From: garrett@Ingres.COM (QUOTE OF THE YEAR)
Subject: Re: Decline Of Rights in the U.S: Will Clinton Reverse This?
Summary: Dissenting opinion  
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
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Organization: ASK Computer Systems, Ingres Product Division
Date: 3 Sep 92 20:51:16 GMT

In article <BtzM5p.3r4@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>, dev@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Larry  writes...
>ataylor@nmsu.edu (Nosy) once wrote: 
>> katbea@auto-trol.com (Kathy Beatty) writes:
>>> dev@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Larry Weeks) writes:
>>>> In the U.S., you can be asked to leave the bathroom if you don't
>>>> own it. The conductor can ask you to leave the train. And you can
>>>> request the return of your toothbrush at any time. However, nobody
>>>> can tell you to leave your own bathroom without the due process of
>>>> the law, meaning a court. And nobody can search your property or
>>>> person with due process, and nobody can take your property without
>>>> due process (in theory today, though).
>>>
>>> Wrong. The DEA has the power to confiscate property without even
>>> charging you with a crime!
>>
>> Correct. This power has also been extended to game wardens, State
>> and even local police in some States.
> 
>I said in theory. :-) The forfeiture laws are patently
>unconstitutional, no matter what the courts say. That's the problem
>with allowing the courts in interpret the Constitution. They can
>interpret it to mean whatever they like.
> 
Unfortunantly true. This came about in the 80's to combat drug
smugglers, but is now used against anybody.

>>> Several of the Reagan/Bush appointees to the supreme court believe
>>> there is no right to privacy in the U.S. 
>>
>> Name them, please.
> 
>Well, that penumbra thing was pretty damn stupid. I'm pretty sure
>all the sitting justices would agree with that. But I too agree that
>there is no basic "right to privacy" per se.
> 
Scalia for one. I think Rhenquist feels that way too. But just 
because it isn't spelled out, is what the 10th amendment is for.
Oliver Wendel Holmes believed in the right of privacy and so did
Earl Warren. In fact most Supreme Court justices believed in it.

>In the U.S. the right to privacy has always been intimately connected
>to the right to be secure in your property. The "liberal" courts, in
>disassembling our property rights for the supposed social good, have
>also disassembled our basic privacy rights.

You sound like you know what your talking about, but I need an 
example or two. Most "rights stomping" in history, American or
other, has been done in the name of law and order. Also, the 14th
amendment was brought to its full potential under Earl Warren, after
a consevative court in the 1870's had tried to make it meaningless.
(I can't remember the case off hand, but I know it originated out
of Louisiana.)

 Ergo, you have contrived
>opinions, like Roe v. Wade, to awkwardly justify some right to
>privacy. You have government which can search and seize your property
>without warrant. And that's not because of conservative courts, which
>believe it or not are actually reassembling property rights piece by
>piece.

This is true. The conservatives have always been big on property 
rights. But the liberals have always been the champions of civil
right (aka the Bill of Rights).

>Perhaps the "conservatives" want to get "tough on crime," trampling
>our rights in the process. But if we hadn't been ignoring our basic
>private property rights for the last fifty years or so, they wouldn't
>be able to get away with nearly as much bullshit.

Interesting train of thought. Can you elaborate? How are you 
equating property rights with civil rights (like the 1st, 4th, and
6th amendments).

 The mean evil
>"conservatives" are simply taking advantage of fifty years of
>"liberal" trampling of rights.
> 
Elaborate please.

>Larry

>"The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and
> for liberty to yield." -- Thomas Jefferson

-Garrett
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.rush-limbaugh