The problem with the police wearing body armor is that they are often ultra-violent, sadistic criminals themselves. If a cop comes to your house with the intent to kill you (a possibility that I may soon personally face) it is much more difficult to defend yourself even if you do own a gun. Ideally you would be able to buy armor piercing ammunition, but of course that is considered illegal for a regular citizen. It is perfectly legal for the cop to buy it though. God forbid we should allow any fight between a cop and a citizen to be even remotely fair. Yes. I could buy body armor, but the attacking cop will have the element of surprise. I am not going to go to sleep every night wearing body armor just in case the cop chooses that night to break in. And if the cop is smart enough to have armor piercing ammo just in case I am wearing body armor then it wouldn't do me any good anyway.
It's also not unusual to find that 90% of 'police' gang members have committed some kind of violent crime. They should be stopping and frisking each other. No one has as much disrespect for the law as the police themselves. Police become police because they want to be able to commit violent crimes without having to worry about the law. They would have joined street gangs themselves but they were too afraid of going to jail or getting shot.
The police are the criminals. They are indistinguishable from a gang themselves. The government should be taking weapons away from the sick, sadistic fucks known as 'the police'. The last thing we need is to disarm citizens. We need the guns to defend ourselves against the police. The biggest difference between the police and a real street gang is that the gangs are not afraid of a fair fight. The cowardly police are. That's why they became police. A combination of cowardice and sadism.
Get ready to meet your maker. This time it really is the end. Not like the previous 5000 such predictions. No rational person would question this or ask to see the evidence. If you are not a climate scientist or population researcher what could you possibly say? You clearly have an agenda. You are being secretly paid to deny the end. So secretly that even you may not know about it. There is nothing else that could explain such silly disbelief. To deny it is to deny reality. This is science, you fool! You know that if scientists make a claim it must be true. If you want to discover the truth all you have to do is take a poll of "scientists". Whatever the majority of scientists believe is the absolute 100% undeniable truth. Ours is not to reason why, but only to do or die. When I see a scientist I bow my head down and kneel in front of him. I am nothing. He is everything. To any request I can only reply, "Yes, master." Although science got us into this mess, only science can get us out if it. The simple undeniable truth is that only immediate global thermonuclear war can save us now. Ideally starting in less than 5 minutes.
We need to come together embracing our differences and honoring our distinctiveness.
So are you advocating conventional war or nuclear war? If it's nuclear war then I am with you 100%. It looks to me as though a nice big nuclear war involving every continent would save the planet. It would seriously reduce land based mammalian populations to a more 'sane' level as well as greatly reduce CO2 emissions. BTW if you disagree with this final solution then you are obviously an enemy of the planet and need to be re-educated at the Ministry of Love. The scientific 'truth' of this solution cannot be denied. When it comes to the earth and its parasites the safest thing to do is to nuke ourselves from orbit. It really is the only way to be sure.
That if you could predict the future crime with 90% accuracy, then that judicial system would put fewer innocent people behind bars that our current judicial system.
Huh?! Because the police would be too busy arresting guilty people that they wouldn't have time to arrest innocent people?
And contrary to/,. group think, our system is pretty damn good.
Spoken like someone whose closest contact with said legal system is from a TV show. Try asking a defense lawyer that question. Or asking a prosecutor whether he cares whether a suspect really is guilty. Having said that it's not so much that the system is broken (although it is), but that the system relies on honest people running it and intelligent, logical, skeptics for the jury. I recently confessed to a crime that I didn't do, but which was actually done to me instead because, according to my attorney giving a false confession would mean a 100% chance of no jail time, but fighting the charges would mean spending half my annual income on additional attorneys fees and only a 50% chance of no jail time. The person who actually committed the violent crime against me gets no punishment, and I now have a violent crime on my record instead of him.
