United Liberty
ThinkProgress Fails Again on Contraception Debate
Tue, 08/07/2012 - 3:03pm | posted by Jeremy Kolassa
There are days when you really must wonder if the folks over at ThinkProgress, the opinion site of the left-leaning, George Soros backed think tank Center for American Progress, actually, you know, think about what they’re writing. This recent piece on Rand Paul and contraception just shows they don’t do critical thinking very well.
Although GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has dodged questions about whether he believes the Constitution protects a woman’s right to use birth control, one of Romney’s top legal advisers is a leading opponent of the right to contraception. Robert Bork, the former federal judge who serves as co-chair of Romney’s Justice Advisory Committee, described the first Supreme Court case to protect access to contraception as “utterly specious” and a “time bomb.”
In a surprising departure from conservative orthodoxy, Tea Party Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) broke with Romney’s legal adviser yesterday, stating that the Constitution does indeed protect a right to birth control:
Really? Rand freaking Paul has stated “that the Constitution does indeed protect a right to birth control”? You mean that he says that the government should be buying people contraceptives using taxpayer money? (Because that is what a “right to birth control” means, guys.)
Except…he says no such thing. Indeed, right in the blockquote from the article they use, and in the part of the blockquote that is bolded to high heavens, it is totally disproven:
Paul said he agrees with the landmark Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut, which first declared that the Constitution protects privacy and invalidated a state law banning access to contraceptives.
“Protects privacy and invalidated a state law banning access to contraceptives.” That’s a big difference from “right to birth control.”
What Sen. Paul is saying is that people should be allowed to go out and buy contraceptives, on their own, without government interference. He is not saying that the government should provide people with contraceptives. This is the same distinction that is made whenever talking about the Declaration of Independence, between the right to the “pursuit of happiness” and the right to just “happiness.” You’re certainly allowed to pursue it, but you’re not allowed to just have a right to it. Why? Because the former not only allows you to go find it on your own, but also allows others to go find their happiness on their own; the latter requires the government to enslave everyone to one another, to take resources from one and give it to another so that the latter may have “happiness,” and vice versa. It is not only completely unworkable, it is also rather immoral.
Not that I expect ThinkProgress’ editors to understand this distinction, considering it was right there in their own article, bolded by themselves (for pete’s sakes), but there it is.
Well, Rand Paul is wrong.
My personal policy preference is that birth control should be legal. But that’s only a policy preference. The Constitution doesn’t mandate the legality of birth control. Griswold v. Connecticut was one of the worst decisions of the 20th Century. There is no right to birth control, not anywhere in the Constitution. It was made up. Now, fifty years later, it seems axiomatic to some people that the “right” to birth control means that a third party has to buy it for you.
I’m disappointed in Rand Paul. He should have known that this falls under the tenth amendment. The federal government had no right to dictate to Connecticut its policy on birth control.
Uh, you realize, Jim, that Rand Paul agrees with you here? He does not say there is any right to birth control, which, you know, is the total freaking point of this post.
If you read what I said, you’d know that I disagree with your definition of a right.
If Rand Paul said that he agreed with Griswold v. Connecticut, he’s dead wrong. A complete putz. That was an AWFUL decision.
You really should read my replies before you respond, Jeremy. Also, read the opinion piece from Ron Paul. Otherwise, you make an ass out of yourself.
I have. You, on the other hand, by not even bothing to read and comprehend the Tenth or Fourteenth Amendments, are truly making an ass out of yourself. The only thing you’ve proved is that you want to deny rights to other people because you don’t like them.
Guess what: we have a thing called a free market. That means you can buy and sell what you want without government interference. If that means you want to buy birth control, then fine, you get to go ahead and buy it, and the government can’t stop you from doing so. It can’t buy it for you, but it can’t stop you. If you have a problem with that, then you’re not a libertarian and you most assuredly do not believe in either the free market or individual liberty. You’re just another run of the mill right-wing socon.
I don’t want to deny anyone’s rights.
Birth control is not a right. And as I said before, I am in favor of birth control pills being legal. It’s a state issue, and that’s all I’m saying.
“That means you can buy and sell what you want without government interference.”
First of all, the free market we live in isn’t all that free. But you do not have the right to buy and sell anything you want. That’s another right that you just invented. You cannot buy and sell cocaine, bomb parts, or produce from certain countries. You cannot buy and sell ivory, botulism toxin, or bald eagle feathers. Your asserting it doesn’t make it true.
“If that means you want to buy birth control, then fine, you get to go ahead and buy it, and the government can’t stop you from doing so.”
That’s your policy prefence. It’s not what the Constitution says.
“If you have a problem with that, then you’re not a libertarian and you most assuredly do not believe in either the free market or individual liberty.”
