Wednesday, January 11, 2012

  • From Boing Boing, today:

    The Constitution does not grant us rights. The rights exist independently of the paper they are written on. The 9th amendment makes this clear: rights exist that are not explicitly stated, and the explictly stated rights do not preclude the existence of other rights that we deem we have."The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

    I understand, somewhat, that they were clearing up confusion on the power of the Federal Government, and that the Courts have restricted the meaning of the amendment to such things. But, screw Scalia and the other Federalist apparatchiks - the thought it expresses is clear and is true. You have a right to privacy. It is a human right not to be watched like a turtle in an aquarium. To think that two hundred twenty-something years ago some men in wigs needed to write it down explicitly so we can be free from perpetual surveillance is ludicrous. A woman has a right to not get pregnant, and peering into Madison's mindset on the matter is irrelevant. Corporations aren't even mentioned in the Constitution, yet those immortal rulers of our world have far more rights than any human being. If those can claim new undocumented rights, then so do we.
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    Let me put it better: a woman has a right to NOT be held down by cops to force her to become pregnant, which, ultimately, is what making birth control illegal really means. If you disobey the law, people will come and hold you down and drag you away, and if you try to escape, they will kill you, eventually, if you try too hard. A woman has a right to not have laws enacted to specifically target and torture her, just because a lot of people really really want to do it.
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