Below is my column in the Washington Post (Sunday) on our recent victory in the Sister Wives case. The column looks at the most significant aspect of the case — the rejection of morality codes that once controlled across the country in prohibiting everything from homosexuality to adultery to fornication. These morality laws were upheld in the decision in Reynolds in 1876 in a polygamy case out of Utah. The Brown decision returned us to the same question involving the same issue in the same state. Some 136 years later however the answer from this federal court was very different. We are a different country today and, despite what one hears from politicians like Rick Santorum, I believe that we are a better country today.
There does seem to be confusion about the ruling with some saying that polygamy is still not legal after the opinion. That is simply wrong. Polygamy is not the same a bigamy. One is the crime defined under cohabitation statutes of living as a plural family or with a person married to another person. The other is the crime of having two or more marriage licenses. The latter has nothing to do with the structure of your family and has almost exclusively involved people who hold themselves out (falsely) as monogamous. We always argued that the state could prosecute people who obtained more than one marriage license. Bigamy has not been an offense committed by polygamists who traditionally have one official marriage license and multiple spiritual licenses. Indeed, the law targeted polygamy with the cohabitation provision precisely because there is a difference between the two. The state fought for years to preserve this law because it reached beyond simple bigamy. Before this opinion, it was a crime for polygamists to live, as do the Browns, in a plural family. After the opinion, it is legal. This is precisely what occurred in Lawrence v. Texas where homosexual unions were a crime but then became legal when the Texas law was struck down. This decision legalizes tens of thousands of polygamous families who will no longer been viewed as criminal enterprises. They will be allowed to be open plural families. They are now legal relationships. Legality of polygamy is entirely different from recognition of plural marriages just as the legality of homosexual relations is different from the recognition of same-sex marriage.
There is also a lack of knowledge about the existence of such laws outside of Utah. This law does exist outside of Utah. Indeed, the very same language is found in the Canadian cohabitation law. I was called as a legal expert in the recent challenge to that law. However, the Canadian Supreme Court in British Columbia upheld the law. Putting these distinctions aside, the thrust of this article is how this decision is part of a larger trend toward the repeal or the striking down of morality codes, including the rejection of a cohabitation law in Virginia this year.
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The decision this month by a federal court striking down the criminalization of polygamy in Utah was met with a mix of rejoicing and rage. What was an emancipating decision for thousands of plural families was denounced as the final descent into a moral abyss by others.
Former senator Rick Santorum was among the social conservatives trying to claim the moral high ground. He tweeted on Sunday: “Some times I hate it when what I predict comes true” — referring to his 2003 claim that legalizing “consensual sex within your home” would lead to the legalization of polygamy and “undermine the fabric of our society.” (On Wednesday, with no apparent sense of self-contradiction, he expressed outrage over the removal of a Nativity scene at a South Carolina military base, tweeting: “Our Constitution protects free exercise of religion. No govt entity/official has the right to limit that.”)It’s true that the Utah ruling is one of the latest examples of a national trend away from laws that impose a moral code. There is a difference, however, between the demise of morality laws and the demise of morality. This distinction appears to escape social conservatives nostalgic for a time when the government dictated whom you could live with or sleep with. But the rejection of moral codes is no more a rejection of morality than the rejection of speech codes is a rejection of free speech. Our morality laws are falling, and we are a better nation for it.
In the Utah case, I was the lead counsel for the Browns, the polygamous family featured in the TLC reality program “Sister Wives.” They are members of the Apostolic United Brethren Church, and they have one marriage license and three “spiritual” marriages among them. After the first episode of “Sister Wives” aired, state prosecutors threatened to bring charges under a Utah law that made it a crime when a married person “purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person.” The Browns were under investigation for two years and were publicly called felons before they took prosecutors to court in a challenge to the constitutionality of the law.
The case was never about the recognition of multiple marriages or the acceptance of the religious values underlying this plural family. It was about the right of consenting adults to make decisions for themselves and their families. Judge Clark Waddoups, a conservative George W. Bush appointee,ruled that the criminalization of cohabitation clearly violated the due process clause and the free exercise clause of the United States Constitution.
In doing so, he departed from the prevailing precedent: the Supreme Court’s opinion inReynolds v. United States , which upheld a ban on polygamy in 1879. Waddoups wrote that courts today are “less inclined to allow majoritarian coercion of unpopular or disliked minority groups, especially when blatant racism . . . religious prejudice, or some other constitutionally suspect motivation, can be discovered behind such legislation.”