I never said I was a libertarian. I said I was a conservative. I do believe in individual liberty and the free market. I also believe in the tenth amendment. The tenth amendment says you’re wrong.
You know what your problem is? You believe in a certain philosophy. Let’s call it modern libertarianism, because a libertarian from even a decade ago would hardly recognize what you’re saying as libertarianism. Your philosophy is fine. I probably agree with most of it. But here’s the key point: Your philosophy is not the law, much less the highest law in the land, the Constitution. The Constitution is a specific document. Nowhere in it does it say, for example, “People can buy and sell whatever they want.”
The founders could have written that, if they had wanted to. But they didn’t. So we don’t just go assume that “people can buy and sell what they want” is a constitutional principle. It isn’t. It’s Jeremy’s wish, nothing more.
I just checked something. I thought that the term emenations from penumbras came from Griswold v. Connecticut, and as it turns out, I was right.
What Justice Douglas was saying is that even though he couldn’t find a single word in the Constitution about birth control, he really felt that it was in there, hiding somewhere. It was a part of the Constitution as he imagined it should be, not as it was written.
For more on the imagined Constitution, see Ron Paul’s great opinion piece. That was before he went full RINO and forgot everything he stood for.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul120.html
A “penumbra”, by the way, is a shadow cast by a celestial body.
Griswold was judicial activism of the worst kind. Douglas didn’t like the law, so he struck it down and formulated a justification later. He’s a tyrant.
By the way, I disagree with your definition of a “right.” We have a right to bear arms. That doesn’t mean that someone has to buy it for you.
Jeremy, I think you’re very young and you don’t know quite as much as you think.
“By the way, I disagree with your definition of a “right.” We have a right to bear arms. That doesn’t mean that someone has to buy it for you.”
Jesus. You really didn’t read anything I wrote, did you?
Really making an ass out of yourself here, Jim.
Yes, I did read it. Your definition of a right is in fact incorrect.
“You mean that he says that the government should be buying people contraceptives using taxpayer money? (Because that is what a “right to birth control” means, guys.)”
We have a right to bear arms. We still have to pay for our own guns. A right to birth control does not exist in the Constitution, but even if it did it would mean that the government can’t ban it, not that it has to provide it to you.
That was called sarcasm, Jim.
Sorry, posted that twice.
You should really read the Ron Paul piece. He explains a lot of stuff that young liberals such as yourself should understand. (I know you don’t accept that label, but that’s what you are.)
“The Court determined that Texas had no right to establish its own standards for private sexual conduct, because gay sodomy is somehow protected under the 14th amendment “right to privacy.” Ridiculous as sodomy laws may be, there clearly is no right to privacy nor sodomy found anywhere in the Constitution. There are, however, states’ rights — rights plainly affirmed in the Ninth and Tenth amendments. Under those amendments, the State of Texas has the right to decide for itself how to regulate social matters like sex, using its own local standards. But rather than applying the real Constitution and declining jurisdiction over a properly state matter, the Court decided to apply the imaginary Constitution and impose its vision on the people of Texas.”
Rand should call his dad and ask him to explain this to him.
I think you should really read my posts before you comment, Jim, else you make yourself out to be an ass.
If we’re going to start labeling me a “liberal,” than that would only work if we’re using the definition of classical liberalism that was championed by such individuals as Frederich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the Founding Fathers of the United States. Otherwise, I’m not a liberal at all—because clearly if I was, I wouldn’t be saying ThinkProgress was full of fail, would I?
Also, read this one line:
“He argued that privacy is an unenumerated right—protected, but not explicitly listed, in the Constitution.”
That’s the basis for a whole ton of libertarian ideology right there; without it, we would have to have every single right spelled out in the Constitution, which would be bass-ackwards to everything our Founding Fathers fought for. So yes, there is a “right to sodomy,” although I would argue it is simply a right to life and a right to property, a negative right. And guess what? The 14th Amendment protects people’s rights, and that they cannot be taken away without due process.
Once you realize that all rights essentially boil down to the three primordial rights of Life, Liberty, and Property (AKA “The Pursuit of Happiness”) things all make sense. Yes, privacy, sodomy, and birth control are not explicitly labeled in the Constitution, but they shouldn’t have to be.
I think you should call up Ron—or any libertarian political theorist—and have him or her explain this to you, if I haven’t done the job already.
Jeremy,
I read it just fine the first time.
Yes, you are a liberal, as in, a leftist. You want a huge centralized federal government to dictate to every state what its policy on birth control must be, tenth amendment be damned. You are not for small government or the Constitution.
