Michele Bachmann is a nutty right-wing congresswoman from Minnesota. Today she let it be known that she considered the census a violation of her privacy rights except for the question as to how many people lived in her house, and she will answer no more than that. The black-helicopter crowd has another hero.
Bachmann is forgetting, of course, that she does not believe in privacy rights.
She is quite adamant that there is no right to privacy in the constitution. That's because, in that context, the right to privacy entails a woman's right to make decisions about her own reproductive cycle, i.e., whether or not to use contraception or have an abortion.
Monday, June 29, 2009
More Idiocy from Michele Bachmann
Posted by The Law Talking Guy at 9:26 AM
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8 comments:
She is a blight on the prairie.
Not to defend Bachmann--who is clearly hypocritical on privacy issues in general--but it is reasonable to feel that certain questions on the census could violate one's privacy. The census asks for a lot of personal information, and we are asked to trust that this will only be used for statistical purposes. In other contexts, many of us--especially those on the left--bristle at the idea of the government collecting personal information in a huge database.
Also, the census is likely to ask increasingly more personal questions as time goes on. For example, as the government gradually assumes a greater role in the provision of health care, we might start to see more personal medical questions on the census. Clearly Bachmann herself is a blight, but the concern she raises has merit.
What's her position, then? Is she a scofflaw? Is she substituting her policy preference for that of Congress? Or is she asserting an individual right to privacy? If she is asserting a right, where does that right come from? What is that right?
Conservatives have been saying for years that there is no such thing as a right of privacy in the constitution. Either put up or shut up on this one.
Let's be clear: I don't care what Bachmann thinks or says she is doing. I doubt she even has the intelligence and experience to parse what you asked, LTG. (No doubt she would just say that she believes in, privacy for law-abiding citizens, not "murder.")
Ask her if there is a right to privacy in the constitution, and she will stand transfixed like a deer in the headlights. She knows she can't answer yes - they all know that much. But what else do you do?
I think Dr. S. is right. Cognitive dissonance never seems to bother these people. They'll happily talk out of both sides of their mouth and insist that it's just a different situation.
Cognitive dissonance is one thing, hypocrisy is another. And you can get called on it.
"hypocrisy is another. And you can get called on it."
Of course. But it won't bother her or her base support if you do.
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