Board 8 > The Official Topic of Freedom and Liberty (Ron Paul 2012)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Forcing kids to buy lunch from the school should be unconstitutional too.

What does this have to do with anything? Who's proposing this?

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My bracket wasn't good enough to beat SuperNiceDog's in the GameFAQS Rivalry Rumble. Congrats!
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It's a hypothetical. Justice Scalia asked in the healthcare open argument if the government could force people to buy broccoli. If yes to broccoli and health insurance, why not school lunches?

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Uh, I'm pretty sure there already are public schools that have outlawed bringing your own lunch from home, which is the exact same as requiring students to buy lunch from the school.

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
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Well, there is a difference there- you could just choose to forego lunch.

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Uh, I'm pretty sure there already are public schools that have outlawed bringing your own lunch from home, which is the exact same as requiring students to buy lunch from the school.

Are there?

I know it was tried in Chicago, but ultimately the policy was rescinded.

From: red sox 777 | #354
Well, there is a difference there- you could just choose to forego lunch.

School probably wouldn't allow that. The entire point of banning the home lunches is because they might be unhealthy. Not eating at all isn't healthy either. I guess if parents absolutely refused to pay, the schools would give free lunches?

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
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And forcing kids to eat lunch is highly unconstitutional and a very scary precedent.

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And the difference is relevant for healthcare- because the reason it is unconstitutional is not that the government is forcing individuals to pay, but that it is forcing them to act. The government can force individuals to pay- through an income tax- this is established by the 16th Amendment, which is part of the Constitution as much as some dislike it. It can't force individuals to act.

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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
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Something for you to think about, Smuffin: who does the Fed's policies hurt most?

It's not the top 1%, because they're the ones receiving the bailouts. It's not the bottom 50%, because they don't pay taxes, and therefore are not responsible for the US government's debt. Besides, inflation is the great equalizer, unless you are sophisticated enough to invest your money in inflation proof assets. And people generally don't do that in the USA unless they are in the top 1%, even if they have the means to do so.

The group that suffers most from excessive government debt and inflation is the upper middle class. They pay most of the taxes, and hence for most of our government's spending. The upper middle class is composed primarily of college educated folks (college educated is roughly equivalent to the top 25% in the US by income). They suffer the burden of bailing out the top 1%, while simultaneously inflation eats away at their margin over the bottom 50%, because these people are not good investors.

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http://www.mediaite.com/tv/judge-napolitano-slams-obamas-supreme-court-criticism-no-president-has-questioned-this-since-andrew-jackson/

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
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Actually, loads of presidents give this kind of rhetoric. It's just that no president has thought he could do anything about it since Andrew Jackson. And Obama doesn't either.

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I honestly wouldn't put it past Obama to say "too bad, we're doing it anyway"

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
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He doesn't have that kind of power. Anyone who refuses to pay the fine for the individual mandate will win his case. Obama could not enforce that law without getting himself impeached.

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So? He can't get removed without 2/3 of the Congress, and the Dems would never vote to remove him no matter what he did.

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
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If he sent in troops to collect by force, even the Democrats would be voting him out. He's not going to be able to use any legal mechanisms to enforce a law the Supreme Court deems unconstitutional.

It just wouldn't work for Obama to do that kind of thing, even if he wanted to, which I'm pretty sure he doesn't, as much as some people suspect his intentions.

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Probably the biggest thing keeping Obama from doing something ridiculous like that is the fact that his name will go down in history as tyrannous. Apparently lots of people care about that kind of stuff.

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_foolmo_
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If he sent in troops to collect by force, even the Democrats would be voting him out

I don't think so.

Probably the biggest thing keeping Obama from doing something ridiculous like that is the fact that his name will go down in history as tyrannous.

Don't think that either. Commies write the textbooks.

I think everyone underestimates how deep partisanship runs. I always used the birther thing as an example. I think even if we found absolutely incontrovertible proof that Obama wasn't a citizen. I think that even if he ADMITTED he wasn't, it wouldn't matter. It just wouldn't matter.

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

Actually, loads of presidents give this kind of rhetoric. It's just that no president has thought he could do anything about it since Andrew Jackson. And Obama doesn't either.

FDR?

From: SmartMuffin | #367
Don't think that either. Commies write the textbooks.

Textbooks don't matter as much as wikipedia and reddit nowadays

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_foolmo_
'but that statement is something only an Aspergers patient would say' - UltimaterializerX

No Commies there?

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
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FDR tried to use legal means, namely increasing the size of the court. Quite distinct.

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Don't think that either. Commies write the textbooks.

And liberals are the ones being indoctrinated?

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My bracket wasn't good enough to beat SuperNiceDog's in the GameFAQS Rivalry Rumble. Congrats!
This is Yesmar.

I was going to criticize that, but go through some college catalogs and try to find courses teaching the military side of history. It almost no longer exists, and this the heart of history, that has the greatest actual impact on events.

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Yeah my school is definitely lacking in classes about the Three Kingdom era of China. I would totally take a class like that.

