The Glade 4.0

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DFK! - Likes your photo.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Bolded the part that's the misconception. Notice the spokesperson didn't say "Unconstitutionally." It's legal, there's a law buried somewhere that makes it so. But it's hilarious that it's framed as if the misconception is that they're listening and reading. Or, rather, it's hilarious that people bought that framing.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Its not that they're lawful or unlawful. ITS THAT THEY'RE DOING IT AT ALL!!!

OMFG NSAGUY.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Considering that laws that are found to be unconstitutional ARE illegal, I'm not really sure what you're trying to point out. Other than being of the opinion that you have the authority to determine what is unconstitutional or not.

He's pointing out that laws (including administrative law, which is implied here but not explicit from the quote or from Kaffis) can be unconstitutional without a court saying so.

Now, granted, this goes against the statist way of thinking as well as the common thinking of the modern system, but it is correct.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

And how exactly do you come to that conclusion? On who's authority is a law considered to be unconstitutional?

A law isn't unConstitutional until its declared so. Until then, it's just a matter of opinion. This has nothing to do with "statism".

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Both of these authorities are great examples of statist thinking, actually. That and a modern (incorrect) understanding of the federal government in the United States.

We are a government of enumerated, specific powers. If the powers are not specifically given to the Federal government, they're reserved for the people or the states themselves.

Now, in the modern context we've reversed that mentality. We think that laws are created and until struck down are just fine.

This mentality does not change the fact that, strictly speaking, laws giving powers to the government not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution are inherently unconstitutional. Simply because they have not been found to be so doesn't really mean anything, except in the mind of the modern statist.

Justice Marshall said it thus:



So, in other words, the courts are certainly the final arbiters, but in the meantime other leaders can (and should) work to uphold constitutionality by not following laws they believe to be unconstitutional.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Oh Obama, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibc6QSV5 ... r_embedded

Sadly, Americans don't care. It's disappointing.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Hilarious.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ba0cc8 ... rel=player

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

http://www.ijreview.com/2013/06/58750-b ... president/


Joe in 2006.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Obama vs Obama

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Not only is this neither "modern" nor "incorrect", this really is saying nothing of substance. Whether a law is unConstitutional or not is a matter of whether it falls under a particular power or not. That's the matter that is put before the court when a law is challenged. If an argument is made that it falls under a specific power, it is not a matter of you saying "well, I don't think it means that, so case closed." You can refuse to change your opinion, but the fact that you personally feel that something is unConstitutional does not make it so. That pertains to everyone else as well. There is no such thing as a law that is just not up for debate, in either direction.

Conversely, even a law that seems to be obviously well within the government's purview can be challenged. While the law is treated as Constitutional until a finding otherwise is made, the courts must make a finding if a challenge is pursued (subject of course to the challenge itself being properly made). Claims of unConstitutionality cannot be dismissed out of hand either.



This mentality does not change the fact that, strictly speaking, laws giving powers to the government not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution are inherently unconstitutional. Simply because they have not been found to be so doesn't really mean anything, except in the mind of the modern statist.[/quote]

By claiming that a given law does not fall under an enumerated power when no such finding has been made, except by you and people that happen to agree with you (who have no power to decide, only to say what you think) all you are doing is begging the question. The powers enumerated for the government are only discussed in general terms; they are not specific as to what does and does not fall underneath them leaving plenty of room for debate.

Some laws are clearly very hard to justify under the power they are alleged to fall under, but the argument still can be made. These strained arguments have a habit of not surviving, however.



And if they don't believe it to be unConstitutional? Pretty much no one sets out to purposefully contradict the Constitution. Justice Marshall is not saying much there.

Average people, however, no matter how good an understanding they feel themselves to have of the Constitution, do not get to decide these matters. No one, no matter how much they think their political ideology is a good idea, or conforms to founding ideals, or is socially just, or whatever, gets to appoint themselves to decide what is and is not Constitutional. Refusing to acknowledge that one's opinion is merely one's opinion and cannot be imposed on the nation at large is just latent authoritarianism. It's "if I were in charge...." thinking, and no one, not even the President, is unequivocally "in charge". We have a Constitution precisely to prevent that sort of thing.

Oh, as for this fascination you have with calling things "statist", I know you think that's somehow pejorative but it isn't. Statism just means:



Unless you're a complete anarchist, you're a statist also. Almost everyone is. Every time you say that, the appropriate reaction is "duh".

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I don't think it's a pejorative. I think it's factual. If I was trying to use a pejorative, you'd know it.

Additionally, when trying to use factual attributions to undermine your opponents in a debate, it would be considered important to not omit portions of the definition.

Such as:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/statism?s=t

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Ah, so it's merely an irrelevant extra word pointing out the obvious. Thanks.



Since I didn't quote that particular source, I didn't "leave anything out". The first definition is one type of statism.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Sure you did. You said, specifically:



Which would be the totality of the definition. You, therefore, left off half the definition.

Indeed, your source itself constricts itself to:



That would indicate a specific usage of the word, as in, not the entirety of the definition. Which I did post (both usages).


