I really don't have any justification for believing in sovereign states rights.

Amendment IV

[b]The right of the people to be secure in their persons[/b], houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, [b]shall not be violated[/b]

That may sound like a stretch, but if spammers can claim First Amendment rights, women can claim control of their own bodies based on the Fourth.

The Democrats and Republicans are about equal in their protection of the constitution, but the Republicans are worse as a whole when viewed outside of the "gun issue".  

Republicans are strong proponents of the so called drug war, which when measured when it ultimately fails, will show decades of unbelievable civil rights abuses and a total raping of the taxpayers.  Of course, if you are an O'Reilly type of pro drug war type of guy, you believe that anyone involved is a traitor to humanity, and gets whatever is coming to them.

I can't understand how pro gun people could be so anti drug.  There are no good or bad drugs, just legal and illegal.  Some gun guys say that guns don't cause crime, the user does(people), but in the next sentence will say that drugs are the root cause of crime and need to be eradicated.  This is the type of guy who will then throw the constitution up as protecting guns, but not drugs.  To me this is someone who doesn't value freedom, and is simply lucky that the 2nd exists for them to hide behind.

erm

You cant claim 4th, that is only against 'unreasonable searches and seizures', not against being violated.

Roe v Wade is created out of the 'right to privacy' which was created out of the 3rd and 9th Amendments.

Secure against what? The answer to that question is in the amendment: "againt unreasonable searches and seizures."

That's the way it's written, I believe that that's the way it's intended. The fetus's home is the womb in which it lives. It should have a right to be secure in that home againt an unreasonable seaizure. [:D]

I don't see how preventing someone from having an abortion is making them insecure against unreasonable searches and seizure...

[Edited to change "again" to "against"]

Nope the 3rd.  The one against the involuntary quartering of Soldiers in time of peace.

It has to do with the interpreation by the SCOTUS of what the 3rd actually was meant to do.

They said that the 3rd was there to prevent the Government from having control over your property and to keep government from interfering with your privacy as much as it was to prevent soldiers living in your house.

It has to do with how the british used their soldiers involuntarily quartered in peoples homes in order to silence dissent and to keep the people 'in line'.

Actually I agree with it, and if you think on it, it is not very twisted at all.

Especially once you look at the history of what the founders endured at the hands of the british, and how the british used the troops.

Imagine trying to hold a position against the government, or one the government does not endorse, when the government has a habit of parking a few soldiers in anyone's house that hold those positions.

In other words it is there to prevent the government from using its police powers to silence dissent.

Well, I just highlighted the parts that matter in this case, and left out the "againt unreasonable searches and seizures" part; the same way the 2nd A is interpreted as "The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms shall not be infringed, period" by pro-RKBA activists, who say, the "well regulated milita" part is just there for decorative purposes.

And that is part of the problem.

WE do not need to ignore the introductory clause of the 2nd, we do not need to belittle it by claiming it is only 'decorative'.

As a matter of fact anyone that says so obviously hasnt looked at, or understood, what the thing actually says and means.

IF anything the introductory clause STRENGHTENS the main clause.

Why?

To understand that you have to look at the Definitions of the words as used by the Founders:

Militia - EVERYONE capable of contributing to the common defense

'well regulated' - Well trained in a uniform or 'regular' manner, using/owning/keeping and bearing a uniform or 'regulated' weapon.  

In other words a 'well regulated Militia' is the People, [b]ALL[/b] of the people, trained and armed to be soldiers.

Just look at the Militia act of 1792 to see what the Founders meant by a 'well regulated Militia'.

The only way you could do that is if the right of the people to keep and bear arms is not infringed.  

Remember the ULTIMATE ARBITER of authority in the US is NOT the government it is the people.

The Second Amendment is saying that the People being trained and Armed in the ways of war is the surest way to defend freedom, and since that is the Case the People cannot be disarmed by the government.

I dissagree with that analogy. Your statement of the 4th amendment was more a kin to someone saying that the second says, "The right of the people to keep and bear shall not be infringed." If someone saw that, they would probably say, "Keep and bear [i]what[/i]?"

Likewise, when you say that a person has a right to be secure, I say, "Secure from what?"

Are they secure from breathing in exhaust fumes? Are they secure from insects? Are they secure from hearing the noise of a car drive by? No. They're secure from unreasonable search and seizure.

