Even if the doctrine of substantive due process were somehow defensible, it is not, petitioners still would not have a claim. To invoke the protection of the Due Process Clause at all, whether under a theory of 'substantive' or 'procedural' due process, a party must first identify a deprivation of 'life, liberty, or property'. The majority claims these state laws deprive petitioners of 'liberty', but the concept of 'liberty' it conjures up bears no resemblance to any plausible meaning of that word as it is used in the Due Process Clauses.
Clarence ThomasRelated topics
claim clause concept deprivation doctrine due liberty life majority meaning party process property protection resemblance state substantive theory under word procedural lawsRelated quotes
The concept of guilt is found most powerfully developed even in the most primitive communal forms which we know: ... the man is guilty who violates one of the original laws which dominate the society and which are mostly derived from a divine founder; the boy who is accepted into the tribal community and learns its laws, which bind him thenceforth, learns to promise; this promise is often given under the sign of death, which is symbolically carried out on the boy, with a symbolical rebirth.
Martin Buber
I have already indicated to you the meaning of the word religion, as applied to Islam. The truth is that Islam is not a Church. It is a State conceived as a contractual organism long before Rousseau ever thought of such a thing, and animated by an ethical ideal which regards man not as an earth-rooted creature, defined by this or that portion of the earth, but as a spiritual being understood in terms of a social mechanism, and possessing rights and duties as a living factor in that mechanism.
Muhammad Iqbal
My greatest concern was what to call it. I thought of calling it 'information,' but the word was overly used, so I decided to call it 'uncertainty.' When I discussed it with John von Neumann, he had a better idea. Von Neumann told me, 'You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one really knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.'
Claude Elwood Shannon
[The doctrine of air] I was led into in consequence of inhabiting a house adjoining to a public brewery, where I at first amused myself with making experiments on the fixed air [carbon dioxide] which I found ready made in the process of fermentation . When I removed from that house I was under the necessity of making the fixed air for myself; and one experiment leading to another, as I have distinctly and faithfully noted in my various publications on the subject, I by degrees contrived a convenient apparatus for the purpose, but of the cheapest kind.
Joseph Priestley
"The sovereignty of the States" is the language of the Confederacy, and not the language of the Constitution. The latter contains the emphatic words - This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
Andrew Johnson
