The Glade 4.0

Oy...

I'm going to make one less stab at this.

If you want to think that I'm just "taking my ball and going home", that's fine. In a manner of speaking, that may very well be exactly what I'm doing. However, that has nothing to do with people posting things I don't like; do you honestly think I'm that much of a simpleton? Moreover, if that were case, I'd have been out of this thread on page 1 -- hell, I'd have been out of the Glade itself a long time ago. More importantly, I am most certainly not in any way, shape or form, trying to tell anyone what they can or can't post.

That said, it has everything to do with me being utterly frustrated with this conversation; not because you continue to disagree with me, but because I don't feel like you're really getting what I'm saying or why. Maybe it's a breakdown in communication, but that's how it seems. And maybe I'm expecting too much, but yeah -- I like to be understood, even if I'm disagreed with. Maybe I'm a sentimental fool, but it's important to me that at least some people (certainly not everyone) "get" what I'm saying and know who I am and what I'm about.

I probably shouldn't tell people this, but what the hell -- nothing pushes my buttons more than having someone reply to my posts in a "play-by-play" fashion, but -- in the process -- completely miss the main thrust and substance of the post. This probably goes a long way towards explaining why there's only ever been a couple or so posters that I've gotten into to truly protracted, throw-down, all-out arguments with.

So again, maybe it's just a communication problem. Maybe I'm reading it all wrong, but it seemed to me that this is how it was starting to play out. And I found that especially frustrating because it was coming from someone that I didn't expect it from. Maybe I'm wrong about that, and so like I said, I'm making another stab at it.

If we're going to get down to the brass tacks, what especially set me off were comments like this:


Allow me to quote myself from the very post you were quoting:


In and of itself, it could just be an overlooked phrase. I'm not so narcissistic that I expect everyone to hang on my every word, but we just keep going around and around on this point. You seem to think that I'm saying something entirely different from what I'm actually saying. You keep stressing -- in your direct replies to me -- that the court is the official arbiter of law, and that we can't just have a "court of public opinion", or rule based on specific personal opinion, etc.:




This, in spite of the fact, that I explicitly addressed that issue at some length:


In reply, you stated:


Do you see why this frustrating? You say that you understand my position, but then you continue to throw out statements like those quoted above which clearly indicate that you still think I advocate for personal opinion or popular opinion to trump the judicial system. That has never been my position. I have consistently stated that all I want is for use of this technology to be controlled through the checks and balances system of the judicial branch against the executive by way of legal search warrant.

Similarly, you've said things like:



But if you have, I can see no evidence of it. You continue (even in your direct responses to me) to downplay any suggestion that there might exist a practical and financially compelling reason for law enforcement -- whether by their own initiative, or at the prompting of controlling municipal authorities (because the end result is the same for the citizenry either way) -- to deploy this technology for any other reason that "good-faith" reasonable suspicion. In particular:


Really? I've failed to explain why there would be motive -- whether internal or external -- for law enforcement to use this technology outside the realm of reasonable suspicion, let alone probable cause? I don't see how you can say that that you've accepted my cost-benefit analysis of, shall we say, "non-specific" deployment and then turn around and say that we have no reason to think that law-enforcement would ever use GPS trackers except when they have specific reason to suspect a crime. If you want to think that, fine. If you want to think that my analysis is unrealistic or improbable, that's fine too. But just say so; because honestly, paying lip-service to my arguments while ignoring their implications is just aggravating.

As for this:


It's not surprising that the collateral damage gets a little pissed off when you make shotgun statements like this:





At least two of these were made in direct, quoted response to one of my posts. Apparently I'm supposed to be a mind reader and know that those generalizations don't apply to me (all appearances to the contrary). In light of that, I don't think it's unreasonable for me to object to being "strawmanned", or at the very least, being dismissed by virtue of stereotype.

All that said, there is one more reason that I am or was starting to feel that this conversation was pointless:


I'm not seeing it. All you've really done is pointed out the legal authority of the court, but 1) that's a truism that that hasn't been disputed (see above) and 2) reinforcing that the court is a proper legal authority doesn't make what you're saying in less of an appeal to authority.




