tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17908317.post7338333124286766010..comments2024-03-28T03:15:14.875-07:00Comments on Unenumerated: Comments on the United States Constitution (ii)Nick Szabohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16820399856274245684noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17908317.post-90748204117785080492012-05-10T08:53:49.279-07:002012-05-10T08:53:49.279-07:00Eugene said:"The mission of our founders was ...Eugene said:"The mission of our founders was the protection of the inalienable rights, freedoms and property of the INDIVIDUAL, PERIOD".<br /><br />Theoretically, I could agree with this but the problem I have with this thinking is that our founders only considered white males who owned land to be "indivduals". Did it really take over a 120 years to amend it so women could vote?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17908317.post-12596665804152321852011-09-29T08:26:34.697-07:002011-09-29T08:26:34.697-07:00This is a great blog. Critical thinking is necess...This is a great blog. Critical thinking is necessary and debate is healthy.<br /><br />IMO,the Constitution is fine as it stands because it forms the checks and balances that would work with very little translation IF our representatives honored their oath to obey & protect (and had a clue what the constitution said). <br /><br />Our founding fathers never intended the federal guv to trump the states or be involved in all the alphabet soup agencies and lunatic legislation by executive orders.<br /><br />The mission of our founders was the protection of the inalienable rights, freedoms and property of the INDIVIDUAL, PERIOD. What is good for individuals is good for the masses, but what is good for the masses is NOT necessarily good for the individual, especially when forced by bureaucratic raw power.<br /><br />They knew the human psyche and the propensity of greed and lust for power to contaminate. They did not intend for professional career politicians, ruled by an oligarchy of banksters and big corporate monopolies through special interest bribing.<br /><br />It is clear to me that that there needs to be a barrier to career politicians and special interest influence. Right there is 99% of the problem with government, federal, state and local.<br /><br />We need a Renaissance to return to the original, organic Constitution and representatives willing to follow their oath to obey and protect.Eugenehttp://www.constitutionattacked.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17908317.post-18603007212013483402011-02-24T00:59:24.587-08:002011-02-24T00:59:24.587-08:00The Constitution says ourselves and our posterity....The Constitution says ourselves and our posterity. Not Ourselves And Everybody Else.....<br /><br />The USA Needs To Ban The Term Politically Correct. If Someone From Another Country Gets Offended By Something This Country Has Been Doing For Hundreds Of Years Then They Can Just Go Back To Their Own Country .Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15573692295179983895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17908317.post-33756521855228324892008-04-11T15:21:00.000-07:002008-04-11T15:21:00.000-07:00Thank you for this!- AndrewThank you for this!<BR/><BR/>- AndrewAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17908317.post-38290401727174076072008-03-21T13:50:00.000-07:002008-03-21T13:50:00.000-07:00Thanks, Richard. I am looking for a new platform ...Thanks, Richard. I am looking for a new platform to blog on. I need to be able to export my old posts cleanly from blogger to the new platform, I should also be able to export cleanly from the new platform (I don't want my content held hostage by a platform), and it should be an advance along the lines Richard recommends. Dear readers, a bleg, what platform(s) do you recommend?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17908317.post-7543563544276625812008-03-16T12:53:00.000-07:002008-03-16T12:53:00.000-07:00Thanks for blogging, Nick. I consider you my best...Thanks for blogging, Nick. I consider you my best source of general knowledge about the legal and political environment.<BR/><BR/>For some reason, I find it easier to study your blog posts than to study your longer papers even when the longer papers are available in html.<BR/><BR/>I do not comment much here or even read the comments much here because I hate blogspot blogs: the usability is poor, and too much Javascript is used.<BR/>But to read your excellent blog entries, I will suffer through the frustration of blogspot (with liberal help from Adblock Plus to weed out the Javascript).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17908317.post-13777148356020715902008-03-09T14:59:00.000-07:002008-03-09T14:59:00.000-07:00spanker and Tom, thanks much. George: another majo...spanker and Tom, thanks much. <BR/><BR/>George: <I>another major problem with the Constitution is that it's almost all procedural...future Supreme Court justices must promise they will claim the Constitution says things it clearly does not, and this is generally regarded as ok because proper procedure is followed.