Posted by Randy Barnett:
The Latest from the Right Coast:
Tom Smith writes about Peter Singer in [1]Princeton Professor not
eligible for babysitting job:
I am thinking I would not let Peter Singer babysit my kids. In this
charming discussion, he allows as how killing a newborn baby is not
killing a person. What I want to know is, is killing a Princeton
philosophy professor who thinks it's OK to kill a new born baby,
killing a person? And even if it is killing a person, technically,
might it still be justified on utilitarian grounds? By killing
Peter Singer we probably reduce on the margin the possibility that
someday we will live in a world where you can kill new born babies
but not eat fried chicken. That's a lot of utility right there. I
would be willing to kill him in a humane way, or at least a not
terribly tortuous way. I was thinking maybe dropping 100 tons of
bullshit on him. There would be a certain poetic justice in that.
In an entirely different vein, Mike Rappaport summarizes his [2]latest
op-ed with John McGinnis in [3]Amending the Filibuster Rule: The
Constitutional Option:
The Senate majority's power to modify the filibuster is strongly
supported by constitutional principles. Both the text and structure
of the Constitution show that only one of three possible views
about the constitutionality of the judicial filibuster is correct.
The first view � advocated most recently by Senate majority leader
Bill Frist, R-Tenn. � is that filibustering judges is simply
unconstitutional. But the Constitution expressly gives the Senate
the right to fashion its own rules of procedure and nowhere
requires application of majority rule to confirmations.
The second view � advocated by many Democrats � is that a majority
has no right to change the filibuster rule because the Senate rules
still require a two-thirds vote to end a filibuster mounted against
a resolution to change the filibuster. But this Senate rule
conflicts with the structure of the Constitution.
The Constitution provides only a single method � the constitutional
amendment process � to entrench a rule against repeal by a
majority. If Democrats were correct that rules can be insulated
from majority amendment, a bare majority in each House could have
passed the Bill of Rights and made it our fundamental law by
declaring that only unanimous votes by both Houses could pass
legislation violating its principles. The Democratic view also
conflicts with a principle known since before the framing of the
Constitution that one legislature cannot bind subsequent
legislatures.
The third and constitutionally correct view is that the Senate can
choose to retain the filibuster rule, but that a majority must be
able to change it. The Senate can thereby exercise its full
constitutional authority to fashion rules of procedure but past
majorities of the Senate cannot put current majorities in a
procedural straitjacket. Thus, a change in the filibuster rule by a
majority is not a "nuclear" option but instead the constitutional
option � the route contemplated by our founding document.
References
1.
http://therightcoast.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_therightcoast_archive.html#111056881448590976
2. http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050311/news_lz1e11rappapo.html
3.
http://therightcoast.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_therightcoast_archive.html#111058098561679905
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