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_foolmo_
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wtf

that's way too many people

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_foolmo_
'but that statement is something only an Aspergers patient would say' - UltimaterializerX

What, why didn't I hear about this event? I would have gone!

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You're at UCLA? How did you not hear about this...

I would kill to have him come to my school, but no one cares about VA : /
Maybe when he gets the nomination and is campaigning against Obama

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_foolmo_
'but that statement is something only an Aspergers patient would say' - UltimaterializerX

Well, the law school is a rather insular community (only 1000 students). Darn you Fedsoc for not emailing me about this.

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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
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This could use a bump.

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

I recently subscribed to the Schiff Report on YouTube. Everything this guy says is amazing. I frequently quote him when destroying liberals in arguments.

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Genesis does what Nintendon't
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7nsBoqJ6s8

Romney/Bernanke 2012

Inflation We Can Believe In

It's a simple question. If you want more money, vote for Romney. If you want less money, vote for Ron Paul.

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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
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Also, rest assured the money will trickle down. All the way from the Fed to the big banks to the bottom of the top 1%. It may only be a trickle by the time we get that far, but rest assured that you will get your money if you are in the bottom half of the top 1%.

And if you're not in the top 1%, you must be a communist.

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So, kinda interesting. I mentioned the Hillsdale constitution course awhile back. This week is about Abraham Lincoln and the issue of slavery and the constitution. I probably don't have to tell you that they present the issue as 100% pro-Lincoln. A decent emphasis is given to the Dred Scott decision. As horrible of a decision as we may consider it in modern times, it was a perfectly valid decision made lawfully by the Supreme Court. Many of the required readings are from the Lincoln/Douglas debate and speeches he gave while running for Senate. It's interesting to see the rhetoric Lincoln uses. All the standard language is there. That the decision was close, that the judges are unelected, that it doesn't matter what they say if we know we're morally right, etc.

We should keep in mind that despite history being sort of whitewashed away from this, prior to the actual outbreak of the civil war, the federal government and the supreme court in particular regularly made pro-slavery decisions constantly. It was the north who most often employed nullification and rejected the authority of the supreme court.

Will history repeat itself?

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

I think you mean jury nullification! With Northern juries nullifying laws like the Fugitive Slave Act.

The North didn't actually do any government/political nullification, though they did talk about it a lot. And the South didn't try nullification either after South Carolina tried and failed in the 1830s.

Personally, I think nullification was clearly unconstitutional, while secession was a gray area back then. The Supreme Court never ruled on secession until after the Civil War, but I could see them going either way on the issue before the Civil War- with quite reasonable arguments. There are no good arguments for state nullification of federal laws that get past the language of the Constitution itself and basic fairness, either now or then.

And the US Constitution explicitly protected slavery before the 13th Amendment, so it's no surprise the Supreme Court kept ruling in favor of it.

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The North did PLENTY of nullification. Wisconsin nullified the fugitive slave law. This is well documented.

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

Quickly looked that up, and the history is:

1842- US Supreme Court says free states do not have to voluntarily return slaves.
1850- Congress responds by passing a new statute, the Fugitive Slave Act, overruling the Court's 1842 ruling. Congress could do this because the Court wasn't saying that the Constitution mandated what it said, merely that there was no requirement either way under existing law.
1854- Wisconsin Supreme Court rules Fugitive Slave Act to be unconstitutional.
1859- US Supreme Court overrules Wisconsin Supreme Court, says that FSA is constitutional.

There's no nullification in this course of events, which would be the executive branch opening ignoring the law.

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The Legislature AND Judiciary of Wisconsin both proclaimed they would not enforce the fugitive slave law within Wisconsin. Not sure if the governor ever commented on it.

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

So I was having an argument with a liberal the other day and he mentioned that tax rates are the lowest they've been in 60 years. Which I guess is true.

But then I was just listening to the Peter Schiff show, and Schiff said that taxes were extremely high earlier in the century, but nobody paid them because of deductions and stuff. And how people are actually spending more on taxes these days than they were when rates were high.

I didn't fully understand all of it, and I still don't, but can someone help me beat this liberal?

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Genesis does what Nintendon't
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7nsBoqJ6s8

Oh yeah, since I couldn't come up with a quick enough answer to the liberal's "low tax rates" argument, I just told him that Libertarians view taxation as theft and I don't care if the tax rate is at 1%; my money had better going to something of fair and equal value.

He didn't provide a follow up.

Man, I'm constantly fending off liberals left and right these days (no pun intended). It was the exact opposite in 2008 for me. I'm glad I discovered Libertarianism; I realize now hardcore liberals are no more or less stubborn and ignorant than hardcore conservatives.

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Genesis does what Nintendon't
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Well, I won't claim to have any expertise on deduction practices in the past.

But the point that the tax rate is largely irrelevant due to deduction rules, and regulations in general is totally valid. That's why there has recently been talk of some sort of bipartisan compromise involving lowering corporate tax rates, but eliminating all of the various deductions, which leftists have taken to calling "loopholes."

