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Is state nullification constitutional?

Is state nullification constitutional?

  • Yes

    Votes: 15 35.7%
  • No

    Votes: 24 57.1%
  • Other/Don't know

    Votes: 3 7.1%

  • Total voters
    42
some info for you

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

James Madison, Federalist, no. 42, 283--85
22 Jan. 1788

The defect of power in the existing confederacy, to regulate the commerce between its several members, is in the number of those which have been clearly pointed out by experience.
Right, looking back I oversimplified it. I figured it was a given that people understood that commerce dealing between two governments was to be the limit of the commerce clause so I went to the smallest body that would need federal oversight, state-state, state-federal, etc. basically any trade within U.S. borders was to be the scope of the ninth, and this would be normally trade disputes like rates, distribution, taxes, etc.
 
Right, looking back I oversimplified it. I figured it was a given that people understood that commerce dealing between two governments was to be the limit of the commerce clause so I went to the smallest body that would need federal oversight, state-state, state-federal, etc. basically any trade within U.S. borders was to be the scope of the ninth, and this would be normally trade disputes like rates, distribution, taxes, etc.

one of the problem of commerce under the articles was, that states were in engaging in trade wars and trade barriers with each other.

one state would make a state mad, and that state would not sell them raw materials, or states would pass laws to protect there product manufacturers, from products of other states...a barrier
 
one of the problem of commerce under the articles was, that states were in engaging in trade wars and trade barriers with each other.

one state would make a state mad, and that state would not sell them raw materials, or states would pass laws to protect there product manufacturers, from products of other states...a barrier
Absolutely. The ninth was there simply to give the U.S. federal government the authority to insure that those trades were equitable. The initial price of goods from South Caroline to New York must be of value such That New York and Georgia are on the same playing field. Should a dispute arise, the federal was to have final authority to then determine who was at fault and rectify the situation.
 
Absolutely. The ninth was there simply to give the U.S. federal government the authority to insure that those trades were equitable. The initial price of goods from South Caroline to New York must be of value such That New York and Georgia are on the same playing field. Should a dispute arise, the federal was to have final authority to then determine who was at fault and rectify the situation.

heres the power you describe:

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;-- between a State and Citizens of another State,--between Citizens of different States,--between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and

by the way, you will notice it dos not say "Controversies between a citizen and the federal government"..but it does mention citizen in every other case.

because the founders stated that the federal government could not violate the rights of citizens, becuase it did not have the power, becuase government was limited.
 
heres the power you describe:

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;-- between a State and Citizens of another State,--between Citizens of different States,--between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and

by the way, you will notice it dos not say "Controversies between a citizen and the federal government"..but it does mention citizen in every other case.

because the founders stated that the federal government could not violate the rights of citizens, becuase it did not have the power, becuase government was limited.
Right, SCOTUS under FDR twisted the citizen wording to incorporate anything that crosses state borders as subject to regulation should Congress choose to do so. However this was regarding disputes in trade the "controversies" part, and the only reason to "regulate" was by the original definition of "to make regular" or in modern terms, to basically square trade amongst the concerned parties.
 
Right, SCOTUS under FDR twisted the citizen wording to incorporate anything that crosses state borders as subject to regulation should Congress choose to do so. However this was regarding disputes in trade the "controversies" part, and the only reason to "regulate" was by the original definition of "to make regular" or in modern terms, to basically square trade amongst the concerned parties.

to make regular, or to keep commerce flowing..by the way it was 1941/42 when the court said government could take over commerce inside states...it was over an issue of wheat, and a farmer growing it.
 
to make regular, or to keep commerce flowing..by the way it was 1941/42 when the court said government could take over commerce inside states...it was over an issue of wheat, and a farmer growing it.
Yep, then that became expanded to allow for the NFA, and later Congresses would go on to pass things like CAFE standards among other abuses because products "crossed state borders".
 
BS. A person cannot be here unless at the discretion of the U.S. and can be deported for being here without permission.

Because the Federal government has stolen power from the states.

This is part of naturalization

Nonsense.

but it's also part of defense as a border issue(which I noticed you never touched).

Nonsense. 1. It's not a border issue. This may come as a surprise to you, but deporting people doesn't have any effect at all on border security. Seriously, not a single affect. The borders are no more or less secure if someone is deported. It kind of has a little bit to do with the word "border" having a specific meaning. 2. I have addressed it. The feds are free to control the borders. You just have to remember that border has a meaning, and that meaning is not "whatever the **** la decides to call border security whenever the whim takes him there"




And yet some states are trying to assert that they want non-citizens to vote on elections

So? If it's their own state elections, more power to them. It's their right to do so. They can create whatever rules they want for choosing their representatives in the federal government. What's wrong with the 10th amendment? Why are you trying to overturn it?

that is a naturalization issue.

How the hell is that a naturalization issue? what the **** nonsense definition of "naturalization" have you invented, dude?


The problem with saying immigration and naturalization aren't under federal purview is that there are two powers that prove otherwise.

Nobody has said that Naturalization isn't under the federal purview. It's an enumerated power. Somebody, however, is under the delusion that immigration is an enumerated power when it is not. I'm debating that person now.

The fourteenth is a naturalization amendment.

No it isn't. It is an amendment that describes the rights of citizens. Just because the amendment stated that naturalized citizens are citizens doesn't mean it is a "naturalization amendment."



That's not deniable.

The problem is that you are using invented definitions of words and pretending they are true. the 14th doesn't state anything about immigrants. Only citizens.

So we give protections and use resources on people who have no desire to become citizens?

Of course. This is how it has always been.

Do we really want people breaking laws, crashing here, eating up resources who have no desire to join the community?

Of course we do. Without them, our economy would falter greatly. We would have failed as a nation without them. They tend to use fewer resources and break fewer laws than our citizens do, and they contribute hard work and labor for our benefit and all that they ask for in return is the opportunity to work. I WISH our citizens had half the work ethic and only twice the desire for luxury as immigrants do.

And this sentiment, reality is why the naturalization process and immigration powers are necessarily linked by necessary and proper, there is a power that connects the two tests.

That irrational, purely fictional demonization of immigrants is why people who like to pretend to support small-government policies will hypocritically **** all over their own supposed ideals when it comes down to immigration laws because they do not really have the balls to support about small government because doing so in a legitimate sense would mean that, sometimes, you have to allow **** that you don't personally agree with to be the law of the land.

It's hard to promote small-government principles consistently. That's why the vast majority of people fail at it.

I don't think they should have sole authority on enforcement, and certainly not residency. However this is a rare case where they actually do have a power allowing them to enforce should a state not do so, and an even rarer case where the state has no power to stop it.

This is a case of you ****ting all over your professed ideology because you do not have the gumption to follow that ideology through to it's logical conclusions even when the logical conclusion would force you to take a position which runs counter to your personal views on a matter.

You are doing this interpretive dance because you are starting from your personal view and then trying to justify that view in order to pretend it is not antithetical to your professed ideology.

You have no idea how often I promote the rights of certain states to engage in behaviors that I personally abhor. Take immigration law, for example. I supported Arizona's law based entirely on the principles I'm discussing here. I ****ing hate that law, and I think it is ignorant bull****. I think the people who created it are scumbags who deserve to be flogged. But I support their right to pass such idiocy, despite the fact that I find them to be vile hateful morons, because I am consistent in my ideology. Not my state, therefore it's not my business to get the law changed.

I could easily take the big government stance you are promoting on immigration because it would suit my purposes greatly. I could decide, arbitrarily, that Arizona's enforcement of federal laws could endanger foreign relations, for example, like the SC did when they decided to usurp State authority in 1875. That would allow me to doublethink my way into holding two contradictory positions at the same time, as so many people do on immigration, but I don't do that because I know that all I would be doing is lying to myself in order to hold a view.

Yes there is, for a green card and permanent residence a person must be in the process of naturalizing.

False. People do not have to enter teh process of naturalization in order to obtain a green card. You are simply wrong.

The only possibly permanent exception is asylum, every thing else is temporary by the visa system.

