Lol. "Assault" weapons. If that is not spreading FUD by itself, I dont know what is. Axios and most mainstream media is complicit in this. Flag this comment. Who cares....
Accredited investor laws and other obscure regimes have long been modeled in a similar way.
There is no prohibition or sanction from the state to a non-accredited investor, a US resident can invest in anything if they figure out how to. The way you use your money is a form of constitutionally granted expression in the US, with enforcement relying on the 14th amendment and would not be able to separate or prohibit investors in a form of caste system.
But the same outcome is achieved as private businesses raising capital (and the broker dealers) are the ones that face the potential liability from the state, (exacerbated by the much higher likelyhood of poor people complaining about their money to regulators or launching their own private litigation), and so the intermediary therefore enforces the accredited investor prohibition on behalf of the state in a way that is likely much more distributed and effective than the state could ever do itself.
The model of law has always has always been an endrun around the constitution, and maintains a durable consensus.
It is interesting to see people just now getting inspired by this form of law, due to the less obscure topics they are covering.
"...as private businesses raising capital (and the broker dealers) are the ones that face the potential liability from the state, (exacerbated by the much higher likelyhood of poor people complaining about their money to regulators or launching their own private litigation), and so the intermediary therefore enforces the accredited investor prohibition on behalf of the state..."
As you describe this it is very different in effect from the Texas law, in that SB-8 does not require any particularized injury of the plaintiff. If you don't need to be injured to sue successfully, the litigation pressure is vastly more intense because anyone can pursue it, and the fines are more than sufficient motivation.
Accredited investor laws don't require injury. The injury just creates the likelihood that it gets noticed. But yes the major difference in capital raising laws is that the state regulator is the biggest issue, whereas the executive branch is (mostly) absent in SB-8 and likely will be completely absent.
I'm not familiar with how the accredited investor laws work, but at least from your description, and reporting on the Texas abortion law, there do seem to be crucial differences beyond one just being "a less obscure topic".
The Texas abortion law basically deputizes anyone in the state to be an "abortion tattler", except for state officials who are expressly prohibited from enforcing the law. That "innovation" is what is fundamentally new about this law and why some argue it evades federal judicial review, and that seems very different from accredited investor laws.
Your comment makes me wonder whether SCOTUS could have just nullified the part of the law which forbade state actors from filing suit. That could have given standing to sue the AG, for instance.
> The Texas abortion law basically deputizes anyone in the state to be an "abortion tattler"...
Actually, I don't think they are required to be in the state of Texas. At least, all the descriptions of the bill I have seen have not mentioned that requirement.
If the Supreme Court lets the Texas law stand then I think inevitably the country will break apart. There’s a good chance of that happening regardless but allowing each state to effectively usurp what so far is considered a right negates the concept of federalism. That the Supreme Court did not immediately strike down the Texas law means that in the near future left leaning people will start advocating for states rights as Congress ends up moving to the right. The idea is now out there: each state can impose its own views on what are rights without it being immediately struck down. The divide widens.
It's reversion to the mean. The Bill of Rights was put in place to forbid the federal government from infringing on rights, since the states were sovereign already and could make their own decisions via democratic process. It's not a negation of federalism, it's a resurrection.
What about the Bill of Rights allows States to infringe rights but not the 'federal government'? Your statement makes it sound like the Bill of Rights does not also apply to State governments, and it does. In your view, there are no inalienable rights and as long as a State has a democratic process then the State can dictate whatever it wants for your life.
> What about the Bill of Rights allows States to infringe rights but not the 'federal government'?
The grandparent poster is arguing against the doctrine of incorporation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...). Prior to the Civil War, the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights were read to apply specifically against the federal government.
However, the thirteenth amendment (banning slavery) explicitly overrides state jurisdiction. The fourteenth amendment guarantees due process and equal protection of the law, and this is the usual route by which the other rights guaranteed under the Constitution have been extended to apply against state law.
In recent decades, this question has been settled so thoroughly that an anti-incorporation stance is a radical reinterpretation of the relationship between the federal and state governments.
> In recent decades, this question has been settled so thoroughly that an anti-incorporation stance is a radical reinterpretation of the relationship between the federal and state governments.
And here we are.
Many of the things we see as status quo were originally radical changes. If this tendency toward decentralization persists over the next 50 years a move back toward centrality will be considered radical too.
