The enemy is still there everyone. The gray, formless mass of ill-concieved ideas and hollow promises is still skipping down the road to serfdom and we're all in lock step with them.
WTF?!
Their new blog home: http://www.acsblog.org/
The following is from their 'about' page... (http://www.acsblog.org/about-us-2-organization.html) Need I say more about what we are dealing with? Remember Ellsworth from the Fountainhead... he lives.
The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS) is one of the nation’s leading progressive legal organizations. Founded in 2001, ACS is comprised of law students, lawyers, scholars, judges, policymakers, activists and other concerned individuals who are working to ensure that the fundamental principles of human dignity, individual rights and liberties, genuine equality, and access to justice are in their rightful, central place in American law.
Today, American values, our constitutional heritage, and the freedoms and opportunities of our people are being undermined by a narrow, conservative approach to the law which lacks appropriate regard for the ways in which the law affects people's lives and that has come to dominate American law and public policy – from law school classrooms to legislative hearing rooms to federal courtrooms. This conservative vision, advanced by a highly organized movement, threatens to undermine the true promise of our Constitution.
ACS is committed to fostering a progressive vision of the law on issues such as access to the courts; anti-discrimination and affirmative action; civil liberties; consumer rights; criminal justice; disability rights; freedom of speech; gay rights; international human rights; immigration; labor law; open government; privacy; protection of health, safety and the environment; and women’s rights and reproductive choice.
With national programming and over 100 law school and lawyer chapters all across the country, ACS is working to:
• Promote a progressive vision of the Constitution, the law and public policy through speaking programs, an annual convention, a speakers bureau of leading scholars and practitioners, media outreach, and publications designed to turn the tide of legal debate both locally and nationally;
• Educate lawyers, law students, decision-makers and the public about the legitimacy and vitality of such a vision, and its importance for the lives of real people;
• Strengthen the intellectual underpinnings for progressive law and policy in the United States; and
• Build a diverse and dynamic national network of students, lawyers, academics, judges and policymakers that can play an important role in debates about the vital issues of law and policy facing America both today and in the future.As I'm sure everyone who is paying attention to news these days knows already, John Roberts was confirmed and is up for vote. I, for one, hope he gets in for several reasons.
The main one being that he upholds the constitution, not 'the little guy' as the Left wishes he would nor 'the big guy upstairs' as some on the Right wish. He stands for the Rule of Law and that is something far too rare these days. He is objective, as far as I can tell; and that is what we need. Not just as a Supreme Court Justice, but as the Chief Justice of the United States. I think he will do a fine job and I wish him well. Plus a vacation after all the hearings with Teddy... forget that.
At my own blog I have fisked a letter written by a reader to the New York Times who is unhappy with an effort by the House of Representatives to deny funding to removal of Ten Commandment displays from courthouses. The Congressman makes an issue of our Christian heritage. That is not the issue for me, but rather the balance of powers. Those few who read my little blog know how I feel about the way that judicial power is being exercised (think "oligarcy").
It is important to have three coequal branches of government, a situation that does not currently prevail.
+Photi
The inequality of individuals with regard to wealth and income is an essential feature of the market economy.
The fact that freedom is incompatible with equality of wealth and income has been stressed by many authors. There is no need to enter into an examination of the emotional arguments advanced in these writings. Neither is it necessary to raise the question of whether the renunciation of liberty could in itself guarantee the establishment of equality of wealth and income and whether or not a society could subsist on the basis of such an equality. Our task is merely to describe the role inequality plays in the framework of the market society.
In the market society direct compulsion and coercion are practiced only for the sake of preventing acts detrimental to social cooperation. [p. 288] For the rest individuals are not molested by the police power. The law-abiding citizen is free from the interference of jailers and hangmen. What pressure is needed to impel an individual to contribute his share to the cooperative effort of production is exercised by the price structure of the market. This pressure is indirect. It puts on each individual's contribution a premium graduated according to the value which the consumers attach to this contribution. In rewarding the individual's effort according to its value, it leaves to everybody the choice between a more or less complete utilization of his own faculties and abilities. This method cannot, of course, eliminate the disadvantages of inherent personal inferiority. But it provides an incentive to everybody to exert his faculties and abilities to the utmost.
The only alternative to this financial pressure as exercised by the market is direct pressure and compulsion as exercised by the police power. The authorities must be entrusted with the task of determining the quantity and quality of work that each individual is bound to perform. As individuals are unequal with regard to their abilities, this requires an examination of their personalities on the part of the authorities. The individual becomes an inmate of a penitentiary, as it were, to whom a definite task is assigned. If he fails to achieve what the authorities have ordered him to do, he is liable to punishment.
