Constitution Party?

[Irenaeus]

I am all for these things. What concerns me is doing them in the proper way. To make abortion illegal by the Constitution is as wrong as going next door and throwing a brick through his window for not giving you your lawnmower back. Law must be respected before you can expect people to respect the law. You don't contact a Senator to fix a pothole in your street.

He who does not love and respect the law, at least implicitly, will not obey it.

The law is meant to be obeyed, even though man's rebellious nature may not like it... it must be obeyed, for justice's sake.

An unjust law may be detested lawfully, because it violates the moral order.

We must affirm the right to life, and the intrinsic dignity of all individuals. This does not mean we must place that in the Constitution, however, just like having abortion does not mean we add to the Constitution, "unborn babies are not human persons."

Well, this is where I disagree with a lot of Catholics here- I believe government exists to protect our rights, not to enforce morality.

What greater freedom is there than the freedom to do good?

Yes, a government should ideally allow individuals to act according to good conscience. This means, freedom of religion, speech, press, etc. This is a wonderful thing. However, this does not mean the government should allow people to act in bad conscience or direct malice, like in abortion, or any homicide involving adults.

Rights are based on morality. In some different moral systems than Christianity, man has no intrinsic rights. They are mere animal-machines whose 'rational' processes are governed by responses to stimuli, without free-will.

The idea that man has rights comes necessarily and almost exclusively from a monotheistic worldview. It is almost impossible to separate how one lives, speaks, and legislates, from a worldview implicit in their lives.

If we believe man is only matter, for example, we will treat man like only matter - we will feel free to use or destroy him as we see fit. We see this in Communism. We even see this in some radical animal rights groups. This is the logical outworking of a philosophical worldview.

If we believe man is made in the Image of God, then he is worthy of dignity, and has rights. Therefore, those who believe this (ideally) treat human beings with love, courtesy, and cultivate peace between neighbors. If you ask the typical person, "Why is killing wrong," they may say, "It hurts someone."

If one does not have a philosophy to justify the way they live, they begin to think the way they live.

Then you get into the philosophical presuppositions. How do you define hurt? Why is hurting someone, wrong? For all you know, you may be "helping" someone by annihilating them, one may argue.

This is the tragic fallacy of relativism, where you have "my morality" and "your morality," and we should not enforce any morality on anyone. This is the philosophy (and psychology) of sociopaths. To privatize morality will result in the destruction of civil law - because if our personal codes of morality: our own personal laws that govern our modes of behavior - are privatized to ourselves, it logically follows that we can claim that no man can enforce his moral code on us, if we do not believe it ourselves. Thus, for example, if murder is not an evil in my personal morality, than no one may judge me by enforcing their morality upon me, their personal right and wrong.

A society with this mentality will not fail to collapse.

 

[Paul S]

The Constitution sets forth and clarifies all of the MOST BASIC RIGHTS of ALL individuals living in this country- among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness- no?

Actually, that's in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.

The most basic and fundamental right is that to life- which is being denied to an enormous percentange of our population-- this is a basic and fundamental right, inherent in the rights spelled out by our Founding Fathers. The reason that it is not a matter of states rights, in my opinion, is because it is a clarification of that which was set forth by our founding fathers- as meant for all, to be protected for all.

The Founding Fathers left punishment of murder, rape, theft, assault, and other crimes against people and property up to the states. Before Roe, abortion was a state crime, not a federal one. I'm not sure allowing Congress to ignore the Constitution, even on an issue as important as abortion, is ultimately a good thing.

Slavery was not a matter to left to the states to decide. Blacks and women being able to vote was not a matter to be left to the states to decide.

All these things were left up to the states until the Constitution was amended to allow Congress to do them. What we really need is an amendment saying the unborn are persons, or at least the Supreme Court saying they are. If it did, then the 14th Amendment would prevent states from making abortion legal.

A black person being counted as a whole person was not a matter left up to the states to decide....

Way too many people get this part of the Constitution wrong. The slave states wanted blacks to count as a whole person, while the free states didn't want to count them at all, so they compromised on three-fifths. If they weren't counted at all, this would decrease the population of the slave states giving them less representation in Congress.

 

[ShannonMcCatholic]

All these things were left up to the states until the Constitution was amended to allow Congress to do them. What we really need is an amendment saying the unborn are persons, or at least the Supreme Court saying they are. If it did, then the 14th Amendment would prevent states from making abortion legal.

That is my point.

I know both what is in the Decaration of Independence and the history of the 3/5 person issue- the point is that to the ff's there were basic inalienable rights that hey felt needed to be clarified and spelled out specifically in the Constitution, beginning with the Bill of Rights. Secondly- it doesn't matter why blacks were counted as less than whole people- but that it was horridly and grieviously wrong and completely contrary to their inalienable rights...

 

[Paul S]

I wonder what chance a pro-life amendment would have of becoming part of the Constitution.

 

[ShannonMcCatholic]

I wonder what chance a pro-life amendment would have of becoming part of the Constitution.

probably none- barring miracles -- but I still think it is the right thing to do...

 

[InnerPhyre]

I'm going to start the Papist Party

 

[Irenaeus]

InnerPhyre,

Do we get to use chants as our political slogans?

