<p>I too am dissapointed with McCain’s rightward move. However, despite being pro-choice politically, last semester I reluctantly came to the conclusion that Roe v. Wade was based on a dubious interpretation of the constitution and should be overturned. Abortion should be a matter for the legislatures to decide, not the courts.It isn’t fair to have a Roe v. Wade litmus test for politicians when there are valid reasons for a politicion of any persuasion to be uncomfortable with the legal philosophy that led to Roe. Having said that, I suspect that McCain’s position is less a defence of a judicial ideology than a blatant attempt to curry favor with the right.</p>
<p>Icargirl</p>
<p>Definition of "strict constructionism:</p>
<p>“Appointing judges to make public policy that “our side” agrees with.”</p>
<p>It’s a silly notion that conservative politicians appointing conservative judges to make conservative public policy is somehow more constitutional that liberal politicians appointing liberal judges to make liberal public policy.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court is a political entity, just like the Executive branch and just like the Legislative branch. It is guided by political considerations. Always has been. Always will be. It would be impossible for it to be any other way.</p>
<p>BTW, there are many who believe that overturning Roe v Wade would be the worst thing that ever happened to the anti-abortion lobby. In effect, the Roe v. Wade has provided them political cover. Without it, the politicians would actually have to cast votes that the majority of the voters disagree with.</p>
<p>Not that any of this has anything to do with John McCain. Whatever Jerry Falwell tells McCain to do, he’ll do. He’s in full-blown pander mode.</p>
<p>“It’s not like “we” get to decide.”</p>
<p>Why not? Because it is not fair? Because the Arab has been wallowing in his own crapulence for seven centuries and it is not right that better organized society should inflict its will on them? Quaint but misbegotten idea.</p>
<p>“valid reasons for a politicion of any persuasion to be uncomfortable with the legal philosophy”</p>
<p>Anyway you want to put it, it’s still going to be bad. Most believe in a right to choose, some don’t. You can believe in the right to choose and decide not to, that is what I support. The opportunity to have a choice. Not to is a choice too.</p>
<p>Interesteddad: I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to explain myself more fully in this thread, but I’m not a strict constructionist at all. I have no problem with the idea that the constitution may be read to acknowledge implicit rights, including the rights of a woman to control her own body. However, no matter how fundamental a right is, there are situations in which the need to balance two rights against each other allows even a fundamental right to be overriden. Hence, while no one would argue against the centrality of free speech, we acknowledge that there are certain cases in which speech, because it is dangerous or hurtful to others, can be legitimately supressed.
In the case of abortion, the entire controversy rests on whether or not a fetus has rights that may override the general autonomy of the mother. Personally, I believe it doesn’t, at least as far as early-term abortion is concerned. However, the court is not empowered to determine what constitutes life. The rationale in Roe for treating the fetus as necessarily a non-person in legal terms is silly: the justices claim that because the references to “persons” in the constitution involve functions that a fetus could not carry out, a state legislature could not decide that they were persons under law. By that same rationale, as many commentators have pointed out, small children and the mentally incompetent are also not people. it is not outside the bounds of reasonable legislative activity for a state to decide that it wants to confer protected status on the unborn even at the expense of an acknowledged right to bodily integrity.</p>
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<p>Maybe not in your opinion. It is totally unreasonable in my opinion.</p>
<p>So that puts us right back squarely into the realm of political public policy decisions…which the Supreme Court is good at.</p>
<p>I’ll weigh in on ICargirl’s side here. I am solidly pro-choice, but I think Roe v. Wade was very questionable constitutional law. That is a pretty mainstream position in legal academia, by the way. Lots of generally liberal law professors have used Roe v. Wade as an example of what the Supreme Court probably shouldn’t do. I could even support a constitutional right of choice, but Roe and its progeny were so shaped by the attitudes of Justice Blackmun (former general counsel of the Mayo Clinic) and Justice Powell (whose vote was always the swing one in these cases after the first one) that the law looks more like a constitutional right for doctors to practice medicine the way they want than for women to control their bodies.</p>
<p>I don’t agree, by the way, that it’s a question of the fetus’ rights versus the mother’s. I think it would be a horrible mistake to start according fetuses rights, and there is no support for the proposition that a fetus is a person under the Constitution. I do think that it’s a question of state power versus individual liberty, and that there is precious little basis in the Constitution to find that this type of regulatory restriction is forbidden.</p>
<p>In any event, I think there’s a good chance Roe gets overturned this year. If I look at it that way, you can bet Roberts and Alito do, too. Maybe Kennedy will lie down on the tracks to save it, but that seems pretty unlikely.</p>
<p>and re: McCain, I think ldmom06 said what I meant better than I did. I suspect that’s the best course for him to steer on Iraq. He has to win Republican primaries, and in the general election he will be facing some specific Democrat, right now looking like Hilary Clinton or Barack Obama. It’s pretty safe to say that he thinks he can win national security votes from Democrats against either of them, even if – especially if – he takes positions that are out of step with general public sentiment. “Do you want a Commander-in-Chief who looks at the polls to make military decisions?” And I think people will trust him not to be reckless; he’ll find lots of ways to get that message across, too.</p>
<p>Speaking only from a pragmatic standpoint, the strategy isn’t as insane as it sounds on its face. One reason for a pro-war candidate to criticize Rumsfeld would be if that candidate is anticipating a popular war in Iran, and wants to make sure to be associated with it by coming down as a hawk now, but still distance himself from the things that have gone wrong in Iraq…a have the best of both worlds strategy.</p>
<p>I don’t think McCain is that cynical, though. Although I think he’s wrong about the war in Iraq (and men like Odom and McCaffery are right), I think he’s wrong for the right reasons, whereas people like Rumsfield were wrong for the wrong reasons.</p>