Indeed, in Reynolds, religious and racial prejudice were vividly on display. The court unleashed a tirade of indignation and condemnation, stating, “Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people.” Just a few years later, the Supreme Court also upheld the criminalization of mixed-race relations in Pace v. Alabama .
The idea that polygamy was a “barbarous practice” and contrary to democratic principles drove the demand in the late 1880s and ’90s that Utah outlaw it as a condition of statehood. And in Mormon Church v. United States (1890), the Supreme Court labeled polygamy as “abhorrent to the sentiments and feelings of the civilized world.”
The stigma attached to polygamy continued to distort legal analysis into this century. As recently as 2006, Utah Justice Ronald Nehring began his opinion in a ruling upholding the criminalization of polygamy by lamenting, “No matter how widely known the natural wonders of Utah may become, no matter the extent that our citizens earn acclaim for their achievements, in the public mind Utah will forever be shackled to the practice of polygamy.” Nehring frankly admitted that this hostility “has been present in my consciousness, and I suspect has been a brooding presence . . . in the minds of my colleagues, from the moment we opened the parties’ briefs.” Rather than overcome that prejudice, Nehring not only yielded to it but warned any Utah judge of the peril of being the first to recognize the rights of polygamists: “I have not been alone in speculating what the consequences might be were the highest court in the State of Utah the first in the nation to proclaim that polygamy enjoys constitutional protection.”
Well, it wasn’t. A federal judge in Utah assumed that burden. Gov. Gary Herbert objected to the court making “decisions on social issues.” (He has not yet announced an appeal.) Waddoups, however, was not dictating a decision on a social issue but rather saying that governments could not impose a single version of morality. He limited prosecution under Utah’s anti-polygamy law to cases of bigamy, where someone acquires more than one marriage license — which is an offense more common to monogamous couples, who care about state recognition, than polygamists, who care about spiritual recognition.
Across the country, the era of morality codes is coming to an inglorious end. This year, the Supreme Court struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act barring the federal recognition of same-sex marriage. And this week, the New Mexico Supreme Court and another federal judge in Utah struck down the ban on same-sex marriage in those states — bringing the number to 18 states (plus the District of Columbia) where same-sex couples can marry. Meanwhile, Virginia recently repealed its 1877 cohabitation law and Colorado replealed a criminal adultery law from the 1850s — both relics of a time when states used their criminal codes to force citizens to comply with the religious values of their neighbors.
Most states have wisely turned away from absurd laws criminalizing masturbation and fornication. Obscenity laws have also been curtailed by the Supreme Court in deference to the First Amendment.
Still rightly on the books are laws against bestiality, which involves an obvious lack of consent as well as manifest harm. Likewise, incest bans are based on claims of medical, not moral, harm.
Once any crimes or abuses are stripped away in cases like the Browns’, what remains is religious animus. Yet, polygamy is widely practiced around the world by millions of families and was condoned by every major religion — from Judaism to Christianity to Islam — at one time. While plural families are called polygamists in our popular lexicon, “polygamy” actually refers to a broad array of plural relationships, from polygyny (one husband and multiple wives, like the Browns) to polyandry (a single wife and multiple husbands) to polyamory (couples who reject the exclusivity of sexual relations). The vast majority of these families are based on consenting relations among adults without abusive or criminal histories.
Critics often ignore these other plural relationships (and even polygynists like the Browns) in favor of a stereotype of “compound polygamists,” living in remote walled communities where women appear captive and molestation flourishes. It is Warren Jeffs, not Kody Brown, whom critics want to invoke in debating decriminalization — a sinister figure in a secluded compound where women wear prairie outfits and hairdos from the 19th century.
Obviously, there will always be abusers like Jeffs among polygamists — just as there are abusers among monogamists. However, it is no more persuasive to criminalize all plural relationships because of a small number of abusive individuals than it would be logical to outlaw monogamy based on the convicted spouse- and child-abusers in conventional marriages.
One of the great ironies about the focus on compound polygamists is the circular logic of criminalization. The government first declared polygamists felons and then pointed to their hiding as evidence of their guilt. But decriminalization will allow these families to be plural, open and law-abiding as they reintegrate into society.
