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Post by pjohns1873 on Feb 18, 2014 3:05:41 GMT
To assert that government "has no Rights" (caps in original) is, essentially, to advocate anarchy. Of course our government has rights. No, not the rights of a Hobbesian-like Leviathan state; but the rights granted in the US Constitution. I am not sure how you may reason that laws regulating abortion would have been struck down, even absent Roe v. Wade. I am intrigued, however, as regarding your view about the necessity of a unanimous SCOTUS decision to uphold any law under challenge. Frankly, I had never considered this possibility. I will have to think about it.
Understanding that the "sovereignty of a nation" is established the "sovereignty of the person" really isn't that hard. We need only refer to the document that established the political ideology of the United States.
Government has "Powers" and not "Rights" and those powers are based upon the consent of the governed. There is a caveat which is that the people can only delegate those powers that they have based upon their inalienable Rights. The individual has the Inalienable Right of Self and inherent in that is the Inalienable Right of Sovereignty of the Self. A nation obtains sovereignty based upon the cumulative Inalienable Right of Sovereignty of all Persons living within the territory of the nation.
It is the understanding of this simple principle that provides guidance when we address issues of what government can and cannot do. The powers of government cannot exceed those of the cumumative powers of the people and can only be established by the consent of the people.
For example using this understanding then capital punishment cannot exist as no person has the Right to commit the premeditated killing of another person. We don't have that "power" as a person and cannot delegate it to government.
When we look at the abortion laws we have to address the word "person" which is exactly what the US Supreme Court did in Roe v Wade. What we must also understand is that adjudication before the Court is based upon an adversarial process and that in Roe v Wade both sides of the "argument" agreed that there were no examples where the term "person" was applied prior to birth historically. The "defense council" for the abortion laws admitted that they could not present legal precedent in establishing personhood of the fetus. In short there was no precendent for considering the "preborn" to be a person. The "Woman" was unquestionably a "person" and had the Inalienable Right of Sovereignty of the Self that other "persons" could not violate with laws that prohibited abortion (i.e. her having a procedure done that affected her body but did not affect another person's body).
There are arguments for establishing "personhood" of the "preborn" and new legal precendent can be established to recognize the "personhood of the fetus" and, in the United States, that would have to be done by the Supreme Law of the Land (i.e. by US Constitutional Amendment) but there are numerous considerations in doing this.
For example if "personhood" is granted to the "fetus" then what is the limitation upon the Inalienable Right of Sovereignty of Self of the fetus? The Right of Sovereignty of the "fetus" and the "woman" cannot conflict with each other because an Inalienable Right, by definition, cannot violate the Inalienable Rights of Another Person. So is the individual "Sovereignty" of the fetus and the woman established at the umbilical cord that connects the woman and the fetus? If so the woman can have the umbilical cord cut at "her end" as that falls within the authority of her personal sovereignty. Of course if that happens the fetus dies and effectively "abortion" has occured.
No matter how we address the fetus and the woman there is a paradox from an Inalienable Rights perspective because of the conflict between the Rights of the Person. The "fetus" has a "Right to Eat" but does not have a Right to demand the woman feed it. An Inalienable Right cannot impose an involuntary obligation upon another person.
Ultimately we end up with a case where the Freedom to Exercise the Inalienable Rights of the Person must be limited for pragmatic reasons based upon compelling arguments which is actually what the Supreme Court decided to do in it's Roe v Wade decision. Even though the "fetus" was not a "person" at natural viability it was a "potential person" (i.e. it would be a recognized person outside of the womb). In it's decision the Freedom to Exercise the Inalienable Right of Sovereignty of the woman was addressed where during the first trimester she had complete Freedom to Exercise her Inalienable Right of Sovereignty over her own body (i.e. abortion on demand) but by the third trimester where the fetus became a "potential person" her Freedom to Exercise her Right of Sovereignty was greatly diminished. Only if a case of a serious threat to her health or life was extablished based upon a medical opinion would allow her to obtain an abortion.
Personally I've reviewed this issue for a long time and I can't see any other pragmatic resolution to the paradox between the woman and "baby" in her body. Regardless of whether we address a fetus at viability as a "person" or a "potential person" the compromise by addressing it based upon the Freedom to Exercise an Inalienable Right is unchanged. Prior to natual viability there isn't an argument at all for "personhood" as there is no possibility of Individual Sovereignty of the "preborn" as they cannot live unassisted outside of the womb.
Ultimately regardless of whether Roe v Wade exists the same conclusions are reached based upon the Inalienable Rights of the Person.
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When you ponder the idea of requiring unanimous consent you can address it on this thread where I actually provided the text of a Constitutional Amendment.
