Re: lack of evolutionary pressures (was Re: An end to "court (fwd)
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Subject: Re: lack of evolutionary pressures (was Re: An end to "court (fwd) From: Firebeard <stend+cypherpunks@sten.tivoli.com> Date: 23 Aug 1997 12:30:45 -0500
No, the federal government is barred. The state governments are free to do so (constrained by their own constitutions). For that matter, the federal government shouldn't be involved in the business of affecting the specific welfare of individuals, so it should be a moot issue.
This I agree with completely. At no point in the Constitution does it give the federal government the job of welfare. It also does not provide for any mechanism for law enforcement (ie DEA, NSA, FBI, etc.) outside of taxes and inter-state commerce. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Participation requires more than just bitching! | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage@ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|
At 01:58 PM 8/23/97 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
This I agree with completely. At no point in the Constitution does it give the federal government the job of welfare. It also does not provide for any mechanism for law enforcement (ie DEA, NSA, FBI, etc.) outside of taxes and inter-state commerce.
So we are all in agreement: when I mentioned Norplant briefly being a precondition for receiving welfare benefits, I was talking about a example that I recall to have occurred in a single state. [I can't remember the state. Anyone?] It appears you agree that States are allowed by the US Constitution to impose such requirements, subject to the state's own constitutions. --Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. DES is dead! Please join in breaking RC5-56. http://rc5.distributed.net/
At 1:48 PM -0700 8/23/97, Lucky Green wrote:
At 01:58 PM 8/23/97 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
This I agree with completely. At no point in the Constitution does it give the federal government the job of welfare. It also does not provide for any mechanism for law enforcement (ie DEA, NSA, FBI, etc.) outside of taxes and inter-state commerce.
So we are all in agreement: when I mentioned Norplant briefly being a precondition for receiving welfare benefits, I was talking about a example that I recall to have occurred in a single state. [I can't remember the state. Anyone?] It appears you agree that States are allowed by the US Constitution to impose such requirements, subject to the state's own constitutions.
There's a landmine here, of course. Namely, the issue of whether states may impose restrictions which are "unconstitutional." To some states rights folks, as I assume Jim Choate may be, the answer is often "of course." To some libertarians, the answer is often "of course not." A good example to consider is "free speech." The First Amendment talks about Congress shall make no law...does this mean California may ban certain books, restrict certain religions, or impose censorship on the press? (Most folks would say "Of course not." But on what basis can individual states and municipalities override the Second Amendment?) Anyway, this is not the subject I plan to discuss. Getting back to Norplant and the putative reproductive rights of welfare mothers, consider a series of laws or rules: * Case 1: Recipients of public assistance must agree to be sterilized or have Norplant implants. * Case 2: Residents of public accomodations may not own or possess guns of any type. * Case 3: Recipients of public assistance may not practice Islam. * Case 4: Residents of public accomodations or recipients of public assistance must not co-habit with other adults, especially of the opposite sex. How do these differ? Case 1 is the situation being discussed by Lucky and Jim, modulo the issue of whether it was the Federal government or some local state which passed the law. This case is complicated by the oft-discussed issue of "reproductive rights." The Founders chose to say nothing about reproduction, and the issue has raged for much of this century (Sanger, birth control legality, abortion issues, etc.). Case 2 is also a real one, involving a law in Chicago forcing residents of Cabrini Green and other such "projects" to turn in their guns, with random inspections to ensure compliance. This has been controversial, and I don't know what the current status is. Again, whether this was a local or federal rule is not really the point, as the next case will show. Case 3 is fictional, and would of course be immediately subject to an injunction against enforcement, with rapid overturning by the various courts which heard it. Why? Because regardless of whether the law were passed by the state of Illinois, or California, or by the federal government, it would be seen by nearly all as a slam dunk violation of the rights of religious freedom. But why is it really any different from Case 2? Probably because of the totemic role freedom of speech and freedom of religion play in American society. The First Amendment is apparently "more equal" than the Second Amendment. (Shown also in the treatment of ex-convicts: we ban them from owning guns and from voting, but would not think of imposing speech or religion rules on them. Why? It can't just be the "danger" issue, as that would not explain the ban on voting. And certainly some religions are "more dangerous" for an ex-con to fall into than owning a gun would be. Many issues. As an aside, what if the ex-con joined a church consisting of "known felons"? As many parole rules (and parole is now essentially a part of the incarceration process and cannot be avoided, except by doing the full sentence) ban association with known felons, what does this mean for the freedom to practice one's religion? How about Case 4. A woman receiving welfare is told she may not sleep with a guy, or at least he had better be gone by the time the welfare monitor--sort of like the floor monitors Soviet apartment buildings used to have!