 

[InnerPhyre]

InnerPhyre,

Do we get to use chants as our political slogans?

An excellent idea!

 

[DJ B.K.]

I will probably be voting for the Constitution party myself. Their candidate might not be perfect but I can't expect that much from my presidential candidate. It's not like he's going to win. I just can't vote in good conscience for Bush or Kerry. I'm not sure though because I'm in Ohio, a battleground state.

 

[ProCommunioneFacior]

I probably won't even get an invitation, Shannon!

Yep, we're having one at 7pm ET on election night. You are all invited, (especially Shannon and Michelina), we will have guest appearances by Our Lord and His mother.

 

[stray bullet]

The Constitution sets forth and clarifies all of the MOST BASIC RIGHTS of ALL individuals living in this country- among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness- no? The most basic and fundamental right is that to life- which is being denied to an enormous percentange of our population-- this is a basic and fundamental right, inherent in the rights spelled out by our Founding Fathers. The reason that it is not a matter of states rights, in my opinion, is because it is a clarification of that which was set forth by our founding fathers- as meant for all, to be protected for all.

No, the Constitution is set up to prevent Congress from making laws to take away rights. The Constitution doesn't exist to put in civil crimes. Murder, rape and abortion belong up to the states to outlaw and determine the punishment for.

Slavery was not a matter to left to the states to decide.

It was originally. Congress seemed to think it was as late as 1861 when they tried to create a 13th Amendment to keep slavery a state issue and regain the southern states. The states did not rejoin to pass it, of course.

Blacks and women being able to vote was not a matter to be left to the states to decide. A black person being counted as a whole person was not a matter left up to the states to decide.... why because these issues deal with basic and fundamental rights for ALL citizens, equally, in the same fashion....

The ability to vote is a right, not a criminal case. It prevents the government from taking away that right. Abortion, murder is not the same thing. These are laws to punish CIVILIANS for crimes, not prevent government from taking away something.

 

[ShannonMcCatholic]

No offense- but the ability to be born without being killed first seems awfully like a right to me....

Right now the government has taken away the right for these millions of people to have LIFE....

Abortion is a matter of removing the most basic of all rights- the right to life- it is not a civil crime it is taking away another person's right to be born without his or her consent....

 

[stray bullet]

He who does not love and respect the law, at least implicitly, will not obey it.

The law is meant to be obeyed, even though man's rebellious nature may not like it... it must be obeyed, for justice's sake.

An unjust law may be detested lawfully, because it violates the moral order.

We must affirm the right to life, and the intrinsic dignity of all individuals. This does not mean we must place that in the Constitution, however, just like having abortion does not mean we add to the Constitution, "unborn babies are not human persons."

What greater freedom is there than the freedom to do good?

Yes, a government should ideally allow individuals to act according to good conscience. This means, freedom of religion, speech, press, etc. This is a wonderful thing. However, this does not mean the government should allow people to act in bad conscience or direct malice, like in abortion, or any homicide involving adults.

Rights are based on morality. In some different moral systems than Christianity, man has no intrinsic rights. They are mere animal-machines whose 'rational' processes are governed by responses to stimuli, without free-will.

The idea that man has rights comes necessarily and almost exclusively from a monotheistic worldview. It is almost impossible to separate how one lives, speaks, and legislates, from a worldview implicit in their lives.

If we believe man is only matter, for example, we will treat man like only matter - we will feel free to use or destroy him as we see fit. We see this in Communism. We even see this in some radical animal rights groups. This is the logical outworking of a philosophical worldview.

If we believe man is made in the Image of God, then he is worthy of dignity, and has rights. Therefore, those who believe this (ideally) treat human beings with love, courtesy, and cultivate peace between neighbors. If you ask the typical person, "Why is killing wrong," they may say, "It hurts someone."

If one does not have a philosophy to justify the way they live, they begin to think the way they live.

Then you get into the philosophical presuppositions. How do you define hurt? Why is hurting someone, wrong? For all you know, you may be "helping" someone by annihilating them, one may argue.

This is the tragic fallacy of relativism, where you have "my morality" and "your morality," and we should not enforce any morality on anyone. This is the philosophy (and psychology) of sociopaths. To privatize morality will result in the destruction of civil law - because if our personal codes of morality: our own personal laws that govern our modes of behavior - are privatized to ourselves, it logically follows that we can claim that no man can enforce his moral code on us, if we do not believe it ourselves. Thus, for example, if murder is not an evil in my personal morality, than no one may judge me by enforcing their morality upon me, their personal right and wrong.

A society with this mentality will not fail to collapse.

We do not legislate morality, we legislate laws to protect individual rights. Obviously, we can run around all day about what a right is and argue which morality to enforce.

In the end, I will take either one of two roads for a government, a libertarian philosophy that has government exist solely to protect the rights of individuals, or a belief in a theocratic government which believes government exists to control man's sinful nature.

I am fine with living under one or the other, but not some mixture of the two. Any such mixture is unjust and disfunctional, we need the full strenght of one or the other for an effective government.

 

[Irenaeus]

Stray,

I am not supporting a theocratic government. What I am saying is that individuals can argue over rights just as much as they can argue over morality. There is no objective basis for law outside of morality. There is no objective basis for morality outside of God. This may be implicit or explicit, but it is still a reality.