Regardless, would you prefer "authoritarians" as the active noun? Argument regarding that particular word choice fails to address the core issue at the present moment of this discussion:

That laws and policies can be unconstitutional without a court having said so. Despite your handwaving about intentionality regarding violating the Constitution, Justice Marshall's point stands. Intent has nothing to do with whether something is unconstitutional either.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

That was the entirity of the definition at the source I cited. I did not "leave off half the definition" by not going and looking at any other source. Furthermore, if you look at the last sentence of what I quoted, it specifically references totalitarianism, which is the type of statism your number 1 definition refers to. If you don't like Wikipedia's definition, go edit it. Then you can have a fun edit war with someone interested.

Are there any other trivialities you want to quibble over?



No it doesn't. Any time you're discussing forms of government, its degree of control over society, and so forth, you're necessarily discussing political science.

More pointless semantic "gotcha" quibbling.



Well, since there's nothing authoritarian at all about pointing out that your mere assertion that something is unConstitutional does not make it so, no. The simple fact here is that you are trying to present your interpretation as "right" and other ones as "wrong" and either "statist" or "authoritarian". You can keep using language that refuses to acknowledge that you're not the decider, but it won't magically make things start conforming to your wishes.



I didn't say anything about intent. Justice Marshall clearly refers to what agencies should do if they think something is unConstitutional, not when DFK!, one of over 300 million people, says so.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

DEBATING THE DEFINITIONS! Exciting.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Question: how do you challenge a law that is being done in secret, and is being protected to the point that you cant find out about it or determine standing?

Statist catch 22. Its not illegal because the courts havent ruled it so but the courts cant rule it so because we invoke national security to exempt it from review.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Yup. But it's okay! They have Congressional Oversight. Except, the Congressmen who know about it aren't allowed to bring it up to other Congressmen.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

It's not a "statist catch 22" at all. You can't do anything else about a law you don't know about, either. No one here said anything about it being ok to have hidden laws that national security exempts from court review, just that the law itself is Constitutional until ruled otherwise. It isn't. That's a de facto usurpation of the courts by the other two branches.

It also wouldn't be ok to have a law against littering that was hidden behind a shield of "national security". That wouldn't, however, mean there was anything wrong with a littering law.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Yes it is a catch 22. Since they cant divulge the particulars under the guise of national security then citizens can't prove they're being harmed, so citizens can't have standing to challenge the law, which never goes up for review, so its claimed as constitutional, because its never struck down. Its as BS as a company settling out of court so they dont have to show the damage their product did.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Except it's not a catch 22 that anyone's denying, and has nothing to do with "statism". Yes, the secrecy part is a problem. That still does not illustrate a problem with the law being constitutional until challeneged; even if that were not the case you STILL couldn't do anything about a law you don't know about. In fact, it doesn't pertain to laws at all, because its a court order. The order my be a secret, but the existence of the FISA court isn't.

Companies settling out of court is not "BS" either. What's BS is you thinking they shouldn't be able to. Settling out of court is common, there don't need to be special exceptions for companies and products.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That's simply not true. A law is either unconstitutional or not, a judge ruling on the matter does not make it so.

I think a solid parallel can be found in everyday court cases. A defendant is either guilty or not guilty. Does a judge ruling that someone is guilty make them guilty, but before the ruling they weren't? What if another judge overturns their conviction. Would you say that they were guilty a few days before, but are not guilty now?

And you run into the same problem of "everyday citizens" being able to judge whether or not someone broke the law. Yes, everyday citizens do not know all the nuances of the legal system and aren't qualified to make that judgement on every case, but sometimes it's obvious someone broke the law and we can safely say they are guilty without waiting for a judge to rule on it. Example: The Sandy Hook shooter. He's never been judged guilty of murder in a court of law by a judge or a jury of his peers, but I don't think it's wrong for us to say he murdered all those children.

There are cases involving the constitutionality of laws that are similarly obvious. For example, the recent issue with the Florida Governor ordering all state employees undergo random drug testing. The courts have consistently ruled such programs unconstitutional in the past. People were right to say that it was unconstitutional, even before it was ruled on (a judge struck down the order later). Other examples include states that pass laws banning abortion when Roe v. Wade makes the issue very clear, and states passing laws against school integration after Brown v. Board of Education. I don't see any problem with people declaring such laws unconstitutional before waiting on a court ruling. No one is suggesting that some random Glader determines the constitutionality of a law, but just because a court hasn't ruled on a specific law doesn't mean it's constitutional.

Here is some interesting supporting evidence for my claims from the legal encyclopedia American Jurisprudence.



Now, I'm not saying the example in this thread is a clear case of an unconstitutional law. I'm not sure myself. But I don't think it's wrong for someone to assert that it is unconstitutional in a debate, and it's certainly not right to say that it is constitutional merely because the courts have not ruled against it. It'd be nice to get the court's opinion on this, but it's kind of hard when Congress gives the telecom companies immunity or challenges the standing to get cases thrown out of court.