--checks up on the welfare mothers. Doesn't this violate basic constitutional rights to associate freely with whom one wishes? The rationale for Case 4, of course, is that the goal of welfare (cough cough) is to give _single mothers_ (or single fathers, in a much smaller percentage of cases) assistance, not to encourage people to shack up but avoid becoming formally married. But it still rankles, of course. As all of the cases do. And the same logic for Case 4 really carries back to Case 1: the purpose of welfare is not to subsidize the production of more children. (Even the liberals are getting worried about this one. A local rag, "The Metro," reported on a series of unemployed, unemployable, welfare moms and the like. One 23-year-old woman has 3 children, is unmarried, and is working on having 3 more, because, as she explained to the exasperated interviewer: "I always like the idea of having three girls and three boys.") To me, as a libertarian of long standing, what these cases all indicate is that when the State has the power to give, it acquires the power to take away, and that such paradoxes such as described above are essentially unavoidable. The only real solution is the natural one: people should not have children unless they have prepared themselves for the process of having children, through savings, good jobs, a stable family situation, a supportive family, etc. "But what about the children?" is no longer compelling to most of us, which is why welfare is being cut out, even by Comrade Clinton. There is nothing right about having some people scrimp and save until they can afford to have children while 23-year-old dingbats already have 3 children on welfare and are planning for more. And everybody here should read Charles Murray's "Losing Ground." Murray studied the statistics from the early days of "general relief" throught "Great Society" to the present, and concluded, convincingly, that the tremendous rise in black illegitimacy is correlated to the rise of welfare. Hardly surprising that when a 15-year old black girl can leap from being low status in black society to high status, with her own apartment and with a check every month, merely by getting pregnant, that a whole lot of black teen girls will do just that. And that the rules against married people getting welfare will ensure that few marriages occur. (As the Cato Institute showed a couple of years ago, the average package of benefits for a single mother of two averages out to the equivalent of about $13-15 an hour, or about $27,000 to $30,000 a year that she would have to earn in the outside world to equal her welfare/AFDC/WIC package.) This is why things are the way they are. It's gonna change. And I for one will watch the starving children and place their deaths at the doorstep of the U.S. government for having adopted a seemingly kindly but actually genocidal policy. (By the way, one can imagine a fifth case, to connect more close to crypto: * Case 5: Residents of public accomodations must agree to escrow their crypto keys with the government. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
On Sat, 23 Aug 1997, Tim May wrote:
There's a landmine here, of course. Namely, the issue of whether states may impose restrictions which are "unconstitutional." To some states rights folks, as I assume Jim Choate may be, the answer is often "of course." To some libertarians, the answer is often "of course not." A good example to consider is "free speech." The First Amendment talks about Congress shall make no law...does this mean California may ban certain books, restrict certain religions, or impose censorship on the press?
(Most folks would say "Of course not." But on what basis can individual states and municipalities override the Second Amendment?)
Most folks would, today, but this was not always a given in our constitutional jurisprudence. It's a post-14th Amendment development, the Bill Of Rights having been understood by the SCt to have been applied to the states by virtue of the 14th Amendment's restrictions on state governments. It's never been an impeccable logic, but it seems to get to the right result. For most folks, anyway:) MacN
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <Pine.SOL.3.96.970823202919.637D-100000@cavern.uark.edu>, on 08/23/97 at 08:33 PM, Mac Norton <mnorton@cavern.uark.edu> said:
On Sat, 23 Aug 1997, Tim May wrote:
There's a landmine here, of course. Namely, the issue of whether states may impose restrictions which are "unconstitutional." To some states rights folks, as I assume Jim Choate may be, the answer is often "of course." To some libertarians, the answer is often "of course not." A good example to consider is "free speech." The First Amendment talks about Congress shall make no law...does this mean California may ban certain books, restrict certain religions, or impose censorship on the press?
(Most folks would say "Of course not." But on what basis can individual states and municipalities override the Second Amendment?)