Have you ever considered moving to North Korea? If this sort of thing became common practice don't you think people who really did want information about such things because they intended to commit some crime, some greater crime than the search itself, would use Tor or go to an internet cafe or use someone else's wireless router connection?
That's particularly common in police brutality cases. If you want to find a violent cop just see how many arrests he's made solely for things like "resisting arrest", "disorderly conduct", and even assault and battery against them for no apparent reason and with no apparent injuries to the cop. Combine contempt of cop charges with a severely injured (or dead) suspect and 9 times out of 10 it's the violent result of someone attempting to stand up for their rights perhaps by remaining silent or saying something that challenges their authority.
What does critical thinking have to do with whether you do or do not want to live in a police state. That's a personal preference. I prefer not to live in a country where suspicious Google searches are illegal or even sufficient probably cause for an investigation. You may feel otherwise and regard a police state as a kind of utopia. No doubt pretty much all law enforcement people already feel that way. For them this kind of story is wank material.
If the person really were planning a crime would you be expecting them to confess to some cop at their door that they really do plan to kill someone and that they are 100% serious about it? I know a lot of people are very stupid, but that's a suicidal level of stupidity.
Most people probably are stupid enough to talk to the police, but I think the ones who really were planning on doing something related to their suspicious sounding searches would just lie to the cop and eventually if the interrogation truly went OTT as I would expect it to (cops think everyone is guilty anyway) I think a large percentage of people would request that a lawyer be present for further questioning.
I wouldn't talk to a cop at my door under any circumstances. If he wants to develop a case against me he'd have to do it without my assistance. From time to time I might simply ask if I were under arrest.
You are correct. If you can prove it. Not just that he broke into your house, but that he had no "valid" reason to do so. Keeping in mind that whatever he says is presumed to be true by nearly all judges and most juries and whatever you say (assuming he let you live) is presumed to be a desperate lie to save yourself from going to jail. If you weren't alone your friend/roomate/girlfriend will be considered biased and lying for you. The only way to beat a lying cop is to catch it on video and not let the video get confiscated. Or be lucky enough to have the event witnessed by someone you don't know and can later find to testify on your behalf. That still is no guarantee because the cop will have buddies who are also willing to testify to his version of events.
You do realize that a lot of Libertarians, myself included, are anti-corporation. If I were voted dictator the first thing I would do is outlaw them. Also Corporations in their current form couldn't exist without a government. Similar to copyrights and patents. I only found out recently that plants are patentable. It's governments that make such things possible.
A police officer can't break into your room to steal cocaine as evidence against you.
What makes you say that? I don't see any reason why they can't. Perhaps you meant that they are not supposed to break into your house. In theory. In practice they can easily get away with doing so. And they don't need your cocaine. They can plant their own. Or shoot you in the face and then plant their own. The whole reason they became cops is to be able to do stuff like that and get away with it.
Let's not pretend that the police will restrict their use only to situations where they would have used a helicopter. You really think the point of these things is to save money? You really think police departments are going to sell their helicopters? Think again. Think Tasers. They were only supposed to be used in situations where before they would have used a firearm. Instead they are used to torture someone into compliance or just to torture someone for insulting them or disrespecting them in some way or just for fun. The police force has no shortage of sick fucks who wank every night to torture porn. It will be the same situation here. Give the police a new toy like this and they can be relied on to abuse it in every way possible. And at least in the US no one can stop them from doing so.
In rich countries that is true to some degree. Think poor countries. They can't afford a 1984-esque police state. Still, among rich first world countries, it seems to mostly be a competition between the US and the UK as to who can reach the end game of 1984 first. Australia/New Zealand/Canada will reluctantly follow along. Their version of utopia where every citizen's actions are controlled and monitored at all times. I mean think about it. Isn't that the ultimate dream of those whose main goal in life is power? The more control you have the more power you have. Evil laws are no fun if you can't enforce them. With thousands of drones in the skies in every city enforcing every crazy law is a real possibility. My first question is whether these things are going to have infrared sensors in them that can see through ceilings and walls. Come to think of it this sounds a bit like a sequel to Blue Thunder.