(i.e. you're wrong because you disagree with the authority of the court)

(i.e. the court's authority trumps reason)

There's really nothing else to call this except an appeal to authority because that's exactly what it is. At best, you've tried to bolster this with the idea that it's not just the authority of the court that makes them right, per se, but also their expertise, or that they're "vetted" by some authority or process. Either way, this is just another level of either appeal from authority or appeal from popularity. I don't question their authority with respect to the American legal system, nor necessarily their expertise, but neither of things make them automatically rationally correct.

The basic fact is that, in this thread, you've told people that their opinion is flat out "wrong" for no other reason than that it runs contrary to the opinion of the court. Apparently I missed that part of civics where dissent with the government was automatically wrong and grounds for derision. Or, more to the point, if you've made it your policy that any argument against the present judicial status quo is automatically invalid and therefore does not need to be analyzed or considered ... then yes, it is basically pointless for me to continue such an argument with you.

Finally, and simply because I can't resist:

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

LA LA LA IM NOT LISTENING

EPIC

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I thought I made it perfectly clear that I don't think you're a simpleton at all, rather that I think for some reason that this subject has caused you to engage the subject rahter below your usual capacity. Why that is, I don't know. However, when you post things like:

it does, in fact, appear that you are saying "don't say things I don't like." I realize you aren't trying to tell anyone what they can or cn't post in a moderatorial capacity; that is not what I was trying to imply.



Oddly, I feel exactly the same about you.



Entirely possible.



Fair enough.



I understand that, but I find that's the only way to deal with the entirity of the post without appearing to "refuse to answer a question" or "address a point". Since I find it annoying when people pick and choose points to respond to, I try to avoid doing that and that's why I often use that technique.

That said, your main point seems to be that you feel the ruling in question could lead to indiscriminate placement of GPS tracker on anyone's vehicle for any reason or no reason. I disagree with that because A) I don't think that many law enforcement people would be interested in doing that and B) because reasonable suspicion existed when it was placed, and a case allowing something to happen when reasonable suspicion exists is not a precedent allowing it when it does not exist. Reasoable suspicion is less of a burden than probable cause, but it is still a burden and not an inconsiderable one, as specific facts and circumstances must be articulable to support it - "hunches" are not good enough. Most people are not familiar with the concept of reasonable suspicion, and I would not be surprised if you were not.



I think that you're perhaps overlooking the reasoning behind what I'm saying. The line I quoted above certainly seems to indicate that, but maybe I am not being clear enough.



I'm not sure why that comment would set you off since the fact is that neither you, me, or anyone else here is on the Supreme Court. That comment was in response to your claim that subjectivity in the Constitution would make your opinion just as valid as the Court's and I acknowledged that from an intellectual standpoint that would be true. However it would not be from a legal standpoint; the legal system would not suddenly start recognizing the authority of every individual person to rule on the Cosntitution themselves.

Allow me to quote myself from the very post you were quoting:



Yes, and while you did acknowledge that your opinion would not have the weight of law, that's precisely the issue. Maybe I didn't explain this very well, but I really don't care about the "validity" of an opinion so long as its made by a body empowered to do so.



I think the problem here is that we're addressing two issue at once. One is whether a warrant should be needed, the other is if the court rules that one is not needed, as a lower court has in this case, if that ruling is right or not. I don't see that their ruling can be "wrong" (in the sense of incorrect) either way. It could be wrong in the sense of its effects and whether they are good or not, but I don't see that this issue affects whether a ruling is legally valid.

More importantly, when I pointed out to Khross that textual analysis is not a legally binding way of interpreting the Constitution (and I explained why it makes no sense to use it in my post previous to this one) you indicated that you think that subjectivity in the Constituion is problematic. That's what I'm responding to; this ruling may, in your opinion, suck, but it is a legal ruling and until and unless it is overturned it is the "correct" one because it was made in the proper legal fashion.



