Sam Brownback and Griswold v. Connecticut

The following is from a (lengthy) post I made in Facebook. It is part of a response to Tay Stevenson of Dartmouth College; posted in the group "Brownback for President" on January 28, 2007. To provide a bit of background, Tay does not agree with Sam Brownback (R, Kansas) or his "nut job" supporters. Among other things, Tay feels that "Sam Brownback appeals only to those monomaniacal individuals who go to the poll looking for someone supporting knee-jerk, reactionary and close-minded social policies that have served no greater purpose than to divide the country." I think you get the picture. My reply:


Tay, in response to my post you said, "I would clarify that I am not calling anyone here those things [nut job, monomaniacal, etc.], but simply making a general statement that Brownback's typical supporters tend to be characterized as such."

Okay. But you are making these statements in a facebook group called "Brownback for President." This group has 2,000 members in support of Sam Brownback. I think it is safe to say we are Brownback's "typical supporters," therefore you are calling us those names. And in the same breath, you lecture us for "not embracing the idea of tolerance."

Now, I believe with G.K. Chesterton that "tolerance is the virtue of a man with no convictions." And so I am not offended by your comment about tolerance. But I do find it offensive and ironic that one who upholds tolerance as a (supreme?) virtue, is so clearly *intolerant* of "Brownback's typical supporters."

"However, if you deny legislating the Bible, then I'm not sure exactly why you are supporting Brownback who is proposing to do just that." -Tay

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the phrase "legislating the Bible." If you mean enacting laws based entirely on Leviticus (such as stoning to death a blasphemer), then no, I do not support such a notion. If you mean keeping in place the Judeo-Christian values which have been the moral fabric and foundation of American law for 200 years, then yes, I wholeheartedly agree with this idea and anyone who supports this idea...like Sam Brownback.

Before you get too eager in denouncing such a "radical" perspective, I would remind you that the Ten Commandments adorn the U.S. Supreme Court building. I would remind you that every day our U.S. Congress opens in prayer to Almighty God. I would remind you that (with the exception of Clinton) this country has had a long tradition of presidents who were firm believers in Judeo-Christian morals. Presidents who had no qualms about reminding and addressing the American people with words such as these:

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

"It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

"Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion." -President Abraham Lincoln, March 30, 1863

Hmmm...

Confess our sins? Pray for mercy? A national day of humiliation, fasting and prayer?

You see, Tay, it is not the "religious right," who are "nut jobs" trying to subvert and take over this country. It is the extreme left, the Hollywood elites, the so called "main stream media," the NYT, the liberal professors at our institutions-of-lower-living, the gals on The View, et. al., who are trying to rid our nation of any reference to God and to smear any politician who wants to keep God in our court rooms and senate buildings. It is *they* who are dragging America in the opposite direction.

And as good sheeple, many Americans get their moral direction from whatever happens to be on television, and read the the New York Times as though it were the Gospel truth. Most Americans have bought into the big lie -- the lie that, for instance, Brownback is trying to legislate the Bible.

No. Sam Brownback is simply trying to regain some sense of moral direction for our Sex-and-the-City-culture. He is simply trying to get complacent Americans to wake up to the horror of abortion; to the legalized slaughter (4,000 a day) of unborn innocent children.

You see, Sam Brownback understands that John Paul II got it right when he said, "A nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope."

How did we get here? How is it that for 34 years abortion on demand has been the law of the land? Well, we can start tracing our steps backward and see that Roe was discovered to be a constitutional right (?!?) of any woman, based on an extension of the constitutional right to privacy (?!?!?), which, although not stated anywhere in the constitution, is most definitely there. Just ask the seven justices who found it in 1965 (Griswold v. Connecticut), about 200 years after the Founding Fathers put the words to paper.

"Tom, I'm sure one day you are going to want a wife and some kids, and without a right to privacy, what exactly prevents the government from telling you when you can have sex? Or even that you can put cream in your coffee? Sure it might be "silly," as your dissent would agree, but if there was a sufficient state interest in legislating against your sex-life, you couldn't give a reason to stop it." -Tay

Well, I am certainly not a constitutional lawyer, but it seems to me that the fourteenth amendment would encompass and protect all citizens from any such infringement of a right to liberty (be it in marital relations or coffee drinking):

"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." -Amendment XIV

"You use the "post hoc ergo propter hoc," after it therefore caused by it, to point out that couples are voluntarily "sterlizing" themselves." -Tay

Well, yes. Before Griswold, it was illegal to use contraceptives for the purpose of sterilization. Today virtually everyone uses contraceptives, and the birth rate among Americans (and all of Europe + Japan) has plummeted. This was caused (in large part) by Griswold. Today the problem is not too many people, but too few people. Hence the crisis of social security -- which is only but a taste of what is to come.

"First, you can't point to this decision as the sole reason average family size is dropping. We aren't exactly working the fields anymore, and a large family is often not necessary or even feasible for most couples now." -Tay

No. But a large family is what naturally happens when a couple stops using contraceptives. In the 1800's people weren't *trying* to have huge families (say, 8 or more). It was a natural result of having sex with your wife. It had little to do with working the fields.

"Second, most would consider a drop in family size a good thing. It puts less of a stress on welfare and medicade, etc." -Tay

"Most" might consider low birthrates a good thing -- but that doesn't matter at all. Truth is not determined by a majority vote. By the way, back when families typically had five or more children there was no such thing as welfare or medicade (or abortion for that matter). That should give us pause.

"And Griswold v. Connecticut did not have anything to do with a woman's right to choose." -Tay

As I pointed out earlier, it had everything to do with Roe. The whole premise of Roe (right to privacy) was Griswold (right to privacy). In less than eight years (June 1965 to January 1973) the "right" to contracept expanded into the "right" to contracept-post-conception (i.e. to kill your unborn baby).

"My point: don't throw the baby out with the bathwater." -Tay

My point: Roe and Griswold have done precisely, and literally, just that.