It is important to realize in what the difference consists between direct pressure exercised for the prevention of crime and that exercised for the extortion of a definite performance. In the former case all that is required from the individual is to avoid a certain mode of conduct, precisely determined by law. As a rule it is easy to establish whether or not this interdiction has been observed. In the second case the individual is liable to accomplish a definite task; the law forces him toward an indefinite action, the determination of which is left to the decision of the executive power. The individual is bound to obey whatever the administration orders him to do. Whether or not the command issued by the executive power was adequate to his forces and faculties and whether or not he has complied with it to the best of his abilities is extremely difficult to establish. Every citizen is with regard to all aspects of his personality and with regard to all manifestations of his conduct subject to the decisions of the authorities. In the market economy in a trial before a penal court the prosecutor is obliged to produce sufficient evidence that the defendant is guilty. But in matters of the performance of compulsory work it devolves upon the defendant to prove that the task assigned to him was beyond his abilities or that he has done all that can be expected of him. The administrators combine in their persons the offices of the [p. 289] legislator, the executor of the law, the public prosecutor, and the judge. The defendants are entirely at their mercy. This is what people have in mind when speaking of lack of freedom.
No system of the social division of labor can do without a method that makes individuals responsible for their contributions to the joint productive effort. If this responsibility is not brought about by the price structure of the market and the inequality of wealth and income it begets, it must be enforced by the methods of direct compulsion as practiced by the police.- Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, p. 287
The concepts of freedom and bondage make sense only when referring to the way in which government operates. It would be highly inexpedient and misleading to say that a man is not free because, if he wants to stay alive, his power to choose between a drink of water and one of potassium cyanide is restricted by nature. It would be no less inconvenient to call a man unfree because the law imposes sanctions upon his desire to kill another man and because the police and the penal courts enforce them. As far as the government--the social apparatus of compulsion and oppression--confines the exercise of its violence and the threat of such violence to the suppression and prevention of antisocial action, there prevails what reasonably and meaningfully can be called liberty. What is restrained is merely conduct that is bound to disintegrate social cooperation and civilization, thus throwing all people back to conditions that existed at the time homo sapiens emerged from the purely animal existence of its nonhuman ancestors. Such coercion does not substantially restrict man's power to choose. Even if there were no government enforcing man-made laws, the individual could not have both the advantages derived from the existence of social cooperation on the one hand, and, on the other, the pleasures of freely indulging in the rapacious animal instincts of aggression.- Ludwig von Mises, Human Action p. 281
Man cannot have both the advantages derived from peaceful cooperation under the principle of the division of labor within society and the license of embarking upon conduct that is bound to disintegrate society. He must choose between the observance of certain rules that make life within society possible and the poverty and insecurity of the "dangerous life" in a state of perpetual warfare among independent individuals. This is no less rigid a law determining the outcome of all human action than are the laws of physics.- Ludwig von Mises, Human Action p.280
Tom has a great post on rights on his blog at http://hamstermotor.motime.com/post/444704
"Rights are individual claims to the requirement for human survival of the absence of coercion. They are bound up and indissoluble: I cannot have a right to life if I have no right to property, and I cannot have either if I have not the right to use both so long as I coerce no other."
Right to the point. Great post, Tom.
"The government has two duties: to protect the individual rights of all under it, and to determine the most efficient way to do that."
Hence National Defense is the primary function of government, not what these Yale elitists of egalitarianism are trying claim.
Strict adherence to the constitution would have saved us from even making this blog to raise awareness about Yale's ideas. Ideas are fine by themselves, but after a brief review of our nation's history regarding changes to the Constitution, ideas referring to re-writing the Constitution should do more than raise an eyebrow. The lack of courage by the majority to stand up for the Constitution, the lack of action taking place in the Senate, and the immoral bills in place give rise to concerns about the future of the
The reforms / rewriting Yale's group is promoting is certainly not the way to go. Throughout history we can see that more 'rights' that demanded the sacrifice of rights by others has done nothing but hinder that country's forward movement. The underlying problem has always been and continues to be the element of sacrifice. Tom hits a homerun in his post.
The world will change when we can all say this oath and follow it: "I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
As an aside, check out my rant on taxes and government spending.
The New Blog Showcase has highlighted my First Fisking of the 2020 Constitution Movement over at hamstermotor. I hope to receive criticism about two specific failings:
I will work upon and expand the first fisking into a series of posts, each of which tackles one specific point from axioms on up. Once I have done so, I shall consign the first fisking to the dustbins of the Internet. This second fisking will be followed by examinations of the proposed elements of the "new constitution" themselves.
Howard responded to my Ominous Quotes post:
A couple of quick points... If the "American people" (a term that badly needs a definition to be meaningful, but I've gotta get to bed!) "adopt" or "jump" anything or anywhere, respectively, don't they deserve what they get? Or to put it more kindly, isn't that their constitutional right? There are, after all, provisions within the Constitution for its amendment. What does that imply about the founders' intent?
The American people can be taken to mean individuals with suffrage.
Law is subservient to the rights it protects. As Bastiat said,
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.Each of us has a natural right--from God--to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties?
These rights come from the nature of man, and no amount of complaining will change the fact that humans cannot survive with the threat of force. In yet other words, I do not have a right to take your property, no matter how I would go about it. Neither do you have a right to take my property, no matter how you go about it.
Because the American People are nothing but a group of individuals, all laws must be bounded by the individual rights of each. In other words, my requirement of survival for the absence of coercion limits your right to enact a law which would coerce me, and vice versa.