It’s not enumerated because it’s not there. It’s not there because it’s imagined. Where the Constitution is silent, the states get to decide. Connecticut decided in a way that Douglas didn’t like, so he struck it down. That’s tyranny.
The proper course of action would have been a grassroots effort at the state level to change the law. The people of Connecticut should have called their state reps. Instead, we got emanations from penumbras.
“Yes, privacy, sodomy, and birth control are not explicitly labeled in the Constitution, but they shouldn’t have to be.”
Uh, yeah, they should have to be. Otherwise, the tenth amendment is meaningless. The federal government can interfere in any policy dispute they want and simply decide that one side’s imaginary rights have been violated. We’ve even gotten to the point in which the federal government can decide that unborn children can be murdered. It’s every woman’s “right” to do so—protected, but not enumerated, of course. That’s shorthand for “it’s not in there but we wish it were and constitutional amendments are hard to pass, so let’s just play pretend.”
“I think you should call up Ron—or any libertarian political theorist—and have him or her explain this to you, if I haven’t done the job already.”
Nope, Ron Paul understands this issue better than you. And he agrees with me. Read the section above.
When we start inventing things in the Constitution, we’re in big trouble. That’s how we got where we are today. The federal government invented a lot of powers that aren’t rightfully theirs, and that’s really no different that inventing a bunch of rights that don’t exist.
Yes, you are a liberal, as in, a leftist. You want a huge centralized federal government to dictate to every state what its policy on birth control must be, tenth amendment be damned. You are not for small government or the Constitution.
Except I never have and never will. I believe in protecting people’s rights, but things can and should be done at the state level, not the federal level.
t’s not enumerated because it’s not there. It’s not there because it’s imagined. Where the Constitution is silent, the states get to decide.
BZZT! Wrong! Let’s read the 10th Amendment again:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So no, the states don’t automatically get to decide, the people are the core. (You can also make a very credible argument that, because of the 14th Amendment, the power to allow the access to birth control has been “delegated to the United States by the Constitution,” so that would also make your argument moot.)
I agree that grassroots efforts are preferable, and that “judicial activism” (whatever the hell that means) is not preferable, but when someone’s rights are being infringed, the courts are the right place to take those disputes. (Without the courts, hell, we might still be segregated today.)
Uh, yeah, they should have to be. Otherwise, the tenth amendment is meaningless.
No, then the Constitution is meaningless. If the Constitution had to spell out every right, it would have to include the right to dress yourself, to choose which food to eat, which doctor to go to, which car you want to buy, etc. etc. etc. There is no possible way to catalog all the infinite rights in the universe that we as independent human beings have. That’s why we have the rights to be unenumerated, reserved to the people. By contrast, we have the powers of the government be enumerated and very limited, so that it could not do much to infringe on the people. Unlimited (well, nearly; no murder, obviously) individual rights vs. very limited government powers. That’s a very libertarian set up right there.
You’re just a far right social conservative, aren’t you? You’re not a libertarian. That’s fine, we can educate you and let you know what the Constitution really means, but you’re not a libertarian and you have absolutely no grounds for calling me a “leftist,” of which I am most assuredly not.
“Except I never have and never will. I believe in protecting people’s rights, but things can and should be done at the state level, not the federal level.”
You just contradicted everything you just said. Prior to Griswold, birth control was for the states to decide. Griswold stuck the federal government’s big fat nose in it. You think it’s great because you love big government and hate te states’ righful authority. That’s because you’re a leftist.
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
First of all, it says the powers, not the rights. Second of all, you bolded “or to the people,” but conveniently not “to the states repsectivally.” The Tenth Amendment means that when the Constitution does not specifically grant the federal government that power, then it’s left up to the states to decide. In the case of Griswold, the federal government usurped authority that was not theirs because it is not part of their enumerated powers. It’s up to the states.
“You can also make a very credible argument that, because of the 14th Amendment…”
No, you can’t.
“If the Constitution had to spell out every right, it would have to include the right to dress yourself, to choose which food to eat, which doctor to go to, which car you want to buy, etc. etc. etc”
That’s not even a complete sentence, but I think I know where you’re going with it. The things you mentioned are not rights. You think they should be rights, but they are not. It’s my personal philosophy of government that it’s not the government’s business to tell you how to do these things, but they are not rights. I’m a huge opponent of Mayor Bloomberg’s Big Gulp ban. I think it’s big government run amok but it’s not unconstitutional. There’s no right to soda. I don’t want to tell you which doctor to go to but there is no “right to chooe your doctor.”
Here’s my question for you. Why did the founders feel the need to explicitally spell out certain rights, but then leave others unstated? Why did they formulate the second amendment’s right to bear arms, but no right to choose your doctor? There were doctors in 1789. Why not a choose your own doctor amendment? Here’s my answer: because it’s not a right.