In truth, 19th-century Americans were no more moral than we are today. It simply appeared that way with the imposition of official morals, including (as Santorum recalls so fondly) being told whom we could love in our own homes. It is not a single moral voice that is heard today but a chorus of voices. Each speaks to its own values but joins around a common article of faith: the belief that morality is better left to parents than to politicians.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and lead counsel in the “Sister Wives” polygamy case.
Washington Post (Sunday) December 22, 2013
Oky1: Exercise does astonishingly little for weight loss, in fact I read in Science News of studies that show it is counter-productive; exercisers often burn a 100 calories and then, because that is actually a lot of work, feel entitled to reward themselves with a 300 calorie snack. Or the exercise makes them hungry and they eat a bigger portion at dinner.
People frequently over-estimate the calories they would burn in various exercises and under-estimate the calories in foods they eat, a double-whammy for this “little reward” dynamic. For example, at typical walking speed I burn about 100 calories per mile; and many people trying to lose weight can’t afford two hours of walking a day.
The way to lose weight is to eat less. A fairly recent strategy that seems to be working, and takes advantage of human psychology, is putting two or three “thin days” in the week, as a permanent life style change. It isn’t a diet that will be over, it is how one eats.
The idea is to pick two days back to back, depending upon one’s schedule, and on one day (the thin day) eat 1000 calories or less. On the other, eat normally; if you want to make up lost calories from the thin day, go ahead.
In studies, however, that self-permission to make up lost calories actually helps people get through their thin day, by postponement of the reward (instead of flat denial of the reward). But come the fat day, the average “make up” calories is only about 300, so the net effect is often 800 or 1000 calories less intake. Do that three times a week, and lose 3/4 a pound a week (or more) without exercise, without “eating right”, without depriving themselves of food they love, and because of that it is easier to stick with (also shown by study).
The trick is mental. As Roy Baumeister & John Tierney document in their book “Willpower” (in which they study willpower and the failure of it) willpower is much like a muscle, it tires and needs rest. And like a muscle, it also gets stronger with exercise.
This approach, “thin day, fat day” prevents willpower exhaustion. You can tell yourself, “I can have that tomorrow,” and even if you know you probably won’t actually have it tomorrow, the possibility that you could makes it easier to exert the willpower to not eat it today!
The other aspect is to not consider it a diet, with goals. Goals cause two problems: If they are achieved, the diet is over, and so is the weight loss. It needs to be a permanent change. Secondly, if the goal is not met, then discouragement sets in and the weight loss will also vanish.
The only “goal” is to find a permanent eating regime with a level of calories one can eat that leaves one suitably thin and healthy AND without accumulating a sense of deprivation of favorite foods, because that accumulation takes willpower to sustain, and eventually that muscle fails and the diet fails.
As a goal, this is a search for a permanent change, and failing to find that regime one week does not mean the goal is lost or the regime cannot be found. One can try again next week.
As for the thin days, 1000 calories can be a fairly large amount of food; particularly if soups and vegetables are involved. Not that they have to be; it should be chosen by the eater, it is easier to get through the thin day if their main meal is something they enjoy and can look forward to.
“The other aspect is to not consider it a diet, with goals.”
Tony,
This is quite true. Part of the “secret” to attaining a healthy weight is to determine that what you eat will be healthy. For instance I love Barbequed spare ribs, but they are incredibly fatty and fattening. I don’t eat them. It used to be that I could eat a I pound steak at one sitting. When I eat steak now, which is rare, I never eat more than 5oz. The interesting thing is that in changing my eating habits for my lifetime I don’t feel deprived, I’ve just learned to love foods that are much better for me to eat.
“Capitalism is the absence of government.”
That may be the single dumbest and most ignorant thing ever written on this blog by anyone.
Anarchy is the absence of government, Skipples.
Gene, yes that is how many people on the planet define capitalism; the unfettered free market. If government exists, it fetters the market place. LOL. You were finally right on one point. Yes, anarchy is also the absence of government. Very good!
The question is, do you now understand what socialism is and how it effects the size and scope of government?
And if not, please provide your dissertation on the subject. The world can’t wait!!!
When one espouses a bigoted position – even one couched in a manifest lack of understanding of natural law theory – they should not be surprised when others think they are bigots. Also, your claim that you think people should be treated equally under the law is belied by your assertion that homosexuals should not be able to engage in the specialty contract that is marriage (not to mention your completely anti-egalitarian position that the wealthy deserve more of a vote than everyone else).
You don’t like that people think you are a bigot, David?
Quit being one.