The American People do not have a right to deprive themselves of rights, because, as I said above, the American people is nothing but a group of individuals, and each of them has not the right to infringe on the rights of others, and so cannot delegate that "right" to a government.
As unwise as you or I may believe certain Constitutional changes to be, if they succeed in making their way through the legitimate political process into law, on what basis do you call them treasonous? Do we need an enlightened elite to protect the American people from themselves? Um, who do you want to put in charge?
There is no legitimate political process for abandoning a republican form of government, which is precisely what the erection of a socialist government must first do. Article 4, Section 4, of our Constitution guarantees to each state a republican form of government and the protection of each state against domestic violence. What is domestic violence, if not a few individuals making plans for everyone else, under threat of force?
Economic planning, I remind you, is not the substitution of a plan for chaos. It is the substitution of the plans of a few, for the plans of everyone else. Remember what Mises said:
The dilemma is not between automatic forces and planned action. It is between the democratic process of the market, in which every individual has his share, and the exclusive rule of a dictatorial body. Whatever people do in the market economy, is the execution of their own plans. In this sense every human action means planning. What those calling themselves planners advocate is not the substitution of planned action for letting things go. It is the substitution of the planner's own plan for the plans of his fellow-men. The planner is a potential dictator who wants to deprive all other people of the power to plan and act according to their own plans. He aims at one thing only: the exclusive absolute pre-eminence of his own plan.
Must I point out that your criticism is applicable to socialism, and not to a society ordered on equal freedom as our Constitution lays out?
C'mon, those quotes are simply discussions of strategy by 2 guys that had a very clear agenda. Unless you are being facetious, calling them ominous harks back to Reefer Madness paranoia. The same strategies are used by every non-centrist political party under the sun. It just depends on whose ox is being gored.
What is ominous about those quotes, is that they are correct. They state the same truth Justice Brandeis stated: "Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evilminded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." They state the same truth Jefferson stated when he warned of the cumulative erosions of liberty.
They are every bit as ominous, as if Glenn Reynolds were to say to you, "if you want to kill your puppy, you must first open the lid of your blender, place him inside, close the lid, and push the button."
"The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."- Norman Thomas
"We can't expect the American people to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism."- Nikita Khrushchev
There is no chance of me fisking the Social & Inequality theme as well as the Pooklekufr. To repeat;
This theme concerns the constitutional obligations of the government to protect against discrimination and to guarantee minimum standards of living. Critical issues include: the nature of constitutional equality, the causes and remedies of inequality, the disparate roles of courts and Congress in vindicating rights of equal citizenship.
No government that purports to be that of a free country can create any legal structure that will ensure social outcomes. I admit that the "progressives" are not saying that everyone will be equal in social status, but to guarantee minimum standards of living will require significant government intrusion. The minimum level will have to be established, people needing or deserving government assistance (money) to attain that level will have to be identified, and money distributed.
Who will determine who "needs" financial aid? Who will determine the amount of aid to be given? Who will determine who is taxed and how much those taxes are? All of history says that in socialist welfare states the answer is - not you or me. Yes, in America there will always be democratic processes in place (there are many like myself who have been trained and taken an oath to ensure it) but if anti-democratic socialist and racist policies are written into a constitution they can trump those processes. That is the goal of the "progressive" movement. Electoral politics have never supported the Left™.
Hard left Presidents Johnson and Carter could not win second terms. Because of the combined effects of the Vietnam War and the imposition of the Great Society programs LBJ did not even try. WJC won a second term by being only a moderate leftist, much to the consteration of the "progressives". Their weakness in electoral politics causes them to use the judiciary instead. Getting judges to rule by fiat, as they have in cases involving affirmative action, abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and in many other matter allows then to dodge having these issues debated in the legislative sphere. Dr. Kervorkian got clipped only because he operated the equipment himself and took an "in your face" attitude to the Court. The Court wasn't quite ready for euthanasia or bad attitudes then, but it is now. I have posted several times on my own blog about the black-robed judicial oligarchy. "Progressives" like the oligarchy.
The Pooklekufr has already more than adequately addressed the matter of discrimination. On that I'd just like to add that, however politically incorrect it is to say so, a ditch digger and a dentist are just not the same. The dentist is more likely to be chosen for positions on school boards, bank loans, and all of the other things for which a society selects one person over another. In cases where candidates are of different ethnic or social backgrounds candidates not selected will almost always blame race, class, gender, sexual orientation, hair color, anything but a lack of merit. To force an absence of discrimination such that opportunity is levelized throughout society would require a heavy governmental hand indeed, including racial quotas.
Make no mistake, the efforts of the Yale Law School "progressives" is anti-democratic. They are the wolves in sheep's clothing.
I will expand on Travis's last post.
This theme concerns the constitutional obligations of the government to protect against discrimination
There can be only two kinds of discrimination: discrimination which is enforced by violence, and discrimination which is not enforced by violence.
