Is it really “harder”? Has the amendment process, which is the same as when the Constitution was written, become somehow “harder”? Or is it that needed adjustments to the document, such as the issue of slavery, having been made by amendment, leave fewer pressing issues to trigger the amendment process?

I don’t think so. If you look at how many were passed earlier, and how many were passed recently, I think you will see that it gets harder and harder.

I am not knowledgeable about Constitutional legal issues but if enough citizens are anti-abortion it would seem that an amendment is called for. An amendment forbidding abortion would make Presidential choice of SCOTUS nominees & SCOTUS opinion regarding abortion a moot question, wouldn’t it? I’m wondering why anti-abortionists haven’t tried this route. There are already 17 amendments passed after the Bill of Rights. That’s quite a few considering the young age of the nation & the genius within the original document — on average a new amendment about every 13 years(2005 — 1787 = 218 years divided by 17 amendments = 12.8).

I care about a court that’s been stepping over the Constitution, even using foreign law to supercede it, in order to rationalize racial preferences, CFR, and other pieces of disastrous and unconstitutional pieces of legislation.

I’m absolutely confident that I would be happy with an originalist SCOTUS. While I might not like the decisions that they hand down, ***it is not the job of the judiciary to make decisions that I like or dislike***. It is their job to uphold the constitution. I repeat for the dense: the judiciary is NOT there to satisfy “right and wrong” or decide how things should work or move us in any direction. They only exist to ensure we abide by the constitution. They are the referees. Say that aloud. They make sure we play by the rules.

Congress is the ball team. If the *people* don’t like something, they talk to their representatives who manipulate laws and if necessary add amendments (say specifically giving us a right to privacy). The legislature is responsible for effecting change. Period. Nobody else.

Freedom and our constitution aren’t painless processes folks. Like capitalism, democracy takes time to work and can be slow. The benefit is that the system gives people the freedom to make their own mistakes. Freedom.

I pray for the day when our federal government steps back and the states take back the power given to them by the constitution. Today, we elect representatives from far away cities who decide much of what happens in our country. If the meat of decision making was local, I suspect that issues would become more important than the “which devil do I hate less” or “who embodies my philosophy more” discussions we have today. I look forward to the day issues become more important than appearances. Maybe it’ll never happen, but I hope it does.

Cheers,
Duckman

Such an approach precludes discoveries of “new” constitutional rights that appear nowhere in the text of the Constitution.

Few conservatives are ready to go as far as Bork, but they do advocate, like Scalia, for a “dead” Constitution, meaning one that doesn’t change with the whims of the current Justices, some of whom advocate for a “living” Constitution, meaning one whose meaning shifts arounds like a weathervane as the current Justices sees fit.

As for Roe v. Wade, I’m a New Yorker. Abortion was legal in New York years before Roe was decided, and if Roe were repealed tomorrow, female New Yorkers would retain their right to abort their unborn children. To change that, I’d have to lobby the state legislature successfully. (I happen to believe that very few states would outlaw abortion, given the current political climate). We live in a country where some legal rules differ from state to state, and create a diverse legal environment. That’s healthy, because it enables different states to experiment with different social policies, and for the nation as whole to compare the outcomes of those differing policy choices.

The most important point is that most policy decisions belong in the hands of our elected legislatures, not in the hands of the Justices, who should be enforcing those policy decisions unless constitutional rights are at stake.

If you think rights should be added to the Constitution, then amend it, as the Framers intended.

Most hard core prolifers I know will not accept the decision of the state any more than they did Roe v. Wade, unless it is the decision they want.

And if it was as simple as just allowing the state legislatures to make laws there would not need to be a Supreme Court. The very fact that it exists tells us that people interpret the same words differently and that the founding fathers saw the need for an independent judiciary.

Slavery is a good example. The states did not make slavery illegal, a war and a war president did.

If the Supreme Court had decided the other way in the Dred Scott decision do any of us believe that the mind of one southern slave owner would have been changed?

“So here’s my first hypothetical for everyone who is a strict originalist: let’s say that Roe v. Wade is repealed, and although every state is now free to outlaw abortion, all states defeat proposed laws against it, and actually end up continuing to allow abortion. Would you be satisfied with such a result, since a strict originalist ruling was followed, even though abortion would remain every bit as legal as it is today?”

Yes, I would be satisfied. To use a current hard example the Schiavo case – I didn’t like the outcome but it was perfectly within the states right to do so. It’s what happens when you recognise thier right to do so. Same as with all of our freedoms – free speech means the KKK and Black Panthers can exist and say what they want even though I think they are corrupt and a blight on this planet.

“So my next question is this: If an originalist court overruled the right to privacy which had been established in Griswold, and as a result some states passed laws prohibiting access to contraceptives for married couples and actually enforced those laws, what you be satisfied with the result, because a strict originalist ruling had been followed?”

Sort of a straw man (I don’t think you meant it as one). The “right to privacy” isn’t where this one fails. For one, the decision quotes the first, third, fourth, and ninth as being taken together make that law unconstitutional – and I would agree (well, except the third – ti doesn’t apply). Where they went wrong is ennumerating it as “new constitutional right”, there was never and is still not this mystical new right. Abortion breaks down in that those amendments do *not* cover it, only this new one that suddenly sprung up can be interpreted to mean such (especially given that there is no text to clarify the right it can mean anything the justices wanted – and is preciesly why it was used).

“if there were no constitutional right to privacy, what would be the legal principle on which such laws might be overruled”

Too broad a question. Would need a case by case question. For much of it I would guess the fourth amendment (the “search” part of “search and seizure”). But it would depend on your specific example. In many cases the first and 9’th would also work.

“do you know that one of the bases for Roe was what could arguably be called an “originalist” interpretation of the word “person” in the US Constitution? The Court found in Roe that fetuses should not be considered “persons” protected with the full rights as such under the Constitution, because at the time of that document’s writing, abortion was legal and fetuses were not considered to be persons.”

Don’t confuse rationalisation with being an originalist interpretation. with enough of that you can “prove” nearly anything and is the basis of much of the “legislation from the bench”. From a certain point of view it can be said that the first amendment only applies to govt approved press, the second only to the govt sponsered/controlled military, that the third amendment allows law to supercede soldiers taking your home anytime, the fourth is a collective right and not an individual, in the fith everyone was milita then and murder is a time of “public danger”, and I could go on for each. Each one of them would have basis is what is technically written, just clever wordplay is required to change what they mean (also what I call “mental mastrubation”).

Plus, you do realise that a strict originalist also sees the constitution as changable/mutable – there is a whole section of it describing how. There are quite a few decisions I like the outcome but greatly fear the damage it will do as time goes on due to thier reasoning.