Asylum is merely one path to getting a green card. Once the person receives the green card, they are no different form anyone else with a green card, legally speaking. You seem to be very unaware of the immigration laws in this country.

I've explained this enough. It's simple, the U.S. is in charge of naturalization and defense, everything about immigration crosses both of those powers.

You are using interpretations and redefinitions in order to justify your big government position. It's doublethink.

However states are not supposed to harbor criminals, illegal immigrants in this case, so how do you reconcile that.

The laws which make them "criminals" are unconstitutional because the federal government does not have the authority to define immigration laws. It is not an enumerated power.

And if INS catches them they are gone.

Because the feds usurped state power to determine residency through judicial activism in 1875. That usurpation of authority was unconstitutional, according to the 10th amendment.

It's not just naturalization, that is simply what we've forced the focum on. Defense is also a factor.

Defense ends at the border. If they get in and receive residency permission from a state, the feds need to prove that the individual is a defense risk in order to have authority.

It has everything to do with it.

Only in your imagination.
 
I can agree with this. I am not a fan of judicial review, for the reason that it allows for a corrupt court to use interpretations to remove citizen protections, last century showed a lot of that, and there are some real troubling rulings presently.

Of course no system is going to be perfect. The Constitution had many holes in it, and potential political strife was one of the smaller holes. That doesn't mean that the Framers didn't intend judicial review.

I myself support judicial review, but as you said, there is a lot of potential for misinterpretations. Sometimes the SCOTUS rules that something constitutional is clearly unconstitutional (Plessy), and sometimes they uphold a system that is constitutional but completely immoral (Dred Scott). Normally, though, they get it right when it comes to civil liberties.
 
Of course no system is going to be perfect. The Constitution had many holes in it, and potential political strife was one of the smaller holes. That doesn't mean that the Framers didn't intend judicial review.
Well, it's actually a myth that the constitution was full of holes. The big problem is misrepresentation of the plain wording(according to the meaning of those words at the time), the biggest "loopholing" of the constitution started with the Lincoln administration, and the Wilson administration. Everything that followed was just a continuation of abuses.

I myself support judicial review, but as you said, there is a lot of potential for misinterpretations. Sometimes the SCOTUS rules that something constitutional is clearly unconstitutional (Plessy), and sometimes they uphold a system that is constitutional but completely immoral (Dred Scott). Normally, though, they get it right when it comes to civil liberties.
Actually, the Supreme Court has a horrible overall history of getting things correct, usually when they get one right at least they hold off a little damage. Unfortunately, many times they got something wrong they've done massive damage, like Brown V. Board(but at least they reversed themselves). Their ruling on Obamacare apparently by Robert's wording was to presrve the commerce clause but the idiot actually expanded the tax powers to something that literally could have invalidated the CC. The CC itself was expanded by a court that felt threatened, and the court used a process it wasn't clear it owned to give same self that process.

Something has to be done if they are allowed to keep Judicial review I guess is my point. I'm not for or against them having it so much as since they interpreted it for themselves then it should be a legal requirement that they use it properly.
 
Because the Federal government has stolen power from the states.
But they didn't in this particular case. The fourteenth is pretty clear about naturalization and citizenship. This is one of the few cases where they actually properly tied two powers to each other. The states gave the federal the power with the fourteenth.



Nonsense.



Nonsense. 1. It's not a border issue. This may come as a surprise to you, but deporting people doesn't have any effect at all on border security. Seriously, not a single affect. The borders are no more or less secure if someone is deported. It kind of has a little bit to do with the word "border" having a specific meaning.
It's very much a border issue, how can one immigrate if they don't cross a border? You can't immigrate to the U.S. from say, Canada, if you never leave Canada. And yes, deporting people does have an effect on immigration, it's one penalty among others that exists to enforce naturalization law. If one won't naturalize or follow proper laws in that regard they are sent away.

2. I have addressed it. The feds are free to control the borders. You just have to remember that border has a meaning, and that meaning is not "whatever the **** la decides to call border security whenever the whim takes him there"
Oh this should be good. Define a border that is anything besides the line of demarcation for a country, it's pretty simple, the border is the place where influence ends. The U.S. has full authority over border protections, and that falls under the defense powers.






So? If it's their own state elections, more power to them. It's their right to do so. They can create whatever rules they want for choosing their representatives in the federal government. What's wrong with the 10th amendment? Why are you trying to overturn it?
For federal elections, I have to suffer the consequences of people who could potentially care less about the country and have nothing to lose, because they haven't assimilated. I do have a vested interest in people being citizens before they vote, and because it's a federal representative so do they.



How the hell is that a naturalization issue? what the **** nonsense definition of "naturalization" have you invented, dude?




Nobody has said that Naturalization isn't under the federal purview. It's an enumerated power. Somebody, however, is under the delusion that immigration is an enumerated power when it is not. I'm debating that person now.



No it isn't. It is an amendment that describes the rights of citizens. Just because the amendment stated that naturalized citizens are citizens doesn't mean it is a "naturalization amendment."





The problem is that you are using invented definitions of words and pretending they are true. the 14th doesn't state anything about immigrants. Only citizens.



Of course. This is how it has always been.



Of course we do. Without them, our economy would falter greatly. We would have failed as a nation without them. They tend to use fewer resources and break fewer laws than our citizens do, and they contribute hard work and labor for our benefit and all that they ask for in return is the opportunity to work. I WISH our citizens had half the work ethic and only twice the desire for luxury as immigrants do.



That irrational, purely fictional demonization of immigrants is why people who like to pretend to support small-government policies will hypocritically **** all over their own supposed ideals when it comes down to immigration laws because they do not really have the balls to support about small government because doing so in a legitimate sense would mean that, sometimes, you have to allow **** that you don't personally agree with to be the law of the land.

It's hard to promote small-government principles consistently. That's why the vast majority of people fail at it.



This is a case of you ****ting all over your professed ideology because you do not have the gumption to follow that ideology through to it's logical conclusions even when the logical conclusion would force you to take a position which runs counter to your personal views on a matter.

You are doing this interpretive dance because you are starting from your personal view and then trying to justify that view in order to pretend it is not antithetical to your professed ideology.

You have no idea how often I promote the rights of certain states to engage in behaviors that I personally abhor. Take immigration law, for example. I supported Arizona's law based entirely on the principles I'm discussing here. I ****ing hate that law, and I think it is ignorant bull****. I think the people who created it are scumbags who deserve to be flogged. But I support their right to pass such idiocy, despite the fact that I find them to be vile hateful morons, because I am consistent in my ideology. Not my state, therefore it's not my business to get the law changed.

I could easily take the big government stance you are promoting on immigration because it would suit my purposes greatly. I could decide, arbitrarily, that Arizona's enforcement of federal laws could endanger foreign relations, for example, like the SC did when they decided to usurp State authority in 1875. That would allow me to doublethink my way into holding two contradictory positions at the same time, as so many people do on immigration, but I don't do that because I know that all I would be doing is lying to myself in order to hold a view.



False. People do not have to enter teh process of naturalization in order to obtain a green card. You are simply wrong.



Asylum is merely one path to getting a green card. Once the person receives the green card, they are no different form anyone else with a green card, legally speaking. You seem to be very unaware of the immigration laws in this country.



You are using interpretations and redefinitions in order to justify your big government position. It's doublethink.



The laws which make them "criminals" are unconstitutional because the federal government does not have the authority to define immigration laws. It is not an enumerated power.



Because the feds usurped state power to determine residency through judicial activism in 1875. That usurpation of authority was unconstitutional, according to the 10th amendment.



Defense ends at the border. If they get in and receive residency permission from a state, the feds need to prove that the individual is a defense risk in order to have authority.



Only in your imagination.
Listen Tuck, I respect you, but you are emotionalizing and we aren't going to agree here. You aren't going to change my mind here, it's pretty simple to me that naturalization depends on having the power over immigration.
 
But they didn't in this particular case.

Actualy, they did. in 1875. The case law is clear.

The fourteenth is pretty clear about naturalization...