Even so, how does a law forbiding a medical procedure amount to a violation of one's right to be "secure in their persons?" At most, you could only claim that it prevents the government from forcing you to have an abortion.  

I believe the 16th Amendment is abhorrent to individual privacy (and property) rights and is insidiously immoral as well.

I also believe the 17th Amendment contradicts the entire spirit of the rest of the Constitution - that the [b]States[/b] (as represented by the Senate) should have a vested and co-equal interest and representation in the Federal Gov't along with the [b]People[/b] (as represented by the House). As it now stands, the States have no representative voice in Federal Gov't. Hence the utter disregard for the 10th Amendment and States' rights in general by the Fed.

Not really.  The "right to privacy," which does not appear in the constitution, was invented by a very liberal Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut.  While the 9th was mentioned in passing (but see J. Goldberg's special concurrence examining the 9th), the "right to privacy" was primarily "found" in the "penumbras" (shadows) of various amendments in the B of R.  In other words, SCOTUS simply invented it.  While many claim that various amendments "imply" some sort of privacy right because, in very limited ways they provide some sort of protection that in some way might be considered an example of privacy, there simply is not a "right to privacy" in the constitution.  

The founders were very specific in describing the enumerated rights.  If they intended a "right to privacy," or to forbid laws outlawing abortion, then:

(1) why didn't they include it?

(2) why didn't the bill of rights apply to the states?

Erm there is no such thing as a 'State Right'.  States, or any government entity, only has 'powers'.

A 'Right' is a power that cannot be delegated to, or usurped by, another.  You can willingly allow then to be denied though.

Only individuals have 'rights', since the powers of a State are simply the powers of the People that have been delegated to it, and since you cannot delegate or usurp a right there is no way for the the people to have given the States rights or for the States to have taken rights from the people.

1- There are many rights that they did not enumerate.  To say that because they did not list it it does not exist is assinine and a dangerous misinterpretation of the Constitution, the listing of evry right is impossible and this impossibility was understood by the founders, hence the 9th Amendment.  The better way to read it is that unless the Constitution specifically allows the Government to restrict something then the power to restrict it does not exist.

As a matter of fact it is quite clear form the Papers of the people that wrote the Constitution that simply because something was listed it did not preclude that other things did not exist because they were not listed.  Read the Federalists sometime.

2- Erm, only the 1st Amendment was not meant to be applied to the States, hence the language 'Congress shall make no Law' that appears in no other Amendment.  The founders did a dangerous thing they ASSUMED that the people and the States would understand that some things were within the bounds of the power of the people, and that neither the United States nor the Several States, could touch it.  That was one mistake they made, they did not fully state this belief in plain language so idiots 200 years later could understand it.  Of course for the first 150 years or so of the Country the SCOTUS took the stance that if a State violated your rights you had to take up that violation with that State, not with the Federal Government.  They did not say that the States had the power to do things, but rather that the Federal Government did have the power to tell the States they could not do things.

True, but the phrase "States' Rights" generally refers to the right of states to hold and exercise powers not specifically delegate to the Federal Gov't as acknowledged in the 10th Amendment.

They didn't list every right because the federal government simply did not have powers that could be used to violate the "unlisted" rights.  And no, the 9th amendment is not some sort of catch-all for the remaining unknown, unlisted rights.  In fact, it has, since its inception, been interpreted as a rule of construction re-enforcing the notion that the bill of rights did not increase the powers already given to the federal government.  The 9th does not, nor has it ever been interpreted to, contain a guarantee of substantive rights.  It simply states that, in spelling out certain rights, the federal government was not given more powers than it previously had.  (And even if it did contain substantive rights, these mystery rights would not restrain the states.)

I submit to you that YOUR interpretation is the "dangerous misinterpretation of the Constitution" (I won't resort to childish name-calling and describe you as "assinine.")  Under your construction, the constitution protects whatever the hell you personally want to include, even if the founders never intended it to be so.  Every flavor-of-the-day "rights" are protected, no matter how obscure or unintended.  Is your interpretation limited to merely negative rights, or are positive rights included as well?  there really is no way to tell...


It may be "better" in terms of your political standpoint; however, such a standpoint is not, nor has it ever been, embraced by the constitution.  By "Government," you paint a wide brush, including state government; however, as discussed below, this is also erroneous.



ERM, this is YOUR assumption.  Never, in the history of the B of R, has anyone seriously suggested that it was meant, from the beginning, to apply to the states.  you are simply wrong on that one.  See, e.g., Barron v. Baltimore 32 U.S. 243 (1833) (explaining that the bill of rights did not apply to "local government").