worldpf.com/thread/275/constitutional-amendment-protect-rights
(1) To assert that "all persons living within the territory of the nation "--including illegals--may confer sovereignty upon the nation they presently occupy, absent which such sovereignty does not exist, is to argue in a circle: The government is ( ex hypothesi) impotent to control the country's own boundaries, unless these invaders agree to allow it to do so; which, of course, is an unrealistic expectation. (2) To arge that government has "Power" but no "Rights" is to quibble over mere semantics. Those powers are, in fact, the rights granted by the US Constitution. (3) It is "by the consent of the people" that capital punishment exists in many states today. So it makes no sense to declare that capital punishment "cannot exist" according to "this understanding" (i.e. that it must be according to the consent of the people). (4) I do not march tightly in lockstep with many of my fellow pro-lifers on this one point: There is an enormous difference, I believe, between a mere zygote and a six-month-old fetus. To destroy the former seems to me like the mere termination of a pregnancy; whereas the latter strikes me as the killing of an innocent human being. At some point, a fetus becomes recognizably human; at which time, it should be considered morally repellent--and should be illegal, I think--to kill that unborn child. The precise point at which this takes place is necessarily a bit arbitrary; still, one has to draw a line somewhere. And if a state wishes to set the deadline at, say, 22 weeks, that seems reasonable enough to me. |
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Post by ShivaTD on Feb 18, 2014 12:29:15 GMT
(1) To assert that "all persons living within the territory of the nation "--including illegals--may confer sovereignty upon the nation they presently occupy, absent which such sovereignty does not exist, is to argue in a circle: The government is ( ex hypothesi) impotent to control the country's own boundaries, unless these invaders agree to allow it to do so; which, of course, is an unrealistic expectation.
When addressing an issue such as Inalienable Rights of the Person, the foundation for government in the United States, a person must really put on their thinking cap (a capacity I know you're capable of). Let me address the issues one at a time.
The Inalienable Rights of the Person exist without government and governments can either protect, infringe upon, or violate our Freedom to Exercise those Inalienable Rights (Inalienable Rights are not Inviolabe Rights is distinction that some fail to understand). By pragmatic necessity all governments infringe upon our Freedom to Exercise our Inalienable Rights but such infringements should always be to the least extent possible based upon compelling arguments to protect our Inalienable Rights from an idealistic standpoint. Our actions as persons are limited to that which we have a Right to Do.
We have a Right of Self (Individual Sovereignty) We have a Right of Liberty. A subset of that Right of Liberty is the Right of Expatriation (immigration) where we can leave our country of birth and relocate to another country. We have a Right of Self Defense against Acts of Aggression agianst us.
1. National Sovereignty and Immigration
As a people we have the Right to Defend ourselves from Acts of Aggression against us. Based upon this Right of Self-Defense we can restrict the Freedom to Exercise the Right of Liberty/Expatriation of a Person seeking to come to our "nation" to commit Acts of Aggression. This could include convicted criminals that have established they will harm others or terrorists (conspirators) that would come here to do us harm. We can support laws that restrict the Freedom to Exercise the Right of Liberty/Expatriation of a person that would come to the United States to do us harm based upon our Right of Self-Defense. That is a pragmatic limitation based upon a compelling argument supported by the Inalienable Rights of the Person.
We cannot make a compelling argument to limit the Freedom to Exercise the Right of Liberty/Expatriation of a Person that seeks to immigrate to the United States for peaceful purposes based upon the protections of our Inalienable Rights. They do not represent a threat of Acts of Aggression agianst us where we can claim "Self-Defense" as a reason to impose a limitation upon them.
So we have immigration laws that are based upon a compelling argument where they are a "protection" of our Inalienable Rights (the purpose of government as established by the Declaration of Independence) and we have immigration laws that do not provide any "protection" of our Inalienable Rights but that do violate the Freedom to Exercise the Inalienable Rights of another Person. The first (limiting immigration based upon self-defense) is Constitutional while the second (restrictions unrelated to self-defense) is Unconstitutional based upon the Ninth Amendment that protects the unenumerated Rights of all Persons (not just US citizens).
So the statement that the national sovereignty is not based upon "illegal" aliens is correct but that only relates to "illegal" aliens that have entered the country against the laws that are based upon the Protections of our Inalienable Rights. It would not apply to those that come here for peaceful purposes as those laws are a violation of the Right of Liberty/Expatriation and are technically a violation of the 9th Amendment to the US Constitution.
National sovereignty is based upon all citizens and all immigrants (that are here for peaceful purposes based upon their Inalienable Right of Liberty/Expatriation) as it represents the cummulative Individual Right of Sovereignty of all persons. If that was not the case then there would be no argument to support national defenses because national defense is about protection of the Individual Sovereignty of the Person living within the territorial boundries of the United States.
Of note there are no "compelling arguments" that would support limiting the Freedom to Exercise the Right of Liberty/Expatriation of a person that would come to the United States for peaceful purposes based upon the protections of our Inalienable Rights as they represent no threat to our Inalienable Rights.
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Post by ShivaTD on Feb 18, 2014 13:02:17 GMT
(2) To arge that government has "Power" but no "Rights" is to quibble over mere semantics. Those powers are, in fact, the rights granted by the US Constitution.
There is a huge difference and not just a game of semantics.
Power is the use of force agianst the person where Inalienable Rights are exclusively related to the individual person. To confuse the two is to rationalize the atrocities commited by government's such as the Holocaust of Nazi Germany. There is no question that the Nazis had the "power" to commit the atrocities that violated the Inalienable Rights of the Person subjected to the authority of the government by force.
Yes, we do delegate certain roles and responsibilities to our government and with that delegation certian powers are also delegated but we need to understand how that "power" is delegated.
As individuals we formed local and state government and directly delegated "roles and responsibilities" based upon our Inalienable Rights to the State with our State Constitution. We can only delegate "powers" that we possess based upon our own Inalienable Rights as Individual Persons. We have a Right of Self-Defense so we delegated part of the role and responsibility of Self-Defense to the "State" in the State Constitution which authorizes a police force and criminal justice system. We also authorized the State to collect the money necessary to fund this with taxation. We granted the "power to government" to provide for our protection, to use the limited force necessary, and to tax us for the purpose of funding this role and responsibility.