Yeah, it doesn't say **** about naturalization.

The states gave the federal the power with the fourteenth.

Not in any way shape or form. This s just something you are making up. It's imaginary.



It's very much a border issue, how can one immigrate if they don't cross a border?

The feds have the power to stop them at teh border. If they don't, it ceases to be a border issue. Why? because the border is at the border. Nowhere else.


If one won't naturalize or follow proper laws in that regard they are sent away.


Nobody EVER has been sent away for not becoming a citizen. EVER. By that I mean EVER. You don't know what the **** you are talking about if you think that people who do not naturalize get sent away.

Oh this should be good. Define a border that is anything besides the line of demarcation for a country, it's pretty simple, the border is the place where influence ends. The U.S. has full authority over border protections, and that falls under the defense powers.

Exactly. Once a person is no longer at the border, nothing that is done with them can relate to the border.

It's pretty simple. If it is my job to secure location A, and person X is in location B, and location B is not location A, Person X is not in my jurisdiction.

Hint: crossing a border =/= immigration




For federal elections, I have to suffer the consequences of people who could potentially care less about the country and have nothing to lose, because they haven't assimilated.

boo ****ing hoo. It's their representative in teh federal government that they are electing, not yours. That's the bitch about a democratic republic.

I do have a vested interest in people being citizens before they vote, and because it's a federal representative so do they.

Not A federal representative, their federal representative. It's none of your business what people in other states decide to do to vote in their elected officials. You do NOT have a vested interest in it. That's why you do not have a vote. That's the whole point of our system.



Listen Tuck, I respect you, but you are emotionalizing and we aren't going to agree here. You aren't going to change my mind here, it's pretty simple to me that naturalization depends on having the power over immigration.

I respect you to, but I have no respect for your position here because it's hypocritical and completely in conflict with your stated beliefs. If I seem "emotional" about it it is because I know you are smart enough to see the truth about your position if you stop choosing to ignore it. Things you have said in this thread directly contradict your views in our discussion. Things you posted concurrently, like "The big problem is misrepresentation of the plain wording" while arguing that all immigrants to this country undergo the naturalization process or saying that immigration is an enumerated power.

You're capable of seeing the reality of the situation, you are choosing not to.
 
Actualy, they did. in 1875. The case law is clear.
And based upon the fourteenth which was ratified in 1868. I don't see where the issue is.



Yeah, it doesn't say **** about naturalization.
It does in the first section, it refers to the citizenship process. Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 5 delegates all powers to enforce the amendment to the federal.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.[1]



Not in any way shape or form. This s just something you are making up. It's imaginary.
That's what the amendment process is, the states delegating a previously held power to the U.S., the federal.





The feds have the power to stop them at teh border. If they don't, it ceases to be a border issue. Why? because the border is at the border. Nowhere else.
Not true, this is made up. You are arguing that once they get past the border the issue is nullified to the federal, that's like saying the military can only defend at the borders and any advancing troops must be given a pass once across. People who break border sovereignity are subject to INS detainment and deportation.





Nobody EVER has been sent away for not becoming a citizen. EVER. By that I mean EVER. You don't know what the **** you are talking about if you think that people who do not naturalize get sent away.
Not true. Plenty of people have been deported for overstaying visas, border jumping, and otherwise being non-compliant with immigration law. That is exactly being sent away for not becoming a citizen.



Exactly. Once a person is no longer at the border, nothing that is done with them can relate to the border.
Incorrect, they are not rightfully here, and within our borders, it is a naturalization and immigration issue.

It's pretty simple. If it is my job to secure location A, and person X is in location B, and location B is not location A, Person X is not in my jurisdiction.
Naturalization is the purview of the U.S. government, their jurisdiction is all of the U.S. proper.

Hint: crossing a border =/= immigration
Correct, however crossing the border in order to obtain residence is.






boo ****ing hoo. It's their representative in teh federal government that they are electing, not yours. That's the bitch about a democratic republic.
And when that idiot violates the constitution and it gets upheld, I have to pay for it. So yes, federal elections are the purview of the federal should the states make improper decisions.



Not A federal representative, their federal representative. It's none of your business what people in other states decide to do to vote in their elected officials. You do NOT have a vested interest in it. That's why you do not have a vote. That's the whole point of our system.
Correct, until those states send federal representatives down that vote for things that affect me.





I respect you to, but I have no respect for your position here because it's hypocritical and completely in conflict with your stated beliefs. If I seem "emotional" about it it is because I know you are smart enough to see the truth about your position if you stop choosing to ignore it. Things you have said in this thread directly contradict your views in our discussion. Things you posted concurrently, like "The big problem is misrepresentation of the plain wording" while arguing that all immigrants to this country undergo the naturalization process or saying that immigration is an enumerated power.
You don't want to see where I'm going with it, trust me, if I say there is a basis for it constitutionally it's coming from neutral analysis.

You're capable of seeing the reality of the situation, you are choosing not to.
You are speaking with someone who wants to take as much power from the federal as possible, I wouldn't be arguing they had this power if I thought they didn't.
 
And based upon the fourteenth which was ratified in 1868.

Not based on the 14th at all.




That simply states that all persons born in the US and all persons who are naturalized citizens are, in fact, citizens, and as citizens, they are treated equally.

It says nothing about non-naturalized immigrants (say, people with green cards) or the naturalization process.



That's what the amendment process is, the states delegating a previously held power to the U.S., the federal.

No, the amendment process amends the constitution.


Not true, this is made up.

No, it's simple logic. If A is not B, then B cannot be A.

You are arguing that once they get past the border the issue is nullified to the federal

Because it is.

that's like saying the military can only defend at the borders and any advancing troops must be given a pass once across.

It is only a federal issue if there is a clear indication that the action is defense. Deportation has nothing to do with defense. If the individual is deemed to be a defense risk, it becomes a federal military issue. Working construction is obviously not a defense issue.

People who break border sovereignity are subject to INS detainment and deportation.

But only because of federal usurpation of state sovereignty.



Not true.

False

Plenty of people have been deported for overstaying visas, border jumping, and otherwise being non-compliant with immigration law.

Like I said, nobody has ever been deported for not becoming a citizen. Nothing above has anything to do with becoming a citizen. None of it.


That is exactly being sent away for not becoming a citizen.

:lol: That's absolutely nothing like being sent away for not becoming a citizen. Holy ****, you're too smart to be saying **** like this, dude.


Incorrect, they are not rightfully here, and within our borders, it is a naturalization and immigration issue.

The laws which indicate that they are not "rightfully here" are unconstitutional, so the federal government has no authority to say they are not rightfully here.


Naturalization is the purview of the U.S. government, their jurisdiction is all of the U.S. proper.

Now learn what naturalization means, because you apparently have no ****ing clue what it means if you think that people get deported for not becoming naturalized.

Correct, however crossing the border in order to obtain residence is.

Crossing the borders is one thing. Obtaining residence is another thing. Those two things are NOT the same thing.

Crossing the border =/= obtaining residence.

The federal government can control what happens with one thing (crossing the border). that does not mean they can (constitutionally speaking) control the other thing (obtaining residence).

They CAN control who crosses the border. They do not have any say in what happens with that perosn after tehy have allowed them to cross that border, though, if one actually gives a rats ass about limiting the government to enumerated powers.




And when that idiot violates the constitution and it gets upheld, I have to pay for it.

Touch ****. That's true regardless of who does the voting. It's none of your business what other states decided to do with their votes.

So yes, federal elections are the purview of the federal should the states make improper decisions.

So now you are promoting the nanny state. The feds are just protecting the states from themselves and all that. Good work. Might as well go whole hog when you decide to give up on the principles you claim to hold dear.



Correct, until those states send federal representatives down that vote for things that affect me.

Still none of your business how they decide their representatives. I think that the southern states send a ton of idiots into federal positions, people who have no business being elected. People who deny evolution and believe that an invisible man made people in his own image. True nut jobs. I think that the federal laws would be much better if people who held such views were barred from being elected. But I have no authority to do so and I oppose any attempts to undermine the self-determination of those idiot-filled places that choose such people as their representatives. Their representative, their business.

