Category Archives: rights

The Constitution: Who Needs It?

Posted on by
Reply

Certainly not our Progressive Supreme Court Justices.  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg doesn’t even think our Constitution is a worthy for others drafting a new one:

I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.

I might look at the constitution of South Africa.  That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary.

The South African constitution is interesting for how it treats individual rights and Justice Ginsburg’s independent judiciary.  There’s this on rights [emphasis added]:

When interpreting the Bill of Rights, a court, tribunal or forum must promote the values that underlie an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom; must consider international law; and may consider foreign law.

Their Constitution notes this in its Preamble:

We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic

It wasn’t even adopted directly by the people, as ours was, just by their government.

Their Constitution notes this about their Bill of Rights [emphasis added]:

7. Rights.-
( 1) This Bill of Rights is a cornerstone of democracy in South Africa. It enshrines the rights of all people in our country and affirms the democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom.
…
(3) The rights in the Bill of Rights are subject to the limitations contained or referred to in section 36, or elsewhere in the Bill

Here is what Section 36 says about limiting those “Rights.

36. Limitation of rights.-
(1) The rights in the Bill of Rights may be limited only in terms of law of general application to the extent that the limitation is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom, taking into account all relevant factors, including-
(a) the nature of the right;
(b) the importance of the purpose of the limitation;
(c) the nature and extent of the limitation;
(d) the relation between the limitation and its purpose; and
(e) less restrictive means to achieve the purpose.
(2) Except as provided in subsection (1) or in any other provision of the Constitution, no law may limit any right entrenched in the Bill of Rights.

The Government gave, the Government hath taken away.

I won’t go into the vasty enumeration of “fundamental” rights (34 pages worth!), that is an enshrinement of “rights” that are the fallout of individual decisions made under our Creator-given and inalienable ones.

Now here is Justice Ginsberg’s “independent” judiciary

(4) Only the Constitutional Court may-
(6) decide on the constitutionality of any amendment to the Constitution:

And this [emphasis added]

173. Inherent power.-
The Constitutional Court, Supreme Court of Appeal and High Courts have the inherent power to protect and regulate their own process, and to develop the common law, taking into account the interests of justice….

This isn’t “independent.”  This is superior, the final despot.  The people aren’t to be allowed to decide for themselves what their Constitution will say.  Ultimately, the people’s representatives will not be permitted to make the law in their name—the courts’ common law will overwhelm.

This is what a Progressive Justice of the Supreme Court thinks is a superior constitution.

Hypocrisy, Part II

Posted on by
Reply

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has an opinion piece in USA Today.

In her apologia for an Obamacare regulation that requires health insurance programs provided by a vast range of Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and so on institutions to provide contraception, sterilization and abortifacients in direct, open contravention of the teachings and beliefs of those institutions (and that requires those institutions to offer those insurance plans exclusively), she writes

One of the key benefits of the 2010 health care law is that many preventive services are now free for most Americans with insurance. … So is the full range of preventive health services recommended for women by the highly respected Institute of Medicine, including contraception.

So, no one is paying any taxes, or being forced to change their existing health insurance policies, to pay for this.

Nor is there any cancellation of religious teachings or thought or fundamental tenets by this Federal government, which used to be on the other side of a “wall of separation between Church & State.”  There’s an interesting view of “free.”

That’s why in the rule we put forward, we specifically carved out from the policy religious organizations that primarily employ people of their own faith. This exemption includes churches and other houses of worship, and could also include other church-affiliated organizations.

Umm, no.  Not hospitals, not doctors’ offices, not clinics.  These employ (quite properly) far too broad a range of employees to be able to fit within the carefully and deliberately narrowly drawn limits of this rule.

In choosing this [extremely narrow religious] exemption, we looked first at state laws already in place across the country. Of the 28 states that currently require contraception to be covered by insurance, eight have no religious exemption at all.

The religious exemption in the administration’s rule is the same as the exemption in Oregon, New York and California.

Of course, far be it from the Federal government to set an example.  Oh, wait….

Hypocrisy

Posted on by
Reply

Fox News is reporting that the People’s Republic of China is claiming that

it was forced to veto a United Nations vote on Syria because it was called before differences in the proposal were bridged, but denied playing spoiler and said it wants to see an end to violence there.

Forced.  Poor babies.  The resolution that the PRC (and Russia) chose to veto would have been a move toward ending nearly a year of Bashar Assad’s killing—to the tune of 5,400—of his own people since last March.

The PRC justifies itself by insisting that the resolution, as written, unduly pressured…the Syrian government.  This is a strange, but strangely consistent, objection coming from a country with similar problems in Tibet, and in its Xinjiang province (which is populated with all those uppity Uighurs.  Oh, yeah, and that also is the PRC’s largest natural gas-producing region).  This also comes from a country that still maintains it has a right to conquer the Republic of China.

Liu Weimin, a spokesman for the PRC’s Foreign Ministry, insisted that that too-early Security Council vote was forced before suitable (Chinese diluting) amendments had been agreed.   This, though, ignores the fact that the PRC never would have accepted a resolution that had actual teeth for ending the Syrian government’s butcherybloodshed.  Just as it had consistently demanded watering down earlier versions of the resolution.

Liu also denied that the PRC was favoring Assad, in particular.  Yet this is exactly the outcome of the Chinese veto.