</I><BR/><BR/>It's also regarded as OK because it's compatible with the incentives of all the major players in the federal government: Congress, the President, the agencies, and the justices themselves. The public regards it as OK because it believes the federal press releases it gets via the mass media. We now live in a world that habitually looks on the federal government as "the government", with its legitiamte subject matter being any matter raised as a national concern by the mass media, which politicians parrot. <BR/><BR/>Article I Section 8 is supposed to be a scheme of enumerated substantive powers, a finite set of powers beyond which Congress may not legislate, and indeed the Supreme Court still declares that this is the case. <BR/><BR/>You cite one of the three big loopholes in the scheme: the taxing power. I think you mean legislating via discriminatory taxes (e.g. to effectively ban stuff with very high taxes), tax credits, and the like. (There's also forcing states to legislate via conditional block grants to states, which I cover below). <BR/><BR/>I don't know how the courts could set a revenue maximum, as budgetary needs vary and are a core competence of legislatures, not judiciaries. It would give the federal judiciary far too much power if it could veto taxes or budgets. But perhaps a jury trial that cannot be appealed, except to another jury, might work. A class action lawsuit by any taxpayers who object to a certain tax rate. All based on a constitutional amendment that all taxes must be only a "reasonable" fraction of the price or value of something. But then, you might pull up a jury of anti-smoking people who find a 200% tax "reasonable." So this hardly guarantees a solution to the problem. Perhaps the amendment could be worded to require an economic analysis of a rate that gives maximum revenue, beyond which the federal government may not go, and the trial would consist of dueling economics professors arguing over what the maximum rate is. (Effective bans produce far less than maximum revenue, per Laffer). Hardly perfect, but might work much better than no limit at all.<BR/><BR/>Quite related is the spending power. It's the most ancient legislative power. Parliament, which originated as a group of rebellious feudal landlords (whose collective rent revenue was far greater than the king's), used its ability to bribe the king with tax revenues to usurp authority to make general laws in the first place. Now states are being bribed by Congress with lucrative income tax revenues to make certain laws otherwise beyond federal power, as you point out.<BR/><BR/>The other big loophole in Article I powers is the power to regulate "interstate commerce." For many decades this just meant interstate water navigation and implied a restriction on states to not regulate interstate trade. Then federal commerce power was expanded by courts to cover the regulation of interstate railroad fairs, then intrastate railroad fairs, then to cattle yards that produce beef that will be shipped in interstate commerce. Today it means anything that might event remotely effect interstate commerce, such as growing medical marijuana in your backyard or wheat for your own consumption (no, I'm not kidding, these are real Supreme Court cases: growing stuff in your backyard is now "interstate commerce". Courts that can interpret their own powers have no shame). <BR/><BR/>The problem is that it's extremely difficult to make a list of substantive powers that is so utterly precise in its meaning that judges with incentives to expand the powers of themselves and their peers cannot come up with a plausible argument for greatly expanding that meaning.<BR/><BR/>In this case there may be an easier solution: a constitutional amendment that prevents "conditional block grants to states or other governmental entities", or similar. The feds would have to either grant the money to states or not, based only on an objective formula not conditional in nature, and any requirements on rulemaking or enforcement by that state would be forbidden from the formula. I'd have to think about the wording, but it sounds like a much easier task of drafting than trying to define "interstate commerce."<BR/><BR/>I wonder, though, if Goedel incompleteness is homomorphic to the problem of trying to draft loophole-free constitutions. :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17908317.post-68292848663436076052008-03-08T12:23:00.000-08:002008-03-08T12:23:00.000-08:00I've been thinking about what you said about subst...I've been thinking about what you said about substantive and procedural law, and it seems to me that another major problem with the Constitution is that it's almost all procedural. We've reached the point where the Constitution is regarded as saying whatever the Supreme Court claims it says, and future Supreme Court justices must promise they will claim the Constitution says things it clearly does not, and this is generally regarded as ok because proper procedure is followed.<BR/><BR/>For example, Congress has used its power to tax in order to de facto prohibit things it acknowledges it does not have power to explicitly ban. If the proper purpose of a tax is to raise revenue, then any "tax" which exceeds the revenue maximum is an abuse of the power to tax. I'd like to see that point made explicit.George Weinberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05384566536853204992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17908317.post-89311484901373880772008-03-07T04:14:00.000-08:002008-03-07T04:14:00.000-08:00Yeah, I'm enjoying them, too. Keep up the good wo...Yeah, I'm enjoying them, too. Keep up the good work, Nick! And do please let us know if you collect and publish your work on jurisdiction-as-property. I plan to return to polycentric law issues, soon, approaching them by way of a theory of constitutional interpretation, and I'll probably find it useful to cite your writings.Tom W. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02790351458154066358noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17908317.post-19339287669879049932008-03-06T18:09:00.000-08:002008-03-06T18:09:00.000-08:00Wow! Your posts just keep getting more brilliant....Wow! Your posts just keep getting more brilliant.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com