I didn't think minerals even had an odor. Will 2012 be the start of a new global gold rush? Sulimov dogs are about to get a lot more expensive. If I weren't allergic to them even I might get in on the action. Just start giving them a delicious piece of steak every time they find the gold and silver coins you've hidden. The question I have is how do you pay a dog a fair wage? They would probably be happy to work for food. I could pay my Sulimov in expensive cuts of steak and elaborate home cooked meals.
You mean like neighboring New Hampshire? State taxes are smart. How else are state politicians going to pay for their hookers and heroin? What if Vermont residents vote in favor of a 99% state income tax for everyone who makes more than $15,000 per year and no income tax for everyone who makes less? Since I am in the latter category that would be fine by me. I still wouldn't vote for it, but it wouldn't bother me if it passed. Actually it would be especially good if some of those tax dollars would simply go directly to me, but I guess you can't have everything. Making everyone nearly as poor as me isn't as good as being rich, but it would have to do I suppose.
I suppose the founders should have expected that. It's an easy out. Although does the same policy apply to the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th amendments? The states all have their own constitutions as well. At least the 2nd amendment does seem to be ignored by some states as much as the 9th. It could be argued that only those should apply. I'm already tempted to move to a state like Montana, Wyoming, New Hampshire, or even Alaska. Although Montana has a rather large human rights free zone in the northernmost 100 miles to the border.
The 9th amendment is only vague in the sense that the constitution never lists the enumeration of rights that they seem to be referring to. You have to read their own personal writings or in some cases individual state constitutions to understand what they meant.
Also they didn't forget. They just didn't enumerate what those rights were, except in a partial half assed way of the first 8 amendments. I do understand why this only partial enumeration of human rights in what became such an important historical document leads to such confusion. They didn't make it easy for people from the distant future to understand what they were on about. You have to remember that in their time most colonists were a lot more Libertarian than they are now. I think they kind of just assumed that "the people" themselves would be the ultimate defense against tyranny by literally fighting for their rights. Hence the importance of the second amendment I suppose. They clearly didn't envision a standing army and a military police force of the size and sophistication we have today. But, again, if you read about their own political philosophies it becomes apparent that they did not believe the rights enumerated in the constitution were the only ones. so it is highly unfortunate that that is precisely how the supreme court interprets it. The ninth amendment makes it pretty undeniable that it was not their intent for the constitution to function as an enumeration of human rights, but more of an explicit permission for the government to do certain things.
Did you really expect the founders to come up with a list of every single thing they want the government to do in the next millenium?
So how do you explain the existence of the 9th amendment? What was its purpose if they were mainly concerned that the federal government would be too weak?
You really believe that the founders intended to give the government the freedom to do anything? Have you read anything about the political beliefs of the people who actually wrote the constitution? They most certainly did believe that the power of government should be limited. If you want to limit it you really have to make some kind of list. Either of allowed actions or disallowed actions. The 9th amendment is clear evidence of their intent in this regard.
In hindsight they would have been better off instead listing all of the things and categories of things that they feared a tyrannical government or just power-mad police officers would be tempted to do. In terms of their personal politics they were varying shades of what most would consider to be Libertarians today. That means a limited government.
Remember that the Bill of Rights itself was very controversial. Those first 10 amendments were almost not included. If that had been the case I suppose we wouldn't have any rights at all? I admit that the founders were not as clear on this incredibly important issue as they could have been when writing the constitution. Perhaps because the constitution itself was more about uniting the individual states and forming a federal government than enumerating what most people in the colonies at the time understood.
It's important to appreciate that the states were more or less separate entities at the time. I think their belief in human rights was better explained in the various state constitutions. Considering how subtle they were about this important issue it's not so surprising that many people like you simply don't understand the kind of document the Constitution was supposed to be. It was never supposed to be a document enumerating the natural rights of all human beings. They did briefly allude to the idea of natural rights in the Declaration of Independence, but without any real detail. Perhaps they expected people to read John Locke.
