From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 00:13:12 BST
Hi Rick:
> P
> > You might want to point out where Pirsig said that a right to privacy is
> > an intellectual value. If you can't, you're attributing a position to him
> > that isn't there, just as the Court found a right to sodomy in the
> > Constitution that isn't there.
> R
> As I've pointed out to you several times now, the Constitution does
> explicitly say that it is not an exhaustive list of rights, so I can't
> imagine why you still think it's persuasive to keep pointing out that the
> Constitution doesn't contain an explicit right to privacy. The 9th
> amendment + 10th amendment = unenumerated rights that belong to the people
> as individuals. Nobody (no matter how conservative) disputes this!!! The
> debated question is whether privacy is one of those unenumerated rights.
> Do you actually have any arguments that SUPPORT your view that it isn't?
> Texas didn't... Should they have hired you as their lawyer instead? How
> would you have convinced the Court that the framers didn't intend privacy
> to be covered by the 9th amendment? As a great man once wrote, "Show some
> evidence, please, not just your personal bias."
As I said, you might want to point out where Pirsig said that a right to
privacy is an intellectual value. Since you didn't, I presume you can't. I
don't see where your interpretation of what rights are and are not
enumerated in the Constitution is relevant to the question of intellectual
values as enumerated by Pirsig. Incidentally, you added something to the
10th Amendment by saying rights belong to the people "as individuals." Is
that addition the Court's interpretation of "people," or yours?
P
> > Pirsig did write this:
> >
> > "I personally am pro-choice, but I understand the moral integrity of
> > those who are not. It is a matter for society through its mechanisms of
> > politics to decide and keep deciding as it evolves toward a better
> > world." (Lila's Child, Note 92.) Pirsig's "codes" appear to be much more
> > tolerant than yours. Moreover, you will notice that he comes down on the
> > side of the "mechanisms of politics," i.e. legislatures, to decide such
> > moral questions, not the courts which are supposed to be above politics.
> > This is also my position.
> R
> Now you're the one putting words in the man's mouth Platt, "mechanisms of
> politics" does not mean "legislatures". Pirsig is a highly educated man,
> and the author/editor of a professional level legal-textbook, if he meant
> the "legislatures" should decide, he would have said it. But he didn't
> (because if he had it would have been akin to endorsing a dictatorship of
> legislatures). He meant what he wrote. The mechanisms of politics include
> legislatures, but they also include courts, executives, voters,
> administrative agencies, private litigants, special interest groups...etc.
> "Politics" is the sum of that world, not any one part.
Neither does "mechanisms of politics" mean "Supreme Court." I could use
your argument to claim that if he meant Supreme Court he would have said
it. Remember that when he wrote the passage he knew full well that the
Court had already decided the abortion question. But in his mind, that's
not the last word. He wrote that societies should "keep deciding." I
agree.
Platt
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