There are many rights that I like and want, but the word inalienable is tricky. Governments take away rights all the time. Inalienable is a wish rather than a practical reality.
It's good to have many sovereigns so that people can see the effects of different value sets, learn from them, and express preference by moving or attempting to change their corner of the world. It's a pro-choice position, really.
It's a "declaration", meaning no legal force. It's not a treaty.
And worse, there are weasel words and carve outs that basically nullify it if the state deems it appropriate. This is how nations like Cuba can be proud signatories.
That's a question about philosophy, not real things existing. I mean, it's not going to be settled as a matter of fact, it's a matter of opinion.
But if you are asking for my beliefs, then no, rights are downstream of duties. For example, your right to free speech presupposes a duty on others to not punish you for your speech. Your right to housing presupposes a duty on others to provide you with housing. Your right to freedom of religion presupposes a duty on others to not discriminate against you for your religion and to make good faith accommodation for your religion, etc.
Different cultures will have different answers to this question which will be localized and not universal, as well as different capacities to impose these duties. Moreover, alienating you from these rights is quite easy, as it only requires abandoning the corresponding duties. So rights are clearly not inalienable.
At least this is my view - but you asked, so I tried to answer in good faith. I'm not going to argue with you if you have a different view, because again, this is localized to which culture/tradition you belong to.
I'm not sure I understand all of your response. I'm not saying that UN link is some kind of perfect thing, just a place to start. For example, what that UN link shows as Article 1:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Is that really something conflicts with a lot of cultures and religions?
If we do not have some basis by which we act toward each other as humans then anything goes, and you can justify that anything with culture or religion or aliens or whatever it doesn't really matter. On some level we as humans all have the same basic needs like food, water, and shelter, independent of culture and religion.
> Is that really something conflicts with a lot of cultures and religions?
Yes, it does. That's a product of post-war liberalism that isn't even really believed that much in the West anymore - and was always aspirational in nature. It didn't even last 5 years, TBH, before the US, Europe and the USSR began funding various racial wars in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Today there are lot of people in the West who believe in things like inherited guilt, collective guilt and punishment, and a hierarchy of who has more dignity versus someone else. Then go to the Islamic world, orthodox jewish world, China, Africa, and even other parts of Asia, and you will not find a lot of people agreeing that everyone in the whole world, esp. enemy tribes, or nearby members of rival societies, are born free and equal in dignity and rights, or that they are part of any kind of global brotherhood.
In terms of the last paragraph, suffice to say that I disagree with the conclusions and assumptions, as I don't think it's a realistic or viable description of human relationships, and has historically caused more harm than good because it ends up being used as yet another reason to attack and divide people. The 20th Century was famous for, in addition to the usual racial and economic wars, introducing things like class and ideology as other dimensions to wage war on. So it's like the XKCD cartoon where you see 11 standards and decide to introduce a universal new standard, and you just end up with 12 standards.
There are federal systems where the federal government has lots of power and federal systems where the federal government has little power. There are unwritten rules and norms when it comes to governance and systems are only as strong as the willingness of people in power to follow those norms. In the U.S. those rules/norms are dissolving. A new equilibrium must be achieved. That equilibrium might end up being states seceding.
I am a bit of a noob when it comes to American legal system and also the following of precedence. So let’s say if a small town in Texas decides x is legal or not legal, does that mean the rest of the country has to follow? Or vice versa?
I mean wouldn’t it make more sense to decide a lot of the issues locally as it suits? In that aspect, can someone explain why Supreme Court is even a thing in a functional democracy with representatives making decisions at state/federal levels as appropriate? I can see in a constitutional framework it may be useful to have an unelected body decide to interpret the constitution but other than that it just really looks to me an overreach for unelected individuals to irreversibly decide whether someone I know can have abortion or carry guns
> I am a bit of a noob when it comes to American legal system and also the following of precedence. So let’s say if a small town in Texas decides x is legal or not legal, does that mean the rest of the country has to follow?
"Precedent" applies in courts, not in legislatures. A small town may decide that X is legal or illegal, and the validity of that declaration depends on its scope.
Speed limits? Go right ahead.
Banning religious or ethnic minorities from city limits? Not a chance.
Higher levels of government generally override lower levels of government. A state law absolutely wins versus a local resolution, for example. A federal law usually wins over state law, but the federal government has limited jurisdiction over local matters. The federal government can't make it illegal (for example) for a state to teach creationism in public schools, but it can make federal funding contingent on it. That's a carrot rather than a stick.
