Massachusetts’ law prohibiting the possession and sale of some semiautomatic weapons commonly used in mass shootings is acceptable under a recent change to Second Amendment precedent from the US Supreme Court, a federal judge said Thursday.
While I applaud the fact that Massachusetts residents have protons (EDIT: protections! That should have said protections!) the federal government was not able to provide, this feel like the beginning of the end.
If anything not literally written in the constitution is really up to the states, you are not really a country. You are a bunch of separate countries that happen to have an identical constitution.
If anything not literally written in the constitution is really up to the states, you are not really a country. You are a bunch of separate countries that happen to have an identical constitution.
No that’s literally NOT the idea. The Articles of Confederation are what you get when that idea is implemented. The modern Constitution was created as a result of the failure of the AoC
That’s not a GOOD idea though. Jettisoning 150 years of precedent and returning to the actual text of the constitution and nothing else means that you guy effective lose the ability to act like a modern state. It’s only a matter of time.
How is not everyone freaking out over this?
You guys worked really hard to get here. I can’t believe everyone is on board with “fuck being the greatest country in the world, we’ll just be a loose federation of constantly squabbling middle powers.”.
Because you’re wrong. Massachusetts is not throwing out all amendments to the constitution. They’re just adopting a saner interpretation of one of them, one more in line with a modern and civilized country.
The Massachusetts ruling is not the problem here. This is the tiny silver lining in a really big storm cloud. The court has shown us that they are not just trying to implement conservative policy using textualism as a fig leaf. They are tied to the mast and intend to really rule on the text of the U.S. constitution.
Pretty much all your social programs and regulatory systems depend on a very creative interpretation of the constitution to get around the reserve clause. But if SCOTUS starts jettisoning out those interpretations and moving to eg a literal interpretation of the commerce clause and other popular loopholes, it all comes tumbling down.
Social security? Medicare? The FCC? The EPA? NASA? All history.
More information on the constitutional basis for social security and other programs can be found straight from the horse’s mouth:
While your analysis of the way that the courts have been implementing conservative policy is spot on, I have to disagree with your conclusions about how it will play out in practice.
Social security? Medicare? The FCC? The EPA? NASA? All history.
Surely this would be a wet dream for the most diehard conservatives, but the reality is that there exists simply too much popular support for many of these programs. Constitutional or not, take away people’s social security checks and there would be a popular backlash unlike anything we’ve seen in ages.
Having said that, if Trump gets elected, who’s to say that he wouldn’t try to take a swipe at some of the more controversial programs, like the EPA? That certainly seems plausible, but the idea of fully dismantling the federal bureaucracy seems far-fetched.
They’d be more than happy to hold a Constitutional Convention to fix that. They’d sell it as making a Constitution that allows for stuff like social programs.
Except they’ve been practicing for one for decades and their actual proposals are downright insane. Like rolling back women’s suffrage.
Oh that’s easy. The education system completely whitewashed the real issues of the civil war. In the North they teach it was about slavery and in the South they teach it was about State’s Rights. And yes part of it was the right of states to be slave states.
But the actual core dispute was the balance of power between the states and the federal government. The South left because they didn’t think they could get anything out of the federal government. And rather than accept the national attitudes on Slavery were changing, they decided their local rule was more important.
So here we are 150 years later, slowly dismantling the federal government because one side is captured by lost cause ideologists who want the early 1800’s weak federal government back. The other side has been captured by wealthy libertarians who think rich people shouldn’t have any duties or burdens to their country.
Neither side wants a strong federal government beyond a military that’s banned from domestic operation. And the people are too busy arguing over statues to notice the house is unified in dismantling itself.
It’s part of why so many things here in the good old u. s. of a. are backwards compared to other “modern” countries. It was founded by people who were trying to escape a “big” tyrannical government. So they put it into law that small government would have more power than the federal one. The USA then grew into one of the biggest governments in the world but the American ideals of distrusting large government is still there.
The Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2) and the 10th Amendment clearly state that the federal government has more, read: supreme, power over the states. You may be misremembering that the phrase “nor prohibited by it to the States” exists in the amendment. Basically, a federal law today will immediately and automatically nullify a 200 year old state law - precedence nor time of the state law will survive a Supreme Court review even if all 9 Justices are Federalist Society lackeys.
While I applaud the fact that Massachusetts residents have protons (EDIT: protections! That should have said protections!) the federal government was not able to provide, this feel like the beginning of the end.
If anything not literally written in the constitution is really up to the states, you are not really a country. You are a bunch of separate countries that happen to have an identical constitution.
That’s literally the idea.
No that’s literally NOT the idea. The Articles of Confederation are what you get when that idea is implemented. The modern Constitution was created as a result of the failure of the AoC
No it’s not.