We can put this into hypothetical mathmatical terms.
We have 100% of the "powers" related to our own Inalienable Rights as a Person and delegated 10% of those powers to the State government through the State Constitution.
In turn the States "subcontracted" part of the powers that we have granted to the State to provide for the Self-Defense of the individual person to the Federal government in the US Constitution where the Federal government has a role and responsibility to provide for the mutual Defense of all of the States, and the People therein, with the US military. Basically the States delegated 10% of their 10% or 1% of the "powers" the Individual persons had granted to the State in the State Constitution to the Federal government.
In a simple mathatical expression this might be represented as:
100% > 10% > 1%
Here is where a logical deduction can be made. The States, that control the US Constitution, cannot logically delegate a "power" to the US government that the People have not first delegated to the State government through the State Constitution. All of the delegation of "power" originates with the "Person" and that "Power" must first exist in the Person based upon their Inalienable Rights. As individuals we have a Right of Self-Defense against Acts of Aggression and the "powers" associated with that Right so we can delegate a limited amount of that "Power" to the State to protect us and in turn the State can delegate a limited amount of it's delegated "Power" to the Federal government.
We, the People, cannot delegate a "Power" to the State that we don't possess nor can the State delegate a "Power" to the Federal government that has not first been delegated to the State by the People. It all originates with the individual Inalienable Rights of the Person, their individual "Powers" to protect their own Inalienable Rights, and to form voluntary agreements to protect their Inalienable Rights from violation and/or involuntary infringement.
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Post by ShivaTD on Feb 18, 2014 13:25:28 GMT
(3) It is "by the consent of the people" that capital punishment exists in many states today. So it makes no sense to declare that capital punishment "cannot exist" according to "this understanding" (i.e. that it must be according to the consent of the people).
A person can only "consent" to that which they have an (Inalienable) Right of Consent to.
All of our actions are limited based upon our Inalienable Rights as a person.
We don't have a Right of Aggression against another Person and the premediated killing of another Person is an act of aggression. We do have an Inalienable Right of Self Defense against an Act of Aggression which could include Killing the Person the person committing an act of aggression against us but self-defense is never a premediated act. Capital punishment is the premediated act of Killing another Person and is unrelated to the Right of Self-Defense (except for the person being killed that has a Right of Self-Defense against the act of aggression we commit against them).
There are no compelling arguments for Capital Punishment based upon the protection of our Inalienable Rights as a Person. Incarceration, which is a limitation upon the convicted person's Freedom to Exercise their Inalienable Right of Liberty, is all that is required to protect our Inalienable Rights from even the most heinous of individuals.
Back to a fundamental principle. All limitations upon our Freedom to Exercise our Inalienable Rights as a Person should be to the least extent possible to achieve the greater protections of our Inalienable Rights and must be based upon compelling argument.
We do not have a Right of Revenge and capital punishment is about revenge and not protection.
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Post by ShivaTD on Feb 18, 2014 13:49:07 GMT
(4) I do not march tightly in lockstep with many of my fellow pro-lifers on this one point: There is an enormous difference, I believe, between a mere zygote and a six-month-old fetus. To destroy the former seems to me like the mere termination of a pregnancy; whereas the latter strikes me as the killing of an innocent human being. At some point, a fetus becomes recognizably human; at which time, it should be considered morally repellent--and should be illegal, I think--to kill that unborn child. The precise point at which this takes place is necessarily a bit arbitrary; still, one has to draw a line somewhere. And if a state wishes to set the deadline at, say, 22 weeks, that seems reasonable enough to me.
Perhaps I can provide a more precise reasoning based upon the Inalienable Rights of the Person.
The comes a point where the fetus could live outside of the woman's body (i.e. natural viability) in which case it would be an independent sovereign person. A few millimeters of human flesh should not result in denial of the individual sovereignty of the "person" that the fetus represents at this point of the pregnancy. At that moment the "fetus" becomes a "person" with all of the Inalienable Rights of a Person including the Right to Life.
At that point the woman only has one Inalienable Right that would justify that "killing" of the fetus and that is the Right of Self-Defense if the "fetus" represents a real threat to the "person" of the Woman. If the fetus represents a serious threat to the health or life of the Woman then the Woman has a Right to defend herself against that threat including the "use of deadly force" if necessary.
This is sort of a long way around to get back to the original Roe v Wade decision which limited abortion once "natural viability of the fetus" existed where only a threat of serious harm or potential death of the woman would allow for third trimester abortions and the decision that the "threat" existed had to be based upon a medical diagnosis.
I've often suggested a Constitutional Amendment to establishe the Right of the Person of the Fetus but in truth it really wouldn't deviate in principle from the decision in Roe v Wade that established the identical protections based upon the "potential personhood" of the fetus at natural viability. I've reviewed Roe v Wade extensively based upon the Inalienable Rights of the Person can can't actually find a flaw with it. The logical arguments presented by the Supreme Court were really a rare exception of the Supreme Court using, established precedent, the law, as well as wisdom related to the Inalienable Rights of the Person in formulating it's decision.
It's one of those Supreme Court decisions I'd give two thumbs up to as it balanced the Rights of the Woman and the Rights of the Preborn (fetus) equally.
What annoys me are the anti-abortionists that seek to violate the Rights of the Woman by denying her access to abortion facilities. Denial of access equates to denial of the Right. If a person cannot Exercise an Inalienable Right it equates to denial of the Right.