Discrimination which is enforced by violence is noticeable today in Arabic nations which prohibit women, under penalty of physical punishment, from driving cars, shopping at stores, and walking in certain locations. It is obvious that such discrimination, being expressed by coercion, is incompatible with a society founded on equal freedom. This form of discrimination may initially appear unjust because of the specific group singled out, but look further and you will see the key precept upon which that treatment is based: the acceptance of the use of force in social relationships to accomplish a greater good. Whether this form of discrimination is targeted at Jews or women or non-muslims, or justified on the basis of "aryan supremacy" or Allah's will or the good of the proletariat, the acceptance of the use of force is a primary.
Discrimination which is not enforced by violence is identifiable by the clear existence of property rights. A shop-keeper owns his store: his merchandise, and the revenue he receives, belong to him. He may, without coercion, refuse to transact with a segment of the population. He may, for instance, refuse to sell to women. This situation appears unjust, until one notices the following: he must bear the consequences of his discrimination. In a society ordered on equal freedom, he is free to refuse to conduct business with women, but his competitors are free to swoop in, and his customers are free to feel outraged and shift their business elsewhere. He will bear the effects of shutting out over half the population as well as the husbands who are prohibited by their wives from ever stepping foot in that store. In other words, unless he changes policies, he will most likely go bankrupt or be compelled to change businesses.
Where discrimination enforced by violence exists, the shopkeeper is "protected" from the negative results of discrimination. His competitors are prohibited by law from entering upon his industry without his discriminatory practices and his customers may be forced to conduct business. In Zimbabwe, stores which discriminate against whites are given subsidies, and store-keepers who sell to whites are persecuted. In the Ante-bellum South and later, shops which sold to blacks were vandalized and their owners and customers persecuted. In Saudi Arabia, women who attempt to buy from certain stores are fined or whipped. In all such cases, the discrimation is sustainable, as it could not be if not backed by coercion. In all such cases, it is clear that not only does the discrimination bear the same negative effects on the targeted groups, but it transfers burdens upon the rest of the population.
All human action is voluntary. The varied standards of living reflect choices people have made in weighing the advantages and disadvantages of different courses of action. A father may go without food because he values having a home in which to starve as more important for him and his family. A mother may forgo healthcare, because she would rather spend the money on food for her children. It is clear that a government decree forcing the father to spend a certain portion of his income on food, would prevent him from affording the shelter he values more. It is clear that forcing the mother to spend a portion of income on healthcare, will prevent her from spending that portion on the food she values more. In other words, such policies enforcing an arbitrary "minimum standard of living" prevent individuals from acting in the manner which they judge the most efficient to acheive their ends. It replaces the whim of a bureaucrat for the decisions of the people most affected by the policies.
The Constitution lays down an order of society prohibiting the use of force against innocents by individuals both inside and outside the government. Only in such a society is the equality of opportunity possible. When the only thing preventing a man from opening a store is the struggle to earn money, and not the gun of a KGB man or the hours of negotiating with zoning boards, it is clear that he has a greater opportunity.
It is this equality of opportunity which a Constitution protecting private property and freedom guarantees. It is precisely this equality of opportunity socialism removes, by replacing competition with the barrel of a gun.
Humans have different skills, training, appearances, voices, intelligence, and tastes. It is this diversity which leads to the varied choices people make, and the effects of those choices. It is only in a society ordered on equal freedom that this diversity works toward the benefit of all. Any attempted claim that the incredibly diverse range of talents and preferences of people, and the various industries people will build to utilize those varying degrees of talents and accomodate for those widely differing tastes, can be evened out in results, is impossible. So long as I prefer to wear pants while the woman I love prefers skirts, and so long as one person can weave a better skirt that makes her look even more beautiful, there will be "inequality." And I would take this form of inequality over the equality of poverty and oppression any day.
Disparate means only "different methods." The separation of powers between the branches of government as laid down in the Constitution necessarily create a disparate role for the protection of rights in each branch. Each performs a necessary function in protecting the equal freedom of all citizens, and each for that reason cannot be trusted with the role of the other. The above statement is meaningless unless it is to be interpreted that the judicial and legislative branches are to merge in their function, each both creating laws and interpreting them. This, I remind you, is explicitly rejected by our Constitution, and would require the elimination of the founding document of our Government to make possible; it is treasonous in the clearest sense.
From Yale's 'American Constitution Society' website ::
Photios joined our blog. Welcome aboard!
The fallacies of socialism are immortal: from Hammurabi on, the same mistakes have been made to achieve a utopia by molding humanity into the image of one's fantasies.
For this reason, one of the most effective ways to refute those who would repeat those fallacies is to offer them refutations from before their time.
Look at Hazlitt's "Critics of Keynesian Economics," which included two economists who died long before Keynes was even born. What greater insult is there for a socialist, then to see his arguments destroyed by a long dead writer? What greater argument against a novel utopian plan is there than to show the bloody results of a prior implementation of that "progressive" plan?
I propose that this blog counter the accusations against our Constitution with the original defense and explanation wherever possible, and expand upon those arguments from our own perspectives, be they objectivist, equal-freedom utilitarian, or Bastiat-inspired religious explanations of freedom and defenses of our Constitution.