Unconstitutional doesn't mean that you are against it, it means that there is specific language in the Constitution that forbids it.
I'd like to hope you are not an American. Go read the ninth amendment and get back to us. By your logic the government has the right to put a gun to your head and pull the trigger because that is not mentioned in the bill of rights.
The first 10 amendments are as follows: 1. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
2. A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
3. No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
4. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
5. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
6. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
7. In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
8. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
9. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
10. 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.
To be fair the 9th amendment is not the only one that is routinely ignored, but it is the most damaging, because it is really the only amendment that truly protects us against tyranny. The only one that explicitly limits the actions of the government. It says quite clearly the equivalent of, "The government is only allowed to do what we have specifically enumerated and nothing more."
These are guys who just fought a whole bloody war to be free from government tyranny and you think they would just give the government of their newly formed republic free reign to do whatever they want unless it is specifically forbidden in the constitution? I do think it is unfortunate that they didn't do a better job expressing their Libertarian ideals in the constitution itself, but they most certainly did believe in human rights other than the ones mentioned in the bill of rights.
It doesn't mention the rounding up of Jews into work camps "for the general welfare" either. Do they have the authority to do that? Did you really expect the founders to come up with a list of every single thing they don't want the government to be able to do in the next millenium? Instead they made a list of things the government can do. If it's not listed that means the government is not allowed to do it. You are supposed to have to have to get a constitutional amendment to get around that, but instead the government just does what they want and relies on the cooperative appointed supreme court justices to agree, and indeed they typically do.
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No one bothers to do it because they aren't stupid enough to think it would work.
1. They wouldn't tell you shit whoever 'they' are supposed to be. If only because they wouldn't know or care.
2. Most of the time I would want an "all clear" signal is at night and the magical "city hall" wouldn't be open anyway.
The problem with the police wearing body armor is that they are often ultra-violent, sadistic criminals themselves. If a cop comes to your house with the intent to kill you (a possibility that I may soon personally face) it is much more difficult to defend yourself even if you do own a gun. Ideally you would be able to buy armor piercing ammunition, but of course that is considered illegal for a regular citizen. It is perfectly legal for the cop to buy it though. God forbid we should allow any fight between a cop and a citizen to be even remotely fair. Yes. I could buy body armor, but the attacking cop will have the element of surprise. I am not going to go to sleep every night wearing body armor just in case the cop chooses that night to break in. And if the cop is smart enough to have armor piercing ammo just in case I am wearing body armor then it wouldn't do me any good anyway.
It's also not unusual to find that 90% of 'police' gang members have committed some kind of violent crime. They should be stopping and frisking each other. No one has as much disrespect for the law as the police themselves. Police become police because they want to be able to commit violent crimes without having to worry about the law. They would have joined street gangs themselves but they were too afraid of going to jail or getting shot.
The police are the criminals. They are indistinguishable from a gang themselves. The government should be taking weapons away from the sick, sadistic fucks known as 'the police'. The last thing we need is to disarm citizens. We need the guns to defend ourselves against the police. The biggest difference between the police and a real street gang is that the gangs are not afraid of a fair fight. The cowardly police are. That's why they became police. A combination of cowardice and sadism.
Get ready to meet your maker. This time it really is the end. Not like the previous 5000 such predictions. No rational person would question this or ask to see the evidence. If you are not a climate scientist or population researcher what could you possibly say? You clearly have an agenda. You are being secretly paid to deny the end. So secretly that even you may not know about it. There is nothing else that could explain such silly disbelief. To deny it is to deny reality. This is science, you fool! You know that if scientists make a claim it must be true. If you want to discover the truth all you have to do is take a poll of "scientists". Whatever the majority of scientists believe is the absolute 100% undeniable truth. Ours is not to reason why, but only to do or die. When I see a scientist I bow my head down and kneel in front of him. I am nothing. He is everything. To any request I can only reply, "Yes, master." Although science got us into this mess, only science can get us out if it. The simple undeniable truth is that only immediate global thermonuclear war can save us now. Ideally starting in less than 5 minutes.