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Post by iolo on Feb 18, 2014 14:04:37 GMT
(4) I do not march tightly in lockstep with many of my fellow pro-lifers on this one point: There is an enormous difference, I believe, between a mere zygote and a six-month-old fetus. To destroy the former seems to me like the mere termination of a pregnancy; whereas the latter strikes me as the killing of an innocent human being. At some point, a fetus becomes recognizably human; at which time, it should be considered morally repellent--and should be illegal, I think--to kill that unborn child. The precise point at which this takes place is necessarily a bit arbitrary; still, one has to draw a line somewhere. And if a state wishes to set the deadline at, say, 22 weeks, that seems reasonable enough to me.
Perhaps I can provide a more precise reasoning based upon the Inalienable Rights of the Person.
The comes a point where the fetus could live outside of the woman's body (i.e. natural viability) in which case it would be an independent sovereign person. A few millimeters of human flesh should not result in denial of the individual sovereignty of the "person" that the fetus represents at this point of the pregnancy. At that moment the "fetus" becomes a "person" with all of the Inalienable Rights of a Person including the Right to Life.
At that point the woman only has one Inalienable Right that would justify that "killing" of the fetus and that is the Right of Self-Defense if the "fetus" represents a real threat to the "person" of the Woman. If the fetus represents a serious threat to the health or life of the Woman then the Woman has a Right to defend herself against that threat including the "use of deadly force" if necessary.
This is sort of a long way around to get back to the original Roe v Wade decision which limited abortion once "natural viability of the fetus" existed where only a threat of serious harm or potential death of the woman would allow for third trimester abortions and the decision that the "threat" existed had to be based upon a medical diagnosis.
I've often suggested a Constitutional Amendment to establishe the Right of the Person of the Fetus but in truth it really wouldn't deviate in principle from the decision in Roe v Wade that established the identical protections based upon the "potential personhood" of the fetus at natural viability. I've reviewed Roe v Wade extensively based upon the Inalienable Rights of the Person can can't actually find a flaw with it. The logical arguments presented by the Supreme Court were really a rare exception of the Supreme Court using, established precedent, the law, as well as wisdom related to the Inalienable Rights of the Person in formulating it's decision.
It's one of those Supreme Court decisions I'd give two thumbs up to as it balanced the Rights of the Woman and the Rights of the Preborn (fetus) equally.
What annoys me are the anti-abortionists that seek to violate the Rights of the Woman by denying her access to abortion facilities. Denial of access equates to denial of the Right. If a person cannot Exercise an Inalienable Right it equates to denial of the Right.
In a capitalist world, what could be more inconceivably wicked than to force birth on an unwanted person? Your jails not full enough already? |
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Post by ShivaTD on Feb 18, 2014 14:09:00 GMT
Back to the topic which is the Tea Party one of my greatest complaints is that the general political agenda of politicians elected based upon "Tea Party" movement ideology are opposed to the Inalienable Rights of the Person whenever it doesn't fit with their political agenda.
Their positions on same-sex marriage (general opposition), abortion (anti-abortion), and immigration (limitations on peaceful immigration) are representative of those cases where they oppose the Inalienable Rights of the Person that our government was created to protect. Many also support capital punishment and the War on Drugs that also violate the Inalienable Rights of the Person. They tend to also support US military interventionism in world affairs where the US military violates the Right of Sovereignty of People living in other nations.
Of course I also disagree on other Tea Party agenda issues.
For example to reduce government welfare spending we need to reduce the poverty that necessitates the expenditure. If we reduce poverty then the necessity to mitigate the effects of that poverty are also reduced. Simply ignoring the poverty and cutting the welfare assistance is not a solution to the problem and I believe a role of government is to reduce the problems of the nation where it can do so.
That was a motivation related to my proposal for revising federal taxation (as well as addressing state taxation based upon a consumption tax with prebates) that would reduce poverty and restore the economic upward mobility of the bottom 50% of the American People that has been lost. I seek to reduce poverty that, in turn, reduces government expenditures and the size and scope of government in a reponsible manner but the "Tea Party" does not attempt to address the problem. They attack the symptom that is the "welfare spending" as opposed to addressing the problem that is "poverty" in the United States.
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Post by pjohns1873 on Feb 18, 2014 17:25:09 GMT
(1) To assert that "all persons living within the territory of the nation "--including illegals--may confer sovereignty upon the nation they presently occupy, absent which such sovereignty does not exist, is to argue in a circle: The government is ( ex hypothesi) impotent to control the country's own boundaries, unless these invaders agree to allow it to do so; which, of course, is an unrealistic expectation.
When addressing an issue such as Inalienable Rights of the Person, the foundation for government in the United States, a person must really put on their thinking cap (a capacity I know you're capable of). Let me address the issues one at a time.
The Inalienable Rights of the Person exist without government and governments can either protect, infringe upon, or violate our Freedom to Exercise those Inalienable Rights (Inalienable Rights are not Inviolabe Rights is distinction that some fail to understand). By pragmatic necessity all governments infringe upon our Freedom to Exercise our Inalienable Rights but such infringements should always be to the least extent possible based upon compelling arguments to protect our Inalienable Rights from an idealistic standpoint. Our actions as persons are limited to that which we have a Right to Do.