“There is no possible way to catalog all the infinite rights in the universe that we as independent human beings have.”
They’re not infinite, and that’s why it’s possible.
“Unlimited (well, nearly; no murder, obviously) individual rights vs. very limited government powers. That’s a very libertarian set up right there.”
It’s not obvious that there should be no murder. The court has decided, against the wishes of forty-eight states, that murdering the unborn is a right. But more importantly, you confuse your own personal philosophy with what the Constitution says.
“You’re just a far right social conservative, aren’t you?”
I’m a conservative. I’m not far right. I think people should be allowed to have their birth control pills, but I’m not willing to empower an already bloated federal government to do it. I don’t live in Connecticut. In the absence of a constitutional amendment, it’s up to the people of Connecticut to decide what their policy on birth control pills should be. If that makes me a far right social conservative, I guess that’s what Ron Paul is.
Yes, you are a leftist.
Jeremy,
Why do you hate the Constitution?
Jim,
Why do you hate freedom?
I love freedom more than you will ever know.
Can’t tell by the crap you’re spewing here. After all, if only specifically enumerated rights are actual rights…
Jim,
Which Constitution? The real one? Or the one in your mind that says it’s totally okay to discriminate against whomever you choose to?
Wow, you’re really not a libertarian. Do you think business transactions should be between consenting adults? If you do, then you believe in discrimination too.
And yes, you do hate the Constitution. That’s why you don’t want to follow it. Even the judge who decided the case admitted that the right to birth control is contained in “emenations from penumbras.”
In other words, he was stretching his ass off to find a justification to make the ruling he wanted so that his prefered policy would win the day. That’s judicial activisim. I only mention that because you seemed confused by the term before, admitting to not knowing what it means.
Jeremy Kolassa is one of those huge centralized government libertarians. He’s also one of those libertarians who doesn’t believe that people should be free to associate with whom they please.
Oh wait, those aren’t libertarian principles?
He’s also a strict constitutionalist, except when he doesn’t like what the Constitution says.
Why don’t you go argue with your hero, Ron Paul? He says I’m right.
Okay, Jim. Prove to me which line I wrote that says I want a huge centralized federal government to buy people birth control pills.
In the meantime, I’m going to go eat dinner, because I have a life.
Hope you enjoyed your dinner.
I never said that you wanted a huge centralized government to buy people their birth control pills. That’s not even the issue in contemporary politics. The issue today is a huge centralized government that is forcing a third party to buy someone else’s birth control pills. And I’m not even saying you’re in favor of that either.
But you are in favor of a federal government that dictates policy to the states, far beyond the realm of its legitimate constitutional powers. The founders came to Philadelphia as representatives of their states, and they were very wary that whatever centralized government they might create would become a behemoth that would run roughshod over the states, telling them how to run their internal affairs. They ceded certain limited powers to the federal government and retained the rest for themselves. What you’re talking about is a federal judge in Washington making policy for Connecticut based on some supposed right that even you admit is not actually contained in the Constitution. You simply don’t care that it’s not in the Constitution, which is flabbergasting. The Constitution is relevant to the constitutionality of a law, wouldn’t you say?
I must conclude that you are not a constitutionalist. You’re not a libertarian either. A libertarian would demand that the federal government mind its own damned business, and then work to change laws at the state level. And I would work with you, because I think Connecticut’s law is stupid too.
Let me try to boil this down:
1. Jim believes that states’ rights are supreme over the federal law and the constitution, which he derives from 10th amendment. (I suspect he may be a southern conservative.) One implication of this is that each state should have the freedom to legalize or ban anything it wants, so long as this is not something explicitly enumerated in the constitution under federal control. For example Georgia should be free to ban the use of polyester in fabrics while Texas should be free to ban sodomy or birth control - without federal intervention. Jim’s view of liberty is that individuals can move to the state that reflects their values.
2. Jeremy believes that individual rights are supreme over state or federal law, which he derives from the 9th amendment. In this case, if a state passes a law that deprives any individual of the right to life, liberty or property, the federal courts have an obligation under the constitution to strike down such state laws. Jeremy would say that if Georgia passes a law that bans polyester or Texas bans birth control, such laws would be a violation of the US Constitution. Jeremy’s view of liberty is that no law (state or federal) may deprive the rights of the individual.
The core issue seems to be the supremacy of individual state’s rights or the supremacy of individual person’s rights. Is this a common rift among so-called libertarians?
Have I misunderstood?
You pretty much have it, Dave. I’m not sure if it is a “common rift,” but it is there. I do intend to address this in a future post, though, because I believe people are very confused on the matter.
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