Most folks would, today, but this was not always a given in our constitutional jurisprudence. It's a post-14th Amendment development, the Bill Of Rights having been understood by the SCt to have been applied to the states by virtue of the 14th Amendment's restrictions on state governments. It's never been an impeccable logic, but it seems to get to the right result. For most folks, anyway:)
Well i think that you also have to take into account the political setting of the times. The Framers of the Constitution were representatives of the States all of which had 1st Amendment protections in their State Constitutions. Their concerns were not with the States but with a Federal Government overriding rights already protected by the States. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBM/+dtI9Co1n+aLhhAQG7xAQAosflAz8++IP2u3flpO2H0nQtKCs13A9S XyoWKjn66iBtB2t4YdVUGxNTSIiA1dr0bB4PQBPq0AWHazfwOXrbDtu5FkevLObx gcLZv7nJ8nsEmF7ssvrhzjAAKnM/Ip0Qh88m8m0iuXbeCk9NcrAray8FrbaaPu5s stufv/Nl5uY= =ecqZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Sat, 23 Aug 1997, William H. Geiger III wrote:
Well i think that you also have to take into account the political setting of the times. The Framers of the Constitution were representatives of the States all of which had 1st Amendment protections in their State Constitutions. Their concerns were not with the States but with a Federal Government overriding rights already protected by the States.
Perhaps so, but that says nothing about the federal gov't enforcing the First Amendment to the US Constitution against the states, irrespective of the provisions of their constitutions or other laws. It is a difficult thing to get from "Congress shall make no law" to "No gov't anywhere in this country shall make any law," but we've managed to do it, probably to our credit on the whole. MacN
At 10:04 PM -0700 8/23/97, Mac Norton wrote:
On Sat, 23 Aug 1997, William H. Geiger III wrote:
Well i think that you also have to take into account the political setting of the times. The Framers of the Constitution were representatives of the States all of which had 1st Amendment protections in their State Constitutions. Their concerns were not with the States but with a Federal Government overriding rights already protected by the States.
Perhaps so, but that says nothing about the federal gov't enforcing the First Amendment to the US Constitution against the states, irrespective of the provisions of their constitutions or other laws. It is a difficult thing to get from "Congress shall make no law" to "No gov't anywhere in this country shall make any law," but we've managed to do it, probably to our credit on the whole.
I don't find it surprising. Besides the more recent, and of course more heavily relied upon, "equal protection" language of the 14th, I think another important factor is this: states admitted to the Union were expected to adhere to and uphold the U.S. Constitution, and Congress even scrutinized states for evidence of this compliance. (And a clue comes from the oaths of office taken by officials in _all_ states, so far as I know: they swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Now how well they do this, and whether they adhere to the original intent, is open for discussion. Still, food for thought.) In looking over some search engine returns on this issue, I was drawn to the various religious freedom decisions, such as Epperson v. Arkansas. Here's one summary (from http://www.natcenscied.org/courtdec.htm) "Epperson v. Arkansas: In 1968, the United States Supreme court invalidated an Arkansas statute that prohibited the teaching of evolution. The Court held the statute unconstitutional on grounds that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not permit a state to require that teaching and learning must be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any particular religious sect or doctrine. (Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) 393 U.S. 97, 37 U.S. Law Week 4017, 89S. Ct. 266, 21 L. Ed 228) " How much of this decision was based on the 14th Amendment, and how much on other grounds? I think I'll look into look into this, as it's an interesting issue of just when the "Congress shall make no law" evolved into "states shall make no laws." --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <v03102800b0257f3fd0ae@[207.167.93.63]>, on 08/23/97 at 11:21 PM, Tim May <tcmay@got.net> said:
I think I'll look into look into this, as it's an interesting issue of just when the "Congress shall make no law" evolved into "states shall make no laws."
Hi, I did some more research on 14th Amendments Test Cases. Seems that anyone wishing to learn more about this should read the Opinion's from the Slaughterhouse Case: http://www2.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/foliocgi.exe/historic/query=[Group+83+U!2ES!2E+36!3A]!28[level+Case+Citation!3A]!7C[group+citemenu!3A]!29/doc/{@1}/hit_headings/words=4/hits_only?firsthit - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNACCno9Co1n+aLhhAQFZgAQAi1SuPfSegZNKmGzKJmXDIxPjZ4Zqd6jI 7IilSCtMeHL9dQBV0mzgj5yxblRYM+pM8KAxub9WA9dwTOS6LqpzGchzswPmCh60 mlik0djJN4ALz/W8F04kEfCS8Tk1IHFkS26YauRnqy64iOC6FnbnVuo0rd9F9K77 x7FeppZozOg= =kKrc -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (5)
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Jim Choate -
Lucky Green -
Mac Norton -
Tim May -
William H. Geiger III