My reply to Mike Spindell was snagged by WordPress. Can a moderator free it please?
** Mike Spindell 1, December 27, 2013 at 10:29 am **
Thanks, I’ve saved that site & attempt to pass it along.
This movie below I seen a year ago. I’m seeing some people I know have good results with the concept of juicing.
My wife & I use gardening & other activities as something we enjoy & we have to move to have any chance at having it produce anything.
Mixing flowers into that vegetable garden really made it pretty.
I think I had 70 jumbo sunflowers out last year with heads 8-10 inches across. We’ll be doing that again.
The size of our garden over produces so we often have extra to give away.
We find it interest many take the free produce, but they won’t even pick it themselves.
Maybe they don’t see that the exercise is more valuable to them then the free vegetables?
Back on the subject my wife & I will just have to work at coaching to help that person to stay engaged & motivated.
That gal we used to help care for a few years back she was a Nurse & knew better. She jacked around & waited to long to the point she got gangrene in her feet & had to have them amputated.
I don’t see a clean link, but below it shows the title. It’s not a cure all, but I think it will be helpful for some.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fat+sick+and+nearly+dead+full+movie+hd&sm=1
“The size of government is determined by the amount of socialism, hence the size of the bureaucracy in which to administer and enforce the social policies.”
Specious and simplistic reasoning that still misses the proper metrics. The size of a government no matter its form is dictated by three primary factors: size of the populace and geographic distribution (physical constraints) and how well it services the social compact (political/social restraint). Inefficiency in a system is in part a function of design, in part a function of implementation and in part purely mathematical based on complexity (any system of sufficient size is going to have a certain percentage of error a scientist would recognize as an acceptable rate of error). Criminals still get away with murder because there is no such thing as a perfect complex system. The best you can do is minimize the rate of error. You’ll never eliminate it. For example, if we totally removed money’s corrupting influence on elections and on the legislative process, you’d still have a certain number of bad actors in public office. You’d have a helluva lot less, but you’d still have some. Efficiency isn’t solely about size. It’s about a lot of different metrics. But the prime metric is still does the government function to the maximal mutual benefit in exchange for the rights limited from the state of nature by the social compact itself. The form – so long as it does not ignore human nature – is just another tool in the tool box. Some tools are better than others. Laissez-faire capitalism, like its polar opposite communism, are both bad tools because they ignore human nature to disastrous result although they look good on paper. There are a lot of ways to combat corruption (reduce systemic error). Arbitrary limits on size is not one of them. Government must be large enough to do the job as properly defined – which in our case does indeed mean looking after the common good/general welfare – and no larger.
Our government isn’t broken because of its size.
Our government is broken on purpose by the monied interests that have made it a pay-to-play system that have turned us away from the rule of law and to the rule by law (that last bit is an important but subtle distinction).
But size didn’t cause that.
Treating money as free speech, taking the limits off campaign contributions or circumventing them, and the grossly distorted system of modern lobbying did that. Deliberate sabotage combined with poor legal reasoning and a lack of understanding of social dynamics exploited by the unscrupulous in pursuit of personal profits and power without accountability.
Solutions to problems must be rooted in reality. And that? Is the cold stark reality. That is how the American Experiment was polluted into a plutocracy marching toward fascism. And all of you think free markets are the silver bullet solution to that problem don’t realize or don’t care that you are aiding and abetting a “solution” that does nothing to fix the problem and indeed exacerbates the push toward economic tyranny and – eventually – more brutal and direct tyranny.
Gene H. You just can’t grasp the concept that government on it’s economic foundations is unethical. It must take money and property from those it rightfully belongs to and give them to those it doesn’t rightfully belong to.
When a private individual does this it is called theft, when government does this it is what you call a social compact. The problem is that if you are in the minority and or not rich, they generally loose.
That is why government seldom if ever provides for what is in the best interest of the majority. You cannot fix a system that is inherently unethical. and we’ve been trying for 6,000 years
Oh that’s right Gene H., I forgot that you are the all knowing and will solve all the problems of the world!!!!!!!! You don’t even understand why communism and socialism always fail, how are you on God’s green earth, going to provide any insight into improving the human experience?
