What is Digg?232 Comments
- pitlord, on 05/09/2008, -19/+150There are NO "Constitutional rights." The Constitution outlines the structure of our federal government which happens to be a Representative Republic, not a Democracy.
Before the original 13 colonies would agree to ratify The Constitution they demanded that ten amendments be added to the law. Those amendments are commonly called our "Bill of Rights," which does outline certain basic rights that the colonies wanted to be sure the Federal government could NEVER infringe upon.
^^
So, the term "constitutional right" is a misnomer.
>.>
No, the Bill of Rights does not mention orgies, but it doesn't prohibit them either.
(X^P - CrackpotPress, on 05/09/2008, -2/+89Uh Ben Franlklin used to a member of several orgy clubs. Good enough for him.. good enough for me.
- MookiBlaylock, on 05/09/2008, -9/+63There better be. Good article brian.
- jeffiek, on 05/09/2008, -2/+52Irrelevant. When used in "Our rights were given to us by our creator", it can mean anything. Created by God, created by evolution, even created by little green men.
The important part is that they were NOT created by government, or any other human association. They are inherent to mankind's existence.
They are inalienable. - moracity, on 05/09/2008, -15/+61Finally, an intelligent comment.
When will people realize that the Constitution has nothing to do with rights? I don't think anyone understands what the Constitution actually is anymore. We don't get rights from the Constitution. Our rights were given to us by our creator. The Constitution creates the government and assigns powers to it. The amendments were added later to to address specific concerns of states in order to pass ratification.
The powers of the government are enumerated in the Constitution, so if it's not there, the government can't do it. Of course, that hasn't stopped the government from doing things it has no power to do. Like the Dept of Education. Completely unconstitutional. The government was never given the power to force people to go to school or to use taxpayer money to fund said schooling. - PeppermintPig, on 05/09/2008, -0/+33And no single scrap of paper could ever actually 'create' these rights. US government is supposed to recognize these rights, and restrain itself from infringing upon them.
- BigManOnCampus, on 05/09/2008, -2/+29You actually have a god-given right to an orgy, as ironic as that may sound.
- Abomonog, on 05/09/2008, -4/+31"The owners of the Cherry PIt subsequently counter sued the city claiming the ordinance banning sex clubs violates their privacy and due process rights. They are basically using the same argument under which a right to privacy was found under Roe v. Wade. They have to use this method in making the right to privacy argument because there is in fact no right to personal privacy spelled out in the Constitution."
Actually, it's in the 4th amendment. That "security from search and seizure" thing is the sticky point. Had it merely said "security from seizure" then rightfully anyone would be able to peruse your life and belongings so long as they didn't take anything. But it's that word "search". It means more than to just go looking for something. It also means just to "come to know" something. Meaning that if you merely inquire about what is happening at your next door neighbors house you are conducting a search. By the sheer definition of search your right to privacy is guaranteed as any inquiry into your life or home is a search by definition and prohibited by the constitution.
It is this right to privacy that allows the existence of peeping tom laws. Otherwise those laws could not exist as they would violate the main body of the constitution. It is the same right to privacy coupled with freedom of the press that allows you to watch pornography.
The 4th Amendment is the second strongest amendment in our Constitution with exception of the first. Without it the first, second, third, fifth, ninth, and tenth amendments in our Bill of Rights mean nothing because the expectation of privacy is what determines when and where you are actually covered all these other rights and the other amendments they protect.
For example. We can slander and insult El Presidente' Bush personal problems all day long at home. Call him gay, say he ***** his mother, whatever. We can do this at home among friends and expect not to receive any backlash. We are ***** in private, it's harmless *****, and that ***** is covered by the 1st and 4th Amendments. But when you say the same things on national television it is no longer private and you have voluntarily given up the 4th Amendment. You have given up that security. What you said may still be protect under the !st Amendment, but you are allowing people to "search" your thoughts by making them public and if those words are ***** enough, you can still be sued civilly even if you are protected from government prosecution.
It is the expectation of privacy that defines the 4th Amendment and therefore the 4th Amendment protects your privacy even though it does not directly say so. - theenginedriver, on 05/09/2008, -0/+24I'd say there's a constitutional obligation to have an orgy.
