Recently, this blog has featured a number of states targeting strip clubs for special taxes — raising serious constitutional concerns. Now a federal court has agreed and struck down such a tax in Texas. Travis County District Judge Scott H. Jenkins has ruled that such laws are unconstitutional under the first amendment.
In Texas, legislators wanted to use a $5 per patron tax to raise more than $40 million annually for anti-sexual-assault programs and healthcare for the uninsured.
Jenkins wisely struck down the law after finding that “There is no evidence that combining alcohol with nude erotic dancing causes dancers to be uninsured,” he wrote.
State Rep. Ellen Cohen of Houston, however, is not deterred and vowed to write a narrower measure. Yet, one way to have more money for such programs is to stop writing unconstitutional legislation that causes the state to spend copious amounts of money for politically popular but constitutionally flawed bills.
For the prior discussion, click here and here.
For the latest article, click here
Just thought Id let everyone know niblet is a 20 something yearold college dropout 4chan loving troller who’s exploits on the web are well known to many people who are also underedjucated for their intellect.
We are all sorry our parents didn’t have “enough time” wah wah wah go get some rap albums and think nihlistic thoughts
I am blown away by the Jefferson quotes and by the tenor of discussion about them. It is a lot for my heart and brain to assimilate. In short a joy!
Thank you for the welcome back, Mespo. 🙂 You and VC/Binx and Patty and Publius and Rafflaw and Michael S have made this thread a joy to read….
DW
Mespo:
Indeed. Your missive is a very fine promotion for studying the Constitution. I’ve often thought it needs serious updating of sorts but perhaps that is folly.
Wow … I believe that the abundance of Thomas Jefferson’s quotes has distinguished this conversation string,
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Deeply & Binx101:
First, DW glad to have you back and in rare form. What wonderful quotes and thoughts. Binx101, I must compliment you for driving our resident obstructionist to other threads where his anger is more diluted. To the point of Jefferson, it appears quite obvious to me that Jefferson (and James Madison to a large extent as well), were the intellectual center of the new Republic. Vince Treachy has sparked my interest in John Adams,and I must also acknowledge his monumental contribution as well, based on the very superficial reading I have accomplished. My point is that we have allowed the Tory element in our own time to warp our history to the point that we must defend the founders principles. What has happened to these psudo-conservatives that has caused this intellectual Dark Age when it comes to their own Nations’ political heritage. I do not think our interpretations are particularly idealogical, but merely are gleaned from the very words of the founders. The unwarranted venom directed at these fundamental ideas about democracy should give us all pause as we consider the reasons for the neo-con point of view.
Patty C,
As ever, thanking you in advance! I never thought of Google!
DW
Wow … I believe that the abundance of Thomas Jefferson’s quotes has distinguished this conversation string, despite my having driven it off course earlier by breaking my silence in a most distracting manner. What a delightful read ensued!
I am though curious as to any opinions of the manner in which someone might perfect a tax on strip clubs and not be in conflict with the Article 1 of the US Constitution.
No wonder you’re tired. Forget JT’s Search Engine. Go on the internet. Try Google. Type in Jonathan Turley and whatever keyword(s)you know and DW. See what comes up…
Otherwise, ask me. I’ll help you find it. I love doing that stuff!
Patty C,
I cannot tell you how many of the 400+ threads in the Constitutional Law category I had to look through before I found my old posts!!
– even better, DW… Who says your memory is fading? 😉
From an 1816 letter to Samuel Kercheval, here’s Thomas Jefferson:
“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves were they to rise from the dead.”
hello all,
Reading Jefferson’s letter to Kercheval quoted above, I remember that I too, twice used that letter in a January thread, with Mike Huckabee as the topic. Since it is a wonderful letter as Mespo states and I quote from it at great length, I thought I would repost the old thread comments below, FWIW:
1, January 18, 2008 at 4:04 pm
commoner,
There is an interesting quote from Thomas Jefferson that bears on the tendency to deify the Framers and those schools of constitutional interpretation that would have us adhere tightly to how the Framers understood the document…
From an 1816 letter to Samuel Kercheval, here’s Thomas Jefferson:
“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves were they to rise from the dead.”
1, January 18, 2008 at 7:48 pm
As to whether the Constitution is a living document, amenable to change with evolving standards, Jefferson has these general observations re adaptability (not specifically to the US Constitution) in the same letter to Kercheval:
“But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. It is this preposterous idea which has lately deluged Europe in blood. Their monarchs, instead of wisely yielding to the gradual change of circumstances, of favoring progressive accommodation to progressive improvement, have clung to old abuses, entrenched themselves behind steady habits, and obliged their subjects to seek through blood and violence rash and ruinous innovations, which, had they been referred to the peaceful deliberations and collected wisdom of the nation, would have been put into acceptable and salutary forms. Let us follow no such examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself, and of ordering its own affairs.”
One just has to laugh at the originalists and strict constructionists… The Warren Court was correct. It was correct all along, and hopefully someday we will climb back up to that high plateau of jurisprudence.”
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So much for old thread quotes, but these two posts seemed appropriate to the above discussion.
Binx, you have Uncle Nunzio. We have Niblet.
It’s sort of like when you put your coins in the soda machine and push the button that reads ‘Coke’, you expect to get a Coke.
Here, when you push the button you usually get a ‘Coke’, and
occasionally you get ‘Corn’.
Not what you wanted.
If we can’t ignore it, maybe we can have fun with it.
Panel Three:
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism.
Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.
Establish a law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state and on a general plan.”
Original Passages:
“Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.”
— The Autobiography
Patty C.
The Broward County Health guy is I believe my younger cousin, who shares the name. different middle names though.
You and I must agree to disagree re: Binx’s post. Niblet is quite intemperate in his comments and rarely even bothers to muster a relatively cogent argument. The reaction to him on this site is most temperate and mostly much more courteous than he really deserves. The level of discourse here eschews
the vitriolic exchanges that are the norm on most other sites. That is why I recently began placing comments here, although I’ve been visiting this site for a long while.
I used to be a frequent poster on many other sites, but stopped about 1.5 years ago due to health problems and the fact that I found myself returning the vitriol I encountered in kind. I have been capable at times of vicious sarcasm and while it was in the service of promoting my point of view, it is a trait that I work to overcome. A person needs to work to be the kind person they wish to be, sometimes we don’t achieve our aspirations.
rafflaw and niblet,
I honor the service of both your children as well. I hope for their safe return.
Jill