Except that the second quote contained above is, in fact, an acknowledgement of precisely that. Moreover, your practical and financially compelling reason is based on a few faulty assumptions

1) Money from traffic fines does not go to law enforcement per se, but into general government funds.
2) Automated traffic enforcement runs into serious practical problems both of driver identification, and in the case of GPS, of precision.
3) Catching too many people breaking the traffic laws is hardly an objection
4) Most importantly, this ignores the requirement for reasonable suspicion. This ruling did not involve a GPS tracker placed on someone for no articulable reason and then a criminal case proceeding from it; it relied on previously existing facts and circumstances to establish reasonable suspicion. Attempting to simply place it on a car of a person suspected of nothing and then fining them for traffic violations would exceed by a very large margin the latitude granted by the court's ruling. Your suggestion would have merit if the concept of reasonable suspicion did not already exist, but it does.



Because your explaination of why their would be motive does, in fact, rely on assumptions made by you of what law enforcement people would want, what municipal officials would want, ignoring the aforementioned matter of reasonable suspicion which does not permit it. Law enforcement officers do not want to have random GPS trackers on their personal cars any more than anyone else nor do municipal officials. I'm not paying lip-service to your arguments and ignorign their implications, I'm pointing out that they are founded on an erroneous understanding of reasonable suspicion and an ascription of motives to police and local officials that may be true in some cases but which I don't think you have any basis to ascribe to them as a generality.

As for this:



When you make arguments based on nothing more than the potential of something, it does, in fact, indicate that you are going down precisely that boogeyman road. Perhaps that isn't what you intended when you mentioned the potential of the technology. However, arguments based on what could potentially happen aren't terribly convincing. Almost anything can potentially result in drastic negative consequences if the right chain of events occurs.



I find it rather unlike you to edit out the extensive explaination of this. In theory, yes it could meant he court's authority trumps reason, but in every question brought to the court, reason is applied on both sides. There is no good reason to think that, as a practical matter, any question would ever be brought to the court that actually defies reason, or that they would so rule if it did. It may defy the reason of a few posters here (not you) but that's because of their noted unreasonability.



Whether any of them is rationally correct I don't really see as a relevant question. I don't see that there is any one rational correct position on most Constitutional issues. Ultimately I see this entire complaint about appeal to authority as irrelevant red herring because authority must inevitably be appealed to in order to deal with any such question.



Again, you seem not to understand. Your opinion about how things should be is not and cannot be wrong as it's a personal opinion. However, when you claim that, for example, something "is a search" when the courts have ruled it is not, you are, in fact, wrong about whether it is a search in our legal system.

It's no different than claiming it is a search under the Constitution and the court is wrong. In this case, a higher court might overrule, making that true. However, any such claim, like Khross's claim about what a "textual analysis" states, is simply appealing to different authority; that authority being whatever ultimately gives the ruling whose practical effect one prefers. No one cares about intellectual correctness or academic accuracy in Constitutional matters for its own sake; people care about it becasue of the practical consequences.

I also find it bizarre that you take issue with the idea that judges are vetted by Congress and the President who are in turn vetted by the people. Yes, this is ultimately an appeal to the authority of the people, but it is the People who are the authority establishing the Constitution in the first place. I think it unlikely that God will deign to answer any of these questions for us and so I see no better method.



I think perhaps you should have resisted. Although I'll take the blame for being entirely too vague, that was in reference to dealing with Coro, Ladas, and their hystrionics. Moreover, I haven't referenced you and your personal history or employment as somehow supportive of my position. If you're trying to draw some parallel you're quite mistaken.

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

I agree with Diamondeye in this discussion. I think that GPS tracking devices are a great way to catch criminals, and that police should place them on vehicles whenever they have reasonable suspicion.