- MrTito, on 05/09/2008, -0/+22I'm pulling out something else...
- hikaruzero, on 05/09/2008, -7/+26I hate to break it to you, but the Bill of Rights is a set of amendments to the Constitution. It's still the Constitution. No, it's not the same as when it was ratified, but an amendment that gives Americans "the right to bear arms" is still an amendment that is a part of what is known as "the Constitution."
So there ARE, in fact, constitutional rights, because the amended constitution specifically guarantees them. - Phyraxus, on 05/09/2008, -3/+21"You can’t do cocaine in the privacy of your home….. You can’t shoot up heroin in the privacy of your home, You cant run a gambling operation in the privacy of your home."
You should have the right to do these things as well. - wynja, on 05/09/2008, -1/+20I wanna know how you get on the Reservation list..... anybody?
- enicholas, on 05/09/2008, -2/+19Useless pedantry. First, the Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution. No, it wasn't present when the Constitution was first written, but what part of "Constitutional Rights" implies that they had to be present in Constitution 1.0 back in the 1700s? I don't say "Microsoft Windows doesn't support such-and-such feature" merely because Windows 3.0 didn't support it.
Second, technically the intent is that we start out with the right to do anything, and then laws are enacted to take away specific rights (smoking pot, for example). So technically the second amendment doesn't give us the right to bear arms, it prohibits the government from taking away our right to bear arms. But that's a useless distinction -- if the second amendment didn't exist, the government would have taken that right away from us by now. So you could just as easily argue that the amendment did give us that right, because otherwise we wouldn't have it anymore. - inactive, on 05/09/2008, -1/+17well you have one up on a lot of us. We were never even given the opportunity to get bored with it.....
- HonestAbe, on 05/09/2008, -0/+15Ninth amendment FTW.
- HonestAbe, on 05/09/2008, -6/+21Which creator was that again?
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -7/+21Guess I went to law school for nothing..
- JonTheGoose, on 05/09/2008, -1/+14you make an excellent argument there.
- RickyBarnes1960, on 05/09/2008, -0/+12Constitutional or not, yes, you have the right to host an orgy in the privacy of your own home. One is born with rights, they cannot be given or taken away. Your rights are rooted in your ownership of your own life. The question isn't whether you have the right - of course you have the right, the question is whether or not you are at liberty to exercise that right. "Liberty" means you are free of the external impositions of others on the exercise of your individual rights. The question becomes - do others have the right to impose on your rights? The answer is clearly - NO, however, they may be at liberty to do so based on cultural rules or laws. This issue isn't over rights, it's over who is at liberty to impose their views upon whom ... and why.
In my usual opinion, the liberties of individuals to impose themselves on others in human culture have been irrationally granted in most cases. This is a case of the less mature granted too much liberty and the mature being granted far too little. How long will we allow the immature to dictate to the mature in our cultures? When will the mature finally become the majority? - inactive, on 05/09/2008, -0/+12here, here, here......it's an orgy remember?
- BesideYouInTime, on 05/09/2008, -2/+13"You can’t do cocaine in the privacy of your home….. You can’t shoot up heroin in the privacy of your home, You cant run a gambling operation in the privacy of your home and guess what? You can not charge people for the privilege of having indiscriminate, anonymous sex in your home." (Well, why the hell not?)
- trogdor282, on 05/09/2008, -1/+13Yup. Our country represents a fundamental breakthrough in human thought - that government CANNOT grant rights, it can only recognize (or infringe) on them.
- Nerys, on 05/10/2008, -1/+12Well last time I checked 3 years of law school and 20 years of legal practice were NOT required to read and understand the PLAIN ENGLISH words of our constitution. Its also not required to understand that LEGALLY out constitution is EXPLICIT not IMPLICIT. YOUR a lawyer you SHOULD know what those words mean.
let me help you. IMPLICIT means to IMPLY EXCPLICIT means WHat I say EXACTLY what I say and NOTHING ELSE except EXACTLY what I say.
The DUTIES of the government are CLEARLY DEFINED in the constitution. the ONLY way "for example" that you could make the DOE lawful is to IMPLY that the constitution permits you to do that.
ERRRRR BUZZZZZZZZZZ wrong answer did we already forget the constitution is EXPLICIT.