The US constitution sits at the highest level of the hierarchy, and no government may enact laws that conflict with it. This is (mostly) where the Supreme Court comes in.
At the moment, a limited right to abortion is constitutionally protected. However, the argument behind the Texas law is that it isn't infringing on the right, it's just allowing people to sue each other about it (whereupon the individual case will need to be heard separately and possibly appealed). Constitutional rights apply against governments, not individual people.
The proposed California law would apply this reasoning to firearms, which is another constitutionally-recognized right.
From here, you can see why critics of this technique are worried. If it's okay for people to sue each other over the exercise of otherwise-protected rights, then that can frustrate the very existence of those rights.
> I can see in a constitutional framework it may be useful to have an unelected body decide to interpret the constitution but other than that it just really looks to me an overreach for unelected individuals to irreversibly decide whether someone I know can have abortion or carry guns
That first part of your claim -- an unelected body interpreting the constitution -- is exactly what's happened. The right to carry firearms comes from the second amendment, and the right to abortion derives from the right to privacy that is implied by (and necessary for) the Bill of Rights; the reasoning ultimately comes from Griswold v Connecticut (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut), which held that married people have a right to use contraceptives if they wish.
Local judges are voted in. Should the supreme court be voted in? Perhaps.. the system now controls those can even try for those positions.
Different branches of government have different powers. The supreme courts gets to decide if this is a federal or state issue. There would be no body who could resolve a conflict if this court didn't exist.
> So let’s say if a small town in Texas decides x is legal or not legal, does that mean the rest of the country has to follow?
City ordinance typically doesn't apply outside city limits, same with county and state laws. Texas cant outlaw anything nationwide.
> I mean wouldn’t it make more sense to decide a lot of the issues locally as it suits? In that aspect, can someone explain why Supreme Court is even a thing in a functional democracy with representatives making decisions at state/federal levels as appropriate?
The Constitution is 'the law of the land'[1]; whenever local law conflicts with constitutional and federal law, local law loses. So when the constitution grants the populace a right, the state and city cannot take it away.
The function of the Supreme Court in this case is to adjudicate these disputes as the final court of appeals, and strike down any law found to be in violation of the Supremecy clause via judicial review[2].
The left is totally sanguine with the idea of removing the right of self defense, which is one of the most ancient and accepted rights in existence.
left leaning people will start advocating for states rights
I would rejoice if that were the case. Unfortunately, the left wouldn't be the left if it weren't hell-bent on amplifying the power of the collective. So while the left will attempt some end-run-around moves here and there in the name of "states' rights", they will never truly embrace the concept.
As a non American, I don't understand how exactly can the country break apart when many of your country men have died in a bloody war to preserve the same country. Plus, the fact is the states are stronger together. Sure, they don't align culturally as much but the Federal government steps in to help each state in one way or another (such as how Texas needed help during the crisis it had in the winter despite one of its high ranking officials talking openly about secession a few months before that).
Wouldn't deeply entrenched business interests resist this tooth and nail as I am sure many supply chains are interdependent on several states.
Besides, wasn't it Ulysses Grant and Abraham Lincoln who believed that preserving the union would save more lives in the end as if there were two countries in the same subcontinent, war would be inevitable over the centuries (in a manner similar to European wars that had been happening for almost a millennia at that point). Don't the leaders realize that simple fact?
People, cultures, ideas, and norms change over time. Entrenched business interests would be opposed to the dissolution of the union. But an opportunist with the right charisma and comes along and divides people sufficiently then those interests might not be powerful enough to maintain the union.
But the common sense fact should be that if there is dissolution of the Union, peace will never last and the two countries will be in a perpetual war or a cold war.
Plus assuming the split is the same as before, minorities will suffer terribly. Back then, it was the slaves who got the worst of it but now America has become a melting pot of all cultures. What will happen to those people?
And the allies of America will be left to fend for themselves such as Taiwan, Ukraine, Japan , India etc?
Honestly, I presume that common sense will prevail and nothing will change hopefully, such as Roe v Wade not being overturned.
This is the way the American system works and on the whole it allows different places to have laws that reflect different groups of people.
If you waited for federal interests to align weed would still be illegal and probably never get legalized or only much later. Same with Gay marriage.