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

The Legislature AND Judiciary of Wisconsin both proclaimed they would not enforce the fugitive slave law within Wisconsin. Not sure if the governor ever commented on it.

And neither of those is nullification. Courts obviously can rule on constitutionality. Sometimes they are reversed by higher courts. Legislatures also can pass unconstitutional laws- it is the job of the courts to strike those laws down.

The heart of nullification is the executive defying the law, as interpreted by courts.

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If they didn't enforce the law, they nullified it.

By the same token, every "Sanctuary City" in America has effectively nullified federal immigration law. Every state that legalizes medical marijuana is effectively nullifying federal drug laws. States that have passed firearms freedom laws effectively nullify federal gun regulations. It really isn't that rare of a thing...

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
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red sox 777 posted...
The Legislature AND Judiciary of Wisconsin both proclaimed they would not enforce the fugitive slave law within Wisconsin. Not sure if the governor ever commented on it.

And neither of those is nullification. Courts obviously can rule on constitutionality. Sometimes they are reversed by higher courts. Legislatures also can pass unconstitutional laws- it is the job of the courts to strike those laws down.

The heart of nullification is the executive defying the law, as interpreted by courts.

I always understood nullification to be a legislative act. Regardless, it doesn't really matter which branch is involved. Smartmuffin is right, what matters is the lack of actual enforcement.

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Exactly, what matters is the enforcement, which is the job of the executive. Courts have an easy way to deal with legislative nullification: declare the law unconstitutional or preempted and be done with it. Courts do not have such an easy way of dealing with an executive.

Also, a state has no affirmative duty to help enforce federal laws. It can even do things to oppose the federal law's purpose. Nullification is when the federal law is declared null and void, which is not the case in any of those.

Example: South Carolina can announce that they are firing all their tax collectors and will not contribute to collecting the 47% tariff on imports. South Carolina cannot declare that there is no tariff in South Carolina and no one can collect it.

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TomNook7 posted...
Oh yeah, since I couldn't come up with a quick enough answer to the liberal's "low tax rates" argument, I just told him that Libertarians view taxation as theft and I don't care if the tax rate is at 1%; my money had better going to something of fair and equal value.

He didn't provide a follow up.

Man, I'm constantly fending off liberals left and right these days (no pun intended). It was the exact opposite in 2008 for me. I'm glad I discovered Libertarianism; I realize now hardcore liberals are no more or less stubborn and ignorant than hardcore conservatives.

Yeah man, those unquestioning liberals and conservatives are so ignorant! They should be like you and blindly follow libertarianism instead!

No one "ism" has all the answers, and if you start with that axiom you've already lost a debate to someone who hasn't.

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Well, I saw a Peter Schiff video in which he claimed to be paying some absurdly high tax rate. Hint to Mr. Schiff: no one in the top 1% who doesn't want to pay that high a rate actually pays it. Except you, apparently. There are all kinds of loopholes, deductions, and just smarter ways to structure your income based on the tax code that are open to people with enough wealth to choose how their income is generated.

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Example: South Carolina can announce that they are firing all their tax collectors and will not contribute to collecting the 47% tariff on imports. South Carolina cannot declare that there is no tariff in South Carolina and no one can collect it.

This would merely be the most extreme example of nullification. And it HAS happened historically, and even currently. Recently, Wyoming passed one of those "firearms freedom" laws and announced their intention to arrest any federal agent who attempted to enforce federal firearms regulations within Wyoming. Feds haven't tried their luck yet. Would be interesting to see who blinked if they did.

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
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From: LordoftheMorons | #395
Yeah man, those unquestioning liberals and conservatives are so ignorant! They should be like you and blindly follow libertarianism instead!

No one "ism" has all the answers, and if you start with that axiom you've already lost a debate to someone who hasn't.

So defensive/insecure, I love it

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_foolmo_
'To be foolmo'd is to be better opinion'd.' - Blairville

From: red sox 777 | #396
Well, I saw a Peter Schiff video in which he claimed to be paying some absurdly high tax rate. Hint to Mr. Schiff: no one in the top 1% who doesn't want to pay that high a rate actually pays it. Except you, apparently. There are all kinds of loopholes, deductions, and just smarter ways to structure your income based on the tax code that are open to people with enough wealth to choose how their income is generated.

He's probably referring to his company rather than his personal income. Also, since his company is private and presumably he's the majority (if not only) shareholder, he may be referring to the fact that he essentially gets taxed double on any income he generates via his company.

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

This would merely be the most extreme example of nullification. And it HAS happened historically, and even currently. Recently, Wyoming passed one of those "firearms freedom" laws and announced their intention to arrest any federal agent who attempted to enforce federal firearms regulations within Wyoming. Feds haven't tried their luck yet. Would be interesting to see who blinked if they did.

Until it reaches that extreme, it is not unconstitutional.

I hadn't heard of the Wyoming case, but if the details are as you say, it would probably come down to whether the federal firearms regulations at question are themselves constitutional or not, as decided by a court. If it is deemed to be so, my guess is Wyoming is out of luck should the feds ever try to go in.

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