If it does not SAY Department of Education THEN YOU CAN NOT FRAKING DO IT LAWFULLY !! Period End Of Discussion YOU LOSE sir.
If they want the POWER to create the DOE there is one and ONLY one avenue open to them and that is the EXPLICIT ONE. IE AMEND the constitution to permit it.
WHY do you think prohibition was a constitutional amendment? BECAUSE THE CONSTITUTION DOES NOT PERMIT THE GOVERNMENT TO BAN ALCOHOL the people at the time UNDERSTOOD this limitation and DID IT RIGHT by amending the constitution to PERMIT the government to ban alcohol. and thats also why getting RID of it also required ANOTHER amendment.
a 4th grade level education is MORE than sufficient to READ and UNDERSTAND the constitution!!
SO your credibility is the one I hold in question since it seems after 3 years of advanced school and passing 2 bar exams and 20+ years of law practice you have NO CLUE what the constitution is and how its applied legally in this country.
NOW the OP is also incorrect the constitution DOES have something to do with rights. Where he is wrong is this. The constitution does not GRANT rights. RIGHTS by definition can not be GRANTED for anything that can be granted can also be taken away IE we call that a privilege.
The Constitution is a LIMITING document. its purpose is to put a LEASH on government. It does not GRANT us anything it DEMANDS that government remain HANDS OFF on such and such. it also spells out PRECISELY and EXPLICITLY the LIMIT to what the government (not the citizens) can and can not do.
The MAJORITY of the laws on the books today are outright illegal and violations of the constitution. - ZeroIce, on 05/09/2008, -4/+15You don't need to be an genius with years of school and experience to know what he just said. That is some basic knowledge.
- mickstephenson, on 05/09/2008, -1/+11Unless of course you are suspected of terrorism
- haikuFU, on 05/09/2008, -0/+10Orgies are an interesting thing. Back before the internet was popular, you had to "know" someone. I was at a party back in college, and I met a group of 5 or 6 people there and was talking to them. They decided to leave, and said "we're heading to an orgy, wanna go?" How the hell do you pass on something like that? It's not every day you get invited to an orgy... until you start hanging out with people in the scene.
But, it does get boring, because it tends to always be the same people, and the same drama. But initially, you're like a kid in a candy store. And a GREAT pick up line for girls at bars was "I'm heading over to an orgy in a few, wanna come check it out?" I'd say about half of the women I asked that to said yes. - inactive, on 05/09/2008, -0/+9Well Brian, you did say your school was down in the rankings..LOLOL just kidding man.
- LifeIsARhythm, on 05/09/2008, -1/+10not to nit pick but, the constitution was ratified by the last state a full year before the amendments were added
- gbates31, on 05/09/2008, -1/+9Another thing to harp on is that government, no matter how many laws they pass, cannot take away your rights. You only have the rights you're willing to fight for.
- AWBoy666, on 05/10/2008, -2/+10As much of a conservative bastard as I am, I will NEVER endorse the government inflicting morality upon its constituents. The decisions and actions or citizens in their own private lives should not be dictated by any government entity.
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -4/+12Im pulling out my bible......
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -1/+9You have not heard? We have dropped below used car salesman and now are just one step above crack dealers in credibility... :o)
- bringmeupmusic, on 05/09/2008, -0/+8Like the scene in Zoolander. Yeah baby!
- ubuwalker31, on 05/10/2008, -6/+14The article misses the legal issue in its entirety. It is constitutional to engage in consensual sexual activity in the privacy of ones home and that behavior is beyond the power of the state to interfere with. So, if you want to sodomize your wife or boyfriend, or both at the same time, in the privacy of your own home, go for it. What you don't have the right to do, is to engage in consensual sexual activity in public, or charge for sex, or operate a house of ill repute. I think that inviting 100 people over for a party in the privacy of your home is fine, even if you want to have an orgy.
However, once you start charging people a mandatory $5 to get in, and once you advertise the party on the internet and magazines to whoever wants to come, it sounds less like a private party, and more like a club. And this club even has a name! And nightclubs can be regulated by the state...why should this be any different?
This just sounds like an unregulated club to me. - Nerys, on 05/10/2008, -0/+8Well the problem is the city is NOT interested in REGULATING. They want to summarily eliminate. They did not say we hereby regulate this they said we hereby BAN THIS.