You also have the issue with if the fed is making all of the rules are they going to send money to cover those additional costs or provide the services themselves if they don't it puts poor/rich states on different footings. You would need to look at equalization payments.
Canada does a version of equalization but in reality one or two Provinces cover the costs for the rest. If another Province has a good year they lobby to change the formula to exclude that income. How would that work for the US? New York, California basically give 500 million a year to mostly poor red states to pay for services? I can't see that working well.. because if the next group in Washington starts enacting hard right laws (everyone gets a free gun) California has no power to enact different laws and they have to pay for everyone's guns.
The other problem is companies would leave California and move to a poor state with better company tax laws and services.
It’s not how the system has worked for the past 150 years or so. Rights recognized by the Supreme Court have been inviolable as far as I know. I can’t think of an instance in which the Supreme Court said you have the right to X while not immediately striking down a law that effectively violates that right. I’m not a legal scholar so I could be wrong. There are variations amongst the laws of the states but federal laws and federal rights generally take precedence over an individual state’s desires. There are exceptions but generally this is true. Louisiana wanted to have 18 be the legal drinking age but the federal law that tied highway funding to making the legal age 21 effectively killed this desire by Louisiana and Scalia and others on the Supreme Court allowed this happen.
It’s all a delicate balancing act between federal interest, states interests, and peoples’ rights. The Court is upsetting the balance that had been achieved and a new equilibrium will occur.
In a way, it is a kind of divide, but in a good way. States have always been divided in a variety of ways, not just geographically. State sovereignty was always the original ideal of the U.S. Ideally, the smaller the entity in question, the more sovereign the entity should be. From least to most sovereign:
Federal > State > Municipality > Family > Individual
In the case of the article and the Texas law, it's Federal vs State, and State should trump the former. This is good because it encourages competition between states and doesn't cause lock-in for families and individuals - much in the same way that any business competes.
If Texas laws and values don't jibe with me, I can live in and support another state that does. Same goes for municipality, family, and individual - you can live in a different village, you can sever familial relations and form new ones, you can change your habits, actions, place of employment, etc.
If only uprooting was as simple as writing this. I’m all for the ideological implications of this but without the social safety net to be able to do this, it feels another extension of increasing classism.
You might be able to move to another state but not everyone else can. Your view of how things should work is not feasible or tenable. It would lead to the dissolution of the union.
That's a total mischaracterization. It's more of a shot across the bow, a warning along the lines of "you really want to open this Pandora's box?"
A big focus of the Supreme Court arguments was that if the Texas law was allowed to stand, then any constitutional right, especially gun rights that are near and dear to conservatives, could be ignored in this manner, and that was the line of argument that appeared to have the biggest impact on more conservative judges like Kavanagh.
CA doing this is basically a warning to SCOTUS justices that if they allow the Texas law to stand, it's game on.
I think California may face a more difficult argument since 2nd Amendment rights are in the Constitution, but Roe v. Wade is just court precedent.
That said, it depends on how the law they propose to inact will work. The right to own a firearm is not the same as the right to manufacture or sell a firearm. They might drive firearm manufacturing and sales out of state, but not be able to prohibit someone buying a firearm out of state and bringing it home.
> I think California may face a more difficult argument since 2nd Amendment rights are in the Constitution, but Roe v. Wade is just court precedent.
That's a distinction without justification. Constitutional rights are basically however the Supreme Court interprets them.
With respect to gun rights, there has been a long debate over whether the 2nd amendment applies to any individual, or just to "a well-regulated militia". The only reason it applies to any individual is because that's how the court interpreted it (and more recently than Roe v Wade) - through "court precedent", as you say.
And I'm not even sure that's in play here. The state isn't banning anything; they're just saying private citizens can sue manufacturers and sellers for up to $10k, right?
> That's a total mischaracterization. It's more of a shot across the bow, a warning along the lines of "you really want to open this Pandora's box?"
Fine reasoning, except it's already open. SCOTUS allowed the law to stand. Any barrier to laws of that type will have to come from the US Congress or the state legislatures.
I don't get it. Legalising drugs on a state level, hoping the federal government does nothing ( because its still illegal for them) is one thing, but I don't see the connection to allowing anyone, not related to anything, to sue anyone even remotely involved in an abortion.
To an extent there's a link, both acts are about bodily autonomy and personal choice, but one is a right and the other a crime, federally. Allowing any random person to sue for cash for the thing that is allowed vs regulating and taxing the sale of forbidden substances seem wildly different.
