|*|L i b e r t y W i r e|*|"Does the Constitution Contain a Right to Privacy?"
litehouse1776
|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|
Does the Constitution Contain a Right to
Privacy?
by Harry Browne
Senator Rick Santorum recently caused a
brouhaha when, during an Associated Press
interview, he defended laws against sodomy --
saying that permitting sodomy is as good as
saying polygamy, incest, and adultery should be
permitted.
This provoked a firestorm -- and that caused
a far more troubling Santorum statement to be
overlooked. He said:
"It all comes from, I would argue, this right
to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion
in the United States Constitution . . ."
Is there a right to privacy in the
Constitution?
Well, I searched my copy of the Constitution
of the United States and I couldn't find the
word "privacy" anywhere in the document. Does
this mean the Senator is right?
I also searched the Constitution and I
couldn't find the word "marriage" either. Does
that mean I don't have a right to be married --
that a so-called "right to marriage" was
invented by some bleeding-heart liberal judge
somewhere?
The Constitution also doesn't include the
right to buy products from foreigners, or to
have children, or to read a book, or even to
eat food to survive.
How could the Constitution have overlooked
such basic human rights?
Because the Constitution isn't about what
_people_ can do; it's about what _government_
can do.
The Constitution was created to spell out
the limited rights or powers given to the
federal government. And it was clearly
understood that the government had no powers
that weren't authorized in the Constitution.
The Bill of Rights
The original Constitution contained no Bill
of Rights, because the authors believed it
wasn't necessary -- since the Constitution
clearly enumerated the few powers the federal
government was given.
However, some of the Founding Fathers
thought there could be misunderstandings. So a
Bill of Rights was composed -- and some states
ratified the Constitution only on condition
that those amendments would be added to the
Constitution.
Whereas the main part of the Constitution
spells out the few things that government _may_
do or _must_ do, the ten amendments of the Bill
of Rights spell out what government may _not_
do. For example:
* The government can't search or seize your
property without due process of law,
* It can't hold you in jail indefinitely
without a trial,
* It can't enact laws abridging the freedom of
speech or religion, or infringing on the
right to keep and bear arms.
And various other prohibitions on government
activity are spelled out.
The ninth and tenth amendments were included
to make absolutely sure there was no
misunderstanding about the limited powers the
Constitution grants to the federal government.
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.
Now, where's the right to privacy?
It is clearly in those two amendments.
The government has no power to tell people
what to do except in areas specifically
authorized in the Constitution.
That means it has no right to tell people
whether or not they can engage in homosexual
acts; no right to invade our privacy; no right
to manage our health-care system; no right to
tell us what a marriage is; no right to run our
lives; no right to do anything that wasn't
specifically authorized in the Constitution.
(Notice also that nowhere in the
Constitution does it say that government may
violate the Bill of Rights if the target of its
wrath is a non-citizen. Government isn't
authorized to jail non-citizens indefinitely or
deny them due process of law. There's a good
reason for that, but that's another subject.)
Constitutional Ignorance
The irony in the Santorum diatribe is that
if you were to ask him whether he believes the
Constitution is a literal document -- as
opposed to one that can be reinvented by judges
and politicians -- I'm sure he'd say he's
squarely on the side of the Constitution as a
literal document.
And yet he doesn't even know what's in it.
And he wants to reinvent it as a document that
gives the government the power to regulate your
personal life and invade your privacy.
This is pitiful. Politicians swear an oath
to uphold and defend the Constitution, and they
don't even understand what it is.
But then, most of them were educated in
government schools, just like the rest of us.
So why should we expect them to understand the
importance of limiting governmental power?
When the Constitution is discussed in
schools, the focus is generally on the
constitutional procedures for appointing
judges, electing politicians, terms of office,
and other mundane matters.
There really are only two areas of the
Constitution that every American should
understand and understand well:
* Article 1, Section 8 -- which enumerates the
areas in which Congress has the power to
legislate. You'll notice that no power is
given there for Congress to pass laws
regulating health care or education or
charities or agriculture or any of thousands
of other areas in which politicians now tell
us how we must act.
* The Bill of Rights -- which makes it plain
that the government has no authority to do
anything that _isn't_ specified in Article
1, Section 8.
Perhaps the greatest mistake made in
American history was in allowing government to
educate our children. We can't expect
government employees to teach our children that
the one unique aspect of our heritage -- the
one element that set America apart from the
rest of the world -- was _freedom from
government_.
Once government moved in on education in the
1800s, it was all downhill from there. In 1913,
the income tax amendment was passed -- giving
the federal government virtually unlimited
resources to trespass in any area of our lives
that politicians took a fancy to.
Our two greatest needs, if we are to regain
the liberty the Founding Fathers bequeathed to
us, are to:
* Get government completely out of education.
* Repeal the income tax, which will
automatically deny the politicians the
resources with which to violate the
Constitution.
Only when those goals are achieved will
America once again be the land of liberty --
providing light and hope and inspiration to the
entire world.
------
Links/references:
Santorum interview:
www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/04/22/santorum.excerpts.ap/index.html
The Constitution:
http://harrybrowne.org/articles/Constitution.htm
Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution:
http://harrybrowne.org/articles/Constitution.htm#SectionEight
The Bill of Rights:
http://harrybrowne.org/articles/Constitution.htm#BillOfRights
Why the Bill of Rights must apply to non-
citizens:
www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25661
Government entry into education:
www.fff.org/comment/ed0696f.asp
Getting government out of education:
www.sepschool.org
Repealing the income tax:
http://harrybrowne.org/articles/IncomeTaxDay.htm
American Liberty Foundation
www.AmericanLibertyFoundation.org
Other Harry Browne articles
www.HarryBrowne.org
-------
Harry Browne was the Libertarian Party
presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000, and is
now the Director of Public Policy for the
American Liberty Foundation.
|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|
L i b e r t y W i r e
is the official email list of the
American Liberty Foundation -- a non-profit
educational organization promoting the ideas of
individual liberty and personal responsibility.
VISIT the Foundation's web site at
http://www.AmericanLibertyFoundation.org
CONTRIBUTE to the Foundation at
http://www.AmericanLibertyFoundation.org/gateway.htm
SUBSCRIBE to this list by sending an email to
distributi...@AmericanLibertyFoundation.org
with the word
subscribe
on the first line of the body of the message.
Please leave the rest of the message blank.
You are encouraged to forward this message to
friends and business associates, and permission is
hereby granted to reproduce any items herein as
long as attribution is provided for articles and
the subscription instructions above are included.