Our pal James Carter digs this up from a speech given by Republican frontrunner Rick Santorum back in 2003:
All the rights in the Constitution, which are individually based rights, according to our founders were not there for the individual’s gain, but the reason we established those rights was for the common good. The right to privacy is not the right to a common good. It’s a me-centered right, that obviously started in the sexual revolution with contraception and obviously quickly evolved to abortion, and now has found its way into the marriage debate. And all those acts that were self-giving acts, self-sacrificing acts, have been polluted by this right to privacy.
No wonder Santorum thinks birth control "is not OK" -- your right to it ruined the Constitution. More tonight on the show, including an answer to how he became the Republican frontrunner.
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Good grief. This is who the minority of Republicans are selecting as their candidate for the Presidency? The right wing should be embarrassed.
You're right Neil - but unfortunately, this is who the right-wing ARE - this is actually what they want. It's a travesty that we're even having this discussion in 2012...
But Neil, the Right Wing is incapable of feeling embarrassment. This simple fact is apparent in everything they say and do.
The problem with the arguments here, is the Republicans are using all of this rhetoric to stay away from the real problems in Washington, DC. Jobs & the Economy. Both sides are famous for these tactics. Especially the Republicans using scare tactics. remember the "death panels" & they came for them, & no one helped, they came for me & there was no one left.
Maybe he'll pick Pat Buchanan for his running mate.
The lunatic fringe always stick together.
Yeah, Pat Buchanan would be a nice bookend. Then Santorum wouldn't have to bother with the anti-gay rhetoric.
Gotta hand it to the GOP: when we need job growth and recovery, make the whole message about right-wing bigotry, I mean, Values. Yeah, that's what the country's screaming for. Extreme austerity and would everyone, please, stop enjoying sex.
demmie-1555521
I'm thinking with his fascist ideology he'd pick Sharon Angle. And they can a lemon tree on the WH grounds to pick when they make lemonade.
I'm thinking Gary Bauer, or the Governor of Virginia, O'Donnell. What a crew that would be. Any way you look at it, we will all be sorted out and hanged.
"Our rights are not for the individual but for the common good" -- Rick Santorum
That, my friends, is Communism. Fascism. The hypocrisy just drives me crazy.
The gop keep hammering on Obama lack of regard for the Constitution and his promotion of the government! Go figure
and yet universal health care isn't for the "common good"? I need a flow chart
You are absolutely right on the communism call. Every time I read the next thing that has come out of his very scary brain, I can only say WTF???
ok here is your flow chart
| bad | <----- yes----- |Did Obama propose it?| -------no------> |good|
You are 100% right!
Fascism, but not communism. His "common good" does not include the common man.
Fiona Mackenzie
Correct!
Children, we have been warned. When anyone claims they did something morally hideous, but "they did it for YOU!" Break their jaw instantly. They are absolving themselve for all responsibility for the crime they just commited and placing it on you.
Likewise, when a government or the head of it orders an act of gratuitious bloodshed among those they govern - without exception - it is always for the Greater Good. From the liquidation of the Jews Gypsies Homosexuals Intellectuals and Dissidents of Nazi Germany, to Pinochet's Chile to the Cultural Revolution of China to the Khmr Rouge to Stalin to the Revolution in Iran. Any number of murders can be justified, For the Greater Good.
"common good" indeed.
If he becomes president, we will need to revolt purely out of self-defense.
Amen (and off-topic, but it's great to see "hypocrisy" correctly spelled.)
A preoccupation about sex is not the sign of a healthy normal mind.
You've reminded me of an exchange in an episode of MASH.
Maj. Winchester: "Why this constant preoccupation with sex?"
BJ: "Lack of occupation with sex."
Balance in all things. Preoccupation comes when there is not a balance in what preoccupies you.
I've come to the conclusion that in Santorum's world, if he can't enjoy sex (for whatever reason) then NO ONE SHALL.
This is a good argument for self-inflicted blindness.
Republicans have completely exited the orbit of mainstream America when establishment financiers are making "jokes" about women putting aspirin between their knees on live national television and GOP presidential candidates are eagerly defending such a ridiculous statement. The entire "debate" over contraception is mind boggling; how does the Republican Party think this benefits them politically?
It's a siren call for the base. They don't think beyond pandering to the stupid.
Post after post, why is it I don't understand a word he is saying?
My thought exactly!
Because he is not making any sense!
You took the words right out of my mouth. How can you want less government intrusion and turn around and champion limiting women's rights to health care, children's right to free education by educated people and the right to choose your own lifestyle?
He is slowly heating the water and not stopping. He is getting you used to the idea of not having civil liberties, making them sound like a worse and worse idea. Like cooking lobster, or boiling a frog.
He is selling the idea of a Christian Post-Revolution Iran. He is promising lots of bloodshed while looking like either a mournful hangdog or insufferably smug Mr. Rogers.
In this republican primary, I've been somewhat happy, as it seems Obama will be the only logical choice to be elected to be president again. But then I've been really unhappy, because this shift further to the right on all these social issues, and that normalizes those ideas. Just by presenting some of these ideas in the media and defending them like crazy people, the discussion legitimizes the ideas that shouldn't be, exactly like you say Don. Is something I've complained of to my boyfriend many a time. As well as the fact that I'd like a republican candidate who didn't scare the crap out of me, so even if my candidate lost, I wouldn't feel like our country, or my rights, were in dire trouble.
I concur with newsblog903. Santorum is playing a game of sophisticated word salad like Palin, except he is using ideas. He throws together disjointed ideas to make conclusions that are patently ridiculous. His statements make no sense or follow any lines of discernible logic.
I disagree. He is using pure projection. He is telling us what he is going to do by accusing Obama of doing it and promising to save us from it.
An idiot.
Well we all knew that the Constitution was ruined on December 15, 1791.
Did he just say he wants to X the amendment ot the constitution?
The more this guy talks, the more his campaign looses it's "froth"!
Oh Ricky, for a guy that wants to be president, you don't know nearly enough about the philosophy of founding of this country. I don't expect you to be a federalist historian, but you might, at LEAST have some idea of the underlying philosophies. Go read some Kant and Locke, would ya?
No, those rights were established to protect individuals from government. You know, like government taking away the choice of what happens to my body.
How in God's name can we condemn the Iranian Ayatollahs when we got this guy on the loose over here?
Rick Santorum, like most hyperconservatives, is a prig.
Prig - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Proving the theory of seeing things in black and white falls in the conservative column and seeing the grey areas in between falls in the progressive column.
In a way, it would be nice if everything was as black and white as conservatives always make it out to be. But, as The Gipper once said (forgive me for quoting a righty), "It just ain't so." Along with...
"Facts are stupid things."
"Where's the rest of me?"
"I'm paying for this microphone."
"I smoke Chesterfields."
ronald_reagan_chesterfield_cigarettes.jpg 396×511 pixels
While Roe v Wade is the up-front objective of the Anti-Choice movement, the court ruling that the hard core have been after even longer is Griswold v Connecticut.
The core of the Griswold case was that it was illegal to use contraceptives in the state of Connecticut and the police there were engaged in window peeping to catch people using contraceptives. In Griswold, the court pulled together a penumbra of rights from multiple rights within the Constitution and Amendments to create a right to privacy.
It is this right to privacy that the hard core want to eliminate! Without Griswold, states can make contraceptives and abortion illegal.
It is undoubtably why Man-On-Dog is pursuing the long term Catholic and Baptist desire to eliminate the right to privacy.
He repeated this in his "Caffeinated" interview last October. According to Rick, if you own a house (apparently renting doesn't qualify) and you actually have a right to privacy, you can do anything. The "anything" that he described included bigamy, polygamy, and incest. Yup! All ya need is a deed, mortgage and that dreaded privacy thingie.
Rights are dangerous things. He's helping us by eliminating ours.
Great! Can we head over to his house to see what he might be doing behind closed doors? Poetically speaking, that is. I don't want anyone to actually go to his house.
That's the premise of castle doctrines, a very popular concept with wingers.
Yet again, Santorum is muddling details in a crucial way. The Constitution actually doesn't say much about citizens' right to privacy. However, the Bill of Rights does, and for good historical reason. Customs officers and treasury agents were known to raid people's homes to assess British taxes. Later, British-appointed judges issued warrants to search people's homes if they were suspected of supporting revolutionary tendencies.
... this begs the question... does Santorum hope that we will throw open his doors to investigate his home whenever we darn well please? This is not just about sex but about our rights to be "secure in our persons houses, papers, and effects," not just in our right to have [consensual] sex with whom we please. But of course that would mean that Santorum might even want the US to go further with the Patriot Act, with invasions of immigrants' rights, or with our own right to purchase things like contraception.
I honestly doubt he has thought it through that far. It's as though crap just spews from his mouth that is in direct contradiction to his supposed beliefs. I left 'baffled' a few months ago - I have no idea what label to put on my reactions to this idiot at this point in time.
I am reading Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth" set in the mid 12th century and I swear Santorium is in the book. His ideas are identical to those of 900+ years ago. I am flabbergasted that the media lets him get away with this....maybe they are just giving him a lot of rope. Anyway, he is seriously demented.
He's terrified, that's what he is. One characteristic (out of many) of highly-authoritarian personalities like Santorum is a heightened sense of fear and anxiety. Think of it like this: you hear or see something unexpected, you don't know what it is at first, and you feel a surge of fear as your body pumps in the adrenaline to prepare you for fight or flight. If the unexpected thing turns out to be nonthreatening, you relax. Crisis over.
But imagine if that sudden surge of fear never abates. Imagine that everything that you aren't already comfortable with continues to be a threatening unknown no matter how long you are exposed to it. Imagine a fight-or-flight response that lasts a lifetime. Imagine that the crisis never, ever ends. That's the world as people like Santorum experience it.
People like Santorum are looking for safety and security, but they'll never find it because the threats they feel are inside of their own heads. They will never feel safe, and it would be possible to feel sorry for them except for the fact that they are willing to destroy the world in their hopeless quest to feel safe and secure.
I've been saying for some time now that he and almost all the other GOP candidates are stuck in the Red Scare mentality. They are suffering from some weird social form of PTSD and they haven't gotten psychiatric/psychological help to deal w/ that trauma. 9/11 awoke a giant that our previous political leaders (and sadly a handful of those who are still serving today) etched into the brains of an entire generation. A generation that was taught that everything, at any moment in time, could evaporate in a split second and that was the result of the communists. Now, suddenly, they are hearing the same rhetoric again about this foreign communist taking over America and they just can't keep it together anymore. The sanity has left.
FTR do I believe all conservatives and/or Republicans are like this? No. That's part of why I try not to say 'conservative' and instead say 'reactionary' because that's really what's going on here. A reactionary is someone who lives in a world in constant fear who wants total or near total control of society. There are 2 real elements of policy effect that you can bid for: more security or more freedom. A reactionary is someone who wants to eliminate everything and anything that stands in the way of security and they will not stop until they feel that all exterior threats have been eliminated. The problem, of course, (as MM already explained), is that this threat is imagined. There is a reason that the Obama the Republican Party is running against right now is not the actual PBO, but a PBO that could have only been made up in a Glenn Beck sci-fi thriller.
No, of course they're not, although over time the Republican Party has come to embrace more and more people who are highly-authoritarian.
'Authoritarian' is a problematic word, though, as people are likely to interpret that as describing an ideology or an autocratic type of government. But that's not how it's really meant. It's a personality type, a cognitive type, which manifests itself in differing ways depending on the circumstances. Which is part of the reason why people like Santorum are always so incoherent. They are reactionaries, reacting against everything around them that frightens them and which falls outside of their very small comfort zones, and that can be anything.
It hardly matters what they're afraid of. In one time and place it can be Communists, in another Muslims, or Christians, or Jews, or witches, or Irish Catholics, or gays, or French Republicans, or abolitionists, or suffragettes, or Free Masons, or whatever random thing that freaks out people with highly-authoritarian personalities. It's not a generational thing, unfortunately. It's not political, or religious, or national. It's just how some people are wired all over the world and throughout history. Today, in the US, such people find a home and outlet in the GOP. At an earlier time in US history, they were Dixiecrats. In other times and places they were Stalinists, or Nazis, or al Qaeda, or Klansmen, or Inquisitors, or Druids for all anyone knows. In one era they were pagan Romans feeding Christians to the lions, and in another they were Christians burning heretics at the stake. Ideology is irrelevant.
Terry Nation was really on to something when he created the Daleks: a species so 'threatened' by every other form of life that it seeks to exterminate everything that lives. The irony of the Daleks, though, is that in their attempt to find security through universal genocide, they cause other species to band together in self-defense to defeat them. The Daleks would have been better off keeping themselves quietly on Skaro.
Republicans aren't Daleks, but it does look like they are similarly engineering their own defeat in their attempt to keep themselves 'safe'. Just think of all the groups of people in this country they are alienating in their efforts to make everything safe and nonthreatening for themselves. They'd be better off if they stayed out of politics and left the Republican Party to the actual conservatives who used to be in charge of it.
Daleks I find rather huggable. Right-wingers, on the other hand...
Sea urchins are cuddlier.
they are the same in killing off the moderates who emerge, like when the leader of the cult of skaro melds with a human, and wants more peace, wants the help of the doctor. the worst thing a republican can be called right now is a moderate, the worst thing they can do is to work with a democrat of any kind.
I like that analogy, Emily. I hadn't thought of that story in quite that light before. My mind is now a little bit larger than before.
Okay, I don't know if I agree but I understand what he is saying. There is some basis for it as well.
The original constitution was not intended to have a bill of rights, not because they weren't important but because "states" had them and the constitution sufficiently restricted the federal government, thought some.
Eventually, the bill of rights were added and it does seem they were for the collective good, not so much for a individual. People didn't want the government dictating religion, limiting what they could say, telling them not to assemble, etc. It was less about an individual and more about the collective people in regards to the federal government.
That is my understanding of how it was discussed in the beginning.
You may recall that the original Bill of Rights was added because several of the states refused to ratify the Constitution without it. Thus, there was no Constitution without the Bill of Rights.
I am getting confused....do you mean that it was for the collective good that individual rights be protected?
That's the discussion and it does have some validity. It sounds a little oxymoronic on the surface, that is until you understand the "collective good" was protecting The People from the power of the federal government.
It wasn't that the people needed the rights, they believed they HAD them! They just didn't want the federal government infringing on them.
I'm pretty sure they wanted protected from the state government too Robby. The idea that people were all for the confederacy, but inherently against the federacy is a BS line made up to woo southerners. Please tell me you haven't fallen for it. Americans were skeptical of the government- yes- but they did not distinguish federal versus local when it came to issues of rights.
They did, and many of the states had a bill of rights. But it was the "central" or federal government that was the main catalyst our Bill of Rights. This from the National Archives at archives.gov
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights.html
Ah- I wasn't specifying it for the US Constitution BoR. If that's what you meant then I misunderstood. I thought you were speaking in general terms and I was like no....they were pretty damn libertarian. It was only decades later that the states vs. federal debate really came in to the forefront. Before that they hated all forms of government.
Another issue relates to the timing of the Bill of Rights after the Constitution. The Constitution was written to resolve the problems of a weak republic under the Articles of Confederation. Shays' Rebellion had taken place, and Americans who had just been through a Revolution feared that they would constantly be dealing with uprisings that threatened their government. Enter the Constitution, a document that strengthened the power of the federal government. However, when it came to ratification, people were concerned that a new Constitution would tread on the rights of individuals-- hence Antifederalists and the push for the Bill of Rights, which I think came just a year or two after the final votes for the Constitution's ratification.
They're for the collective good unless you're talking about handguns, of course.
Anti "me centered", but pro "common good"? why that sounds like communism. His position against privacy is just baffling. Kinda sounds pro "big brother" to me.
Wait a minute. Which of the fundamental rights are not "me-centered"?
Free speech/press: me-centered. No one has to listen. Does it have a public good component? Of course, but so does the right to privacy.
Freedom from religion: absolutely me-centered. It helps the individual and allows them to explore their own morality. Really shaky grounds saying this one has more of a public good component than right to privacy.
Right to bear arms: more public-good oriented than most, although the modernist NRA reading of it is 100% me-centered (cold dead hands and all).
Right to fair and speedy trial: fundamentally individualist. Definitely no more public-good than right to privacy.
Right to not self-incriminate? Right to jury trial? Freedom from requiring use of homes to quarter soldiers? That's just the Bill of Rights, and primarily public-good rights are nowhere to be found!
The Right to Privacy (which, btw, is allowed for by the ninth amendment which states that there are other rights not included in the Constitution which must also be upheld, as well as being part and parcel of several of the enumerated rights) has a strong individualist component, obviously, but also via that provides for the public good. An individual with an expectation of privacy is able to take advantage of the various other rights, is able to innovate, is able to provide better for his own welfare and that of his family without fear of someone swooping in to take it all away. The right to privacy, IMHO, is really the lynchpin of all the other rights, which is why the Court ruled the way it did in Griswold: without it, half of the enumerated rights of the Constitution are meaningless.
whew....thank you for this clarification. Ricky made it sound like the constitution was against individual rights and we are selfish unAmericans for expecting them.
All in all the common good is served when individual liberty is preserved.
I cannot believe how much this guy talks about abortion and women's rights. It's ridiculous. What is his platform for any other subject? I have no clue. I have no clue how he would fix the economy. I have no clue how he would get jobs back. Nothing. It's only always about abortion and women's rights. It's disturbing.
On Bill Maher, a conservative leaning fellow said Bill was wrong to like Ron Paul in spite of his rascist views because Bill liked his libertarian social policies, while still lambasting Rick Santorum, who is supposedly more fiscally moderate, because of his very conservative social policies. I would have loved if someone would have responded with a retort that Paul doesn't base his entire campaign around his rascist views. Santorum only bases his campaign on his social issues.
Ya' know it's like he really does not want to run for for the office--saying all of these stupid things. Does he think people are not listening? And what is his pre-occupation with other peoples' sex lives all about? Is that not a the most private part of life? What is his desire to go back to the days when women were considered property all about? Does he really think that is BIBLICAL rather than an interpretation? So many questions....................but the more he spouts the more everyone comes to learn that he should be preaching somewhere---in an ULTRA-conservative pulpit that does not permit women to have a vote in anything. Go, Rick, go------go preach where someone will listen..we don't need you in political office anywhere.
He's preoocupied with sex because he isn't getting any. He freely admits that he only has sex with his wife to create babies. (Which, of course, is why he's so interested in restricting everyone else's sexual rights... in fact, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he wouldn't gladly have American women wearing burqa's just so we don't "tempt" the men!)
Sexually frustrated men are travelling the shortcut to mental illness. Santorum is a prime example of that.
yep....Ricky's Sharia laws. The All-American version.
Why do you think PAers booted him out of office? His mouth flaps compulsively and sexsexsexbadbadbad is all that comes out.
I am really amazed that anyone takes "moral legislation" as an acceptable platform.
So Rick (et. al), will you please just lay out for us your definition of which behaviors are sanctioned "pursuit of happiness" and which are not sanctioned.
The men are next, just keep it up… the government is in your bedroom watching your activities… all of them. You may only "do it" to procreate. None of this and none of that.
If I had a partial lobotomy resulting in no conscience, I'd be a libertarian. If I had a full lobotomy, I'd be Rick Santorum.
This theocratic/corporate fascist punk will never reach the presidency. Never! But If he did, this country will be dead. He and the other fascist pigs seek to redefine the Constitution to fit their fascist ideology. When they do that, of course they can say we believe in the Constitution of the United States of America. This ideology of hate and greed has totally polluted the now DEAD republican party. If he's elected, god forbid, I'm ready for an all out war with this Dominionist/Apologist pig and his kind.
Santorum is beyond fascism... he's on his way to creating the Christian Taliban.
Maureen Mower
Call it what you will. But it is a uniquely American form of Fascism. Theocratic and corporate in nature. You call it "creating the christian Taliban". I submit to you they're already here as can be seen and heard by the constituents and supporters of this pig and those like him. They're already created.
The man is clearly out of his mind. How he actually believes that any sane person would vote for him is beyond me. I am actually ashamed that this person has gotten this far in the race for the nomination to a major political party. How can anyone with any self-respect or a basic education allow this failed politician to be considered for the office of the President of the United States? That the GOP is letting him get this far in the race is beyond belief. I do believe that the GOP will have a brokered convention, ignoring every single presidential hopeful who has been offered up, and will drag out Jeb Bush and name him the nominee. Anyone want to tell me I'm wrong?
Not me… I said something similar long, long ago…. I expect if they actually want to win this, they will do just that.
They will put Jeb up at some point.
@RCinNYC-You may not be wrong. But as far as I'm concerned the entire party is complicit with this rabid hatred. They can be what they are, but those totally against this ideological rampage in that party need to leave that party. NOW!
Even if they do recruit Jeb, does anyone really think this country would elect another Bush after what the last one did to us?
Yes, you're wrong. There may be a brokered convention, but Jeb won't even be on the continent.