Alright, so my site is back up Travis Benning but some of the last posts are gone... hmm. That means two of the last HQ assignments are gone... mm-dar.
Still debating switching from B2evolution to WordPress... Either way I'll mod the heck out of it.
Any suggestions?
- Travis
Off the topic, but still a stumbling block... My site at http://www.travisbenning.com/b2evo/ has just had a MAJOR hard drive failure overnight... damn. So, I'm grieving over my lost data and modifications there...
So if and when they get their server back up with a new hard drive and copy over my backups... I might have a site again. Not sure if I'll keep B2Evolution or make the switch to word press. Both have a lot going for them, and I use both... Any suggestions? I even tried Serenity before, nice things too, but overall they need to keep working on that. Same with TextPattern...
For now, this will be my home. Tom was right to be impressed by Mo'Time. It is very nice.
To see the destruction, try to load the temporary holding cell of my site... http://siteground2.com/~travisbe/b2evo/
Blah!
These things happen I suppose. Seriously though, battle over the merits of WordPress or B2evolution in the comments here. Thanks.
- Travis
We must counter this direct assault on our Constitution with as much logical rigor, argumentative ferocity, and powdered wigs, as our Founding Fathers defended the Constitution in the Federalist Papers.
Now the Constitution is under more threat than ever before. Schools have ignored and misrepresented it to the point where a large portion of American children think "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" is in it. The assaults of Hoover, Roosevelt, Johnson, and judicial activists have weakened both our Constitution and our our outrage at the perversions carried on in the name of "economic and social rights".
This combination of ignorance, apathy, and sophistry, cannot be allowed to spread. We cannot allow yet another dilution of Constitutional principles. We cannot allow this movement to further eradicate the traces of constitutionalism from our national debate.
With the universal acceptance of their new 'progressive' constitution last year, we thought we'd all have a 'new deal' on top of their last 'fair deal' in our 'great society'. Alas, this was not the case.
So, this year we're throwing the baby out with the bath water and starting over again. From scratch.
Shouldn't have too much competition either, what with the massive famines and epidemics that are spreading after their failed policies have completely shut down the United States, and thus the world.
This will be our starting point. The dust is settling, and the time is now to make a less-progressive constitution. One that won't kill everyone like the 2020 one did.
Treason is defined as "a crime that undermines the offender's government." (Princeton)
The erection of a "constitution" which would annihilate the restrictions on government enshrined in our Constitution, in fact embracing the totalitarian control of a complete welfare state, oppressing the individual through the same parasitic burdens applied by tyrannies since time immemorial, is clearly an attempt to undermine the Government of the United States of America. It is the very epitome of treason.
Powerline posted the notes of a Yale Law School student present at the weekend's conference dedicated to the formation of a "progressive" constitution to topple our current one.
I will post the notes ad serratum with my fisking:
Sunstein:
--last time US NationalSecurity was threatened, Roosevelt gave greatest speech of 20th century
Roosevelt's speech came at the end of a three decade-long (The 1913 Federal Reserve act to his speech) failed experiment in Keynesian economics and government intervention which created a depression over 4 times longer than any in our nation's history. He had a communist spy (Alger Hiss) in his top cabinet, propounded an "economic bill of rights" that claimed people had a "right" to recreation, and gave Stalin millions of slaves as war reparations in the Yalta Agreements. Roosevelt only looks good because the evil he was fighting was the epitome of evil.
--with growth and change, political rights enshrined in Constitution are inadequate
Our Constitution limits the power of the government within a permitted sphere bounded by the equal freedom of all individuals. My right to life is synonymous with your restriction on killing me. My right to property is synonymous with your inability to rob me. Humans cannot survive under the threat of violence. It is by means of these restrictions on violence both within and outside the government, that humans may produce, plan, and enjoy what happiness they earn. As Bastiat said in Economic Harmonies, (I will garble him), "once the use of force is accepted, there are an infinite number of ways to apply it to mold the society to your image." What is the trend in political violence one era, will become obsolete by a new trend in political violence in another era. Only a government limited in its use of force will withstand the varied pressures tempting new (and not so new) attempts to mold society into the image of its would-be saviours.
In all of human history, not a single act of government force beyond the protection of life, liberty, and property, has achieved the results sought without negative results. In theory and in history, there is no justification for government intervention as a means of achieving the universally sought ends of peace and prosperity.
--need economic support to make personal freedom possible. Need economic bill of rights.
All rights depend on the right to life, and that is inextricably bound to the right of private property. The protection of private property by police, courts, and the military is the only basis of government which will achieve peace and prosperity. Every attempted alternative has led to famine, oppression, and pestilence.
Freedom is the absence of coercion. The only support I or anyone needs to be free, is a gun held to the head of the man who tries to rob or murder me and my family.
