Individual Rights

It's hard to know where to begin when responding to Trey Kovacs' recent op-ed ("Unions do their business on taxpayers' dime," April 18), which is riddled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations. So instead of talking about what recently passed Fair Share legislation isn't, as his article did, let's talk about what the legislation actually is. Fair Share is a common-sense way to protect equity and individual rights for Maryland's educators. It simply makes sure that all educators contribute to the negotiated benefits and legally required representation that they all enjoy.

It's hard to know where to begin when responding to Trey Kovacs' recent op-ed ("Unions do their business on taxpayers' dime," April 18), which is riddled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations. So instead of talking about what recently passed Fair Share legislation isn't, as his article did, let's talk about what the legislation actually is. Fair Share is a common-sense way to protect equity and individual rights for Maryland's educators. It simply makes sure that all educators contribute to the negotiated benefits and legally required representation that they all enjoy.

In citing his objection to same sex marriage ("Redefining marriage in Md?" March 2), CardinalEdwin F. O'Brienfails to acknowledge that our laws are not based upon religious dogma but upon the precepts of our Constitution. Indeed our founding document not only offers specific protection from the undue influence of religious authority but likewise guarantees the equal protection of individual rights. From that perspective, marriage between two loving same-sex adults is hardly a "radical" notion as the cardinal has so characterized but one that is consistent with the exercise of long standing ideals that underlie our democracy.

Over the years I have always found the letters to the editor to be at times informative and at times uninformed. It's a credit to The Sun's editors that often they allow both sides of an argument to be heard, and I believe most readers appreciate this effort. Personally I've always limited myself to reading the letters and either nodding my head in agreement or shaking my head in disbelief. However, this morning I found myself rereading two or three times a letter titled "Here's to the venomous secessionists" (Nov.

AN "enigma."That's the word most people are using to describe David Souter, President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court. The word carries with it a hint of suspicion -- and with good reason.What makes a person an enigma, a mystery? The lack of known principles.To know someone's principles is to know the standards to which he or she will repair in solving a problem. People of firm principles, who aren't afraid to make them known, enable others to grasp what kind of people they are by grasping how their minds work.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court is poised to take up major cases on college affirmative action and gay rights, possibly as early as Monday, that seek to overturn much-disputed precedents, one the bane of conservatives and the other a thorn for liberals. Both cases test the meaning of the Constitution's guarantee of the "equal protection of the laws." The first challenges the Bakke decision of 1978, in which the Supreme Court narrowly upheld affirmative action as a way to preserve racial diversity in higher education.

With about a term and a half now under its belt, the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has made a sharp turn to the right. As a new term begins today, the court will have at least three major opportunities to reassert fundamental constitutional rights of individuals in confronting government policies. Certainly, the court should be more protective of individual rights than it generally has been so far. As predicted, Justices Roberts and Alito have lined up with their more conservative colleagues, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, just as the more liberal John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have tended to band together.

Shame on CASA de Maryland, the group shamelessly advocating for illegal immigrants, and the ever-flaky ACLU. They are trying to sift through signatures on the petition against in-state tuition for illegal immigrants in order to throw out as many signatures as possible. Really? Obviously, CASA has no respect for the rule of law and the rights of law-abiding citizens. But the ACLU pretends to be about individual rights even if the individuals are not legal and breaking multiple laws.

Kudos to U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, who ruled that the individual mandate requirement of Obamacare is unconstitutional and beyond the scope of congressional constitutional powers. Thanks likewise to Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who filed the lawsuit on Obamacare last March. This case must and should go now directly to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the health care reform law. This is about Individual rights to choose to participate in Obamacare or not without being penalized or punished.

Interestingly, the first real controversy regarding Judge Clarence Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court is not about his opposition to affirmative action or even to his presumed extreme conservatism in general, but to his apparent belief in "natural rights." He has referred approvingly to this concept in speeches and articles.Advocates generally argue that such rights are superior to man-made rights -- and are the endowment of God or a "creator," as the Declaration of Independence put it. Such rights are therefore both extra-constitutional and religious or theological.