I don't have to like their representative, nor should I have the power to deny them their right to self-determination simply because I am so self-absorbed that I think my opinions should be universally applied.



You don't want to see where I'm going with it, trust me, if I say there is a basis for it constitutionally it's coming from neutral analysis.

I'd love to see where you are going with it. It's definitely not a neutral analysis, as it is completely fictional and not based on anything real. If it was neutral, you wouldn't have to make up definitions for terms so that they apply where they do not when the real definitions are used.

You are speaking with someone who wants to take as much power from the federal as possible, I wouldn't be arguing they had this power if I thought they didn't.

I'm sure you've convinced yourself that they have this power by constitutional authority. I think it's by choice, though, because you want to reach a certain conclusion and that prevents you form seeing the incongruities in your positions. that's why I have called it doublethink earlier. Doublethink was described by Orwell to be "... to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them..."
 
Well, it's actually a myth that the constitution was full of holes.
What I was thinking of is more along the lines of "necessary and proper" vs. the Tenth Amendment, and the conflict between the President being commander in chief while only Congress has the right to declare war, as well as some of the moral issues that the Constitution didn't adequately address, such as slavery.

The biggest myth around is that the Constitution is an absolutely perfect document that foresaw any and all potential power struggles and military conflicts, and that adequately protected the rights of every citizen of the United States. Don't get me wrong, I think it was well ahead of its time considering events in Europe - the Founders could have easily set up an authoritarian kingdom like Great Britain, or could have paved the way for a quasi-communist Reign of Terror as happened in France. What bothers me is the idolization surrounding the Constitution and an absolute worship of every word in it.
The big problem is misrepresentation of the plain wording(according to the meaning of those words at the time), the biggest "loopholing" of the constitution started with the Lincoln administration, and the Wilson administration. Everything that followed was just a continuation of abuses.
Lincoln actually believed his policies were constitutional IIRC. I agree with his assessment of the Constitution as a document that does not permit secession - this opinion is supported by Madison and the wording and context of the Constitution. I don't want to go into a huge discussion of the legality of the Civil War and secession, but Confederate revisionists and apologists have been known to twist facts around, including their exploitation of the ambiguity of the Constitution to argue that secession was allowed despite evidence to the contrary.

If you're referring to his wartime policies, the Constitution was very unclear on the powers of the federal government, but especially those of the President, during an insurrection like occurred during the Civil War. It did permit Congress to suspend habeas corpus, and so Lincoln assumed he could do that. I don't agree with some of what he did during the Civil War in terms of domestic policy, but I can forgive him because he thought he was preserving the nation and the Constitution by doing what he did; doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.

As for Wilson, the only thing that comes to mind is the Espionage Act. It wasn't really much different from the Alien and Sedition Acts in regards to suppression of free speech.
Actually, the Supreme Court has a horrible overall history of getting things correct, usually when they get one right at least they hold off a little damage. Unfortunately, many times they got something wrong they've done massive damage, like Brown V. Board(but at least they reversed themselves).
You disagree with their Brown decision? The one that declared school segregation unconstitutional? I'm assuming that you mean to say that you disagree with Plessy and are happy that the Brown decision overturned Plessy.
Their ruling on Obamacare apparently by Robert's wording was to presrve the commerce clause but the idiot actually expanded the tax powers to something that literally could have invalidated the CC.
How would it have done that?
The CC itself was expanded by a court that felt threatened, and the court used a process it wasn't clear it owned to give same self that process.
I'm assuming you're referring to FDR's attempt to increase the size of the SCOTUS. I wouldn't be surprised if it was just to make the court more liberal rather than to blackmail it into passing the New Deal.
Something has to be done if they are allowed to keep Judicial review I guess is my point. I'm not for or against them having it so much as since they interpreted it for themselves then it should be a legal requirement that they use it properly.

Who's to decide if they use it properly? Another Supreme Court? Again, the Constitution is deliberately ambiguous on a lot of important issues, leaving room for it to be interpreted either way in a lot of instances.

To quote Madison:

James Madison said:
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
 
Not based on the 14th at all.





That simply states that all persons born in the US and all persons who are naturalized citizens are, in fact, citizens, and as citizens, they are treated equally.

It says nothing about non-naturalized immigrants (say, people with green cards) or the naturalization process.
I realize that it doesn't explicitly say in the amendment that naturalization is a power, however, and not interpreting mind you the states are bound to the citizenship requirements as is the federal. The reason the federal assumes these powers is because it's an amendment, the constitution most pertains to the federal.





No, the amendment process amends the constitution.
Yes, the Congress passes a proposed constitutional amendment, this is the process of asking the states to surrender that power voluntarily, 3/4ths of the states must agree. That IS the amendment process.




No, it's simple logic. If A is not B, then B cannot be A.
Ah, but we aren't talking about simple A =/= B. Immigration is part of the naturalization process, illegal immigration is a flagrant violation of such. So sure, A =/= B in a sense that the two are not the exact same thing, but A has a causal relationship to B, and there is the third variable of legality (C).



Because it is.
Then please expand on your logic behind this. Because defense, one of the first powers, is universal within U.S. borders at any time, this ties later into naturalization, skirting that process is a form of invasion. Yes, it sounds extreme and we aren't speaking to a martial situation, but it is a non-military invasion nonetheless.


It is only a federal issue if there is a clear indication that the action is defense. Deportation has nothing to do with defense. If the individual is deemed to be a defense risk, it becomes a federal military issue. Working construction is obviously not a defense issue.
Okay, this is fair. Now to throw a monkey wrench into the logic, with gangs like MS 13, drug running(the violence that ensues), traffickers, coyotes(human smugglers), etc. this does become a violence issue, along with terrorists, etc. So yes, there is a defense component in this and this is a rare instance where the federal does in fact have a valid interest in knowing who is crossing borders.



But only because of federal usurpation of state sovereignty.
I disagree because of the 14th, and yes, I know you disagree that the 14th provides for federal naturalization, but until that is not a factor for interpretation it is what it is.





There is no way it is false, deportation is a matter of record.



Like I said, nobody has ever been deported for not becoming a citizen. Nothing above has anything to do with becoming a citizen. None of it.
Okay, for "not becoming a citizen" granted, people aren't being forced to become citizens, but they have no permanent standing to remain in the U.S., they are here at the discretion of the federal and may be deported at any time the visa expires, they may also be deported for commission of any crime, they do not have the same standing as permanent citizens.




:lol: That's absolutely nothing like being sent away for not becoming a citizen. Holy ****, you're too smart to be saying **** like this, dude.
Think about it a bit more. I commit a robbery(not going to happen, but for hypothetical's sake) and am arrested, I go to jail, serve time, and return home. A person on visa with no intent to become a citizen commits same crime they can be deported. This is why I gave that example.




The laws which indicate that they are not "rightfully here" are unconstitutional, so the federal government has no authority to say they are not rightfully here.
Ah, but they are. Any country has the right to determine the path to citizenship. As long as the federal is charged with upholding citizenship and the rights therein, it's within their purview to set the standards and thus enforce.



Now learn what naturalization means, because you apparently have no ****ing clue what it means if you think that people get deported for not becoming naturalized.
Again, if people are not here legally, they can be deported. If a person is going through the naturalization process, they are here legally.



Crossing the borders is one thing. Obtaining residence is another thing. Those two things are NOT the same thing.
But, does that person have the right of residence if they do not have the right to be here?

Crossing the border =/= obtaining residence.
Agreed.

The federal government can control what happens with one thing (crossing the border). that does not mean they can (constitutionally speaking) control the other thing (obtaining residence).
I think we're conflating two issues here. The federal has the power to enforce immigration, but no, they do not have the right to hinder a person seeking residence.

They CAN control who crosses the border. They do not have any say in what happens with that perosn after tehy have allowed them to cross that border, though, if one actually gives a rats ass about limiting the government to enumerated powers.
And slight disagreement here, if a person is not here legally, I do argue that the government has the authority to enforce.






