I suppose the ambiguity keeps the politicians wondering.
At the very least, the American Revolution serves as a precedent: Armed retaliation is justified when the government is a far-off power imposing taxation without representation.
Well, Washington D.C. is hundreds or thousands of miles away from where most people live; Congress has sustained extremely low approval ratings, indicating a disconnect with their constituents; like a king, the President can increasingly write law unilaterally through executive orders; the interpretations of the Justices are progressively detached from logic, leaving many perplexed as to what "rule of law" even means; and, the Federal Reserve extracts purchasing power from every holder of dollars by "printing" more dollars, essentially taxing people without really consulting them or even engaging in public debate on the matter.
I suppose the ambiguity keeps the politicians mindful.
At the very least, the American Revolution serves as a precedent: Armed retaliation is justified when the government is a far-off, alienating power imposing taxation without representation.
Well, Washington D.C. is hundreds or thousands of miles away from where most people live; Congress has sustained extremely low approval ratings, indicating a disconnect with its constituents; like a king, the President can increasingly write law unilaterally through executive orders; the interpretations of the Justices are progressively detached from logic, leaving many perplexed as to what "rule of law" even means; and, the Federal Reserve extracts purchasing power from every holder of dollars by "printing" more dollars, essentially taxing people without really consulting them or even engaging in public debate on the matter.
Perhaps it could have been phrased more clearly: It seems like more and more [the force (and consequence to the citizen) of the government's authority] is based on "rules" issued by unelected officials, and less based on actual laws passed by [elected members of] Congress.
The federal-state dynamic is certainly interesting. The federal government doesn't have the resources to enforce all the laws they have on the books and rely on states to enact similar laws to enforce most of them. I wonder if they will ever increase enforcement or if this state-level defiance/contradictions will continue to grow and spread to other states. I think there has been some talk of similar movements for gun rights.
It's Christmas Eve, and I'm enjoying my coffee and feel rather disinclined to get into a political argument, so I'll just toss a few thoughts around without intending to respond (I'll chat via email tho'). I agree that increasing power should be treated with great scepticism (But it isn't, honestly. And that's a shame).
Point: Police power is inherently a use of force on the citizenry. The Army is the same, loooosely.
Point: Taxing, coining, patenting are all applications of force.
Point: The 5th amendment clearly lines out uses of force.
Point: The 5th amendment also includes a key phrase, "due process of law", indicating that the government is limited. The 3rd amedment supports this as well, requiring a limitation on quartering in time of war via law.
Point: Law & regulations, period, are the application of the government's use of force to ensure a smooth governing (See Hobbes for a work known in the late 1700s).
Conclusion: The US founders designed the government to have power (Unverified statement based on recollections - but split in such a way that each arm of government was naturally incented to limit the power of the other arms).
Nit: The US is a republic, not a democracy. It's regrettable that a district can't recall its representative wholly on its own. Perhaps that would restrain certain foolishness in the system...
The American political system makes quite a lot of sense. It isn't supposed to be top-down. The writers of the law wanted a top-down centralized approach and that isn't how the US Constitution or US States are structured. You can get away with it for a lot of things, but anything this intrusive just doesn't work. Its not the first or, sadly, the last that the federal government will try this sort of thing.
It's even more interesting that similar sudden aggression from the state entities can be seen in other nations.
The entire elaborate system of american laws, the bill of rights, congress and so on exists for one purpose: to keep the state demon in its cage. For some reason it's gotten very aggressive recently.
Any centralized authority with a monopoly on force is going to have to levy taxes. Otherwise you’d end up with people just refusing to pay because they didn’t get the judgements they desire.
If there is a state _at all_ there is force involved. I don’t really understand what you believe is possible here. What you’re discussing is tantamount to assuming that American traditions of due process just exist in a state of nature when they absolutely do not.
It's so bizarre that this article considers forcing the Federal government to operate within legal limits to be terrifying. This is not an actual problem. If there is a legitimate need for more governmental authority then that can be addressed through the defined legislative process.
I'm unsure what the problem is with the federal government legislating laws into existence. That's sort of their job. The Constituion isn't the end all be all law of the land.
Some days it's difficult to tell which organization is truly in charge of the united states. Nominally for example, the state governments are in charge of things like medical care regulation, but increasingly unelected national business men threaten retaliation whenever the legislature passes law they don't like.
There seems to be a grave misunderstanding here. I expect the state to run the court system on taxes, as much as I expect it to run the police and the military.
I think there's a third possibly: namely that Congress has somehow allowed the FBI to make such rules, but could reclaim control in the future.
As I understand it, a lot of things work like this in some unitary (as opposed to federal), parliamentary (as opposed to presidential) democracies. In at least some such countries all governmental power ultimately depends on the elected legislature, but it can be delegated to other bodies (including to the executive and to local government) as the legislature chooses. The legislature can reclaim its power, too, even from directly-elected local authorities.
The U.S. Constitution and its amendments establishes limits to the power of the Federal Government. The obsession with it is that governments tends to overstep their bounds. It's something the lay person can read and point to, and definitively say when the government is doing something it is not authorized to do.
You assume that state and citizens are equal. One has right to set law, gather taxes, mandate force, conscript into army and spy. The other has right to remain silent (unless asked a question).
Using government to apply force onto an individual and violate their property rights is the unit of analysis here. Whether that government is local, state or country is besides the point.
This basic fact eludes the intelligentsia who all assume that federal power is The Way Things Are (or Should Be). They assume it's the default position, when in fact the Framers intended it to be a bare-bones fallback for only basic things like the national defense.
At the very least, the American Revolution serves as a precedent: Armed retaliation is justified when the government is a far-off power imposing taxation without representation.
Well, Washington D.C. is hundreds or thousands of miles away from where most people live; Congress has sustained extremely low approval ratings, indicating a disconnect with their constituents; like a king, the President can increasingly write law unilaterally through executive orders; the interpretations of the Justices are progressively detached from logic, leaving many perplexed as to what "rule of law" even means; and, the Federal Reserve extracts purchasing power from every holder of dollars by "printing" more dollars, essentially taxing people without really consulting them or even engaging in public debate on the matter.
So... hmmm...
reply