Ninth Amendment:
deleted by creator
That’s not a GOOD idea though. Jettisoning 150 years of precedent and returning to the actual text of the constitution and nothing else means that you guy effective lose the ability to act like a modern state. It’s only a matter of time.
How is not everyone freaking out over this?
You guys worked really hard to get here. I can’t believe everyone is on board with “fuck being the greatest country in the world, we’ll just be a loose federation of constantly squabbling middle powers.”.
Because you’re wrong. Massachusetts is not throwing out all amendments to the constitution. They’re just adopting a saner interpretation of one of them, one more in line with a modern and civilized country.
The Massachusetts ruling is not the problem here. This is the tiny silver lining in a really big storm cloud. The court has shown us that they are not just trying to implement conservative policy using textualism as a fig leaf. They are tied to the mast and intend to really rule on the text of the U.S. constitution.
Pretty much all your social programs and regulatory systems depend on a very creative interpretation of the constitution to get around the reserve clause. But if SCOTUS starts jettisoning out those interpretations and moving to eg a literal interpretation of the commerce clause and other popular loopholes, it all comes tumbling down.
Social security? Medicare? The FCC? The EPA? NASA? All history.
More information on the constitutional basis for social security and other programs can be found straight from the horse’s mouth:
https://www.ssa.gov/history/court.html
While your analysis of the way that the courts have been implementing conservative policy is spot on, I have to disagree with your conclusions about how it will play out in practice.
Surely this would be a wet dream for the most diehard conservatives, but the reality is that there exists simply too much popular support for many of these programs. Constitutional or not, take away people’s social security checks and there would be a popular backlash unlike anything we’ve seen in ages.
Having said that, if Trump gets elected, who’s to say that he wouldn’t try to take a swipe at some of the more controversial programs, like the EPA? That certainly seems plausible, but the idea of fully dismantling the federal bureaucracy seems far-fetched.
They’d be more than happy to hold a Constitutional Convention to fix that. They’d sell it as making a Constitution that allows for stuff like social programs.
Except they’ve been practicing for one for decades and their actual proposals are downright insane. Like rolling back women’s suffrage.
deleted by creator
Oh that’s easy. The education system completely whitewashed the real issues of the civil war. In the North they teach it was about slavery and in the South they teach it was about State’s Rights. And yes part of it was the right of states to be slave states.
But the actual core dispute was the balance of power between the states and the federal government. The South left because they didn’t think they could get anything out of the federal government. And rather than accept the national attitudes on Slavery were changing, they decided their local rule was more important.
So here we are 150 years later, slowly dismantling the federal government because one side is captured by lost cause ideologists who want the early 1800’s weak federal government back. The other side has been captured by wealthy libertarians who think rich people shouldn’t have any duties or burdens to their country.
Neither side wants a strong federal government beyond a military that’s banned from domestic operation. And the people are too busy arguing over statues to notice the house is unified in dismantling itself.
I applaud the fact that they have protons AND electrons
Our electrons are rigged
Don’t be so negative
And don’t forget the neutrons. The Switzerland of subatomic particles.
(Thanks, i really didn’t notice the autocorrect snafu)
I hate these filthy neutrons, Kif. With enemies, you know where they stand but with neutrons, who knows? It sickens me.
10th amendment specifies exactly what you’re saying, that nothing explicitly written is up to the people or states.
Well that’s exactly my point. It’s gutting 150 years of precedent making you guys a country.
It’s not a good thing. A war was fought over this.
Firstly I agree
Secondly
How is that any different than the european union
That is what the original intention of the states was, was to allow a diversity of systems under one overarching banner.
The EU constitution is not a real constitution. We just call it that to freak out the crazies. But it’s just a treaty instrument.
The U.S. is a drastically different beast than the EU it’s right now.
How did the EU come into this?
By me asking if there was any discernible difference?
Fair enough.
But how did YOU come into this…world?
Unwillingly
I feel ya. I myself held out for two extra weeks until I had to give up and be born.
It’s part of why so many things here in the good old u. s. of a. are backwards compared to other “modern” countries. It was founded by people who were trying to escape a “big” tyrannical government. So they put it into law that small government would have more power than the federal one. The USA then grew into one of the biggest governments in the world but the American ideals of distrusting large government is still there.
The Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2) and the 10th Amendment clearly state that the federal government has more, read: supreme, power over the states. You may be misremembering that the phrase “nor prohibited by it to the States” exists in the amendment. Basically, a federal law today will immediately and automatically nullify a 200 year old state law - precedence nor time of the state law will survive a Supreme Court review even if all 9 Justices are Federalist Society lackeys.