--ingredients of Second Bill of Rights-only with these rights will we have security. Link experience of nation in Great Depression with experience at the hands of fascist powers
Curious. John Maynard Keynes, the man who codified the spurious economics of prodigality which our government had embraced since the 1913 Federal Reserve act through Herbert Hoover's government intervention, said in 1936 that his economics could most efficiently be practiced in Nazi Germany. The practices embraced by Keynes and Roosevelt, price-controls, wage controls, limits on interest rates, inflation, subsidies, tariffs, etc, are all key features of fascism. Roosevelt's attempts to replace the plans of each individual with his own plans, may have been a small-scale form of fascism compared to his contemporaries, but the suffering produced is evidence that even a mini-fascist will drastically impact the well-being of a nation.
There are 24 hours in a day. Every minute a government spends on debating the proper curvature of bananas, the cubic capacity of toilets, and the amount of money taken from some to give to others, is one minute not spent protecting the rights to life, liberty, and property. A government limited as ours by the Constitution is forced to spend its time protecting rights, i.e. security.
--four footnotes: Roosevelt's emphasis on opportunity and security-long tradition of American political thought (back to Montesquieu)-states owe to every citizen a degree of subsistence
Montesquieu has been fisked enough by Bastiat in The Law. I will only point out that despite Roosevelt's intentions, his ideas led to a decade of poverty and suffering.
--Mont. aligned with John Locke, Lockean Proviso, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, 40 acres and a mule, FDR
The juxtaposition of James Madison with FDR is sacrilegious and in a just society grounds for deportation to North Korea.
--2nd BoR made possible by attack on distinction between negative and positive rights-effort to separate them is unfit for the American legal framework --property is a creation of law-a positive right-creates affirmative guarantees. This is a matter of fact, not normative of value statement. Capitalist economy necessarily requires positive rights
The existence of "positive rights" destroys "negative rights." Freedom is the absence of coercion, and cannot be gained by selectively privileging some with the ability to coerce others.
Property is protected by law. It is created by Man.
--property rights could not exist without government protection. Individualism bolstered, not destroyed, by gov't intervention
A government is a small group of people to whom the rest of the population delegates the ability to use force in protecting their rights. Rather than us all going to Karate classes, buying guns and mace, we maximize our time and effort by letting a small group of people continually protect us. I could just as easily keep you from killing me with my own gun, but I'd rather have someone trained and prepared holding the gun.
"Individualism" can only have the meaning that the plans of individuals, so long as they do not coerce others, are expressed in a society, as opposed to "collectivism" in which the plans of one or a few are imposed by force on all. It is severe cognitive dissonance to claim that my plans are bolstered by a bureaucrat deciding for me.
--international impact of R's speech-influence universal declaration of human rights, constitutions throughout the world (including Iraq)
Roosevelt did not define Human Rights as the restrictions against coercion enforced against both governments and other individuals. His concept of rights was one of "positive rights," or the idea that my right to property must be "gained" at the expense of your own property. In the 19th century, you'd be gutted like a catfish for saying something that evil.
--Roosevelt attacking Constitution of 1910, 1920, 1930-thought this was terrible constitutional law. Did not favor return to narrowly construed judgments of those who drafted the Constitution
The Constitution by then had already been perverted by the purposely vague Sherman Antitrust law, the Federal Reserve Act, the 16th Amendment, and the Prohibition. Roosevelt did not attack the basis of these perversions, but the very principle that they rejected.
--Also eschewed perfectionism embodied by the Warren Court-seizing on ambiguous clauses to enumerate rights
Do I need to remind people that a poorly written law is an invitation for one's worst enemies to use it against you? If the law reads, "Don't kill," it doesn't matter if your worst enemy is in charge of that law. If the law has the word "fair" in it, then is it not obvious that it admits of interpretations that could express the worst intentions of your worst enemy? Even children understand that a badly worded command can be used against oneself!
--time for a Frankfurter revival-general deference to political process, evolutionary character of constitutional law, has a common law element to it --punchline: by 2020, it's going to be about time for the second bill of rights to be reclaimed in its nation of origin
Constitutional Law is not evolutionary. The principle that man requires freedom to survive has always been true, and will always be true. It is a fact of nature, and no amount of subjective "evolution" will permit a contrary law to work.
Ackerman:
--task of every generation is to create institutional structures which express fundamental liberal commitments
Wrong. The task of every generation is to adhere to the only order of society which can yield peace and prosperity, and that is one founded on individual rights, equal freedom, and private property. The idea of "creating new institutions" to enforce "new principles" is as ludicrous as if one said the task of every generation of mathematicians is to create new integers which express fundamental mathematical theorems.
--question is whether we should simply have our vision monopolized by second BoR or whether we have something new to add
No. The question is whether the will of each individual, bounded by the equal freedom of others, is expressed, or if the will of those writing the "second bill of rights" will be imposed on everyone else. Come near me with that and I will maul you.
--add "citizenship agenda" to Roosevelt's vision. Roosevelt concerned with vulnerability. Can we build liberalism for the active/dynamic in our society? How to do that? How to recreate notion of democratic citizenship that we have in common?
Which is more hospitable to change: a man who has a gun held against his head, or a man who is free to make mistakes and discover?