Touch ****. That's true regardless of who does the voting. It's none of your business what other states decided to do with their votes.
Under a constitutional republic, yes, when I have to suffer unconstitutional laws because of it, no.



So now you are promoting the nanny state. The feds are just protecting the states from themselves and all that. Good work. Might as well go whole hog when you decide to give up on the principles you claim to hold dear.
Not what I am saying. Not in the least. The federal has the right to insure that representative to the federal are elected properly.





Still none of your business how they decide their representatives. I think that the southern states send a ton of idiots into federal positions, people who have no business being elected. People who deny evolution and believe that an invisible man made people in his own image. True nut jobs. I think that the federal laws would be much better if people who held such views were barred from being elected. But I have no authority to do so and I oppose any attempts to undermine the self-determination of those idiot-filled places that choose such people as their representatives. Their representative, their business.
I'll take a religious nut over a control freak like Pelosi, Reid, and Schumer any day. But yes, just about all of them are ****ing stupid.

I don't have to like their representative, nor should I have the power to deny them their right to self-determination simply because I am so self-absorbed that I think my opinions should be universally applied.
Keep in mind I'm not calling for anything more than federal elections being done correctly, I could care less what Wisconsin wants internally, but if they elect an idiot who passes laws against my state's interests it is my problem.





I'd love to see where you are going with it. It's definitely not a neutral analysis, as it is completely fictional and not based on anything real. If it was neutral, you wouldn't have to make up definitions for terms so that they apply where they do not when the real definitions are used.
Dude, not making anything up.



I'm sure you've convinced yourself that they have this power by constitutional authority. I think it's by choice, though, because you want to reach a certain conclusion and that prevents you form seeing the incongruities in your positions. that's why I have called it doublethink earlier. Doublethink was described by Orwell to be "... to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them..."
Analysis, pure analysis.
 
What I was thinking of is more along the lines of "necessary and proper" vs. the Tenth Amendment, and the conflict between the President being commander in chief while only Congress has the right to declare war, as well as some of the moral issues that the Constitution didn't adequately address, such as slavery.
Gotcha. Necessary and proper is not all that difficult in my opinion(for the most part anyway). The federal must prove two things 1) A situation in which it has no authority is serious and a compelling interest exists 2) The federal has within it's enumerated powers a close enough relationship to said power to assume legal authority.

The president actually did have war powers until Vietnam, the War Powers Act of 1973 took the authority from the president and gave it to Congress, limiting the president to police action powers for 60 days plus a 30 day withdrawal period. That IMO was not constitutional. To the moral issues, I think the founders put enough trust in the states to get it corrected, but of course slavery was a hypocracy according to the preamble.



The biggest myth around is that the Constitution is an absolutely perfect document that foresaw any and all potential power struggles and military conflicts, and that adequately protected the rights of every citizen of the United States. Don't get me wrong, I think it was well ahead of its time considering events in Europe - the Founders could have easily set up an authoritarian kingdom like Great Britain, or could have paved the way for a quasi-communist Reign of Terror as happened in France. What bothers me is the idolization surrounding the Constitution and an absolute worship of every word in it.
I don't think anyone will argue the document is "perfect" including constitutionalists like myself. The constitution was written as a protection of the liberties and freedoms of citizens of the U.S. and was done so to insure that a government was just strong enough to do so. The big issue is people trying to find loopholes in the document for what they consider to be important needs. We still fight about many of the same things the founders did, we need to find the same path that they did, "live within the prohibitions of good governance".



Lincoln actually believed his policies were constitutional IIRC. I agree with his assessment of the Constitution as a document that does not permit secession - this opinion is supported by Madison and the wording and context of the Constitution. I don't want to go into a huge discussion of the legality of the Civil War and secession, but Confederate revisionists and apologists have been known to twist facts around, including their exploitation of the ambiguity of the Constitution to argue that secession was allowed despite evidence to the contrary.
Actually, there is no power of the federal to enforce the union, and no prohibition of the states to secede. In fact many founders, including Madison stated that the federal is served by sovereign states. The Civil War was very complex, and Lincoln himself was not against secession until it served him. Yes, the court did rule in Lincoln's favor, but then again I'm on record as saying the court gets plenty of things wrong. According to the tenth and enumerated powers, the federal was wrong.

If you're referring to his wartime policies, the Constitution was very unclear on the powers of the federal government, but especially those of the President, during an insurrection like occurred during the Civil War. It did permit Congress to suspend habeas corpus, and so Lincoln assumed he could do that. I don't agree with some of what he did during the Civil War in terms of domestic policy, but I can forgive him because he thought he was preserving the nation and the Constitution by doing what he did; doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.
I don't so much care about suspension of Habeus Corpus, that is part of martial law. I disagree with Lincoln's assertion that secession was prohibited, and the economic policies that were ninth amendment issues the fed refused to enforce. The reason Lincoln set up what would become the next century of unconstitutionality is the defeat of secession powers, it took away a non-violent method for states to assert their sovereignity. But again, the Civil War was incredibly complex, much more so than many history books cover.

As for Wilson, the only thing that comes to mind is the Espionage Act. It wasn't really much different from the Alien and Sedition Acts in regards to suppression of free speech.
That, I've just run across things thanks to another poster who suggests the 16th and 17th amendments were not properly ratified by the states and his AG forged documents to "deem" them ratified. Wilson was a known anti-constitutionalist in his professorship days, he was an economic interventionalist, etc.

You disagree with their Brown decision? The one that declared school segregation unconstitutional? I'm assuming that you mean to say that you disagree with Plessy and are happy that the Brown decision overturned Plessy.
I think you're right. I was typing on little sleep last night and may have had a brain fart. Yes, Plessy, seperate but equal was a constitutional joke.

How would it have done that?
Here is the problem. Roberts argued that the tax powers held that Obamacare mandates were legal and constitutional, even though the federal had no other powers under the commerce clause to issue any of the law. Literally a thin string of "taxation" upholds the entire bill, IOW, they have no right to enforce mandated commerce but they have the right to tax said non-commerce even so. IOW they have tax powers where they have no powers. Here is the problem in a nutshell, the government now has carte blanche to pass commerce bills requiring actions or purchases, even though they have no right to do so, they may simply tax the refusal to do so and it is now constitutional. So choose any given thing you care about, and do not want to have choices forced or limited to you and apply someone disagreeing with your choice and passing a law against it. Could be anything;
1) You do not want a firearm, Congress passes a law mandating ownership, president signs. You refuse, but because they tax non-ownership with graded annual increase in penalties you eventually will be forced to buy a gun, because there will be a point where buying one is less expensive than the rate of penalty.
2) Gas guzzler tax. Let's say SCOTUS rules that CAFE standards are unconstitutional(they are). Congress responds by passing a law stating if your car doesn't get x miles to the gallon you pay a tax penalty. They can't take your vehicle, but can tax you right out of ownership.
3) EPA mandatory "tax" on any homes with more than two rooms.
4) Gym membership "tax" - They want you to exercise, it's not your thing. So they pass a tax saying anyone who doesn't have a gym membership pays 200$/mo.
5) Unhealthy food tax - They can't force you to eat more vegetables, but they can tax you x%/oz. of every meat product you buy.
It's endless, you may be coerced to do whatever a politician wants as long as they call it a "tax". This is where Roberts ****ed up.

I'm assuming you're referring to FDR's attempt to increase the size of the SCOTUS. I wouldn't be surprised if it was just to make the court more liberal rather than to blackmail it into passing the New Deal.
He dropped the plan to stack the court as soon as SCOTUS reversed itself on the CC, my own logic dictates it was a move to insure he got the outcome he wanted. If he simply wanted to further liberalize the court he would have continued the process IMO.



Who's to decide if they use it properly? Another Supreme Court? Again, the Constitution is deliberately ambiguous on a lot of important issues, leaving room for it to be interpreted either way in a lot of instances.
Honestly, when a justice is just obviously violating their oaths of office Congress should engage in impeachment hearings and let the process play out. If the justice is just an idiot then so be it, if they are showing intent to circumvent the constitution it's perjury, and I've come to find out over the years they can be impeached for it.