Law enforcement should have the best means to catch criminals. In this case it's GPS. They can place tracking devices onto vehicles and this greatly assists them. Police obviously will only do this with suspected criminals. There is precedent for this, established in this case, so legally it is now OK. Like DE said, the police have limited resources and would not track all people, and they wouldn't even want to. It's a waste of their time and would create a public outcry when Joe the Plumber randomly finds a tracking device on his truck. People want criminals to be caught and they don't want to be tracked. This is where reasonable suspicion comes in. It's pretty self-explanatory. Only suspects are tracked. There is no reason for random people to be tracked.

Since my above paragraph might not be clear, here are some reasons why I am in support of law enforcement tracking suspected criminals:

A) The law enforcement works in the best interest of society and should be allowed the latest and greatest tools.
B) Law enforcement has the resources and motivation to only pursue suspected criminals
C) We live in a country with free press, especially the internet, and any police abuse of this would create a large outcry
D) It's best for police to efficiently catch criminals because it saves tax dollars
E) A court has established that this is a legally sound means to catch criminals
F) It isn't a large infringement of liberties for a tracking device to be placed onto your vehicle... nothing is searched or seized
G) Property rights are given to you by society. Property rights only exist when you're part of society.
H) Criminal suspects should be followed by law enforcement, and arrested if there is enough evidence
I) The Constitution is only interpreted by courts, and it is up to the courts to rule in cases such as these

if there is sufficient reasonable suspicion... then getting a warrant first should not be a problem.

_________________
Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

The point of contention isn't that law enforcement should not be able to use GPS tracking devices when they have reasonable suspicion. If they have reasonable suspicion, then they can obtain a warrant to have one placed. The argument is over whether the police, the party who wants to place said tracking device, is legally authorized to determine whether they have reasonable suspicion.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I really only see this going back and forth as a "ya-huh" "nuh-uh" for a few pages now. Had I not been feeling like utter crap right now... would not give a rats hind end about this thread anymore.

I think around page 6 it started sounding like Tipo and Chaca arguing.

_________________
Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Sigh. This just isn't working. I don't know what the deal is, but I suspect that it mostly boils down to this:


We are simply creatures from a different planet. In my world, the idea that good government must be rational is a fundamental "a priori" kind of thing. In yours, apparently it doesn't matter. That difference is so significant and so ... core that the results are too alien for me to understand. I don't know how to bridge that kind of gap.

Simply put, I don't get it -- especially as it pertains to the Constitution. Our form of government is one ostensibly shaped and limited by the text of a single document. If linguistic, textual analysis has no objective or rational basis, then the consequences for our form of government are total nihilism. Since the purpose of the Constitution is to bind multiple individuals together into an agreement, then there really is no difference between "the Constitution's meaning is subjective" and "the Constitution is meaningless". If each member of society can interpret the binding document however they please (whether rational or not), then it has no value as a binding document between them.

Now I suspect that your answer to this dilemma may be "ah, but the Constitution appoints a system of courts to be the authoritative arbiter of what the Constitution means". But this is where subjective nihilism kicks in. If it is true that textual analysis of the Constitution is a purely subjective endeavor, then the idea that the Constitution creates such an authority is, itself, just a subjective opinion about what the Constitution means. So from whence do the courts derive their authority? From the Constitution? By whose interpretation do they have the power to interpret the Constitution? Yours? The interpretation of the courts themselves? Surely you can see the paradox here.

Beyond that paradox, there are a couple very simple and pragmatic argument against that idea. First of all, the Constitution is the defining document for our form of government, and the judiciary is merely but one part of that government. In fact, the word "constitution" literally means just that: the document constitutes a government. Simply put, the Constitution created the courts (and everything else in our federal government). Therefore it existed before the courts or any of their judicial precedence. And, therefore, it must have had meaning before the process of judicial review.

