"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Unenumerated Rights

There's an interesting post at Balkinization that discusses unenumerated rights and the Court's Due Process jurisprudence. For those non-legalists who happen by, "unenumerated rights" are those assumed but not explicitly listed in the Constitution. It's worth reading, but one thing struck me. I thought at first it was a typo, but it appears that it's not:

The rights of heart and home that the Court’s substantive due process cases have vindicated beginning with Meyer v. Nebraska are the very rights that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment sought to guarantee for the newly freed slaves. The framers recoiled at the treatment of slave families – parents were denied the right to marry and often separated, children were taken from them, and education and free worship were limited or prohibited altogether – and they wrote the Privileges or Immunities Clause to protect these liberties of heart and home.

"Liberties of heart and home." That sort of says it, doesn't it?

No comments: