Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. -- MaxedOutMama

I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. -- Kim du Toit

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.-- Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. -- Billy Beck

Friday, February 11, 2011

Dicta! It's Just Dicta!

Obiter dictum (noun, Latin):  An opinion voiced by a judge that has only incidental bearing on the case in question and is therefore not binding.
Where There's a William makes a fascinating legal connection between two points brought up here:  the finding that Obamacare is unconstitutional by United States District Court of Northern Florida the and the Seventh Circuit's 1982 decision in Bowers v. DeVito that I excerpted as Quote of the Day a couple of days ago.

Will's point is perfectly logical and rational, so of course it must be wrong!  I can see the Left screaming that the Bowers declaration that
The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties; it tells the state to let people alone
is merely dicta, and not binding on any court.

Or, as Nancy Pelosi put it, "Are you serious?  Are you serious?"

Edited to add:

No less a Constitutional scholar than our President, Barack Obama concurs with the court's interpretation of the Constitution in Bowers:

Longer excerpt available on YouTube.

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