- Fordi, on 05/10/2008, -0/+7The bill of rights is a set of restrictions on government activity, enacted in order to avoid infringing on individuals' rights.
You start with the right to do everything. Government then (ideally) takes rights away from you that infringe on others. - thelastcivilian, on 05/09/2008, -6/+13Legality aside, if they want this to be considered a "private" arrangement, then they should keep it quiet. Instead, they're advertising and collecting money - if they weren't doing this, neighbours would just think they liked to have house parties.
- ShempRider, on 05/09/2008, -0/+7FTA:"You can’t do cocaine in the privacy of your home…."
Actually, you CAN.
But that still doesn't make it LEGAL vis-a-vis the United States Code and the codes of the many States.
/Done with nitpicking, which lawyers do. - staffa, on 05/09/2008, -0/+7Jefferson believed very strongly in local governance. Certaintly a local district could and should raise taxes to support a public school system. His idea of what the federal government should do no where near involved publically financed public school system.
With regards to parties
Early on he believed parties to be unnecessary and to the detriment of better governance, later in life, after more experience in government, he felt parties, while not ideal, where a useful means to an end. - rancidpony, on 05/10/2008, -0/+6By all means, I have no issue doing what they want. But 200 people per weekend at $50 each in a residential area? WTF?
Here is the neighborhood they are doing this in:
http://maps.google.com/maps?li=rwp&q=1306+N+Cedar+ ...
If they were doing this in a business district, I would be complaining about the people being moralistic prigs sticking their nose in someone else's business. But they aren't. This is they problem. - poptartrevival, on 05/10/2008, -1/+7You can if you're an upper class (insert party name here)! What's good for them just doesn't seem to be good for us. I guess we plebes just can't handle drunken drug fueled orgies. Just imagine if we could, we might not buy all the crap pharmaceuticals on tv
- AlwaysAwake, on 05/09/2008, -3/+9Anyone attending an orgy has this question so low on the priority list, it is not even a blip on the radar. I speak from memories of personal experience. At my age, I don't get many invitations to orgies anymore, and I really got bored with it a very long time ago anyway.
- PolarBearCa, on 05/09/2008, -1/+7I'm thinking that since they charge a fee it's not so much a private residence as a Bed-and-Bangfest...
- Minarchian, on 05/10/2008, -0/+6"They have to use this method in making the right to privacy argument because there is in fact no right to personal privacy spelled out in the Constitution."
False!
Read the 9th and 10th Amendments.
Just because it's not expressly written within the Constitution does not mean you do not have a Right to do it. - a6n28f, on 05/09/2008, -0/+5No, that is how those who educated you chose to interpret the word "search" by only recognizing some of its definitions. There is actually precedent, albeit limited, for Abomonog's interpretation.
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -0/+5 In 2003, in Lawrence v Texas, the Supreme Court, overruling an earlier decision, found that Texas violated the liberty clause of two gay men when it enforced against them a state law prohibiting homosexual sodomy. Writing for the Court in Lawrence, Justice Kennedy reaffirmed in broad terms the Constitution's protection for privacy:
"These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life....The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government. 'It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter.'”
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/c ...
Due Process - 14th Amendment. - Nhmarine, on 05/09/2008, -5/+10If we didn't have the right to orgies would we have the right to sex at all? Wait, we don't have the right to any sex of any kind because we have to be abstinent and not have premarital sex. Stupid bible.... /sarcasm. Sex (whether premarital or in an orgie or whatever) FTW.
- madcat033, on 05/10/2008, -0/+5Dude, appealing to authority is ***** and a logical fallacy. Your 3 years of law school and thousand years legal practice experience or whatever are meaningless. And I agree with the original poster. The Constitution enumerates the powers of the federal government, it doesn't grant the citizens rights. Citizens begin with full freedom and rights, and then the constitution explains what powers the government has to limit the freedoms of individuals.
- pitlord, on 05/09/2008, -2/+7Well, assuming you passed the BAR you earned the right to screw… er, um charge clients exorbitant hourly rates for acting as little more than a glorified secretary fluent in the arcane language of Legalese.
(X^P
But that's okay, parasites are part of the food chain too.
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