To quote Madison:
That was a reference to natural law. Basically, yes a government must have some authority to protect it's citizens, and sometimes that does require setting certain moral standards, Madison was also giving a warning that unchecked government runs afoul over the governed.
 
Gotcha. Necessary and proper is not all that difficult in my opinion(for the most part anyway). The federal must prove two things 1) A situation in which it has no authority is serious and a compelling interest exists 2) The federal has within it's enumerated powers a close enough relationship to said power to assume legal authority.
I agree, but that will always be a highly subjective judgment.
The president actually did have war powers until Vietnam, the War Powers Act of 1973 took the authority from the president and gave it to Congress, limiting the president to police action powers for 60 days plus a 30 day withdrawal period. That IMO was not constitutional.
I wouldn't be surprised if WPA was challenged within the next few years. The thing is that most of our wars were never declared, and Congress hoped to get some of its authority in this matter back.
To the moral issues, I think the founders put enough trust in the states to get it corrected, but of course slavery was a hypocracy according to the preamble.
They probably would have outlawed slavery if it hadn't been for the Southern States, who would have immediately seceded to preserve their economies. The compromise that occurred was to ban slave importation in 1807 but to hold other states responsible for catching fugitive slaves.


I don't think anyone will argue the document is "perfect" including constitutionalists like myself. The constitution was written as a protection of the liberties and freedoms of citizens of the U.S. and was done so to insure that a government was just strong enough to do so. The big issue is people trying to find loopholes in the document for what they consider to be important needs. We still fight about many of the same things the founders did, we need to find the same path that they did, "live within the prohibitions of good governance".
I don't like the term "constitutionalist" - very few liberals advocate outright disloyalty to the Constitution. They attempt to adjust its meaning slightly in accordance with modern society while still preserving its basic meaning. Conservatives tend to be more strict constructionist about the whole thing, although both sides are known to violate some BOR.


Actually, there is no power of the federal to enforce the union, and no prohibition of the states to secede. In fact many founders, including Madison stated that the federal is served by sovereign states.
I have Madison on record stating that secession is only permissible if the government is tyrannical, or if all the other states permit it. The Constitution was a binding contract that one party could leave only with permission of the other parties:

Madison said:
The essential difference between a free Government and Governments not free, is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it. Neither of them therefore can have a greater fight to break off from the bargain, than the other or others have to hold them to it...The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United States. The latter having made the compact may do what they will with it. The former as one only of the parties, owes fidelity to it, till released by consent, or absolved by an intolerable abuse of the power created.
The Civil War was very complex, and Lincoln himself was not against secession until it served him.
It never became an issue until it "served him"
Yes, the court did rule in Lincoln's favor, but then again I'm on record as saying the court gets plenty of things wrong. According to the tenth and enumerated powers, the federal was wrong.
And according to the Framers and even the Preamble, SCOTUS was correct. The states had too much of their sovereignty taken away by the Constitution for them to be considered mini-nations.
I don't so much care about suspension of Habeus Corpus, that is part of martial law.
Really? I wouldn't take issue with it if Congress was the one to take it away, but Lincoln as President had no authority to do so.
the economic policies that were ninth amendment issues the fed refused to enforce.
What are you thinking?
The reason Lincoln set up what would become the next century of unconstitutionality is the defeat of secession powers, it took away a non-violent method for states to assert their sovereignity. But again, the Civil War was incredibly complex, much more so than many history books cover.
Nonviolent? The only time in our history that states seceded was the time that they then turned around and attacked military installations that were legally federal property even if secession was legal. Hell, Lincoln might have even left the Confederate states alone had they not immediately attacked the United States at Ft. Sumter. I'd even go as far as to argue that the Confederacy paved the way for reduction of state's rights by abusing them

I agree that it was a complex issue, but I also believe it is one of the few "just wars" in our nation's history. You had an illegal government founded on slavery rebelling against a liberal democracy simply because they were too greedy to give up their barbaric 16th century economic system.
That, I've just run across things thanks to another poster who suggests the 16th and 17th amendments were not properly ratified by the states and his AG forged documents to "deem" them ratified. Wilson was a known anti-constitutionalist in his professorship days, he was an economic interventionalist, etc.
I don't put much faith in conspiracy theories in general. I don't know about anti-constitutionalism, the only real problem I have with Wilson was his virulent racism.
I think you're right. I was typing on little sleep last night and may have had a brain fart. Yes, Plessy, seperate but equal was a constitutional joke.
I admire the majority opinion on Brown: that institutions that were separate could not be equal, especially in regards to education.
Here is the problem. Roberts argued that the tax powers held that Obamacare mandates were legal and constitutional, even though the federal had no other powers under the commerce clause to issue any of the law. Literally a thin string of "taxation" upholds the entire bill, IOW, they have no right to enforce mandated commerce but they have the right to tax said non-commerce even so. IOW they have tax powers where they have no powers. Here is the problem in a nutshell, the government now has carte blanche to pass commerce bills requiring actions or purchases, even though they have no right to do so, they may simply tax the refusal to do so and it is now constitutional. So choose any given thing you care about, and do not want to have choices forced or limited to you and apply someone disagreeing with your choice and passing a law against it. Could be anything;
1) You do not want a firearm, Congress passes a law mandating ownership, president signs. You refuse, but because they tax non-ownership with graded annual increase in penalties you eventually will be forced to buy a gun, because there will be a point where buying one is less expensive than the rate of penalty.
2) Gas guzzler tax. Let's say SCOTUS rules that CAFE standards are unconstitutional(they are). Congress responds by passing a law stating if your car doesn't get x miles to the gallon you pay a tax penalty. They can't take your vehicle, but can tax you right out of ownership.
3) EPA mandatory "tax" on any homes with more than two rooms.
4) Gym membership "tax" - They want you to exercise, it's not your thing. So they pass a tax saying anyone who doesn't have a gym membership pays 200$/mo.
5) Unhealthy food tax - They can't force you to eat more vegetables, but they can tax you x%/oz. of every meat product you buy.
It's endless, you may be coerced to do whatever a politician wants as long as they call it a "tax". This is where Roberts ****ed up.
That's one of the parts of ACA that I'm struggling with. I support universal healthcare and the elimination of the preexisting condition BS, but I don't really know how I feel about taxing employers to extend their insurance policy to cover birth control.
He dropped the plan to stack the court as soon as SCOTUS reversed itself on the CC, my own logic dictates it was a move to insure he got the outcome he wanted. If he simply wanted to further liberalize the court he would have continued the process IMO.
I'm pretty sure FDR did it to get what he wanted, but I don't see it as blackmail. It allowed the New Deal, there was no reason after that for him to liberalize the court.

Honestly, when a justice is just obviously violating their oaths of office Congress should engage in impeachment hearings and let the process play out. If the justice is just an idiot then so be it, if they are showing intent to circumvent the constitution it's perjury, and I've come to find out over the years they can be impeached for it.
The commerce clause has been extended far past its original intent IMO, but I don't see anything that SCOTUS has done to be blatant enough for impeachment.
That was a reference to natural law. Basically, yes a government must have some authority to protect it's citizens, and sometimes that does require setting certain moral standards, Madison was also giving a warning that unchecked government runs afoul over the governed.

I see that, but it also points to a fact that I'm sure the Framers recognized: that any man-made and man-ruled government is going to have its flaws, no matter how much natural law and common sense is applied.
 
I agree, but that will always be a highly subjective judgment.
Fair point. IMO if anything looks in the least questionable then constitutionality should be considered suspect. I think the government must prove it's case, not the people being charged with proving it unconstitutional, if a government cannot both prove without a doubt the necessity of a power they want and prove that it is connected to a power they already have then the law should be assumed unconstitutional. Really, I would prefer that Congress just act properly and try for an amendment first, failing that then they should prove their case absolutely.

