When will we turn the rhetoric about the constitution from the presumption that that document enumerates our rights to the recognition that it simply assigns parameters to the government's ability to encumber, in a very limited and specified way, only very specific rights that are enumerated in the constitution? Those rights not enumerated are still retained by the people. The rights retained are rights that people have always had under common law (which is the commonly accepted law of the land -- see "Common Law" by Oliver Wendell Holmes) and they are the rights with which we were "endowed by our creator," as specified by our wonderful exemplar, Thomas Jefferson. It's a shame that the dialog is always assuming that the government, through the constitution, guarantees or somehow authorizes our rights. The government's only purpose is to protect our exercise of existing rights and it's ability to impose it's will over those existing rights is specifically limited by the constitution. No rights are granted by the constitution. It only limits the government, not the people.

Thanks!

I've not heard this come up before, but it seems to me that our constitution already had in place a way to deal with the 2000 election problem and the issue should have been decided not in the Supreme Court, but in the House of Representatives:

U.S. Constitution: Twelfth Amendment

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment12/

The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.

Concentrating attention on whether the Republicans or the Democrats are at fault misses the fact that for many years both parties have worked to erode fundamental rights and divert public discourse away from the essential matters of civil justice and public service (both actively created and maintain (without meaningful public discussion) a tax system that is overwhelmingly complex and a great burden financially to ordinary citizens - see "National Government Day"). We need to recognize, I think, that the Democrats are in the pockets of financial and corporate powers pretty much the same as Republicans. We need to transcend the divisive 2 party system, really, at its base. Pipe dreaming? If we don't, we really can't complain too much because all parties must serve their masters (those who hold the purse strings and control the public forum). It's a tautology. A party is its patrons, very few of whom are in it for the public good.