<p>"“It’s not like “we” get to decide.”</p>
<p>Why not? Because it is not fair?"</p>
<p>No. Because the hostile, aggressive occupiers lack the political will to put the 250,000 troops that General Petreaus says are necessary for Baghdad alone. Because the occupiers have made lifelong enemies of two million pro-Western refugees, the party of folks most likely to support, who will now curse them until their dying breath. Because the pork munchers in the Green Zone are more interested in feathering their own nests.</p>
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<p>When you consider that Iraq has less than a tenth the population of the United States, this is the equivalent of over 20 million refugees in the US. Displacement on that scale isn’t even imaginable, unless you’re living it.</p>
<p>yeah and according to the libs on my son’s college campus Bush was going to bring back the draft,overturn Roe V Wade and cut college funding. Instead we got a band of thieves who ignored all the issues that either liberals or conservatives favor.- I still maintain that both parties exist merely to keep any independent party from gaining power. A zero sum game I believe.</p>
<p>^ bingo, my friend.</p>
<p>“So that puts us right back squarely into the realm of political public policy decisions…which the Supreme Court is good at.”</p>
<p>You mean like the Fred Scott decision? That was a doozy. Or how about separate but equal? The courts are a very dangerous place to fight these sorts of things out. It leads to politicizing justice. If a free people can’t reach a reasonable accord on this type of issue in the legislature turning thr decision over to a Tyrant won’t help.</p>
<p>“Displacement on that scale isn’t even imaginable, unless you’re living it.”</p>
<p>Would you like to guess what percentage of Mexico’s population is now in the USA illegally? We are living it.</p>
<p>What doesn’t work for him overall in the electorate – and particularly not with the press – is making nice with the Christian Right for the purposes of political expediency. He’s losing his image as an intrepid independent thinker. His crossover appeal to voters across the aisle and of many stripes is gone. RIP an American hero who had spoken his mind more forthrightly. People liked the fact that he didn’t seem to always strategize or follow polls, as he really seems to not be doing in this case.</p>
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<p>Bull. Was there any purpose in posting this other than to make an obligatory dig at illegal immigrants?</p>
<p>First off, the % of Mexico’s population that is illegal aliens is about half the % of Iraqis that are war refugees. Second, even if the comparison were valid, you’d have to argue that Mexico is living it, not the US.</p>
<p>If you think that the US having immigrants is anything like at all like living in a war-torn country where more than 10% of the population has fled their homes–you are way, way off base.</p>
<p>conyat - the Mexican and other Central Americans now in the US represent a good 10% of the regions population and a hefty number of them are here illegally. They are both economic and war refugees and there are 10x as many of them in real numbers as there are Iraqi refugees.</p>
<p>So then I gather you are in favor of illegal immigration. Bully for you. Feel free then to send yor kids to my schools, and use my local hospital, walk my streets after dark, and have your house broken into then tell me how wonderful illegal immigration is.</p>
<p>And for the record I am not against immigration I am against ILLEGAL immigration. I firmly believe that the US needs and can sustain high levels of LEGAL immigration. But I also believe we have more than enough home grown social problems that we don’t need to import Mexico’s.</p>
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<p>I never said that, but thanks for prejudging me. </p>
<p>I said it wasn’t a valid comparison. And it’s not. The population of Mexico, the only country you named, is 107 million. The number of illegal immigrants from Mexico in the US is about 5 million, according to our government. Half the rate of Iraq’s displacement. And Mexico, not the US, is the country experiencing the loss of those folks.</p>
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<p>Do you even have any idea how silly you sound presuming to lecture a New Orleanian about illegal immigration and displacement? </p>
<p>I know what it’s like have a population displaced–half my city is in exile. I know what it’s like to live in a city where the illegal immigrant population is a huge % of the population, and climbing. Who on earth do you think is gutting houses, putting on roofs, and painting? I’ll give you a hint–it isn’t Karl Rove’s son; his dad thinks he’s too good to make beds at a hotel.</p>
<p>You’re against illegal immigration, fine, but that doesn’t make illegal immigration a valid analogy for every situation in the universe. It has nothing to do with what it’s like to live in a community where large numbers of the residents have been displaced. You have no idea whatsoever. I bet you have no trouble finding a grocery store in your neighborhood, or a doctor when you need one. </p>
<p>Resenting people moving in, however justified your resentment may be, is not at all the same thing as living in an area that’s experienced a major loss of its inhabitants and vital services.</p>
<p>And at least those of us in New Orleans know that the people who left the area are, for the most part, safe and comfortable. We know they have roofs over their heads and clean water to drink, enough food to eat and that no one is shooting at them. I don’t think the people in Iraq have that kind of reassurance about their displaced friends and neighbors.</p>
<p>ETA: I myself have kind of a foot in both worlds. I spend half my time on the North Shore, which hasn’t had a major loss of inhabitants, but has had a major influx of folks from elsewhere, including illegals. So it’s a situation very like the one you describe.</p>
<p>Then I spend half my time in New Orleans, where there are whole neighborhoods sitting abandoned, and tons of family, friends, and vital service providers that simply “ain’t dere no more.” </p>
<p>So I know up-close-and-personal, the difference between experiencing immigration and experiencing outward migration. It’s just not a valid comparison.</p>
<p>“No. Because the hostile, aggressive occupiers lack the political will to put the 250,000 troops that General Petreaus says are necessary for Baghdad alone. Because the occupiers have made lifelong enemies of two million pro-Western refugees, the party of folks most likely to support, who will now curse them until their dying breath. Because the pork munchers in the Green Zone are more interested in feathering their own nests.”</p>
<p>I’ll take that bet.</p>