--first: idea of political citizenship. Has eroded (the draft, the political party)-design institutions that will allow us to assert interactive citizenship
The draft, the idea that one's life is the property of the government to dispose, does indeed decay the concept of government as the protector of the right to life. And historically, it is the liberals who overwhelmingly support this idea.
The political party in a society bounded by a Constitution defending individual rights, is literally unable to exert a tyrannical influence. Contrast that with any political party in a socialist nation.
--idea: $ for voting-give $ to whichever candidate people choose-this would encourage people to talk. We would have block parties to discuss this. "Patriot Dollars"
Every dollar the government gives must first be taken from someone else by taxes or inflation. What the hell is this guy talking about?
--people really are ignorant but are tremendously good learners-one day's discussion motivates ppl to find out things-causes 10 percentage point shift in opinion-national holiday called "Deliberation Day" two weeks before the election. This would force pols to redistribute sound bites-creates an interest for politicians to offer more.
"People really are ignorant." I will repeat that: this man said "people really are ignorant." Who, pray tell, will raise the people out of their "ignorance?" Their ignorance means they cannot be trusted to run their lives, what wise statesman will run their lives for them?
--economic citizenship-stakeholder society in which every young adult gets a form of citizen inheritance of $80,000 funded by a wealth tax of 2% over $450,000-every American citizen would have $80,000. This has been adopted by Tony Blair-every baby born in England now has this.
Every dollar the government gives must first have been taken away from someone else through either taxes or inflation. You figure out what that means.
--vision here is a citizenship agenda which crates a context in which people think of themselves as American citizens who have a real role shaping the agenda, talking about it, have a stake in America as a citizen-preliminary to rehabilitation of privileges of 14th Amendment which has never been redeemed.
As opposed to the current representative republic?
Note: the 14th Amendment defends rights. This little slip of the tongue indicates what this person thinks of "rights." They are "privileges" to be redeemed, and what is redeemed must first be given and can be revoked. Who will do that, do you think?
--fundamental task is to generate institutional structures to fortify the Progressive tradition.
The "Progressive tradition" as followed by Stalin, Mao, and Hitler, killed over 170 million humans in the last century. Keep that tradition to yourself, you neanderthal.
Sunstein:
--distinguish Constitution of 2020 as elaborated by Supreme Court from the nation's commitments in 2020 (social security, deliberation day, etc) from what would be good in 2020 which is less fundamental (more funding for Head Start)-helps to keep in mind these three different categories.
Three different categories? I must be stupid. All I see is three different implementations of the idea that one man has a right to my life.
--greatest moral failure of Bush administration was its neglect of multiple sides of insecurity-opportunity it really had post-9/11
"Multiple sides of insecurity" is meaningless. Unless Sunstein means our president's refusal to ground the terrorists into the ground meat they so richly deserve to become.
--opposing idea: citizenship. On the one hand, citizenship is inimical to personal security/private property
Let me get this straight. Possessing the protection of my life and property under a government is inimical to the protection of my life and property? Low-life camel sucking ingrate. Go live in North Korea.
--citizenship agenda contradicts security agenda --Earned income tax credit is great (as opposed to minimum wage)
This is also meaningless. What does "security agenda" mean if it involves violating the rights of everyone for the sake of "progressive ideas"?
--between now and 2020 emphasize security rather than citizenship
The Constitution protects my security against both people like you and terrorists. Get out of my face.
--another disagreement: no ambitious judicial elaboration of privileges and immunities clause-would be bad for people who need help, good for people who really don't.
Oh, privileges and immunities! The very essence of a society based on individual rights. Go live in Turkmenistan.
Ackerman:
--opportunity idea vs. safetynet idea-of course he's in favor of safety nets
One man's safety net is the dying opportunity of another man.
--wants REAL opportunity-that's what stakeholding is about
I assume he's the one holding the stakes.
--appeals to everybody as an American citizen-that's what Bush's ownership rhetoric suggests but we know the reality of it
I know that to the degree a society rejects private property, its "progressive" agenda can be measured by its number of mass graves.
--fundamental weakness of a market economy is the effort by the rich to pass on wealth to next generation-1% of people own 40% of wealth in this country --not against private inheritance, but for citizenship inheritance
Booga booga! You can take the money I will leave to my children from their cold dead hands, you neanderthal. So long as humans care for their children, they will provide for them. Notice that in "progressive nations," only the Party members have the ability to pass down money to their children.
--we need tools for citizenship-need common sites for conversation integrated into system
As opposed to frequent elections? Get fucked, ingrate.
--these are just exemplary proposals -
-idea of recapturing concept that national citizenship has privileges-we need to make this a reality-cure disenfranchisement for felons --court's elaboration of national citizenship will produce good policies
There can be no "privileges" in a society based on equal freedom as expressed in the Constitution. One man's privilege is another man's burden.
Sunstein:
--inexplicable power of Obama's speech at DNC Convention-why? Conception of common citizenship
"Inexplicable" is a good word. Obama's intentions may be noble, but his results are guaranteed to be the opposite of what he seeks. Why would sane people support policies which would lead to the exact opposite results sought? Oh...
