« Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder | Main | Summer conversation 6:45 pm, backyard »

June 23, 2005

A bright line between Left and Right

One of the tenets of the American Left is that groups "rights" trump individual rights, especially if some "group good" can be cited. This is where you get the dilution of the word "rights" into a child's letter to Santa of "wants." Medical care is a "right", education is a "right", to not be offended by Christians and Jews is a "right".

Allow people to keep even a portion of their payroll taxes as a retirement account? NEVER! The Left finds individuals much too stupid to be trusted with their own money. Allow people to vote on whether or not same-sex marriage should be allowed in their state? NEVER! Individuals are way too consumed with homophobia and too easily manipulated to be trusted to vote on this issue.

And if you want a clear example of how this breaks down along philosophical lines, then understand how the American Left, and the leftside of the SCOTUS, believes property rights are subservient to the "group good."

WASHINGTON (AP) - A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.

The 5-4 ruling - assailed by dissenting Justice Sanday Day O'Connor as handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled in America - was a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.

Look at the justices who joined O'Connor in her dissenting opinion that handing carte blanche to localities to seize private property at will is an abomination of the Constitution:
O'Connor was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Individual rights are moot if property rights are invalidated. Remember this ruling well the next time you hear Leftists engage in hysteria of how it is conservatives that are a threat.

hattip Kevin at Wizbang

Posted by Darleen at June 23, 2005 12:49 PM

Comments

Allow people to vote on whether or not same-sex marriage should be allowed in their state? NEVER! Individuals are way too consumed with homophobia and too easily manipulated to be trusted to vote on this issue.

Well, this would be a case where liberals favor individual rights, right? The right to marry is an individual right. If you think state gay marriage bans are a triumph of individual rights over group rights, you're going to have a hard time saying why Kelo-style property seizures by a duly elected legislature aren't a similar triumph of the individual.

The attempt to pass off "states' rights" as some kind of individual right never really made sense to me. States are no more individuals than the federal government is, even though they're smaller.

Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf at June 24, 2005 06:54 PM

Neil

Marriage is not a "right". It's contract law. Either the people can, through their representatives, define the parameters of the contracts they will support or they cannot.

If the state can define the obligations/responsiblities of the landlord/tenant relationship, why should marriage be any different?

And, BTW, there are no "gay marriage" bans going on. Gays can marry today, right now. As long as their partner is of the opposite sex they can marry. No marriage statue requires the people to declare either their orientation or love.

Something has to be legally accepted before it can be banned. Even "same sex marriage" is not being banned. It never existed in the first place.

Posted by: Darleen at June 24, 2005 07:00 PM

Okay, if you interpret "gay marriage bans" to mean the homosexuality of the participants, there aren't any. But if you interpret it to mean homosexuality of the marriage, there are. I thought it was obvious which one I meant, but perhaps it wasn't.

Marriage is not a "right". It's contract law. Either the people can, through their representatives, define the parameters of the contracts they will support or they cannot.

I agree with the disjunction -- either they can or they cannot! But in some cases, like this one, it's the 'cannot' half that holds. You don't think that states can forbid different races from marrying, or withhold marriage from people whose last names start with a different letter, or allow people to marry only those whom the state legislature deems appropriate for selective breeding purposes, do you?

Fortunately, the Supreme Court did not hold your view when they overturned state laws banning interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia.

Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf at June 25, 2005 02:41 AM

elegance plaintively Rwanda!skimping impeached cabling sobs inventiveness lolita lolita http://www.realestateseller.net/zero-down-home-financing.html http://www.realestateseller.net/zero-down-home-financing.html - Tons of interesdting stuff!!!

Posted by: lolita at November 25, 2005 10:04 PM