We have a Right of Self (Individual Sovereignty) We have a Right of Liberty. A subset of that Right of Liberty is the Right of Expatriation (immigration) where we can leave our country of birth and relocate to another country. We have a Right of Self Defense against Acts of Aggression agianst us.
1. National Sovereignty and Immigration
As a people we have the Right to Defend ourselves from Acts of Aggression against us. Based upon this Right of Self-Defense we can restrict the Freedom to Exercise the Right of Liberty/Expatriation of a Person seeking to come to our "nation" to commit Acts of Aggression. This could include convicted criminals that have established they will harm others or terrorists (conspirators) that would come here to do us harm. We can support laws that restrict the Freedom to Exercise the Right of Liberty/Expatriation of a person that would come to the United States to do us harm based upon our Right of Self-Defense. That is a pragmatic limitation based upon a compelling argument supported by the Inalienable Rights of the Person.
We cannot make a compelling argument to limit the Freedom to Exercise the Right of Liberty/Expatriation of a Person that seeks to immigrate to the United States for peaceful purposes based upon the protections of our Inalienable Rights. They do not represent a threat of Acts of Aggression agianst us where we can claim "Self-Defense" as a reason to impose a limitation upon them.
So we have immigration laws that are based upon a compelling argument where they are a "protection" of our Inalienable Rights (the purpose of government as established by the Declaration of Independence) and we have immigration laws that do not provide any "protection" of our Inalienable Rights but that do violate the Freedom to Exercise the Inalienable Rights of another Person. The first (limiting immigration based upon self-defense) is Constitutional while the second (restrictions unrelated to self-defense) is Unconstitutional based upon the Ninth Amendment that protects the unenumerated Rights of all Persons (not just US citizens).
So the statement that the national sovereignty is not based upon "illegal" aliens is correct but that only relates to "illegal" aliens that have entered the country against the laws that are based upon the Protections of our Inalienable Rights. It would not apply to those that come here for peaceful purposes as those laws are a violation of the Right of Liberty/Expatriation and are technically a violation of the 9th Amendment to the US Constitution.
National sovereignty is based upon all citizens and all immigrants (that are here for peaceful purposes based upon their Inalienable Right of Liberty/Expatriation) as it represents the cummulative Individual Right of Sovereignty of all persons. If that was not the case then there would be no argument to support national defenses because national defense is about protection of the Individual Sovereignty of the Person living within the territorial boundries of the United States.
Of note there are no "compelling arguments" that would support limiting the Freedom to Exercise the Right of Liberty/Expatriation of a person that would come to the United States for peaceful purposes based upon the protections of our Inalienable Rights as they represent no threat to our Inalienable Rights.
To enlist the Ninth Amendment as an argument in favor of illegal immigration is, at best, to indulge in "Living Constitution" theory, since no reasonable person might suppose that the Founders intended this as a protection for illegal immigrants. (It is roughly analogous to one's using the Thirteenth Amendment--which proscribes involuntary servitude, "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted--as an argument against a military draft; even though those who wrote and ratified the amendment never intended it for that purpose.) No country can allow unlimite immigration; and especially not if there are likely to be far more immigrating (illegally) than there are of Americans emigrating to another country. This would stretch the social-services systems beyond the breaking point; and it would also result in a radical imbalance between working-age individuals and jobs available. Moreover, it is disingenuous to declare some of our immigration laws as "unconstitutional," even though they have never been ruled as such; and probably never shall be. And it is dangerous to suggest that non-Americans (wishing to come to this country) should have veto power over America's laws. |
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Post by pjohns1873 on Feb 18, 2014 17:40:54 GMT
(2) To arge that government has "Power" but no "Rights" is to quibble over mere semantics. Those powers are, in fact, the rights granted by the US Constitution.
There is a huge difference and not just a game of semantics.
Power is the use of force agianst the person where Inalienable Rights are exclusively related to the individual person. To confuse the two is to rationalize the atrocities commited by government's such as the Holocaust of Nazi Germany. There is no question that the Nazis had the "power" to commit the atrocities that violated the Inalienable Rights of the Person subjected to the authority of the government by force.
Yes, we do delegate certain roles and responsibilities to our government and with that delegation certian powers are also delegated but we need to understand how that "power" is delegated.
As individuals we formed local and state government and directly delegated "roles and responsibilities" based upon our Inalienable Rights to the State with our State Constitution. We can only delegate "powers" that we possess based upon our own Inalienable Rights as Individual Persons. We have a Right of Self-Defense so we delegated part of the role and responsibility of Self-Defense to the "State" in the State Constitution which authorizes a police force and criminal justice system. We also authorized the State to collect the money necessary to fund this with taxation. We granted the "power to government" to provide for our protection, to use the limited force necessary, and to tax us for the purpose of funding this role and responsibility.
We can put this into hypothetical mathmatical terms.
We have 100% of the "powers" related to our own Inalienable Rights as a Person and delegated 10% of those powers to the State government through the State Constitution.
In turn the States "subcontracted" part of the powers that we have granted to the State to provide for the Self-Defense of the individual person to the Federal government in the US Constitution where the Federal government has a role and responsibility to provide for the mutual Defense of all of the States, and the People therein, with the US military. Basically the States delegated 10% of their 10% or 1% of the "powers" the Individual persons had granted to the State in the State Constitution to the Federal government.