We need to come together embracing our differences and honoring our distinctiveness.
So are you advocating conventional war or nuclear war? If it's nuclear war then I am with you 100%. It looks to me as though a nice big nuclear war involving every continent would save the planet. It would seriously reduce land based mammalian populations to a more 'sane' level as well as greatly reduce CO2 emissions. BTW if you disagree with this final solution then you are obviously an enemy of the planet and need to be re-educated at the Ministry of Love. The scientific 'truth' of this solution cannot be denied. When it comes to the earth and its parasites the safest thing to do is to nuke ourselves from orbit. It really is the only way to be sure.
That if you could predict the future crime with 90% accuracy, then that judicial system would put fewer innocent people behind bars that our current judicial system.
Huh?! Because the police would be too busy arresting guilty people that they wouldn't have time to arrest innocent people?
And contrary to /,. group think, our system is pretty damn good.
Spoken like someone whose closest contact with said legal system is from a TV show. Try asking a defense lawyer that question. Or asking a prosecutor whether he cares whether a suspect really is guilty. Having said that it's not so much that the system is broken (although it is), but that the system relies on honest people running it and intelligent, logical, skeptics for the jury. I recently confessed to a crime that I didn't do, but which was actually done to me instead because, according to my attorney giving a false confession would mean a 100% chance of no jail time, but fighting the charges would mean spending half my annual income on additional attorneys fees and only a 50% chance of no jail time. The person who actually committed the violent crime against me gets no punishment, and I now have a violent crime on my record instead of him.
Have you ever considered moving to North Korea? If this sort of thing became common practice don't you think people who really did want information about such things because they intended to commit some crime, some greater crime than the search itself, would use Tor or go to an internet cafe or use someone else's wireless router connection?
That's particularly common in police brutality cases. If you want to find a violent cop just see how many arrests he's made solely for things like "resisting arrest", "disorderly conduct", and even assault and battery against them for no apparent reason and with no apparent injuries to the cop. Combine contempt of cop charges with a severely injured (or dead) suspect and 9 times out of 10 it's the violent result of someone attempting to stand up for their rights perhaps by remaining silent or saying something that challenges their authority.
What does critical thinking have to do with whether you do or do not want to live in a police state. That's a personal preference. I prefer not to live in a country where suspicious Google searches are illegal or even sufficient probably cause for an investigation. You may feel otherwise and regard a police state as a kind of utopia. No doubt pretty much all law enforcement people already feel that way. For them this kind of story is wank material.
If the person really were planning a crime would you be expecting them to confess to some cop at their door that they really do plan to kill someone and that they are 100% serious about it? I know a lot of people are very stupid, but that's a suicidal level of stupidity.
Most people probably are stupid enough to talk to the police, but I think the ones who really were planning on doing something related to their suspicious sounding searches would just lie to the cop and eventually if the interrogation truly went OTT as I would expect it to (cops think everyone is guilty anyway) I think a large percentage of people would request that a lawyer be present for further questioning.
I wouldn't talk to a cop at my door under any circumstances. If he wants to develop a case against me he'd have to do it without my assistance. From time to time I might simply ask if I were under arrest.
You are correct. If you can prove it. Not just that he broke into your house, but that he had no "valid" reason to do so. Keeping in mind that whatever he says is presumed to be true by nearly all judges and most juries and whatever you say (assuming he let you live) is presumed to be a desperate lie to save yourself from going to jail. If you weren't alone your friend/roomate/girlfriend will be considered biased and lying for you. The only way to beat a lying cop is to catch it on video and not let the video get confiscated. Or be lucky enough to have the event witnessed by someone you don't know and can later find to testify on your behalf. That still is no guarantee because the cop will have buddies who are also willing to testify to his version of events.