You must understand that the federal government was given very little power.  It couldn't forbid abortion anymore than it could ban guns.  We have since erroneously (in the constitutional sense) moved beyond the true powers granted to the federal government; however, this does justify erroneously interpreting the B of R as well.  To open the B of R to expansive interpretation allows us to just as easily contract it...

I believe in the right to settle confrontations by engagement in hand to hand combat...[slap]

Wrong.  Here is James Madison on the ISsue:

[i]``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 that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution.''[/i]

So Madison certainly thought it was the 'Catch all' for the unlisted rights.



Erm first you say it isnt a 'catch all' then you say it is.  Make up your mind please.



No you misunderstand.  The Constitution does not in itself protect anything.  It Establishs and limits government, that is ALL that supposed to do, that is all the Founders meant for it to do.  If the Government has no Listed power over something then that power does not exist under the Constitution.  If at a later time the people wish to allow the government to have power over something they can always get an Amendment passed to give the Government that power.

What the Founders did with the Federal Constitution they also did with their various State Constitutions.  They are all (if you read the original 13 or so Constitutions, I havent read every states Constitution) set up to be limiting documents.  Set up to limit the power of the Government over the Individual.




The Bill of rights in my opinion was a mistake for the very reasons that Madison suggests in the quote above.  It allows people to erroneously think that unless a 'right' is listed it does not exist, is in a wierd way gives the government more power because of this.

The founders thought that the People should be the ones with the power, with a subject government at BOTH the federal and Local levels.  They looked at the State Constitutions already in existence at the Time and took the Pattern for the Federal Cosntitution from them, they even took the Bill of Rights from the Various State Constitutions.  At the time the SCOTUS said that if a State was in violation of the 'rights' of the people, then the people had the power to fix that violation, not the Federal Government.  Nowhere does it say that the people do not have the rights, just that government at the federal level could not enforce them, that was not within its limited power as it were.  I take the position that this was a wrong interpretation by the SCOTUS at the time.  They did not rectify this until the 'creation' of the 'incorporation doctrine' in the 20th Century, in reality they did not even need to use the 14th Amendment to do this, they could have and should have used the Supremcy Clause with the Constitution to do so.  After all the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the land, says that 'The right to keep and bear Arms shall not be Infringed', it does not say 'The right to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed by the Federal Government but the States can infringe all they want to'.

BTW- I was not referring to you as 'assinine' I was referring to idea that unless a right was listed it did not exist.  This is categorically incorrect to the point of being assinine.

Yes. This. Exactly. Well said.

Funny how the following commentary uses the exact quote to back up [i]my[/i] argument:

"It is clear from its text and from Madison's statement that the Amendment states but a rule of construction, making clear that a Bill of Rights might not by implication be taken to increase the powers of the national government in areas not enumerated, and that it does not contain within itself any guarantee of a right or a proscription of an infringement."

[url]http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment09/[/url]

I have re-read my statement.  I see nothing wherein I state that it is not a catch-all, then indicate that it is.  

You are correct insofar as the Constitution creates the federal government, and, in so doing, gives it limited powers to do limited things.  And it also cannot violate the specific restrictions set forth in the bill of rights.  

I do not see how anything I've said conflicts with this. I assume, however, that by "government" you mean the federal government.  The federal constitution and the B of R do not "list" the powers that states have (state constitutions do that).  instead, it restricts the states from doing a limited number of things.  Again, it's totally different with the federal government.  



And I am sure you will see that those state constitutions gave broad powers to their state governments (free from the B of R, BTW), or that didn't, whichever. What does this has to do with whether the 9th amendment contains a substantive "right to privacy?"

I think you are misstating the issue. You state that the 9th amendment was intended by the founding fathers to prevent the federal government from exercising power in such a way as to infringe a substantive "right to privacy."  I am saying that the 9th amendment was meant to re-emphasize the fact that, by enacting a B of R, congress was not expanding the power of the federal government.  Instead, it is a statement of what the B of R is doing (and not doing), not a broad restriction on all "government" from doing things that infringe unknown or unlisted rights. Yes, the federal government has limited power. Not limited because the B of R restricts it, but because it was never given much power in the first place.

The founders, in creating the B of R or the constitution, did not tinker with the state constitutions.  while they thankfully created a limited federal government, nothing was done about the fact that some state constitutions had no right to bear arms, or that some states had official government religions.  