In a simple mathatical expression this might be represented as:
100% > 10% > 1%
Here is where a logical deduction can be made. The States, that control the US Constitution, cannot logically delegate a "power" to the US government that the People have not first delegated to the State government through the State Constitution. All of the delegation of "power" originates with the "Person" and that "Power" must first exist in the Person based upon their Inalienable Rights. As individuals we have a Right of Self-Defense against Acts of Aggression and the "powers" associated with that Right so we can delegate a limited amount of that "Power" to the State to protect us and in turn the State can delegate a limited amount of it's delegated "Power" to the Federal government.
We, the People, cannot delegate a "Power" to the State that we don't possess nor can the State delegate a "Power" to the Federal government that has not first been delegated to the State by the People. It all originates with the individual Inalienable Rights of the Person, their individual "Powers" to protect their own Inalienable Rights, and to form voluntary agreements to protect their Inalienable Rights from violation and/or involuntary infringement.
The US Constitution was not based upon some "Inalienable Rights of the Person"--a phrase that I have not yet found in that document (although you seem to like it quite a lot!)--but upon the social contract (or social compact, as some prefer to phrase it). For more on this, see John Locke, whose views undergird the Declaration of Independence (which, of course, preceded the US Constitution). This country's government has the right to certain things (as all governments do); to compare that with Nazi Germany is simply not intellectually honest. |
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Post by pjohns1873 on Feb 18, 2014 17:58:18 GMT
Perhaps I can provide a more precise reasoning based upon the Inalienable Rights of the Person.
The comes a point where the fetus could live outside of the woman's body (i.e. natural viability) in which case it would be an independent sovereign person. A few millimeters of human flesh should not result in denial of the individual sovereignty of the "person" that the fetus represents at this point of the pregnancy. At that moment the "fetus" becomes a "person" with all of the Inalienable Rights of a Person including the Right to Life.
At that point the woman only has one Inalienable Right that would justify that "killing" of the fetus and that is the Right of Self-Defense if the "fetus" represents a real threat to the "person" of the Woman. If the fetus represents a serious threat to the health or life of the Woman then the Woman has a Right to defend herself against that threat including the "use of deadly force" if necessary.
This is sort of a long way around to get back to the original Roe v Wade decision which limited abortion once "natural viability of the fetus" existed where only a threat of serious harm or potential death of the woman would allow for third trimester abortions and the decision that the "threat" existed had to be based upon a medical diagnosis.
I've often suggested a Constitutional Amendment to establishe the Right of the Person of the Fetus but in truth it really wouldn't deviate in principle from the decision in Roe v Wade that established the identical protections based upon the "potential personhood" of the fetus at natural viability. I've reviewed Roe v Wade extensively based upon the Inalienable Rights of the Person can can't actually find a flaw with it. The logical arguments presented by the Supreme Court were really a rare exception of the Supreme Court using, established precedent, the law, as well as wisdom related to the Inalienable Rights of the Person in formulating it's decision.
It's one of those Supreme Court decisions I'd give two thumbs up to as it balanced the Rights of the Woman and the Rights of the Preborn (fetus) equally.
What annoys me are the anti-abortionists that seek to violate the Rights of the Woman by denying her access to abortion facilities. Denial of access equates to denial of the Right. If a person cannot Exercise an Inalienable Right it equates to denial of the Right.
(1) A newborn infant is not really "viable"; which is to say, it simply cannot survive on its own. So it is morally incumbent--and must also be legally incumbent--upon its mother to care for it adequately. (2) To declare that "the Right of Self-Defense" would make it perfectly acceptable for a mother to kill her newborn child begs the question: What sort of self-defense might be implied? It is very unlikely (to say the least) that an infant might represent a physical threat to its mother. So we must be talking about a mother whose health might be seriously impaired if she were to care for her child adequately. In such an instance, do you really believe that infanticide would be morally acceptable--or that it should be considered legally acceptable? |
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Post by pjohns1873 on Feb 18, 2014 18:06:56 GMT
Back to the topic which is the Tea Party one of my greatest complaints is that the general political agenda of politicians elected based upon "Tea Party" movement ideology are opposed to the Inalienable Rights of the Person whenever it doesn't fit with their political agenda.
Their positions on same-sex marriage (general opposition), abortion (anti-abortion), and immigration (limitations on peaceful immigration) are representative of those cases where they oppose the Inalienable Rights of the Person that our government was created to protect. Many also support capital punishment and the War on Drugs that also violate the Inalienable Rights of the Person. They tend to also support US military interventionism in world affairs where the US military violates the Right of Sovereignty of People living in other nations.
Of course I also disagree on other Tea Party agenda issues.
For example to reduce government welfare spending we need to reduce the poverty that necessitates the expenditure. If we reduce poverty then the necessity to mitigate the effects of that poverty are also reduced. Simply ignoring the poverty and cutting the welfare assistance is not a solution to the problem and I believe a role of government is to reduce the problems of the nation where it can do so.
That was a motivation related to my proposal for revising federal taxation (as well as addressing state taxation based upon a consumption tax with prebates) that would reduce poverty and restore the economic upward mobility of the bottom 50% of the American People that has been lost. I seek to reduce poverty that, in turn, reduces government expenditures and the size and scope of government in a reponsible manner but the "Tea Party" does not attempt to address the problem. They attack the symptom that is the "welfare spending" as opposed to addressing the problem that is "poverty" in the United States.
