The Day Abortion Became a Right

Search through that Constitution, if you will, to find just where it is that it says there is the right to have an abortion.

You'll find rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to bear arms. But is there, somewhere alongside them, the right to an abortion?

But since 1973, the right to abortion has existed, and as a constitutional right, at that. It was established by the famous Roe v. Wade and the less well-known Doe v. Bolton.

I give you a thought, offered in a dissenting opinion by Justice Byron Raymond "Whizzer" White. Lest you finish this blog and not be sure where I stand, I agree with Justice White. Whizzer noted the Court was deciding that "the Constitution of the United States values the convenience, whim, or caprice of the putative mother more than the life or potential life of the fetus."

"With all due respect, I dissent," White wrote. "I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court's judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers. . . ."

Abortion became a right that day, Jan. 22, 1973 (the justices found that personal rights had been violated in the due process clause of the 14th Amendment), and has been ever since.

Obama Not Making End Run Around Congress

Ahh, so we jump to say President Obama is circumventing the Constitutional process with this new rule change allowing some immigrants to remain in the U.S. while waivers are being approved.

I'm among those who wondered about this, when I first heard of the rule change. What I've learned since then, though, leads me now to think that we were wrong. Obama is not making an end run around Congress.

Many a law has been written without every little detail being considered. My understanding is that the law does not spell out where the undocumenteds must be -- state side or in their home country -- so the administrators of the law must make that determination. In the past, they have required the person to return to their home country, but now they will allow the process to take place while they remain in America.

This sounds wise and legal and fair to me. I am not faulting Obama for the rule change based on what I know at the moment.

This Scripture Will Cure What (Incivility) Ails You

If being rude is a problem . . . no, if being impolite is a problem . . . no, even less than that -- if being uncivil is a problem, have I got a scripture for you.

On incivility. This one will cure you of any incivility. I trust, of course, that you will be willing to follow its advice.

 "Whosoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the judgment:and . . .whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." (Matthew 5:22)

 Now, you need to know, of course, just how this scripture will cure you. Perhaps it is just my judgment, but from bantering back and forth on Facebook, I have noticed that two of the most common forms of incivility are anger with the opponent and relegating the opponent to stupidity, or saying he or she is being absurd, or some such.

New Obama Policy Not Momentous as I Thought

So, how momentous is it that the Obama Administration is going to allow those in the U.S. illegally to remain here while getting their paperwork in order, instead of requiring them to return to their home country while this is being done?

If I understand the situation correctly, currently, a person who is illegally here often is required to return to their home country. The catch is, if they have been illegal for six months, they then must remain in their home country for 3 years before they can come back to the U.S. And, if they have been illegally in the U.S. for a year, they then must wait 10 years before being allowed back in our country. There is a way around the 3- and 10-year waits, however. One can get a waiver. There were about 23,000 waivers applied for last year and about 17,000 of them were granted.

Now, with this new Obama Administration policy, they will not need to go back to their home country to get the waiver. So, will there be a big impact? If 17,000 of 23,000 are already being allowed to return to the U.S. without the 3- and 10-year waits, it would not seem so. It would seem that the difference will not be whether they wait 3 or 10 years, and perhaps not even how long they wait for the waiver. The only difference is that they will be allowed to remain in the U.S. while waiting the waiver to be approved.

That's a plus, and a good thing, as it keeps them from being separated from their families while they wait for the waiver. But it is not as momentous of a thing as I thought when I first heard of this new program, and thought it ended the 3- and 10-year waits, themselves.

Corporations More than Just Paper

People are people and corporations aren't, goes the argument of those who favor an amendment to the Constitution taking all Constitutional liberties away from corporations.

The counter argument, of course, is that corporations are made up of people. One Facebook poster countered the counter argument, suggesting to me that you could take all the people out of a corporation, and the corporation would still exist on paper. 

If they are wanting to take away freedom of speech and freedom of religion from the pieces of paper that make up corporations, why? They know the pieces of paper cannot talk or write. If they seek to take away the civil rights from the paper that makes up the corporation, that paper cannot do any harm, cannot speak. Why, then, have the amendment in the first place?

I do not believe it when I am told the proposed amendment would not take away civil liberties from the people who compose the corporations. You cannot take away the liberties of the corporation without taking away the liberties of the component parts of that corporation -- and that is people.

Is there Anything Like the Corporate Personhood Debate?

Know ye anything so interesting as this corporate personhood debate? Listen up to the history and know it is so.

Citizens United produces and schedules airing of a movie critical of Hillary Clinton right before the 2008 Democratic primaries. But before the video-on-demand can reach TVs, the government blocks it.
 
The Citizens United folks are outraged, of course, so they take their case to court.

 And, a great case it is. It goes all the way to the Supreme Court, where (two years too late) the court rules the First Amendment has been trampled on and violated.

Now, it is the opponents of Citizens United who are outraged. So much so, they start a movement to amend the constitution, preventing those such as Citizens United from ever again being able to claim such a thing as First Amendment privilege.

Citizens United is but a corporate personhood, they argue, and should not be parading around as though it were due any First Amendment rights. Rights are for people, not corporations, they argue. Citizens United is not a person. Corporations are not people.

It's simple: People are people and that's where peoplehood ends.

To them, corporate personhood is the great American evil.

Now, here's an entanglement: ReclaimDemocracy.org -- one of the organizations set up to fight corporate personhood, was registered as a private, nonprofit organization -- same as Citizens United. If Citizens United is a corporation, and therefore not entitled to free speech, why should ReclaimDemocracy -- being the same type of an organization -- have free speech?

And, here's another twist: Citizens United suggests its mission is to restore the American government to "citizens control." That's hardly different than what the anti corporate personhood people aim to achieve.

So, know ye anything so interesting as this debate over corporate personhood?

Line-Item Taxation Might be Way to Go

Hmm. How about line-item taxation? On your return, you check the things you are willing to pay for, and that is where your tax dollar goes.

Don't want to pay for Planned Parenthood? Don't have to. Don't want to pay for wars you don't support? Don't have to.

Now, this could be a dangerous thing. After all, can we just bounce programs in and out of existence? If the people choose to pay for a program one year, but squeeze it the next, then decide to spend on it again the third year, what happens? Say it is welfare, and one year the taxpayers give enough so everyone is funded, but the next year we not only have to lay off government workers, but we don't have enough money for all the welfare recipients, yet the criteria for who qualifies hasn't changed, so they are all equally qualified. So, which ones of them get the funding and which get left out?

But, though we can see some real problems, don't toss this novel little idea out. I still think it might (possibly)  have some merit. Maybe, we could buffer it, so only half your tax dollar goes where you want and the other half goes to ensure consistency. This would make us equal partners with our congresspeople: They appropriate half the money, and we appropriate the other half.

Now, the other problem that might come up is that government agencies might start advertising their services, reasoning they need to sell the public on what they do, or they are going to be out of jobs.

Guess we could outlaw that, though. We could say only the people and Congress (or the legislature, if it is a state) have the power to appropriate money for advertising.