I've never heard of this one before.  So, if the 14th was never passed, all of the B of R would still apply to the states? But not of course the 1st amendment, which you have already stated only applied to the federal government....

 you are right, it does not say that. it does not have to, however, as it was clear that the time that the B of R did not apply to the states. (So in effect the states at the time could indeed ban guns, yes, if the state constitutions allowed it).  So are you saying that the founders meant for the 2nd amendment to apply to the states, but not the first amendment? why did they do this?

I think that I have to re-state my point.  The 9th amendment contains no substantive rights.  Instead, it was intended to ensure that the B of R was not read as an expansion of government power.

Avtomat, answer these questions, dont dissemble, just answer them Yes or No:

1- Is the Constitution the 'Supreme Law of the Land'?

2- If the 'Supreme Law of the Land' says that something is not supposed to be done:

a- Can the States violate that Supreme Law?

b- Can the United States violate that Supreme Law?

3- Are the Amendments part of that Supreme Law?

4- Or are they a seperate thing?

Sir, I am sorry, I cannot accept your novel argument.  There is no doubt and no argument that the bill of rights did not apply to the states.  Yes, the constitution is the supreme law of the land, and the states have to follow [b] those parts that apply to the states [/b].  But not all parts of the constitution apply to state conduct.

See also the following url on the fallacy of "False Dilemma."
[url]http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/distract/fd.htm[/url]

There is nothing false about my questions.

They are perfectly easy to Answer

1- yes
2a- No
b- No
3- Yes
4- No

As to your repeated claim that the BoR was not MEANT to apply to the States, you do know that they (and ALL the amendments) are part of the Constitution right?  They are not some seperate thing.  There is a reason why Madison wanted to 'cut and paste' them into the body of the Document (something he did routinely when asked about what what meant in the Constitution, many used him as a 'What does this mean' soundingboard), instead of having them as one big list at the end.

Would it change your interpretation if within Art 4, Sec 2 the 2nd Amendment was listed after the 'The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to ..." clause, because that is where Madison put it.

The whole 'they were only meant for the Feds' is brought about by the poor choice of putting the First Amendment first.  If it had been second or third the brainiacs that wanted (want) to use the States to abuse the rights of the people would have had a much harder time.  You see the people wanting to abuse the rights of the people mistakenly took the 'Congress shall make no law...' from the first Amendment and added it to all the rest.  It most certainly was NOT meant to apply to each Amendment.

I do not know where you are getting that. From Madison's speech introducing his proposed amendments, he stated that his fourth resolution, which contained what would become the B of R, would be placed in in article I, section 9, between clauses 3 and 4.  He also had a fifth resolution. that resolution stated:

"No State shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases."

On this 5th resolution, Madison stated:

"I wish also, in revising the constitution, we may throw into that section, which interdict the abuse of certain powers in the State Legislatures, some other provisions of equal, if not greater importance than those already made. The words, "No State shall pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law," &c. were wise and proper restrictions in the constitution. [b]I think there is more danger of those powers being abused by the State Governments than by the Government of the United States.[/b] The same may be said of other powers which they possess, if not controlled by the general principle, that laws are unconstitutional which infringe the rights of the community. I should therefore wish to extend this interdiction, and add, as I have stated in the 5th resolution, that no State shall violate the equal right of conscience, freedom of the press, or trial by jury in criminal cases; because it is proper that every Government should be disarmed of powers which trench upon those particular rights. [b] I know, in some of the State constitutions, the power of the Government is controlled by such a declaration; but others are not. [/b] I cannot see any reason against obtaining even a double security on those points; and nothing can give a more sincere proof of the attachment of those who opposed this constitution to these great and important rights, than to see them join in obtaining the security I have now proposed; because it must be admitted, on all hands, that the State Governments are as liable to attack the invaluable privileges as the General Government is, and therefore ought to be as cautiously guarded against."

The Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, First Congress, 1st Session, pp 448-460 (emphasis added).

Madison's "5th resolution" was separate and distinct from his 4th resolution, which later became the Bill of Rights.  As you can see, restrictions on state government was to be addressed in a resolution [b]other than what became the Bill of Rights[/b]. This resolution FAILED.  How can you say Madison expected what eventually became the bill of rights to apply to the states, when he explicitly, as seen in the above quote, wrote a [b]different[/b] amendment to accomplish that?