You appear to believe that government can "reduce poverty"--even though a half-century of the War on Poverty (instituted by LBJ) has failed miserably. To believe that government policies, if properly designed, might reduce poverty, is an article of faith--not a reasoned argument. (Certainly, massive redistributionism--which we have been attempting for a very long time now--may mitigate some of the effects of poverty; but it does so by leaving its beneficiaries in poverty, and dependent upon the government.) |
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Post by ShivaTD on Feb 18, 2014 20:03:49 GMT
To enlist the Ninth Amendment as an argument in favor of illegal immigration is, at best, to indulge in "Living Constitution" theory, since no reasonable person might suppose that the Founders intended this as a protection for illegal immigrants. (It is roughly analogous to one's using the Thirteenth Amendment--which proscribes involuntary servitude, "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted--as an argument against a military draft; even though those who wrote and ratified the amendment never intended it for that purpose.) No country can allow unlimite immigration; and especially not if there are likely to be far more immigrating (illegally) than there are of Americans emigrating to another country. This would stretch the social-services systems beyond the breaking point; and it would also result in a radical imbalance between working-age individuals and jobs available. Moreover, it is disingenuous to declare some of our immigration laws as "unconstitutional," even though they have never been ruled as such; and probably never shall be. And it is dangerous to suggest that non-Americans (wishing to come to this country) should have veto power over America's laws.
We should note at this point that the very settling of the American colonies and later expansion of the United States was based upon the Right of Expatriation (immigration) regardless of the beliefs and inspite of the objections of the existing Native-American population. If the Right of Expatriation does not exist we can't even justify the existance of the United States even had we not violated the Rights of the Native-American People in any manner.
Of course the objection is to citing the 9th Amendment in my argument but we need only address the logic and reason behind the 9th Amendment:
Thomas Jefferson made numerous arguments supporting the Inalienable Right of Expatriation (immigration).
"Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation and freedom in all just pursuits."
"The evidence of the natural rights of expatriation, like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical"
Jefferson goes so far as to declare that a person has a right to resort to "any effectual and unequivocal act or declaration" to exercise their Right of Expatriation (immigration) that not even "every other person" may take away from them.
"I hold the right of expatriation to be inherent in every man by the laws of nature, and incapable of being rightfully taken from him even by the united will of every other person in the nation. If the laws have provided no particular mode by which the right of expatriation may be exercised, the individual may do it by any effectual and unequivocal act or declaration." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1806. FE 8:458
In short a Person, according to Jefferson, has the authority to take whatever action necessary, including the violation of law that would prevent it, in exercising the inalienable Right of Expatriation (immigration) because not even "every other person in the nation" can deny this Right of the Person.
The fact that our immigration laws have not been adjudicated based upon the 9th Amendment and the Inalienable Right of Expatriation, which was identified at the founding of the United States but not enumerated, is a straw man argument because it would have to be based upon a belief that all of the Inalienable Rights of the Person have been identified and adjudicated by the US Supreme Court.
We should also note that Constitutional Conservatives would argue (based upon the Federalist Papers) that the US government has no authority to control peaceful immigration as the US Constitution does not delegate that role or responsibility to Congress.
I find the "jobs and social services" argument lacks merit. Immigrants create more jobs than they fill and they pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits according to the American Enterprise Institute.
I would actually suggest reading the entire study done by the American Enterprise Institute as it is very informative. Juxtaposed to a common perception open immigration is highly beneficial to the economy.
www.renewoureconomy.org/sites/all/themes/pnae/img/NAE_Im-AmerJobs.pdf
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Post by ShivaTD on Feb 18, 2014 20:35:43 GMT
The US Constitution was not based upon some "Inalienable Rights of the Person"--a phrase that I have not yet found in that document (although you seem to like it quite a lot!)--but upon the social contract (or social compact, as some prefer to phrase it). For more on this, see John Locke, whose views undergird the Declaration of Independence (which, of course, preceded the US Constitution). This country's government has the right to certain things (as all governments do); to compare that with Nazi Germany is simply not intellectually honest.
John Locke provided some of the earliest arguments for the natural (inalienable) Rights of the Person but always remember he represented the infancy of understanding those Rights. It has been the responsibility of every subsequent generation to expand our understanding of those natural (Inalienable) Rights of the Person and certainly by 1776 the scholars in America had moved far beyond the infancy of understanding that John Locke proposed.
As understood then based upon the initial compelling arguments by John Locke and additional arguments later presented by the Founders of the United States we have the compelling argument for the Inalienable Rights of the Person.
To argue that the "government" has "Rights" would require the same compelling argument but that argument does not exist. Simply stating the "Government has Rights" does not provide a compelling argument that those Rights exist. Governments have "power" and not "rights" as there is no foundation for any belief that "government has rights" in existance. There was one argument though before the Declaration of Independence, and which John Locke argued against, and that was the Divine Right of Kings where "God" grants all Rights and Powers to the King and the People have no inherent Rights or Powers. Of course the Divine Right of Kings was based upon a declaration of the King and not established by God.
The founders of America rejected the Divine Right of Kings (and yet retained many aspects of it in practice).
Many try to argue that the Declaration of Independence has no legal authority in the United States but they are wrong. It was a declaration passed into law by the Continental Congress and is often cited in Supreme Court decisions as legal precendent related to the US Constitution.
Yes, the US Constitution is a "social contract" between the several States. It is not a "social contract" of the People as the People did not create it nor can the People change it. There was no popular vote to adopt the US Constitution and it can only be changed based upon the consent of 3/4ths of the States. The People can't call a Constitutional Conventions and change the Constitution by popular vote. The power to change the US Constitution is reserved to the State governments that obtain their authority from the People by the State Constitution (social contract of the People).