I wouldn't be surprised if WPA was challenged within the next few years. The thing is that most of our wars were never declared, and Congress hoped to get some of its authority in this matter back.
I'm not sure, it hasn't really been something that presidents have shown much concern over but the constitution specifically granted the executive war powers. However, the catch, and best check is that Congress could simply defund a war, this would force a president to either have an underfunded/unfunded bloodbath on his hands(pretty much a fatal scandal for any president) or he would have to withdraw. It's not like Congress had no power prior to that act, and really, it should have been offered as an amendment.

They probably would have outlawed slavery if it hadn't been for the Southern States, who would have immediately seceded to preserve their economies. The compromise that occurred was to ban slave importation in 1807 but to hold other states responsible for catching fugitive slaves.
The slavery issue was botched all around, no compromises worked for anyone, and the fallout from the war and especially Reconstructed created a serious fallout that many scholars have stated led to the vile racism of the late 1800s all the way into the mid 1900s. There are a few pieces out there speculating that advancements in farm technology would have made slavery inefficient by comparison and that southern owners would have pretty much ended the practice within twenty years anyway, but obviously that is pure scholastic speculation and obviously the CW and Reconstruction made such musings moot.


I don't like the term "constitutionalist" - very few liberals advocate outright disloyalty to the Constitution. They attempt to adjust its meaning slightly in accordance with modern society while still preserving its basic meaning. Conservatives tend to be more strict constructionist about the whole thing, although both sides are known to violate some BOR.
Okay, fair enough. I am an originalist, I think the document is sufficient to address stated needs by all sides if we follow it as written, it just takes doing things the right way creatively. I'm not a fan of constitutional interpretism, and the reason isn't so much resisting change, it's not even about disagreeing that some people may need assistance programs, or protections, the big problem comes with the additional questions of who would remove protections, unintended consequences, and how far the federal is willing to take the interpretations. It's fine to interpret if people aren't in danger of being harmed at any time, but even the smallest chance of seeing more or worse changes than the last century lead me to call for more originalism. We can't forget at any time that first and foremost the constitution was written to protect the citizenry from government.


I have Madison on record stating that secession is only permissible if the government is tyrannical, or if all the other states permit it. The Constitution was a binding contract that one party could leave only with permission of the other parties:
I get that, but also remember that tyranny is subjective as a general rule, and when you put the actual language of the constitution out, the tenth amendment specifically and the enumerated powers, it's clear that secession is legal under proper interpretation. While Madison was in favor of upholding the union the constitution was actually quite clear about the scope of government power and enforcing the union was not granted.


It never became an issue until it "served him"

And according to the Framers and even the Preamble, SCOTUS was correct. The states had too much of their sovereignty taken away by the Constitution for them to be considered mini-nations.
The preamble is not legally binding, I think that's the one thing about the constitution that most sides admit when being honest. SCOTUS using it would be an example of "judicial activism", think about it like this, I am said to have the right to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness, but there are obvious limits. My life, liberty, and happiness cannot be used to violate the rights of others, like murder, endangerment, slander, etc.

Really? I wouldn't take issue with it if Congress was the one to take it away, but Lincoln as President had no authority to do so.
I'll have to brush up on martial law, but constitutional powers are somewhat limited during a time where martial law is declared. Congress IMO would have even less right to suspend it than Lincoln, looking back on it, here is my expansion. I actually think Lincoln was morally wrong for suspending Habeas Corpus, and I don't think he had a valid reason to do so, however because he had martial law declared I think he actually did have a legal right to do so.

What are you thinking?
Tariffs against the south, taxes, unfair trading rates favorable to European partners versus southern states for same raw materials and goods. The problem is that the commerce clause gives the responsibility and power of the federal to regulate interstate commerce, or, to "make it regular". This doesn't mean regulating goods, services, or business itself but regulating trade to insure that rates are equitable for all U.S. business, whether state-state, state-federal, etc. The federal was charged with settling interstate trade disputes. The beginning of the secession sentiments started with federal refusal to end unfair practices.

Nonviolent? The only time in our history that states seceded was the time that they then turned around and attacked military installations that were legally federal property even if secession was legal. Hell, Lincoln might have even left the Confederate states alone had they not immediately attacked the United States at Ft. Sumter. I'd even go as far as to argue that the Confederacy paved the way for reduction of state's rights by abusing them
Fort Sumter, as I've discussed here before was a complete political ****up. The north could not convince the south to remain in the Union, however they refused to acknowledge the secession. The south should have compensated the north for Fort Sumter, of course, but the Union was warned ahead of time that the south would attack should union troops remain. It could have been nonviolent, both sides went to aggression, but realistically had the Union cooperated and worked on further talks, and the Confederacy listened in same the whole thing could have ended peacefully.
I agree that it was a complex issue, but I also believe it is one of the few "just wars" in our nation's history. You had an illegal government founded on slavery rebelling against a liberal democracy simply because they were too greedy to give up their barbaric 16th century economic system.
We can't really call the Confederacy "illegal", and I'm basing that on the tenth amendment grounds as stated before. Slavery was actually the "last straw" issue, granted it was a big one. The problem is that the Federal(Union) asserted "illigitimacy" of the Confederate governments but there was no standing on their behalf to do so, obviously the southern states disagreed. SCOTUS, using judicial review, and IMO a very CYA decision upheld the Union position, but IMO they had to twist quite a bit to do so.

I don't put much faith in conspiracy theories in general. I don't know about anti-constitutionalism, the only real problem I have with Wilson was his virulent racism.
I'm still looking into the charges of the fraudulence of the 16th and 17th, but ever since man has had government structure there have been those willing to cheat to gain power. It's plausible, not confirmed obviously. However, as to Wilson, he actually did show open contempt for the constitution in his writings pre presidency.

I admire the majority opinion on Brown: that institutions that were separate could not be equal, especially in regards to education.
Yes, don't know why I got that confused. It's pretty simple, citizens have rights in full, either you are at liberty to exercise your rights or you are not, there is no "almost free".

That's one of the parts of ACA that I'm struggling with. I support universal healthcare and the elimination of the preexisting condition BS, but I don't really know how I feel about taxing employers to extend their insurance policy to cover birth control.
I used to sell insurance. This thing is bad, but using the taxation powers to uphold it was not a good precedent.

I'm pretty sure FDR did it to get what he wanted, but I don't see it as blackmail. It allowed the New Deal, there was no reason after that for him to liberalize the court.
I dunno. He could have had his way with anything after that. I would have continued would I want to get more things upheld. It's speculation though.


The commerce clause has been extended far past its original intent IMO, but I don't see anything that SCOTUS has done to be blatant enough for impeachment.
I disagree, simply for the fact that so much bad law has stemmed from those expansions.


I see that, but it also points to a fact that I'm sure the Framers recognized: that any man-made and man-ruled government is going to have its flaws, no matter how much natural law and common sense is applied.
Absolutely, and many warned about those concerns.
 
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Fair point. IMO if anything looks in the least questionable then constitutionality should be considered suspect. I think the government must prove it's case, not the people being charged with proving it unconstitutional, if a government cannot both prove without a doubt the necessity of a power they want and prove that it is connected to a power they already have then the law should be assumed unconstitutional. Really, I would prefer that Congress just act properly and try for an amendment first, failing that then they should prove their case absolutely.
The reason that they don't go for amendments is that amending is a very tedious process, and for good reason.
I'm not sure, it hasn't really been something that presidents have shown much concern over but the constitution specifically granted the executive war powers. However, the catch, and best check is that Congress could simply defund a war, this would force a president to either have an underfunded/unfunded bloodbath on his hands(pretty much a fatal scandal for any president) or he would have to withdraw. It's not like Congress had no power prior to that act, and really, it should have been offered as an amendment.
The power to declare war could easily be interpreted as Congress authorizing a war. What's the point of a declaration if the President is going to take military action with or without Congressional approval?
The slavery issue was botched all around, no compromises worked for anyone, and the fallout from the war and especially Reconstructed created a serious fallout that many scholars have stated led to the vile racism of the late 1800s all the way into the mid 1900s. There are a few pieces out there speculating that advancements in farm technology would have made slavery inefficient by comparison and that southern owners would have pretty much ended the practice within twenty years anyway, but obviously that is pure scholastic speculation and obviously the CW and Reconstruction made such musings moot.
It's important to remember that other advances in farm technology, like the cotton gin - which Whitney hoped would reduce slavery - only serve to make cotton production more efficient, and therefore created a boom in the slave industry. The only way I could foresee slavery ending on its own would be British India becoming "King Cotton" rather than the southern states, therefore making the whole plantation system obsolete. I highly doubt that racism would have been tamer after slavery ended, because an apathetic policy from the North would only serve to encourage discrimination.