I think the operative difference here is, it requires a trained and licensed physician to perform an abortion. Anyone can take an 80% lower receiver and make one into an AR-15 in their garage with just a couple of YouTube videos to guide them.
Reasonably the supreme court shouldn't green light laws which trivially trample preexisting rights, prior test cases or the constitution.
This will be a poison pill: should a stacked supreme court effectively reverse abortion rights by allowing the Texan abortion law to stand - then all states can effortlessly clog the system with similar laws for anything they please. It becomes whack-a-mole because the stacked court is certain to find the CA law unconstitutional but the TX abortion law fine - which will just lead to a similar indirect laws being brought on loop.
The Supreme Court should not do anything based on any ideology or desired results.
The Court should interpret the law and the constitution as it is written. If that enables an undesirable result, then the legislative branch can take corrective action.
Either the Texas law is legal or it's not. It's not the Supreme Court's job to fix the legality of an undesirable result just as it's not their job to decide what an undesirable result is.
The Supreme Court sets its own agenda and relationship with the rest of the branches of government, more than all other institutions. The Supreme Court is traditionally expected to bring clarity to lower courts and follow its own precedence. Sometimes that has meant creating a new legal framework of judgment.
To what degree does the Supreme Court fix existing legislation and to what degree do they pass work back to Congress? Also up to the Supreme Court to decide.
What textual strategy should the Supreme Court choose to interpret laws? Also up to the Supreme Court to decide.
> It becomes whack-a-mole because the stacked court is certain to find the CA law unconstitutional but the TX abortion law fine
I disagree with this statement. Justices may be ideological, but they aren't idiots. They know that they will lose any possible shred of legitimacy the court has left if they are that open about their hypocrisy. Indeed, the biggest concern that conservative justices expressed during the hearing on the Texas law was whether it would allow any constitutional right, especially gun rights, to be invalidated in this manner.
Justices may be ideological, but they know they need to craft their rulings to appear non-political in order to uphold their legitimacy (Roberts has been especially clear about this).
Definitely a wait and see on this - because I hope (sincerely) that you are right. Their specific selection for appointment doesn’t give me the same level of confidence.
My expectation is that the court will rule abortion bans are legal but the citizen enforcement schemes are not. So the bounty system won't stand but abortion will become illegal in much of the country.
> “anyone who manufactures, distributes, or sells an assault weapon or ghost gun kit or parts in the State of California.”
That's definitely not vague at all.'Good luck to Gavin', personally i think he's delusional if he expects any success from this,besides further polarizing California.Also this is not a Texas-like law for obvious reasons
This article should not be flagged. I realize it's a hot political topic likely to involve some flame-warring, but it also brings up a crucial topic about how a novel legal approach can be an end run around judicial review, this time from the other side of the political spectrum.
The first I heard about this was here on HN, and until this was flagged there were good, useful comments that taught me something new (e.g. the accredited investor one for me).
Does flagging do anything other than alert mods to review? I’ve had a benign comment flagged, which was baffling, but afaik it didn’t actually do anything.
For submissions, it affects ranking quite severely, over a threshold shows the [flagged] status and over a higher threshold closes the discussion, blocking all comments and hiding it from people not using showdead.
For comments, it's binary - over the threshold flagged hides it from people not using showdead and disables replies to it.
He can try. The only problem for him is that the law need to go against 2nd which has been widely intepreted across America as shall not infringed. At best he restricted certain class of arms. Texas-ban didn't have the 2nd-like headwind. RvW was a court created "law" which will not have a stronger test of time vs the constitution bill of rights. He should concentrate on economy not playing politics during this almost-post pandemic era.
Honestly I’m not sure why this is flagged. It’s sort of a “hack the system” approach and kind of amusing to see happen. If extreme right is going to do things then left is going to respond. The last few years have proven you can simply laugh in the face of laws, keep stuff locked up in courts and lawsuits and counter lawsuits to block things. At this point let everyone have a stab at the chaos.
68 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 99.7 ms ] threadThere is no prohibition or sanction from the state to a non-accredited investor, a US resident can invest in anything if they figure out how to. The way you use your money is a form of constitutionally granted expression in the US, with enforcement relying on the 14th amendment and would not be able to separate or prohibit investors in a form of caste system.
