Happy Inauguration Day
I hope you’re all happy.
So I’m one of those people who try really hard to memorize our Bill of Rights. And if it wasn’t for the unfortunate size of my head, which seems to sport a circumference rather less than most humans (which probably restricted the development of brain matter within), I would be forever sprinkling fragments of the first ten Amendments into my conversations. Just one thing: can someone please explain to me the Ninth Amendment? I’ve been forgetting to ask an expert about that one for years…
posted by Wayne Moon | 1:47 PM
1 Comments:
Okay, two seconds later, I went online to find the answer. This, from wikipedia.org:
Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The Ninth Amendment explains that, while there are certain specific rights granted to the people in the Constitution, the rights listed therein are not to be interpreted as the "only" rights retained by the public. For example, the Constitution does not enumerate the right to eat, but it does not deny it either. The Ninth Amendment recognizes that such natural rights are retained by the people and cannot be abridged by the government.
The proper application of the ninth amendment has been a contentious issue. Robert Bork famously likened it to an inkblot, saying judges were not permitted to make up what was under the inkblot. However, Randy Barnett has argued that the ninth amendment requires what he calls a presumption of liberty.
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