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Post by ShivaTD on Feb 18, 2014 20:52:08 GMT
You appear to believe that government can "reduce poverty"--even though a half-century of the War on Poverty (instituted by LBJ) has failed miserably. To believe that government policies, if properly designed, might reduce poverty, is an article of faith--not a reasoned argument. (Certainly, massive redistributionism--which we have been attempting for a very long time now--may mitigate some of the effects of poverty; but it does so by leaving its beneficiaries in poverty, and dependent upon the government.)
The government has made no attempt to address poverty but instead has implemented multiple programs to address the symptoms of poverty.
Let me use the "First" and "Biggest" attempt by government.
In the 1930's the government found that about one-half of the American People had not accumulated enough in personal assets (wealth) to provide income when they became too old to work. The federal government, under FDR, created Social Security to provide income to those to old to work but the lack of income was merely a symptom of the problem that the people didn't accumulate enough personal wealth to provide the income they required when they became too old to work, Social Security did not address the problem.
Not surprisingly in the 1960's the same problem existed that was ignored by Social Security because the Congress once again found that about one-half of the American People hadn't accumulated enough personal wealth to provide the income necessary to purchase private health insurance when they became too old to work. Same problem, different symptom, so the Congress created Medicare and once again ignored the problem.
Since the 1960's we've had the "War on Poverty" but all it does is provide financial assistance to mitigate the effects of poverty. It does nothing to reduce the poverty because it only addresses the symptoms of poverty (a lack of income) and not poverty itself (increasing personal income). Our government has proven itself to be very good at identifying problems but has demonstated an unwillingness to address the actual problems.
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Post by pjohns1873 on Feb 20, 2014 17:37:47 GMT
To enlist the Ninth Amendment as an argument in favor of illegal immigration is, at best, to indulge in "Living Constitution" theory, since no reasonable person might suppose that the Founders intended this as a protection for illegal immigrants. (It is roughly analogous to one's using the Thirteenth Amendment--which proscribes involuntary servitude, "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted--as an argument against a military draft; even though those who wrote and ratified the amendment never intended it for that purpose.) No country can allow unlimite immigration; and especially not if there are likely to be far more immigrating (illegally) than there are of Americans emigrating to another country. This would stretch the social-services systems beyond the breaking point; and it would also result in a radical imbalance between working-age individuals and jobs available. Moreover, it is disingenuous to declare some of our immigration laws as "unconstitutional," even though they have never been ruled as such; and probably never shall be. And it is dangerous to suggest that non-Americans (wishing to come to this country) should have veto power over America's laws.
We should note at this point that the very settling of the American colonies and later expansion of the United States was based upon the Right of Expatriation (immigration) regardless of the beliefs and inspite of the objections of the existing Native-American population. If the Right of Expatriation does not exist we can't even justify the existance of the United States even had we not violated the Rights of the Native-American People in any manner.
Of course the objection is to citing the 9th Amendment in my argument but we need only address the logic and reason behind the 9th Amendment:
Thomas Jefferson made numerous arguments supporting the Inalienable Right of Expatriation (immigration).
"Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation and freedom in all just pursuits."
"The evidence of the natural rights of expatriation, like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical"
Jefferson goes so far as to declare that a person has a right to resort to "any effectual and unequivocal act or declaration" to exercise their Right of Expatriation (immigration) that not even "every other person" may take away from them.
"I hold the right of expatriation to be inherent in every man by the laws of nature, and incapable of being rightfully taken from him even by the united will of every other person in the nation. If the laws have provided no particular mode by which the right of expatriation may be exercised, the individual may do it by any effectual and unequivocal act or declaration." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1806. FE 8:458
In short a Person, according to Jefferson, has the authority to take whatever action necessary, including the violation of law that would prevent it, in exercising the inalienable Right of Expatriation (immigration) because not even "every other person in the nation" can deny this Right of the Person.
The fact that our immigration laws have not been adjudicated based upon the 9th Amendment and the Inalienable Right of Expatriation, which was identified at the founding of the United States but not enumerated, is a straw man argument because it would have to be based upon a belief that all of the Inalienable Rights of the Person have been identified and adjudicated by the US Supreme Court.
We should also note that Constitutional Conservatives would argue (based upon the Federalist Papers) that the US government has no authority to control peaceful immigration as the US Constitution does not delegate that role or responsibility to Congress.
I find the "jobs and social services" argument lacks merit. Immigrants create more jobs than they fill and they pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits according to the American Enterprise Institute.
I would actually suggest reading the entire study done by the American Enterprise Institute as it is very informative. Juxtaposed to a common perception open immigration is highly beneficial to the economy.
www.renewoureconomy.org/sites/all/themes/pnae/img/NAE_Im-AmerJobs.pdf
(1) Even if we were to accept these words of Jefferson as authoritative--and they are not; only the Constitution is--you would be fundamentally confusing two separate concepts, viz., the right of expatriation to an unsettled land mass with the right of immigration to a sovereign nation. (2) To declare that legal immigrants have historically generated more jobs than they have taken--presumably, through the engendering of jobs of a tangential nature--is quite irrelevant. If illegal immigrants--which is to say, invaders of our country--did not take some of these jobs, there would be more jobs available for unemployed Americans; and this number includes both the native-born population and those who have immigrated here legally. |
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