As you know libertarians argue between a small limited government and not government. For me I’m hoping there is a compromised between the two. A structure set up by voluntary efforts, but with the ability to enforce. As an example in remote areas of the 1800s, the wealthier town people would hire law men to protect everyone. The wealthy knew there would be people that could not afford to contribute but they had no choice in paying for the law protection. The necessity outweighed the importance of using force against those that were free riders. The majorities actions outweighed the criminals ability to commit crimes, most of the time. Still today with our advanced government system, criminals still get away with murder.
It really depends on our constitutional rule of law and if we can change it to adopt a lesser level of initiation of force against the honest non-criminals citizens. Right now the penalty for being honest is just to high. If you are an honest average wage earner in this country and follow all the rules and regulations you will be relatively poor by todays standards.
Oky1: I know TonyC rubs me the wrong way.
Interesting phraseology. I’m not here to smooth any fur, so you have a lot of company. I’m just here to play the game, and I call bullshit when I see it. You (by your writing and IMO) seem overly invested in appeasement, supplication and other “social lubricants” as argumentative tactics in defending your views. Those don’t work well on me, I’m more of a hyper-rational. Perhaps that lack of efficacy of your “sweetening” tactics, or lack of reciprocity, is what you find irritating about me.
Gene: “Smaller does not equate to less corrupt.”
Isn’t the limit of corruption in government making everything and everybody in the country the property of one supreme ruler, that doles out lavish rewards to his protectors? Isn’t a sole dictatorship the smallest government possible?
Fidel Castro was considered a dictator, even though he was really part of the communist oligarchy. Communism is the larger government per capita, fascism the next, socialism generally the next and libertarian the smallest. Of course the amount of socialism and the specific sectors the State controls and influences can vary drastically. As Gene H noted, Hitler sold the Germans socialism and gave them fascism. The size of government is determined by the amount of socialism, hence the size of the bureaucracy in which to administer and enforce the social policies.
“The size of government is determined by the amount of socialism, hence the size of the bureaucracy in which to administer and enforce the social policies.”
Hskiprob,
I think you need to re-think this oversimplification.
Mike Spindell, wrote: I think you need to re-think this oversimplification.
No I don’t. You need to understand what socialism is. It is the redistribution of wealth for social purposes. Each program; police, military defense, public parks, public education, social security, HUD, Department of Energy, Treasury, the judiciary, Medicaid, Department of the Interior, PBS TV, each County clerk of records, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. increases the amount of revenue and personnel needed to administer and achieve the goals of each program. Hence the more social programs a country has, the larger the size of government. The size of each program also determines the number of people required to administer and implement the program.
Capitalism is the absence of government. If you minimize government we have greater levels of capitalism.
I get tired of having to spell out in detail each and every aspect of the comments I make. Apparently, you and others are not really taking the time to read and understand my posts and instead are just looking for ways and means to discredit them. I’m not necessarily accusing you of this Mike, but that is what Tony C and Gene H. are trying to do. They are refusing to take off their blinders.
Wouldn’t it be easier, if you do not understand something I say, just to ask a question instead of making erroneous conclusions and comments in an attempt to, as Gene H. noted, make good theater.
I will answer even the difficult questions, unlike the fascists and socialists on this blog and I will not intentionally lie or mislead. This is not a fcuking game to me.
“Hence the more social programs a country has, the larger the size of government.”
Hskiprob,
First of all you are conflating “social programs” with “socialism”, which shows you don’t understand either concept. The reason for that is that you begin with a false premise and that is that Government is essentially bad and that government’s collection of taxes is theft. To me that is counter-factual and emblematic of the thinking of a phony economist named Von Mises and the sociopathic writer of bodice-bursting fiction who fancied herself a philosopher.
When someone like you starts out with counter-factual premises to bolster your arguments that the arguments are unlikely to be of value. Contrary to you belief I’ve read everything you’ve written and I must agree with both Gene and Tony that you don’t know what you’re writing about. You might be a perfectly nice fellow, but you are politically at sea.
MikeS,
If you’ve an idea…
My wife & I have a person we are really interested in/vested & trying to help with their weight problem, but we know now/feel they’ve quit & given up all hope.
We’ve seen this before with others & we’re attempting to stop it , this time, while we’ve still a small bit of time.
When we’re lost on the road it doesn’t hurt to ask for directions.