But the same outcome is achieved as private businesses raising capital (and the broker dealers) are the ones that face the potential liability from the state, (exacerbated by the much higher likelyhood of poor people complaining about their money to regulators or launching their own private litigation), and so the intermediary therefore enforces the accredited investor prohibition on behalf of the state in a way that is likely much more distributed and effective than the state could ever do itself.
The model of law has always has always been an endrun around the constitution, and maintains a durable consensus.
It is interesting to see people just now getting inspired by this form of law, due to the less obscure topics they are covering.
As you describe this it is very different in effect from the Texas law, in that SB-8 does not require any particularized injury of the plaintiff. If you don't need to be injured to sue successfully, the litigation pressure is vastly more intense because anyone can pursue it, and the fines are more than sufficient motivation.
The Texas abortion law basically deputizes anyone in the state to be an "abortion tattler", except for state officials who are expressly prohibited from enforcing the law. That "innovation" is what is fundamentally new about this law and why some argue it evades federal judicial review, and that seems very different from accredited investor laws.
Actually, I don't think they are required to be in the state of Texas. At least, all the descriptions of the bill I have seen have not mentioned that requirement.
Example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Heartbeat_Act
Then again, CA also openly flaunted Federal immigration law, so chances are this may stick
Biden will provide tacit cover but he's foolish to do so...an erosion of Federal authority isn't in his interests
The grandparent poster is arguing against the doctrine of incorporation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...). Prior to the Civil War, the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights were read to apply specifically against the federal government.
However, the thirteenth amendment (banning slavery) explicitly overrides state jurisdiction. The fourteenth amendment guarantees due process and equal protection of the law, and this is the usual route by which the other rights guaranteed under the Constitution have been extended to apply against state law.
In recent decades, this question has been settled so thoroughly that an anti-incorporation stance is a radical reinterpretation of the relationship between the federal and state governments.
And here we are.
Many of the things we see as status quo were originally radical changes. If this tendency toward decentralization persists over the next 50 years a move back toward centrality will be considered radical too.
It's good to have many sovereigns so that people can see the effects of different value sets, learn from them, and express preference by moving or attempting to change their corner of the world. It's a pro-choice position, really.
Basic human rights are not a wish.
And worse, there are weasel words and carve outs that basically nullify it if the state deems it appropriate. This is how nations like Cuba can be proud signatories.
But if you are asking for my beliefs, then no, rights are downstream of duties. For example, your right to free speech presupposes a duty on others to not punish you for your speech. Your right to housing presupposes a duty on others to provide you with housing. Your right to freedom of religion presupposes a duty on others to not discriminate against you for your religion and to make good faith accommodation for your religion, etc.
Different cultures will have different answers to this question which will be localized and not universal, as well as different capacities to impose these duties. Moreover, alienating you from these rights is quite easy, as it only requires abandoning the corresponding duties. So rights are clearly not inalienable.
At least this is my view - but you asked, so I tried to answer in good faith. I'm not going to argue with you if you have a different view, because again, this is localized to which culture/tradition you belong to.
Is that really something conflicts with a lot of cultures and religions?
If we do not have some basis by which we act toward each other as humans then anything goes, and you can justify that anything with culture or religion or aliens or whatever it doesn't really matter. On some level we as humans all have the same basic needs like food, water, and shelter, independent of culture and religion.
Yes, it does. That's a product of post-war liberalism that isn't even really believed that much in the West anymore - and was always aspirational in nature. It didn't even last 5 years, TBH, before the US, Europe and the USSR began funding various racial wars in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Today there are lot of people in the West who believe in things like inherited guilt, collective guilt and punishment, and a hierarchy of who has more dignity versus someone else. Then go to the Islamic world, orthodox jewish world, China, Africa, and even other parts of Asia, and you will not find a lot of people agreeing that everyone in the whole world, esp. enemy tribes, or nearby members of rival societies, are born free and equal in dignity and rights, or that they are part of any kind of global brotherhood.
In terms of the last paragraph, suffice to say that I disagree with the conclusions and assumptions, as I don't think it's a realistic or viable description of human relationships, and has historically caused more harm than good because it ends up being used as yet another reason to attack and divide people. The 20th Century was famous for, in addition to the usual racial and economic wars, introducing things like class and ideology as other dimensions to wage war on. So it's like the XKCD cartoon where you see 11 standards and decide to introduce a universal new standard, and you just end up with 12 standards.