Secondly, from a purely historical point of view, it is quite clear that the people responsible for the creation of the Constitution set forth to establish a limited form of government. Indeed, what else is the Constitution but a enumeration of the powers of the federal government, and a system of checks and balances aimed at keeping it from overstepping the bounds of its authority. It would be entirely self defeating, then, both in terms of the overall objective of the Constitution as well as the specific methodology of divided government, for them to vest one branch -- and worse, even one specific court -- with the absolute power to change the meaning of the core governing document in any way that suits their fancy. If that was truly the form of government intended by its authors, then the Constitution was an enormous waste of their time. They could, instead, have simply appointed a panel of ministers to rule over the people without all of the unnecessary pretense of limited power, checks and balances, and government by consent of the people.

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

The above post is, with absolute certainty, one of the most concise, accurate, and eminently readable arguments I have ever read concerning this particular issue.

_________________

Ezekiel 23:19-20 

It takes only the briefest of review of history to see that how the country and courts have handled various Constitutional issues has changed over the years. How one can come to the conclusion that the Constitution is anything other than subjective. Or to put it another way, the Constitution and our government are living things that evolve and change over time.

A government is what a government does; that truth, however, does not change the Constitution of the United States of America. Consequently, it's quite easy to say when, where, and how the Courts, the Government, and even the People have failed relative to the Constitution.

_________________

Interesting choice of language, which only proves my point. From your perspective (subjective) the Constitution has been "failed". I'm sure if you were to list out those failures, I could easily find any number of people who disagree with your assessment.

Aizle:

It's not subjective any sense you want to use the term, which is the same mistake Diamondeye uses earlier in the thread. Epistemological Subjectivity is an entirely different topic that has to do with how we come to know. That said, if you change the reference point from all knowledge to a specific knowledge set with a fixed axiomatic reference ...

Subjectivity is an entirely different thing indeed.

_________________

What is the "it's" in your first sentence? I'm not following your point.

Well, that went about ten feet over my head!

But anyway, I think Aizle's point, with which I agree, is that phrases from the Constitution like "the freedom of speech" or "the Judicial power" are inherently vague and open to various interpretations. Not even the authors themselves agreed on what those (and other) phrases encompassed. Hence, a textual analysis that simply considers the words on the page and looks them up in a dictionary or other linguistic reference (from which time period is, of course, a further issue), is of somewhat limited value in determining what the Constitution "says" or what it "means".

My position isn't subjective in any sense you or Diamondeye want to use the term. The reference point for various forms of knowledge relative to the constraining item, whether that be God (in the Christian sense) or the Universe (in some agnostic sense) or the Constitution, seriously alters what is and what is not objective relative to that constraining item. The knowledge set comprised of things which are Constitutional relative to the Constitution is rather limited, and the metrics for determining Constitutionality as thing are readily defined by the document itself.

To both your and RangerDave's argument, interpretive acts are creative, not constrained, and consequently emerge as unconstitutional by default. To determine things as vague or open to interpretation is to vacate the Tenth Amendment, which rather explicitly states that anything not contained within the document itself is not the province of the Federal government. As a negative rights document, any argument of inferred or implicit powers immediately fails any objective valuation against the rule set it proscribes.

_________________

If your arguments were true, then I would expect that all (or a vast majority) of Constitutional legal scholars would agree on the meaning and intent of the Constitution. Yet, it's patently obvious that is not the case.

Further, my argument is not that interpretive acts are creative. My argument is that each individual will interpret the world around them based on their own individual life experiences, education, intelligence and personal bias. Therefore it is impossible for any 2 individuals to have exactly the same understanding or interpretation of anything, much less the Constitution.

How, then, do you determine what constitutes "due process" or "speech" or "the Judicial power" or any of the other key phrases in the Constitution? None of those terms are defined or explained within the document itself. The metrics, as you put it, actually aren't there.

This is actually a false dilemma. Consensus knowledge is neither necessarily correct nor obvious in any given sense. You assume that because people think X is Y, X must be Y. That's not the case when looking at any given document or set of rules. The Constitution states a series of "things". It really doesn't matter what those "things" except to say they are "rules" or "axioms".I don't think you quite understand what I've said here. It's a little ethereal, so I'll try again. Interpretation is creative. The interpretive act is a creative act. Those two statements are true independently of anything you have said. That said, the Constitution itself is a negative rights construct. It is, in its very existence, a limiting document. It expressly defines the things the Federal Government can do. It expressly limits the Federal Government to only those things, barring an amendment properly passed.