Judge = rubber stamp. Why do you think it is drug related?
You do realize that a lot of Libertarians, myself included, are anti-corporation. If I were voted dictator the first thing I would do is outlaw them. Also Corporations in their current form couldn't exist without a government. Similar to copyrights and patents. I only found out recently that plants are patentable. It's governments that make such things possible.
A police officer can't break into your room to steal cocaine as evidence against you.
What makes you say that? I don't see any reason why they can't. Perhaps you meant that they are not supposed to break into your house. In theory. In practice they can easily get away with doing so. And they don't need your cocaine. They can plant their own. Or shoot you in the face and then plant their own. The whole reason they became cops is to be able to do stuff like that and get away with it.
Let's not pretend that the police will restrict their use only to situations where they would have used a helicopter. You really think the point of these things is to save money? You really think police departments are going to sell their helicopters? Think again. Think Tasers. They were only supposed to be used in situations where before they would have used a firearm. Instead they are used to torture someone into compliance or just to torture someone for insulting them or disrespecting them in some way or just for fun. The police force has no shortage of sick fucks who wank every night to torture porn. It will be the same situation here. Give the police a new toy like this and they can be relied on to abuse it in every way possible. And at least in the US no one can stop them from doing so.
In rich countries that is true to some degree. Think poor countries. They can't afford a 1984-esque police state. Still, among rich first world countries, it seems to mostly be a competition between the US and the UK as to who can reach the end game of 1984 first. Australia/New Zealand/Canada will reluctantly follow along. Their version of utopia where every citizen's actions are controlled and monitored at all times. I mean think about it. Isn't that the ultimate dream of those whose main goal in life is power? The more control you have the more power you have. Evil laws are no fun if you can't enforce them. With thousands of drones in the skies in every city enforcing every crazy law is a real possibility. My first question is whether these things are going to have infrared sensors in them that can see through ceilings and walls. Come to think of it this sounds a bit like a sequel to Blue Thunder.
I didn't think minerals even had an odor. Will 2012 be the start of a new global gold rush? Sulimov dogs are about to get a lot more expensive. If I weren't allergic to them even I might get in on the action. Just start giving them a delicious piece of steak every time they find the gold and silver coins you've hidden. The question I have is how do you pay a dog a fair wage? They would probably be happy to work for food. I could pay my Sulimov in expensive cuts of steak and elaborate home cooked meals.
You mean like neighboring New Hampshire? State taxes are smart. How else are state politicians going to pay for their hookers and heroin? What if Vermont residents vote in favor of a 99% state income tax for everyone who makes more than $15,000 per year and no income tax for everyone who makes less? Since I am in the latter category that would be fine by me. I still wouldn't vote for it, but it wouldn't bother me if it passed. Actually it would be especially good if some of those tax dollars would simply go directly to me, but I guess you can't have everything. Making everyone nearly as poor as me isn't as good as being rich, but it would have to do I suppose.
I suppose the founders should have expected that. It's an easy out. Although does the same policy apply to the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th amendments? The states all have their own constitutions as well. At least the 2nd amendment does seem to be ignored by some states as much as the 9th. It could be argued that only those should apply. I'm already tempted to move to a state like Montana, Wyoming, New Hampshire, or even Alaska. Although Montana has a rather large human rights free zone in the northernmost 100 miles to the border.
The 9th amendment is only vague in the sense that the constitution never lists the enumeration of rights that they seem to be referring to. You have to read their own personal writings or in some cases individual state constitutions to understand what they meant.