In citing his objection to same sex marriage ("Redefining marriage in Md?" March 2), CardinalEdwin F. O'Brienfails to acknowledge that our laws are not based upon religious dogma but upon the precepts of our Constitution. Indeed our founding document not only offers specific protection from the undue influence of religious authority but likewise guarantees the equal protection of individual rights. From that perspective, marriage between two loving same-sex adults is hardly a "radical" notion as the cardinal has so characterized but one that is consistent with the exercise of long standing ideals that underlie our democracy.

Shame on CASA de Maryland, the group shamelessly advocating for illegal immigrants, and the ever-flaky ACLU. They are trying to sift through signatures on the petition against in-state tuition for illegal immigrants in order to throw out as many signatures as possible. Really? Obviously, CASA has no respect for the rule of law and the rights of law-abiding citizens. But the ACLU pretends to be about individual rights even if the individuals are not legal and breaking multiple laws.

Kudos to U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, who ruled that the individual mandate requirement of Obamacare is unconstitutional and beyond the scope of congressional constitutional powers. Thanks likewise to Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who filed the lawsuit on Obamacare last March. This case must and should go now directly to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the health care reform law. This is about Individual rights to choose to participate in Obamacare or not without being penalized or punished.

With about a term and a half now under its belt, the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has made a sharp turn to the right. As a new term begins today, the court will have at least three major opportunities to reassert fundamental constitutional rights of individuals in confronting government policies. Certainly, the court should be more protective of individual rights than it generally has been so far. As predicted, Justices Roberts and Alito have lined up with their more conservative colleagues, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, just as the more liberal John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have tended to band together.

It's not too hard to find someone who would say - apologetically, perhaps - that capitalism is the most practical economic system. But the most moral? That's the argument Andrew Bernstein makes. The philosophy professor - author of The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire, published in September - defends and celebrates capitalism as "the system of freedom." He is an objectivist, a follower of the individualistic philosophy created by Ayn Rand, best known for the novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Two countries. One has a Constitution with a Bill of Rights. These documents limit the power of the elected branches. They cannot be repealed or easily amended. Although neither one says so explicitly, there is a rock-hard tradition that the courts, and not the legislature or the executive, have the final say over their interpretation. No elected official would claim more authority than the Supreme Court in interpreting the Constitution. Put it all together, and an individual citizen can feel pretty secure against the tyranny of the majority or a runaway government.

Bill of Rights gives right to bear arms to every American The writer of the recent column ("An NRA annex at the Justice Department?" Opinion Commentary, June 8) attempts to twist the English language to serve his purpose, much as many other gun-banners have in the past. He says U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has thrown over "the traditional understanding" of the Second Amendment." The traditional understanding? Certainly not to people who understand the concept behind the Bill of Rights.

The death last week of Edward A. Chance, the civil rights activist and former chairman of the Baltimore chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, recalled one of his early challenges. After succeeding Walter P. Carter as local chairman, Chance had to plan a local memorial service for William Lewis Moore, a 35-year-old white Baltimore postman and civil rights supporter who was shot to death near Attalla, Ala., on April 23, 1963. Moore, who lived in the 400 block of E. 25th St., was found at night by a passing motorist alongside a lonely stretch of U.S. Highway 11, a two-lane road in rural northeastern Alabama.

The death last week of Edward A. Chance, the civil rights activist and former chairman of the Baltimore chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, recalled one of his early challenges. After succeeding Walter P. Carter as local chairman, Chance had to plan a local memorial service for William Lewis Moore, a 35-year-old white Baltimore postman and civil rights supporter who was shot to death near Attalla, Ala., on April 23, 1963. Moore, who lived in the 400 block of E. 25th St., was found at night by a passing motorist alongside a lonely stretch of U.S. Highway 11, a two-lane road in rural northeastern Alabama.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court is poised to take up major cases on college affirmative action and gay rights, possibly as early as Monday, that seek to overturn much-disputed precedents, one the bane of conservatives and the other a thorn for liberals. Both cases test the meaning of the Constitution's guarantee of the "equal protection of the laws." The first challenges the Bakke decision of 1978, in which the Supreme Court narrowly upheld affirmative action as a way to preserve racial diversity in higher education.