Disagreeing with Ann Coulter

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Thursday, July 12. 2018

Disagreeing with Ann Coulter

Ann talks as if "rights" were things that are bestowed by government. She talks about "rights" to gay marriage, abortion, etc.

Laws against homosexual practice or marriage are clearly a freedom issue. Abortion, of course, is an impossible issue. I would prefer that people talk about freedom rather than rights. Laws are mostly made to restrict freedom but a rare few are made to assert freedom. For me, when in doubt, freedom is the default position. Courts do not "invent" rights but, when necessary, they should reveal freedoms when laws attempt to obscure them. Our Bill of Rights was forced to make this explicit:

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

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.

Posted by The Barrister in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 16:14 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

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She's not wrong, though, is she? I mean, she's addressing those questions from a federalism/subsidiarity point of view. For example, the Constitution is silent on abortion and homosexual marriage, and as such, it's left to the states.

That way, people of my state can choose to stay out of the marriage question entirely and let everyone do as he wishes, and people of your state can involve itself so mightily as to restrict marriage to those over 25, make divorce damn near impossible, and we can all see what works.

#1 Brother John on 2018-07-12 18:47 (Reply)

I've always said I have no issue with the right to privacy. If the Constitution doesn't give the government the power to limit a right, then we have it. I just don't think it extends to the right to kill babies.

#2 Randy on 2018-07-12 19:48 (Reply)

My opinion is that abortion is about funding/who pays for it. For the simple reason that you're not having a rational discussion with anybody who doesn't admit it is Taking a Life.
Quibbling over today, tomorrow, or yesterday doesn't change the Fact that the 2 parts met to start the process.

#3 Jerry on 2018-07-12 22:50 (Reply)

Ann Coulter=mouthpiece,

#4 rl on 2018-07-13 01:31 (Reply)

Barrister:
Laws against homosexual practice or marriage are clearly a freedom issue.
------------------------
Well, no.

That is - you are always "free" to declare yourself married without forcing the rest of us to go along with your definition of marriage, or granting you legal/financial benefits that depend on that status.

Similarly, you are "free" to:

-pay for your own birth control, health care, abortion, college tuition....

-check out of the hospital when the doctors can no longer help you, and despatch yourself without forcing the rest of us to distort or blur distinctions that express our values and protect the living from abuse.

Marriage is actually a very good example of those essential bits of humanity that DON'T fit the rights-n-freedoms paradigm. The obligations and shared values that bond individuals into families, communities, societies, civilizations.

The US Constitution does not guarantee the sort of yippee-skippy, no-strings, Ayn-Rand libertarianism that some confuse with "freedom". (It's a lot of fun watching the latest crop of young-uns alternate between arguing the "freedom" of a woman to prostitute herself - and then insisting they have a "right" to college tuition and housing... which indicates how debased these two terms have become...)

Thankfully most young libertarians grow up and start dealing with human interdependency and the need for a society to define norms and curtail individual freedoms.

And the Constitution was written by and for grown-ups - people more thoughful and responsible than most modern "freethinkers".

The Constitution tries - and largely succeeds - in protecting The Rest of Us from various Grand Inquisitors and Revolutionaries who Know They Are Right. It ensures that the freedom-limiting laws and norms will be hashed out and implemented democratically, and that there will always be an open space to discuss them.

But it does not set itself against the norms and limits that are an essential aspect of any human society.

#5 Ben David on 2018-07-13 06:48 (Reply)

The problem is that the founding fathers did too good a job. Our lives are so good that we think this is normal and it is our right and so we can just slouch off to Gomorrah or hell or laziness or ignorance and life will always provide for us and we have no responsibilities at all. If we do not reverse this trend then I believe we will go the way of Rome.

#5.1 GoneWithTheWind on 2018-07-13 11:03 (Reply)

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Thursday, July 12. 2018

Disagreeing with Ann Coulter