Katrina & Renquist - Make The Connection

[iamjoy]

this may be a little convoluted, but stick with me.

Dubya will now appoint two justices to the Supreme Court. And the cry is for him to appoint a "strict constructionist' a judge who will interpret the letter of law, the constitution, not"legislate from the bench."

I am not an attorney, or a legal scholar, but I read the Constitution (talk about convoluted!). You know, it doesn't say anything in there about providing disaster relief. It doesn't say anything in there about building levees or other public works projects. For that matter, what right has the federal government to study weather and issue warnings, etc about dangerous weather.

Now, we have a choice in what type of person we appoint to the Supreme Court. Some one who thinks the government should protect and help its citizens from all threats, foreign, domestic and natural (whether specifically enumerated in the Constitution or not.) Or, some one who thinks the government should allow people to die en masse rather than overstep its powers. Personally, I think the Constitution exists to serve the people, not the other way around.

Unfortuantely, Right to Privacy is a losing battle. Pointing out that strict constructionism would mean that everyone in New Orleans would have died, maybe not so much.

Discuss, Debate, etc...

[Poppyseedman]

1. Trying to connect

but, I think the phone line went dead

The point you are tying to make is .........................................................................................

[MH1]

4. Katrina aftermath gives a good example of why

"strict constructionism" is a bad thing; terrible ugly consequences people wouldn't want.

OP's argument seems to be that the strict constructionism argument will be more compelling than the right to privacy argument, when we are dealing with public opinion of Supreme Court Justice nominees.

[MH1]

2. Right to Privacy a losing battle?

Forgive me for skipping over your main point, but I sure hope you are wrong there.

If we lose right to privacy we may as well live in a totalitarian state, no?

(However saying abortion is a privacy issue may be a losing battle....that I can live with even though I don't like it at all.)

[question everything]

3. I thought the connection was in the mind of Pat Robertson

who "prayed" for the death of a supreme court justice (while not necessarily for Renquist.)

And, of course, Katrina destroyed "sin city" as well as the floating casinos of Mississippi.

[Auntie Bush]

5. It says nothing about abortion, contraceptives, Gays etc.,,,so there's

no rights for them. Sneaky way to say they are going to get rid of all their rights as they come under Right to Privacy. Many people aren't aware of this when they say they are strict constructionist.

[robbedvoter]

6. I lost Dershowitz's thread, so I post his link again here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/telling-the-truth-about-c_b_6844.html
Any more press releases from Democrats about our big loss?

[Ouabache]

7. 'provide for the general welfare'

isn't that in the preamble. Wouldn't weather prediction, disaster planning and storm reconstruction fall under that?

[Igel]

8. The strict constructionists wouldn't say that federal disaster

relief is unconstitutional simply because it's not explicitly mentioned, or clearly logically entailed. If it's not required, it's not required.

It's also not clearly prohibited, explicitly or logically.

They'd say Congress can pretty much do what they want on the matter.