Favorite Quote for Today.

[swestrup]

I just came across this:

I asked my law students whether a person with plant or animal genes would
still be protected by the US Constitution. One replied, "If it walks like a
man, quacks like a man, and photosynthesizes like a man, it is a man."

For those wondering, its from this article.

Comments

[auriam.livejournal.com]

Anything of human-comparable (or superior) intelligence, consciousness, and ability to feel, should be protected, not only by the constitution, but under basic "human rights". I guess we could call them "rights of being".

[swestrup]

Yup, we need a constitution that recognizes that 'living' and 'sentient' are orthoganal, and its just coincidence that we happen to be both.

[sps.livejournal.com]

It won't fly. You notice that you don't have "human rights" if Mr. Bush thinks you're a Bad Man. This would be a hell of a step backwards from the great pinnacle of moral and legal development is the glorious US of A!!!!

I suppose it you had a clause that the protections don't count if an improperly elected moron fails to not declare you an Enemy Cephalopod, or something, it might squeak through so long as Microsoft and the tobacco lobby backed it....

I think when it comes to constitutional theory we're now, in the English-speaking world, back before Hammurabi - and Bush can't even grasp 'wait until they hit you before you rip their nuts off'. :(