Being "interpretive" with the Constitution is creating meaning where meaning is neither implied nor inferred. To that end, any reference or argument for implicit powers and abilities is fundamentally counter the axiomatic system it proscribes. It does not matter, not one whit, whether or not "history" or "action" disagrees, because we're talking about the document and not human practice. I'm well aware what our government has done; that means very little relative to an inanimate set of rules about it "can" do.

_________________

I understand your arguments for the Constitution being a negative rights document, and based on that interpretation how it should work. You seem, however to be missing or ignoring my point. You are providing your opinions on the document, those opinions by definition are subjective based on your understanding of the language, law, background, bias, etc. Just like everyone else's interpretation of the document is based on those same points. Further, there are many very learned legal scholars that disagree over the extent of what the Constitution limits or allows. These are all observable facts. If indeed the Constitution and what powers it does or does not grant were truly objective, then how could there be such a difference in opinion on what is allowed?

Now certainly there are those who have been very creative (interpretive) with the Constitution, taking huge liberties with it's meaning and intent, but I have not been talking about those individuals. What I've been talking about is the same things that RD has brought up a couple times now, that the language of the Constitution in many places is very vague, and by definition will be open to interpretation because the language isn't clear. Further, the Founding Fathers weren't in total agreement on the interpretation of the Constitution so how could we expect that anyone else could be?

Except, I'm not interpreting the Constitution in any sense you think I am. I have stated, rather flatly, that is contains statements X, Y, and Z, and that is has a property conferred upon it by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.Again, this is false dilemma. It is not subjective or objective based on what people choose to do with the document. The document itself is an artifact. It is an object that has various properties and exists in a certain state. The information contained in that document remains the static regardless of what external actors do with that information. And, I think that's the crux of the issue here. You cannot seem to separate the item from the actions of other people. Because people behave in manner X or Y relative to document does not change the document, does not, in point of fact, alter the document or its meaning. It changes how the document is used or implemented, again, by people.Except, it's not open to interpretation. It contains statements, in the declarative, which are themselves speech artifacts. Their meaning is rather absolute; whether or not any given individual knows that meaning is another matter entirely. You seem to think that because individuals do not arrive at the same conclusion that the premise itself is mutable. That's not really case.

The Constitution says X. X means X.

Now, we can sit there and argue all day long about what X is, but the objective value of X does not change. Of course, that brings us back to the problem with this thread, GPS trackers, and other matters of law and Constitutionality. Agreeing on X and enforcing X would limit what a government does. And limiting what a government does is never in the best interest of that government (as thing).

_________________

I agree that the document itself is an artifact, and the document itself remains static. I've never attempted to say otherwise.



Sure, the objective value of the words contained in the Constitution do not change (other than via Amendment, but that's a whole other can of worms). The 17th word in the Preamble is still "Justice" just like it was 200+ years ago. But our understanding of what those words mean most certainly has changed. And I don't even mean from some liberal agenda re-thinking of what Justice means, but also our understanding of what the original intent and meaning of those words were when the document was written.

Certainly each Founding Father knew what meaning they were putting into the document, and what each of those words meant to them. However, as has already been said, the Fathers weren't in complete agreement on that meaning between themselves. So already during the crafting of the document, it meant different things to different people. Certainly in that regard as well, nothing has changed from 200+ years ago to today.

The Constitution is a product of man, and so contains all of the foibles of man. It is not perfect, and as soon as it was created it was found lacking and tweaked, changed and yes, interpreted as it was challenged and leveraged as a guide for our country.

Imagine 1000 years ago and you stated that the Earth was round. Many people including leading scholars would disagree with you.

However neither your opinion nor the opinions of your opponents defined the nature of the Earth.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

The shape of the Earth is a physical property that exists independent of human thought or understanding; the same cannot be said of "probable cause".