Meet the new Bork, same as the old Bork
Aug. 2nd, 2012 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsAnotonin Scalia has become Robert Bork.
Robert Bork once said that Griswold v. Connecticut, the ruling that allowed women to discuss birth control with their physicians without the intereference of the government, and which ensured that such a conversation was private, was wrongly ruled: as he famously put it, "The sexual gratification of one group is being elevated the the anguish of another group's moral gratifications. Nowhere in the Constutition do we find the imposition of a heirarchy of gratifications."
Scalia has now embraced this argument fully. There is no right to privacy to be found in the Constution.
Many constitutional scholars feel otherwise. Primarily, they argue that the Sixth Amendment, the one about being required to board soldiers in one's homes, is a specific example of a generalized case: the government may not put monitors into your home without a warrant for a specified reason.
Robert Bork once said that Griswold v. Connecticut, the ruling that allowed women to discuss birth control with their physicians without the intereference of the government, and which ensured that such a conversation was private, was wrongly ruled: as he famously put it, "The sexual gratification of one group is being elevated the the anguish of another group's moral gratifications. Nowhere in the Constutition do we find the imposition of a heirarchy of gratifications."
Scalia has now embraced this argument fully. There is no right to privacy to be found in the Constution.
Many constitutional scholars feel otherwise. Primarily, they argue that the Sixth Amendment, the one about being required to board soldiers in one's homes, is a specific example of a generalized case: the government may not put monitors into your home without a warrant for a specified reason.
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Re: "Rights" vs. "Constitutional rights"
Date: 2012-08-06 06:27 pm (UTC)Jefferson did not advocate for the judicial branch to reinterpret laws and constitutions as times changed...he advocated for the legislature and the people to amend or replace them as times changed.
And to save space I'll also address your comment below "If you think that the Constitution shouldn't be used to interpret for a modern age, then there are tons of amendments that need to be enacted right now because a judicial arm interpreted them already out of the Constitution."
Agreed 100%. The judicial branch was never granted the power to extend the Constitution though interpretation. All of those, including the "right to privacy" need to be immediately ruled void until such time as an Amendment is passed adding them to the Constitution.
Remember, many of the Founders felt that the protection of inalienable rights was inherent in the Constitution...but still found it necessary to pass an Amendment protecting those rights.
Why would it seem reasonable that Speech, Press, Assembly, etc. would require Amendments protecting them, but Privacy would need none because it was "implied"?
The Douglas definition of "penumbra right to privacy" is one of the greatest miscarriages in the history of the Supreme Court. We NEED an Amendment specifically protecting the right of privacy. Remember, if you rely purely on an interpretation that extends the text, you can find that extension taken away at any time by a newer "interpretation" on the part of the same or higher court.