True, you should probably stay away from talking down to trained constitutional lawyers (and, let's remember, our president is one).
True, you may very wel be wrong.
Still, my inner Jefferson thinks we all oughta weigh in on this. It's a good thing we can all read the Constitution, get some background on google, and argue about this. That's fantastic. That's what this country is all about.
Pontificate. You might learn something. You might make someone else think of something they haven't thought of before.
Do it about economics too.
Pay attention to the brilliant guys in the room that have been studying this a lot longer than you have, of course. Pay very close attention to them. But pontificate!
I don't understand why the thought even exists that one cannot or should not express their opinion. If one wants to make the claim that the constitution represents a "social contract", then that means that even the lowest dullard should weigh in.
ReplyDeleteBut social contract theory is silly.
DeleteI'd ground the call for broad commentary elsewhere.
I agree it's silly, but that is typically how people describe it. To be honest, I don't know how the idea of tacit consent was even taken seriously in the first place. Those that have pointed to Hobbes as some great philosopher completely baffle me.
DeleteI think it's a nice way to talk about it. I don't think it constitutes an actual argument... I wonder if a lot of people blur that distinction, but you're right - some people take it as a real argument, and quite deliberately.
DeleteStill, my inner Jefferson thinks we all oughta weigh in on this. It's a good thing we can all read the Constitution, get some background on google, and argue about this. That's fantastic. That's what this country is all about.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, just a week or so ago, you wrote something like, "Now that the court has upheld the due process of what the Administration's kill list, will we stop hearing from the delusional people who are worried about a police state?"
Not an exact quote, but that's definitely the spirit of what you said. And this was definitely within the last month.
I'd have to see the exact quote. I may very well have gone too far. One of the things that bugs me about the way people talk about Obama and all this is when they say he doesn't care about the Constitution or due process, when in fact the court has made rulings and he has actively implemented those rulings. The court is very important for arbitrating due process. Deliberately taking steps to implement a court's ruling doesn't seem like the actions of someone who is disregarding the constitution or due process. One doesn't have to agree with that, but it would probably be nice not to make some of the accusations that are made.
DeleteI don't think I'd react (or have reacted) badly to someone who actually proposed a different argument. The whole "Obama doesn't care about due process" is a little delusional in light of the evidence.
DeleteSomebody needs to repeatedly claim you think the president should be able to kill people indiscriminately. Sometimes I don't think you realize the kind of delusions floating around out there by regular commenters on your blog and mine.
As an educational exercise, of course.
DeleteI don't relish the idea of you getting yelled at by a crazy person or anything like that.
To this Englishman the interesting thing about Obamacare is exactly what will happen when it comes fully into force, not if it's strictly constitutional.
ReplyDeleteI think it is healthy for everyone to discuss the Constitution. But there is a level of ignorance below which it is not useful at all. I'm not a lawyer, but I've been following the case by reading numerous blogs by prestigious legal scholars, chunks of briefs, lower court rulings etc for a long time now. That doesn't make me a constitutional scholar for a long shot, but it does allow me to see the fact that lots of people are so uninformed about the case that their discussion of it is basically pointless. It wouldn't be a problem if they then spent the time to educate themselves (we all start uninformed after all) but I'm afraid that many will listen to their favorite propaganda source and forget about the whole thing in 2-3 days. In other words, they will never rise above either "healthcare good" or "SCOTUS hates freedom". (a caricature for sure, but I think it not that far from the truth) Under those circumstances, I'm not sure people should be encouraged to discuss this too much.
ReplyDeleteI try to educate the people around me and I usually find people to be receptive to hearing much of the subtleties, but I doubt most people know somebody who has spent the time necessary to understand a little of what is going on.
I see two things to like about the opinion, first its transparency in calling a tax a tax however much people like to obscure it, and second its clarity in short circuiting a lot of complex argument to reduce it to tax authority free of the contortions of other arguments.
ReplyDelete