Oky1,
There is a website you should check out. I have it downloaded on my PC, Kindle and IPhone. It’s free and I find that it works when I want to shed extra pounds. I have the link below. There is a food diary on it that helps you keep track of what you’re eating each day and what exercises that you do.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/logout
I’m a big guy and I always had a big appetite, so I’ve struggled with weight gain all of my life. The problem with almost all diets is that they work short term, but people fall back into bad habits. The best way to diet is by becoming aware of what you are eating and seeing how the calories build up. The Weight Watchers plan for instance has always been effective, but then people become overconfident and stop following the rules they’ve learned. Through keeping track of what you are eating you can lose weight and keep it off but it does take commitment because our eating habits have developed over a lifetime and are not easily dealt with.
There are many causes of being overweight, some which are deeply psychological and others which are the result of bad eating habits developed early. Then too there is the possibility of underlying physical conditions that are the cause. Because of this I can’t give you any easy answers. However, that website may be of use. Dealing with obesity is a difficult problem for those struggling with it and requires much love and support. The one thing I can tell you is that the attitudes of many that being obese simply a matter of willpower is BS.
Just because the govt has turned terrorist they should have nothing to fear from citizens searching them for N. Security.
Right?
http://rt.com/shows/keiser-report/episode-541-max-keiser-794/
Oops, post hung?
MikeS,
Anything you can feed me that’s helpful organizing people towards non-violent protest, I’m all ears copying it & spread it like a Plague among wallst bank/insur trash.
I’m feeling better, I know, I’m feeling ready now to mix it up.
Mike,
So many forget the lessons of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall. 😉
Kinda all over the map there, Skipples.
I’ve noticed you do that when frustrated.
That’s also still a lot of gibberish still based on a fundamental lack of understanding of the social compact, the powers of the various states and the relationship of the states to the Federal government and economics based in science and not the proclamations of a crank like von Mises, Skipples. The states do have power to challenge the Federal government. They can sue. They even win sometimes. Sometimes they lose. That is the nature of the adversarial legal process. They can also simply opt to ignore Federal law as they are in the burgeoning effort to legalize marijuana. Why? Because at the state level they know the War on Drugs is a failure, that marijuana is considered mostly harmless as an intoxicant by most people, is scientifically safer than booze or tobacco (both of which can be lethal doses quite easily where is it a practical impossibility to to OD on THC) and their citizens support legalization.
Your “analysis” of state’s rights as it relates to the social compact also has nothing to do with capitalism. You also obviously don’t know what democratic market socialism entails either because the “market” part of that blended economy? Is capitalism. It just isn’t laissez-faire capitalism, the inevitable outcome of which is economic (and eventually brute) tyranny because that is what human nature promotes without constraints. Laissez-faire capitalism is a bad idea. Equal in bad ideas with communism and for the same reason albeit from different angles: both ignore human nature. In reality, a totally free market doesn’t work. It encourages abuses and economic tyranny. In reality, a command economy doesn’t work. People need some degree of property for security and to spur innovation and create motivation. In reality, what works is a blended economy where some transactions are based in a relatively free market and some transactions are controlled to maximize benefit to society regardless of profit – taking the best of both systems and leaving the worst of both systems. And you can get to be just as wealthy under that system as you like, you just won’t be able to do it by taking advantage of people for profit in ways that harm society as a whole.
You’d be able to understand that simple fact if you didn’t worship money and understood what you read. Seriously, you previously suggested a book by a convicted felon offering ultra vires fraudulent advice on tax avoidance. I think Barnum may have been talking specifically about you.
Capitalism isn’t enshrined in the Constitution either. The Constitution is silent on economic policy other than giving Congress the power to tax and spend for the general welfare and for common defense. The only economic model that is straight out is out by implication, not expressly, is communism because we do recognize (non-absolute) property rights by its terms and communism by definition does not recognize personal property. It also rules out some forms of monarchy and theocracies but for different reasons in addition to the property matter.
Quite simply, you still don’t know what you are talking about.
Sure. You think you do. But that’s the “blind” part of “blind ignorance” in operation.
Hi Mike,
I was missing you! (Smile)
The wife just went to bed.
Like I mentioned last night on another thread, being a leader sucks, but I got what I asked for, now let’s see if I can keep leading.
Regardless, it’s game on until I drop.
We got done speaking on a troubling topic & I mentioned to her this song comes to my mind.
Gene H. – Social Compact Theory
From Wiki,
Regarding the Constitution of the United States, the compact theory holds that the nation was formed through a compact agreed upon by all the states, and that the federal government is thus a creation of the states. Consequently, states should be the final arbiters over whether the federal government overstepped the limits of its authority.
