, knowing what they did, to stop Hitler. What surrounding country had the capacity to invade and occupy Germany? Germany is not a tiny country and the Germans probably wouldn't take kindly to being invaded. Who would do it? The UK? France? Those are the regional (and in the case of the UK the world power) at the times and neither had the military capacity to fight a serious ground war and occupy a major country. And how would the USSR have responded to this? How would they have responded to the worlds policeman, the UK, and the other regional powers being utterly stretched to their breaking point occupying the other hegemonic power in the region (Eastern and East-Central Europe). Would Stalin have taken that opportunity (Germany occupied and the UK and France committing their ground forces to occupying Germany and combating the insurgency that would undoubtedly ensue) to pass up the opportunity to reclaim the land lost to the Russian Empire during the First World War? How are the Western Powers going to contain world Bolshevism in these conditions? How would the other fascist countries react to this? How would the significant portions of the population all over Western and Eastern Europe deeply sympathetic to Fascism react to this? Would France and the UK be able to occupy Germany and put down fascist insurrections?

This isn't an easy problem. It wasn't an easy question then and it still isn't that clear.

[4588686]

I remember reading a few years ago a point Kissinger made. He said that had Germany probably could have regained much of the 'Germanic' lands had they simply built up gradual pressure and been willing to acquire this land over time. But they didn't. Why didn't they? Because it turns out that Hitler had come to the conclusion from studying his family history that he would very likely die of a (I believe) the chronic heart conditions that plagued the men in his family and he would probably dies before the age of 50.

That's not something form policy around. We can know that now. Going through his private papers and notes. But who the hell would think of that? Hey, I bet that Hitler will initiate a global war at an inopportune time for Germany because he's convinced that he needs to conquer the world before he turns 50.

My point is that international relations always have and away will have a strong element of guess work to them and you are almost never going to have an obviously correct option. The system is just too complicated and the agents at play are neither fully rational nor always in possession of accurate information (in terms of what the other players want, their willingness to go after what they want, and what the know et cetera)

[PhuturePriest]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1326151118' post='2365937']
man the bar for that is getting lower every day it seems.

Used to be, if you leave your first wife while she is dying of cancer because "she is not pretty enough or young enough to be the first wife. besides she has cancer"(his words) to marry the woman you were having an extramarital affair with, and then leave that woman to marry another woman you were having an affair with(while calling for clintons head on a platter because he cheated), then you don't get to be taken seriously as the "faithful, family values catholic".
[/quote]

Last I recall, he became Catholic in 2009. Those things happened before then.

[Jesus_lol]

that can be taken a bit far. charles manson(to pick a random bad dude) converts to catholicism tomorrow and looks sincere, and now he is totally razzle dazzle to be the president.


changing your religion doesnt totally change the person you were before. if i remember correctly he has always been about espousing family values.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1326517195' post='2368765']
Yes. What we learned from history is that Hitler was an evil flupper mupper and Stalin was even worse. That's about it. We don't know what would have happened had we invaded. The situation was not simple and still isn't. Chamberlain wasn't asleep at the helm. He was using appeasement with the hope of stalling Hitler while the UK, a country utterly devastated by the first War, built back up their capacity to wage war. That's not to take away from Churchill. For all his faults the world can be grateful for, to paraphrase Hitchens in his review of Buchanan's book, a man like Churchill who fundamentally and categorically could not bear to share this world with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. But it is still not clear what should have been done, knowing what they did, to stop Hitler. What surrounding country had the capacity to invade and occupy Germany? Germany is not a tiny country and the Germans probably wouldn't take kindly to being invaded. Who would do it? The UK? France? Those are the regional (and in the case of the UK the world power) at the times and neither had the military capacity to fight a serious ground war and occupy a major country. And how would the USSR have responded to this? How would they have responded to the worlds policeman, the UK, and the other regional powers being utterly stretched to their breaking point occupying the other hegemonic power in the region (Eastern and East-Central Europe). Would Stalin have taken that opportunity (Germany occupied and the UK and France committing their ground forces to occupying Germany and combating the insurgency that would undoubtedly ensue) to pass up the opportunity to reclaim the land lost to the Russian Empire during the First World War? How are the Western Powers going to contain world Bolshevism in these conditions? How would the other fascist countries react to this? How would the significant portions of the population all over Western and Eastern Europe deeply sympathetic to Fascism react to this? Would France and the UK be able to occupy Germany and put down fascist insurrections?

This isn't an easy problem. It wasn't an easy question then and it still isn't that clear.
[/quote]

I understand what you are saying. However, there are a few other points to consider.

First, Germany was not a military superpower when Hitler took office. His military buildup took a few years. Britain and France had ample time to similarly build up their armed forces.

Second, as I stated previously, there was a report that if Britain and France used military means to oppose Hitler's illegal military occupation of the Rhineland (I was in error when I said Saar earlier), then the German military was prepared to stage a coup against Hitler. This was in 1936, I believe. France and Britain would not need to occupy Germany.

[Sarah147]

I was very happy with Rick Santorum's interview last night. Big Catholic family, man of faith, etc.

[4588686]

[quote name='JoyfulLife' timestamp='1327182080' post='2372849']
I was very happy with Rick Santorum's interview last night. Big Catholic family, man of faith, etc.
[/quote]

And happy to help his friend Sen. Ensign evade repercussions for his adultery when the man he had cuckolded contacted Santorum begging for help.


What a swell guy.