No right to privacy?

[Jaime]

The "Jay Sekulow Says His Job To Get Bush Nominees Confirmed; But Is It? What Does God Require Of A Christian Involved In “Politics?” piece seems to question the right to privacy because it is not mentioned in the uS Constitution.

Huh?

Ever heard of the 9th and 10th amendments? The right to go to the bathroom is not mentioned in the Constitution either.

Yes, there is a right to privacy. Otherwise, why the need for search warrants?

Now, what does it have to do do with permitting abortion is another question.

Deo Vindice

[tz1]

The problem is we now have penumbras and eminations (shadows and rays) from an object which no longer exists.

Normally the 4th ammendment protecting against search and seizure was stretched to say that government can't interfere with some things like doctor-patient relationships or other things under the banner of "privacy", therefore because government doesn't have the right to peek or intervene in that case, they can't regulate abortion. However with the PATRIOT Act (and even before with things like the war on drugs), the 4th ammendment has turned into an ink-blot. If FBI agents can in effect write their own search warrants instead of going to a judge or magistrate, the 4th ammendment has no meaning. If they can raid businesses on suspicions, or seize property for taxes, where is the constitutional protection.

Like the Chesire Cat - the only thing left is an evil grin smiling at the death of millions of innocents while allowing the various police agencies to act without judicial or any other check or review.

Rush Limbaugh said "the only choice liberals want is to abort". The Court concurs in that the only privacy (protection from warantless search and seizure) the various branches of government recognize is the privacy to contracept and abort. Even the libertarian/conservatives at the time failed to heed the warnings about Griswold v. Connecticut.

[Colleen Smith]

Hello. I feel compelled to answer what I am convinced of on a question you had in another post. It is that Saturday is the Sabbath, always has been and always will be. It can no more be changed to Sunday than can we change the definition of morality, no matter how many recognize it to be the Sabbath, (Sunday) it isn't.
In the topic of our privacy, I have first hand experience of our rights being denied to many long before the towers were taken down. If you are qualified for free legal counsel, your case is low profile and totally unnoticed, your rights are ignored and replaced with a ritualistic pretense of there existence. It is now that we must deal with the horrific potential of the patriot act and I do not believe it will "only go so far". New York transit random searches, this is just a taste of what happens to a nation of people that make serious errors such as, ignoring God, politically inactive while assuming security of freedoms in tact, morally wasted. These are all things which I am guilty of and this is how I know it is true. This is how I know the CP is part of my life's reforming to a life above reproach while contributing to the betterment of society in general, whenever possible.

[Triton]

I have wrestled with this, too.

Obviously, some rights eclipse others, such as the oft-used, "yelling fire in a crowded theater" argument that freedom of speech is superceded by the rights of others to not be bodily harmed by unnecessary trampling caused by that speech.

It seems to me that the "right to privacy" which allows doctors to forcibly evict and kill infants will be eliminated when medical science advances to the point where it can be determined that fetuses are, in fact, human life. Secondly, the laws have to be changed so as to re-define the unborn as "persons".

[SWhiteman]

If I may recommend a book: The Basic Symbols of American Political Tradition, by William Kendall and George W. Carey. The premise set up is how that which was written in 1776 and 1789 came to be? Did it drop from the sky in July 1776, or was the Declaration and Constitution just the logical outworkings of what happened in 1620 at the signing of the Mayflower Compact.

Why is this relevant? Because he makes a great argument against "rights" and "equality" as we have come to know them. Our founders at all relevant times (1620, 1774, 1776, 1787) when writing about governments wrote about what the government may do, not what rights men had and therefore the government couldn't do. The starting point was not human beings and their rights, rather the jurisdiction of government and limited powers given to it by God.

As it related to abortion, the book was first published in 1970, so I don't recall that it was specifically addressed.

The lesson I took away from the book is to refrain from speaking about rights, and rather speak of the duties of government and how it has failed to fulfill its obligations or overstepped its authority. So you may have a right to privacy, just as you may have the rigth to wash your hands. However, the failure to prosecute murder and conspiracy to commit murder (abortion) is a failure of the government to fulfill its obligation. The invasion of our financial activities without a warrant (IRS/Income Tax) is an overstepping of its authority.

[jtw]

That's very interesting SWhiteman. I believe you are correct. "Right to privacy" shouldn't have to be spelled out because there should be no fear of illegal searches in the first place. Illegal searches (financial or whatever) are what happens when a government oversteps it's boundaries. What then can be said of a government that takes your money as taxes? :eek:

[jtw]

"Right to privacy" is a misnomer itself because it's simply a defensive "knee-jerk" reaction to the offensive gestures of an out of control government. If a government is not out of control then there would be no need for the "right to privacy" approach. Instead what there should be is a "right to be governed appropriately" by a government that protects it's citizens and doesn't turn against them for any reason (even taxes).

[Jaime]

Yes, you can yell "fire" in a crowded theatre - if there is a fire or believe (based on some observed evidence) that there is a fire.

I concur with comments about government overstepping its bounds but "right to privacy" is not a misnomer. It is a term that describes a boundary that the government can only cross under very specific conditions.

Rights are absolute. And governments exist to punish evil doers and to mediate/handle the situations when rights compete/conflict - this is our station under the curse. Great evils, though, are done by well organized mobs (ie government) in the name of the "greater good." And in order to prevent these organizations to replace God, limits to the goals and means must be placed on those organizations.

The "right to privacy" defines a limit, a means, on how a government performs an appropiate action, for accomplish a proper end.

[tz1]

I would note in our declaration it mentions the "certain inalienable rights, among them the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

You are right that when government is limited and the bias is there we don't discuss rights, no more than we usually discuss the bumper on a car as it is an "exception handler". It would probably get attention in a demoliton derby, but that is as close to normal driving as George Bush is to George Washington (or even George III).

Yelling "fire" if there is fire is speech. Yelling "fire" to induce fear is an incitement - you can incite people to riot or kill, or to engage in acts of lust (why pornography doesn't qualify for 1st Ammendment protection while art or medical texts do).

[Jaime]

As an aside. The Declaration of Independence bears no legal weight. The "legal controlling document" is the uS Constitution, begining with Article 1, not at the preamble.