Yet Gene, our Constitution clearly states that it is created by the people for the people and of the people. It cannot be shown, that the Constitution is a compact between State governments. The Constitution itself, in its very front, refutes that idea; it, declares that it is ordained and established by the people of the United States.
Should the States also be able to arbitrate if the Federal Government has overstepped it limitation. Absolutely. Are not the State governments the representatives of the various State Citizens but the State should not be the final arbiter for this, it must be the people.
I think Jefferson may of had this opinion, but some suggest he was in favor of the social compact theory. If he did support the theory, if he had lived in 20th century America, he surely would not now.
Never the Less, The Federal Government through various methods have discouraged the State Governments, thus the people from arbitrating Federal abrogations of the Constitution to limit it’s authority to such a degree that it can be easily argued that the US is no longer, as I have reiterated so many times, a constituted society. I will not go into the 17th Amendment, but it did give greater powers, according to many and my opinion, to the Federal Government, even though at first glance, it appears it give more power to the people because of the direct vote for Senators. This is a moot point however, to the social compact theory.
It is becoming much clearer in recent years from studies of the various nations that the greater the establishment of property rights, which is what many of the enumerator non-enumerated rights are about, the more capitalism, the more prosperity and less poverty. According to economist Thomas DiLorenzo, The Fraser Institutes index “Legal Structure and Property Rights by which it means the relative security of property rights and the viability of contracts across countries, indicates the more stable property rights are, the stronger a nations economy is. Hence, things like government and central banking caused inflation, price controls, regulation in general and government controls or subsidizing of production, diminishes the stability of property rights, causing a weaker economy. The belief is that when government causes property value instabilities, it makes it difficult for capitalists to make good economic calculations and thus good decisions. The perfect example is all the people that made really bad decisions in relation to their real estate holdings between 2000 and 2008, as prices rose and than collapsed during that period and it is clearly established now that the central banksters caused both the rise and fall of property values through their lending practices.
According to the Fraser index that uses the same components as the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage foundation, a similar correlation exists between the economic freedom ratings and the growth rate of GDP across 123 countries studied. Quite simply, their is no better solution to poverty than capitalism. Obviously the poorest nations had the highest poverty and the wealthiest, had the lowest. FYI: The seven components are, the size of government, the extent of government control of markets, degree of price stability, freedom to use foreign currencies, protection of property rights, freedom of international trade and freedom of capital markets.
This is “exactly” what I have been trying to explain in a multitude of ways. To increase prosperity, you must have two things; protected and established rights and justice, that latter providing the first.
There is a difference between “misses” and plain ol’ “doesn’t understand well enough to have a rational let alone valuable opinion on”, Oky.
He and David have a fundamental lack of understanding of the theory of government, albeit probably intentional ignorance on David’s part. Bron used to be as bad as they were, but he’s come around a bit over time (although his future progress in understanding may be fundamentally limited by his Objectivism and proclivity for binary thinking). All governments service the social compact. How well they do this for all is the true measure of their success. Right now, ours is failing because our social compact is well laid out in both the DOI and the Constitution (although the DOI is not black letter law) and ours is servicing the desires of the few at the expense of the many and trampling everyone’s rights but the those of the uber-wealthy and the corporate oligarchs; breaking our social compact at the core. That kind of malfunction has happened before in history. It never ends well for anyone, including those in government. They don’t realize or are too arrogant to understand that in every form of government the rulers ultimately rule at the consent of the governed. When you break their trust and start working against their best interests? It eventually leads to social instability, insurrection, rebellion and/or revolution. That’s the thing about the social compact. It serves all of society and when it ceases to, the ninety-nine always outnumber the one. Eventually, someone will do something stupid and heinous enough to overcome the inertia of apathy and then it will be game on. Could this be averted? Yes it could. Will it be averted? It’s looking less likely all the time. But change will come. Change is the only constant in the universe. Everything is transitory. Will it be a transformation for the better or the worse? Only time will tell.
**The government should be big enough to do this and no larger.**
Gene, we are in agreement.
I think sometimes it’s like when my wife & I went to Kentucky, they spoke English there but the native dialect was so different we couldn’t understand what some of them were saying.
Your speech is a bit legalize & I think maybe hskiprob misses keywords or phrases your attempting to explain.
Or it could be your just pissin him off, hell don’t, I know TonyC rubs me the wrong way. LOL 🙂
(Better to be pissed off then pissed on Dad used to say.)