Also they didn't forget. They just didn't enumerate what those rights were, except in a partial half assed way of the first 8 amendments. I do understand why this only partial enumeration of human rights in what became such an important historical document leads to such confusion. They didn't make it easy for people from the distant future to understand what they were on about. You have to remember that in their time most colonists were a lot more Libertarian than they are now. I think they kind of just assumed that "the people" themselves would be the ultimate defense against tyranny by literally fighting for their rights. Hence the importance of the second amendment I suppose. They clearly didn't envision a standing army and a military police force of the size and sophistication we have today. But, again, if you read about their own political philosophies it becomes apparent that they did not believe the rights enumerated in the constitution were the only ones. so it is highly unfortunate that that is precisely how the supreme court interprets it. The ninth amendment makes it pretty undeniable that it was not their intent for the constitution to function as an enumeration of human rights, but more of an explicit permission for the government to do certain things.
Give it up, people. We lead a pretty charmed life compared to most folks who lived even a couple of hundred years ago.
Are you specifically referring to technology here?
Did you really expect the founders to come up with a list of every single thing they want the government to do in the next millenium?
So how do you explain the existence of the 9th amendment? What was its purpose if they were mainly concerned that the federal government would be too weak?
You really believe that the founders intended to give the government the freedom to do anything? Have you read anything about the political beliefs of the people who actually wrote the constitution? They most certainly did believe that the power of government should be limited. If you want to limit it you really have to make some kind of list. Either of allowed actions or disallowed actions. The 9th amendment is clear evidence of their intent in this regard.
In hindsight they would have been better off instead listing all of the things and categories of things that they feared a tyrannical government or just power-mad police officers would be tempted to do. In terms of their personal politics they were varying shades of what most would consider to be Libertarians today. That means a limited government.
Remember that the Bill of Rights itself was very controversial. Those first 10 amendments were almost not included. If that had been the case I suppose we wouldn't have any rights at all? I admit that the founders were not as clear on this incredibly important issue as they could have been when writing the constitution. Perhaps because the constitution itself was more about uniting the individual states and forming a federal government than enumerating what most people in the colonies at the time understood.
It's important to appreciate that the states were more or less separate entities at the time. I think their belief in human rights was better explained in the various state constitutions. Considering how subtle they were about this important issue it's not so surprising that many people like you simply don't understand the kind of document the Constitution was supposed to be. It was never supposed to be a document enumerating the natural rights of all human beings. They did briefly allude to the idea of natural rights in the Declaration of Independence, but without any real detail. Perhaps they expected people to read John Locke.
Unconstitutional doesn't mean that you are against it, it means that there is specific language in the Constitution that forbids it.
I'd like to hope you are not an American. Go read the ninth amendment and get back to us. By your logic the government has the right to put a gun to your head and pull the trigger because that is not mentioned in the bill of rights.
The first 10 amendments are as follows:
1. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
2. A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
3. No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
4. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
5. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
6. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
7. In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
8. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
9. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
10. 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.
To be fair the 9th amendment is not the only one that is routinely ignored, but it is the most damaging, because it is really the only amendment that truly protects us against tyranny. The only one that explicitly limits the actions of the government. It says quite clearly the equivalent of, "The government is only allowed to do what we have specifically enumerated and nothing more."
These are guys who just fought a whole bloody war to be free from government tyranny and you think they would just give the government of their newly formed republic free reign to do whatever they want unless it is specifically forbidden in the constitution? I do think it is unfortunate that they didn't do a better job expressing their Libertarian ideals in the constitution itself, but they most certainly did believe in human rights other than the ones mentioned in the bill of rights.
It doesn't mention the rounding up of Jews into work camps "for the general welfare" either. Do they have the authority to do that? Did you really expect the founders to come up with a list of every single thing they don't want the government to be able to do in the next millenium? Instead they made a list of things the government can do. If it's not listed that means the government is not allowed to do it. You are supposed to have to have to get a constitutional amendment to get around that, but instead the government just does what they want and relies on the cooperative appointed supreme court justices to agree, and indeed they typically do.