Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: Re: What conservatives really mean when they talk about "original intent"
From: kck+@cs.cmu.edu (Karl Kluge)
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 06:59:52 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

> From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
> Subject: Re: What conservatives really mean when they talk abou...
> Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 02:57:14 GMT
> 
> In this post, Karl is either incredibly stupid or deliberately
> misleading.  Take your choice...

Don't project your own intellectual inadequacies onto the rest of us.

> In article <Bxr2wB.L49.2@cs.cmu.edu> kck+@cs.cmu.edu (Karl Kluge) writes:
> 
> >Exactly, which is why the way people like Bork use the term "Framer's
> >intent" is so obscene. For a prime example of psuedo-"Framer's intent" in
> >all its glory, try reading Chief Justic Rehnquist's dissent in Planned
> >Parenthood vs. Casey:
> 
> >"We have held that a liberty interest protected under the Due Process Clause
> >of the Fourteenth Amendment will be deemed fundamental if it is -implicit in
> >the concept of ordered liberty.-  Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 325
> >(1937).  Three years earlier, in Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97
> >(1934), we referred to a -principle of justice so rooted in the traditions
> >and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.-  Id., at 105;
> >see also Michael H.  v. Gerald D., 491 U. S. 110, 122 (1989) (plurality
> >opinion) (citing the language from Snyder).  These expressions are
> >admittedly not precise, but our decisions implementing this notion of
> >-fundamental- rights do not afford any more elaborate basis on which to base
> >such a classification."
> 
> >It is difficult to imagine a right more clearly "implicit in the concept of
> >ordered liberty" that the right to have sex with a consenting adult partner
> >of one's choice, yet by appealing to the status of sodomy laws through
> >history it was decided (in Bowers vs. Hardwick, a case the Chief Justice
> >cites as precedent later in his dissent) that this was not the case.
> 
> Of course.  Note the phrase "principle of justice so rooted in the
> traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as
> fundamental."  Like it or not, the right to lynch homosexuals is much
> more protected under this standard than the right to engage in
> homosexual sex.  

The quote mentions two standards, the "implicit in the concept of order
liberty" one and the "principle of justice..." one. Unless you want to take
a shot at arguing that the right to lynch someone is "implicit in the
concept of ordered liberty" or have evidence that lynching is a "principle
of _justice_ so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to
be ranked fundamental" then your attempt at a counterexample is moronic at
best. 

In any case, you miss the point, which is that the second standard is not
always in accord with the first, and would (if followed consistently) lead
to clearly unacceptable conclusions. Or do you wish to argue that the
Supreme Court was wrong in its decision in Loving vs. Virginia, and that the
states or federal government have a legitimate power to ban interracial
marriage? If so, then on what basis?

> I am not an official Oracle spokesman.  I speak for myself and no one else.

How fortunate for the rest of us.

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