I mean wouldn’t it make more sense to decide a lot of the issues locally as it suits? In that aspect, can someone explain why Supreme Court is even a thing in a functional democracy with representatives making decisions at state/federal levels as appropriate? I can see in a constitutional framework it may be useful to have an unelected body decide to interpret the constitution but other than that it just really looks to me an overreach for unelected individuals to irreversibly decide whether someone I know can have abortion or carry guns
"Precedent" applies in courts, not in legislatures. A small town may decide that X is legal or illegal, and the validity of that declaration depends on its scope.
Speed limits? Go right ahead.
Banning religious or ethnic minorities from city limits? Not a chance.
Higher levels of government generally override lower levels of government. A state law absolutely wins versus a local resolution, for example. A federal law usually wins over state law, but the federal government has limited jurisdiction over local matters. The federal government can't make it illegal (for example) for a state to teach creationism in public schools, but it can make federal funding contingent on it. That's a carrot rather than a stick.
The US constitution sits at the highest level of the hierarchy, and no government may enact laws that conflict with it. This is (mostly) where the Supreme Court comes in.
At the moment, a limited right to abortion is constitutionally protected. However, the argument behind the Texas law is that it isn't infringing on the right, it's just allowing people to sue each other about it (whereupon the individual case will need to be heard separately and possibly appealed). Constitutional rights apply against governments, not individual people.
The proposed California law would apply this reasoning to firearms, which is another constitutionally-recognized right.
From here, you can see why critics of this technique are worried. If it's okay for people to sue each other over the exercise of otherwise-protected rights, then that can frustrate the very existence of those rights.
> I can see in a constitutional framework it may be useful to have an unelected body decide to interpret the constitution but other than that it just really looks to me an overreach for unelected individuals to irreversibly decide whether someone I know can have abortion or carry guns
That first part of your claim -- an unelected body interpreting the constitution -- is exactly what's happened. The right to carry firearms comes from the second amendment, and the right to abortion derives from the right to privacy that is implied by (and necessary for) the Bill of Rights; the reasoning ultimately comes from Griswold v Connecticut (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut), which held that married people have a right to use contraceptives if they wish.
Different branches of government have different powers. The supreme courts gets to decide if this is a federal or state issue. There would be no body who could resolve a conflict if this court didn't exist.
City ordinance typically doesn't apply outside city limits, same with county and state laws. Texas cant outlaw anything nationwide.
> I mean wouldn’t it make more sense to decide a lot of the issues locally as it suits? In that aspect, can someone explain why Supreme Court is even a thing in a functional democracy with representatives making decisions at state/federal levels as appropriate?
The Constitution is 'the law of the land'[1]; whenever local law conflicts with constitutional and federal law, local law loses. So when the constitution grants the populace a right, the state and city cannot take it away.
The function of the Supreme Court in this case is to adjudicate these disputes as the final court of appeals, and strike down any law found to be in violation of the Supremecy clause via judicial review[2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_review_in_the_United_...
The left is totally sanguine with the idea of removing the right of self defense, which is one of the most ancient and accepted rights in existence.
left leaning people will start advocating for states rights
I would rejoice if that were the case. Unfortunately, the left wouldn't be the left if it weren't hell-bent on amplifying the power of the collective. So while the left will attempt some end-run-around moves here and there in the name of "states' rights", they will never truly embrace the concept.
Wouldn't deeply entrenched business interests resist this tooth and nail as I am sure many supply chains are interdependent on several states.
Besides, wasn't it Ulysses Grant and Abraham Lincoln who believed that preserving the union would save more lives in the end as if there were two countries in the same subcontinent, war would be inevitable over the centuries (in a manner similar to European wars that had been happening for almost a millennia at that point). Don't the leaders realize that simple fact?
Plus assuming the split is the same as before, minorities will suffer terribly. Back then, it was the slaves who got the worst of it but now America has become a melting pot of all cultures. What will happen to those people?
And the allies of America will be left to fend for themselves such as Taiwan, Ukraine, Japan , India etc?
Honestly, I presume that common sense will prevail and nothing will change hopefully, such as Roe v Wade not being overturned.
If you waited for federal interests to align weed would still be illegal and probably never get legalized or only much later. Same with Gay marriage.
You also have the issue with if the fed is making all of the rules are they going to send money to cover those additional costs or provide the services themselves if they don't it puts poor/rich states on different footings. You would need to look at equalization payments.