--when an Arab-American's freedom is attack our liberty is under attacked-not red and blue states but United States --gives automatic identification to people we are tempted to think of as "others"
When those "others" believe they have religious justification for killing me and oppressing the women I know, I will classify them according to those criminal beliefs. I don't give a shit why a man wishes to kill me, and only in a society ordered on equal freedom is his motivation irrelevant.
--Justice Jackson: when we invoke the EP clause we broaden the class of people to whom barrier applies, political classes kick in-Lawrence is not about others, but about everyone.
I don't get the meaning of this.
--Obama was doing this psychologically by singling out bracketable others-we're all hurt when they're hurt
I am hurt when Zarqawi and other terrorists are hurt? Then I am a masochist. Tell the guys at Gitmo I really feel like having some salt pressed into the terrorists' wounds.
--national citizenship could have untoward results-forbids minimum wage law or maximum hour law-presence of a powerful view that has reached the White House that the real constitution has been lost-the pre-Roosevelt constitution. Roosevelt's conception is considered constitutionally troubling by the Bush administration
No. Equal freedom and the nature of reality forbids minimum wage and maximum hour laws. Interesting choice of words- Roosevelt did do more to pervert the Constitution than any other president.
--beauty of R's 2nd BR is its concreteness-right to education, etc
Only gotten at the expense of a poor teacher, and the even sorrier sap who is forced to pay him.
Ackerman:
--one great advantage of citizenship strategy is that it is national
Glittering generality. This is meaningless.
--idea of a national citizenship is powerful and underdeveloped legal resource
The Constitution's provisions for the equal freedom of all those who become citizen is an "underdeveloped legal resource"? What the hell is a legal resource?
--liberals-"we"-are at the Barry Goldwater point. Trying to figure out what progressive constitutionalism should mean for our time. Best we can hope for from SC in the short term is not an adventurous spirit. What constitutional vocabularies can be used/abused? Which ones really say something that is important for us?
I will suggest that your progressive constitutionalism be exported along with you to countries more hospitable to it. Go help the "ignorant people" of North Korea.
--all visions have dark sides as well. Obvious disadvantage of citizenship is non-citizens.
My vision of equal freedom only has a dark side for those who would violate my right to live my life as I wish so long as I hurt no other. What the hell does that second sentence mean?
--concrete stuff-well, public housing has failed. It's a mistake to declare the right to a home. Better way to do it is special purpose monies. Wallet of the future is a set of different monies-patriot dollars, health dollars-each with a different distributional value. Housing dollars is not good though. Too much black markets-people should be able to decide how much they'll allocate to housing, education, etc.
"It is a mistake to declare the right to a home." And then he goes on to advocate the "right" to the money of other people.
--social security is money too.
"Social security" is money taken from A to give to B, while B's child C is stuck with paying for both A and B when he gets a job.
--need to give each American a piece of the commonwealth
He is for private property? Oh, he just means "equal distribution"
--subsidizing students is to the disadvantage of people who are capable of operating without two degrees-these are the people we have lost to Republicans. Not the very poor, but the middle class, ordinary people
Subsidizing anyone is to the disadvantage of all those who must be leached in order to see the Law of Supply and Demand work to cause the exact opposite of the results sought by those who advocated the subsidies.
Sunstein:
--notion that every child should get $80,000 should not be part of literal constitution-judicially elaborated constitution --should also not be part our national commitments. Open to possibility that it might be good, but it has a bit of a Rube-Goldberg contraption-y quality to it
No. It has a bit of a Marxist-Stalinist quality to it. Go live in France.
--on the common cause, Sunstein is trying to say Roe should not be the symbol for progressive. They should think about Katzenbach v. Morgan, West Coast Hotel, awfulness of the ADA, Age Discrimination Act, SC should not have struck down VAWA or any affirmative action without giving thought to the 14th Amendment
Really? I thought the symbol of "progressive" was the monstrous pile of 170 million corpses accumulated in the attempt to achieve their goals.
--1st Amendment is becoming the place where laissez faire views are being constitutionalized-Justice Thomas says that commercial advertising should be treated as political speech. That is an astounding development.
Huh? The first amendment is open to no "evolution." You want a heirarchy of speech? Go live in North Korea.
--campaign finance is in constitutional jeopardy
As well it should be, if by "campaign finance" you mean laws which contradict the constitution.
--FCC is under constitutional assault by dozens of think-tanks and organizations. Want constitutional renovation in the image of the extreme wing of the Republican Party.
The FCC imposes regulations on speech. The First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law.." Case closed.
--1st Amendment should be seen historically and evaluatively, not as an embodiment of the University of Chicago's economics department
Odd. I always saw the First Amendment as the premier achievement of humans to recognize that survival relies on the freedom to think and to communicate. I did not know there were people who thought it was written for the sole benefit of Milt Friedman. Why, that would tickle any man!
Ackerman:
--we share the thought that the progressive vision of frameworks centers on the economy-needs to be constitutionalized in frameworks to make real the notion of a common citizenship.
Constitutionalize it! Meaningless.
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