The People’s Daily  opined

The present situation in Syria is extremely complicated.  To naively back one side, while attacking the other side, might look like bringing about a favorable turn, but is actually just laying up trouble ahead.

No.  It’s not complicated at all.  Either the PRC supports Assad and his behavior, or it does not.  In the meantime, people are dying today.  But that’s no trouble at all.

We don’t need to keep taking the PRC seriously on the political stage; we can ignore and bypass them—and we should ignore and bypass them, so long as they continue to side with bloody despotism.

These Chinese are not just on the wrong side of history—they’re on the wrong side of morality.

Two Mandates

Posted on by
Reply

We’re well aware of the Individual Mandate that is the core of Obamacare.  We’re well aware of that “requirement’s” immorality and of its unconstitutionality.  We’re well aware of the naked power grab that this “requirement” represents for the present administration.  But it’s only background.

Here’s another naked power grab, as the present administration seeks to dismantle our Constitution and replace it with an unfettered government populated by Progressive Know Betters.

We have another mandate, a set of Obamacare regulations that deliberately attack, not the Commerce Clause that is the target of the Individual Mandate, nor the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment, but the immediately following Free Exercise Clause: “nor prohibiting the free exercise [of religion].”

The Obama administration has just implemented new rules under his Obamacare that force

Catholic universities, hospitals, and charities to provide insurance for their employees covering contraception — even though that violates church teachings.

Moreover, these new rules expand “required” coverage to include the “morning after pill” and potentially sterilization and abortion.  Having tried once to dictate to a religious group who will be permitted to speak for them, now this administration is attempting to dictate to all religious groups what they will be permitted to believe, and how they will be permitted to act on those beliefs.  So much for free exercise.

The stakes are clearly understood.  Timothy Dolan, New York Cardinal-designate, describes the stark nature of this Progressive assault.

Never before has the government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience.  This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.

But this isn’t just a Catholic issue.  President of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, said he’s been contacted by Protestants, Mormons, Jews, and others who want to join forces with the Catholic League and with the bishops to overturn the new rules.

I’ve never seen anything like it.  They are lining up single file.

President Obama’s reaction to the objections is breathtaking in the cynicism he displays.  At his daily press conference, where Press Secretary Jay Carney recites Obama’s words, he insisted that he still offers

strong support for existing conscience protections, including those relating to health care providers….

and he went on to claim that the new rules don’t change that.  Then Obama, again speaking through Carney, dismissed the objections.

We understand that not everyone agrees with [the new rules].  All I can tell you is it was made after very careful consideration based on the need to balance…[religious rights and] the necessity to provide access to preventive services for women was an important consideration.

But Obama and his rule writers didn’t consider very carefully.  Hospitals can only invoke the “conscience clause,” and get an exemption from these new rules, if they turn away patients of other faiths, something that also is anathema to men of faith.  Theodore McCarrick, a retired Cardinal, points out the fallacy of Obama’s “rationale.”

That means we can’t say what we’ve been saying for 200 years, “Are you hungry?”  We have to say, “Are you Catholic?” We don’t do that.

But this latest move isn’t even just about religious freedom.  It’s about individual freedom, generally.  Government incumbents who will attempt these two pütschen will assault our freedoms everywhere.

Remember this in the fall.

Progressives, Occupiers, and Free Speech

Posted on by
Reply

Recall the eagerness with which President Obama and his fellow Progressives in our Federal government embraced the Occupier movement.

The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side[.]

And Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D, NY), among others, had this to say:

The city’s actions to shut down OWS last [November] raise a number of serious civil-liberties questions that must be answered….

Now observe the Occupiers’ current behavior (I won’t recount the litany of murders, rapes, child abuse, and so on that went on in Zuccotti Park and elsewhere last fall).  In their Oakland riot earlier this week, police officers were pelted with bottles, metal pipe, rocks, spray cans, improvised explosive devices, and burning flares.  These Occupiers also broke into Oakland’s City Hall, where among other activities they broke an electrical box and damaged several art structures, including an art exhibit created by children and made from recycled materials.

On the other side of the country, the Occupiers behaved little differently.  The Executive Director of the Rhode Island Right to Life organization, Barth Bracy, said a Right to Life rally inside the Rhode Island state capital building had to be cut short as a result of Occupiers deliberately breaking up their rally.  These protestors “began screaming and refused to allow a…priest to deliver a prayer.”  Bracy noted further,

This is their idea of civil speech but we believe it’s an outrage.  They started heckling, chanting and blowing whistles.

The misbehavior deepened when an Occupier purposefully climbed onto a third floor balcony and dumped a box of condoms onto girls from a Catholic school.  These worthies even attacked a State Representative who was present for the original rally.

At one point they even attacked State. Rep. Doreen Costa. …  Costa said a female Occupier hit her on the head with a sign….

These aren’t isolated occurrences.  They’ve been getting increasingly violent since last fall, when it became clear the Occupiers weren’t going to get their way instantaneously.  And plainly, free speech, freedom to protest, means Occupiers get to speak, Occupiers get to protest, but no one else does.  An American’s speech is dependent on what the Occupier movement will permit, and nothing else.

Here is what Obama and his fellow Progressives have to say today about their allies, now that the Occupiers have shown their true colors.

…

These Progressives seem to share the Occupiers’ view of our free speech and our property rights.  Still.