Canada does a version of equalization but in reality one or two Provinces cover the costs for the rest. If another Province has a good year they lobby to change the formula to exclude that income. How would that work for the US? New York, California basically give 500 million a year to mostly poor red states to pay for services? I can't see that working well.. because if the next group in Washington starts enacting hard right laws (everyone gets a free gun) California has no power to enact different laws and they have to pay for everyone's guns.
The other problem is companies would leave California and move to a poor state with better company tax laws and services.
It’s all a delicate balancing act between federal interest, states interests, and peoples’ rights. The Court is upsetting the balance that had been achieved and a new equilibrium will occur.
Federal > State > Municipality > Family > Individual
In the case of the article and the Texas law, it's Federal vs State, and State should trump the former. This is good because it encourages competition between states and doesn't cause lock-in for families and individuals - much in the same way that any business competes.
If Texas laws and values don't jibe with me, I can live in and support another state that does. Same goes for municipality, family, and individual - you can live in a different village, you can sever familial relations and form new ones, you can change your habits, actions, place of employment, etc.
Stopping the war on drugs sounds grrat, but it also sounds like the reporting here is biased.
A big focus of the Supreme Court arguments was that if the Texas law was allowed to stand, then any constitutional right, especially gun rights that are near and dear to conservatives, could be ignored in this manner, and that was the line of argument that appeared to have the biggest impact on more conservative judges like Kavanagh.
CA doing this is basically a warning to SCOTUS justices that if they allow the Texas law to stand, it's game on.
I think California may face a more difficult argument since 2nd Amendment rights are in the Constitution, but Roe v. Wade is just court precedent.
That said, it depends on how the law they propose to inact will work. The right to own a firearm is not the same as the right to manufacture or sell a firearm. They might drive firearm manufacturing and sales out of state, but not be able to prohibit someone buying a firearm out of state and bringing it home.
That's a distinction without justification. Constitutional rights are basically however the Supreme Court interprets them.
With respect to gun rights, there has been a long debate over whether the 2nd amendment applies to any individual, or just to "a well-regulated militia". The only reason it applies to any individual is because that's how the court interpreted it (and more recently than Roe v Wade) - through "court precedent", as you say.
Good point.
That distinction is more artificial than I perceived it.
Fine reasoning, except it's already open. SCOTUS allowed the law to stand. Any barrier to laws of that type will have to come from the US Congress or the state legislatures.
They declined to issue an injunction to block the law until the case is decided. They have not yet ruled on the merits of the issue.
To an extent there's a link, both acts are about bodily autonomy and personal choice, but one is a right and the other a crime, federally. Allowing any random person to sue for cash for the thing that is allowed vs regulating and taxing the sale of forbidden substances seem wildly different.
This will be a poison pill: should a stacked supreme court effectively reverse abortion rights by allowing the Texan abortion law to stand - then all states can effortlessly clog the system with similar laws for anything they please. It becomes whack-a-mole because the stacked court is certain to find the CA law unconstitutional but the TX abortion law fine - which will just lead to a similar indirect laws being brought on loop.
The Court should interpret the law and the constitution as it is written. If that enables an undesirable result, then the legislative branch can take corrective action.
Either the Texas law is legal or it's not. It's not the Supreme Court's job to fix the legality of an undesirable result just as it's not their job to decide what an undesirable result is.
To what degree does the Supreme Court fix existing legislation and to what degree do they pass work back to Congress? Also up to the Supreme Court to decide.
What textual strategy should the Supreme Court choose to interpret laws? Also up to the Supreme Court to decide.
I disagree with this statement. Justices may be ideological, but they aren't idiots. They know that they will lose any possible shred of legitimacy the court has left if they are that open about their hypocrisy. Indeed, the biggest concern that conservative justices expressed during the hearing on the Texas law was whether it would allow any constitutional right, especially gun rights, to be invalidated in this manner.
Justices may be ideological, but they know they need to craft their rulings to appear non-political in order to uphold their legitimacy (Roberts has been especially clear about this).
That's definitely not vague at all.'Good luck to Gavin', personally i think he's delusional if he expects any success from this,besides further polarizing California.Also this is not a Texas-like law for obvious reasons
The first I heard about this was here on HN, and until this was flagged there were good, useful comments that taught me something new (e.g. the accredited investor one for me).
For comments, it's binary - over the threshold flagged hides it from people not using showdead and disables replies to it.