But if it were to come down to slavery ending on its own due to economic reasons, or a military conflict that would end it abruptly, I'd take the latter in a heartbeat. Who knows how long it would take for slavery to die out on its own? Twenty years? Fifty years? A hundred? In the meantime thousands upon thousands of children would be born into slavery, and adults would die never knowing a life beyond the lash. Even though a great deal of Americans died during the Civil War, their deaths ensured freedom for a greater number of people.
I get that, but also remember that tyranny is subjective as a general rule, and when you put the actual language of the constitution out, the tenth amendment specifically and the enumerated powers, it's clear that secession is legal under proper interpretation. While Madison was in favor of upholding the union the constitution was actually quite clear about the scope of government power and enforcing the union was not granted.
Tyranny is subjective, but I'd hardly consider slight economic marginalization to fit under even the loosest definition of the word. Here's just an outline of why secession isn't constitutional:

1. Madison's aforementioned opinion on secession - that it binds every state to it, and that only through the consent of the other states or abject tyranny may a state leave the Union
2. The Articles, more decentralizing than even the Constitution, openly stated that the US could not be dissolved. Maybe this was implied when carried on to the Constitution, since it was designed to place greater controls upon the states, not less.
3. States cannot not form "confederations" and do not have the sovereignty that independent nations have. This suggests that, unlike the leagues set up by the EU and UN, the Constitution was not intended to set up a league of countries but instead a whole, sovereign nation.
4. Being a manner that affects the entire nation rather than just that state alone, secession would be a federal manner rather than a state manner - similar to the admission of new states.

The preamble is not legally binding, I think that's the one thing about the constitution that most sides admit when being honest. SCOTUS using it would be an example of "judicial activism", think about it like this, I am said to have the right to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness, but there are obvious limits. My life, liberty, and happiness cannot be used to violate the rights of others, like murder, endangerment, slander, etc.
There are limits to every right. The First Amendment does not permit shouting fire in a theater, the Second does not permit one to fire their guns into the air or point them at people. The Preamble isn't legally binding like the rest of the Constitution, but it does give insight into what kind of a government the Framers intended to set up.
I'll have to brush up on martial law, but constitutional powers are somewhat limited during a time where martial law is declared. Congress IMO would have even less right to suspend it than Lincoln, looking back on it, here is my expansion. I actually think Lincoln was morally wrong for suspending Habeas Corpus, and I don't think he had a valid reason to do so, however because he had martial law declared I think he actually did have a legal right to do so.
I don't see anything in the Constitution that would permit the President to suspend habeas corpus; on the contrary, it blandly states that suspending habeas corpus may be used in a time of war by Congress. Only they would have the legal right to do so.
Tariffs against the south, taxes, unfair trading rates favorable to European partners versus southern states for same raw materials and goods. The problem is that the commerce clause gives the responsibility and power of the federal to regulate interstate commerce, or, to "make it regular". This doesn't mean regulating goods, services, or business itself but regulating trade to insure that rates are equitable for all U.S. business, whether state-state, state-federal, etc. The federal was charged with settling interstate trade disputes. The beginning of the secession sentiments started with federal refusal to end unfair practices.
I'm pretty sure that those policies began under the previous administrations and that Congress was mostly to blame. The slave states could cry me a river over their economic woes, but I digress :p

Fort Sumter, as I've discussed here before was a complete political ****up. The north could not convince the south to remain in the Union, however they refused to acknowledge the secession. The south should have compensated the north for Fort Sumter, of course, but the Union was warned ahead of time that the south would attack should union troops remain. It could have been nonviolent, both sides went to aggression, but realistically had the Union cooperated and worked on further talks, and the Confederacy listened in same the whole thing could have ended peacefully.
It wasn't up to the Union to kowtow to the Confederacy. Again, whether secession was legal or not, Sumter was US military property and therefore would not belong to the Confederacy. They had a lot of gall to secede in the first place, but to attempt to coerce the US into giving up lawful property was adding insult to injury. It was their fault for attacking, not the Union's fault for not bowing down to their every whim.
We can't really call the Confederacy "illegal", and I'm basing that on the tenth amendment grounds as stated before. Slavery was actually the "last straw" issue, granted it was a big one. The problem is that the Federal(Union) asserted "illigitimacy" of the Confederate governments but there was no standing on their behalf to do so, obviously the southern states disagreed. SCOTUS, using judicial review, and IMO a very CYA decision upheld the Union position, but IMO they had to twist quite a bit to do so.
I wouldn't consider slavery a last straw issue, everything political in the South was at least indirectly tied to slavery.

Even if secession was totally legal, and if the Confederacy never aggressively attacked the Union, I would be totally fine with the Union invading the Confederacy and the Civil War happening the way it did. I agree with Henry David Thoreau's belief: that if violence, breaking the law, and even treason are necessary to end an institution as evil as slavery, then they should be carried out to their fullest extent. What bothers me is revisionists who try to whitewash the Confederate side of history by portraying them as victims who had every right to do everything they did. Even though a lot of their claims are irrelevant, for truth's sake they must be countered.
I'm still looking into the charges of the fraudulence of the 16th and 17th, but ever since man has had government structure there have been those willing to cheat to gain power. It's plausible, not confirmed obviously. However, as to Wilson, he actually did show open contempt for the constitution in his writings pre presidency.
Oh well. Opinions do change over time. He also presided over a nation at war, so civil liberties are bound to be restricted.
I used to sell insurance. This thing is bad, but using the taxation powers to uphold it was not a good precedent.
Taxation powers can only be used to an extent. It's similar to how the commerce clause was used to expand the government right up until it was used to further gun control. Certain things have nothing to do with either commerce or taxation.
I dunno. He could have had his way with anything after that. I would have continued would I want to get more things upheld. It's speculation though.
There was a lot of other stuff going on at the time for anything else constitutionally-speaking to be at the forefront of his mind.

I disagree, simply for the fact that so much bad law has stemmed from those expansions.
The New Deal and ACA aren't bad laws, from my point of view as an economic liberal :mrgreen:

Absolutely, and many warned about those concerns.
He did his best.

God damn it, it took me over an hour to respond to your post :lol:
 
The reason that they don't go for amendments is that amending is a very tedious process, and for good reason.
It's rare that an amendment turns out to be bad, but they are usually as easy to strike, such as prohibition. The point to making it as difficult as possible for D.C. to expand federal power is to prevent bad ideas from becoming law, every time they circumvent the process we lose.

The power to declare war could easily be interpreted as Congress authorizing a war. What's the point of a declaration if the President is going to take military action with or without Congressional approval?
True, but it was understood until the WPA of 1973 to be a presidential power. Congress has a check on that with the power of the purse, they can defund any wars they deem to be frivolous, and should actually.

It's important to remember that other advances in farm technology, like the cotton gin - which Whitney hoped would reduce slavery - only serve to make cotton production more efficient, and therefore created a boom in the slave industry. The only way I could foresee slavery ending on its own would be British India becoming "King Cotton" rather than the southern states, therefore making the whole plantation system obsolete. I highly doubt that racism would have been tamer after slavery ended, because an apathetic policy from the North would only serve to encourage discrimination.
I see your point. The problem was that the Cotton gin was still labor dependent, and small enough to justify further slave ownership. However there were other machines following, and remember, the more workers you have as a responsibility the more resources you must expend on them, food, clothing, housing, other necessities. The idea behind scholars who gave slavery another maybe 20 years was that economic laws would have caught up to new advances, making the expenditures on slave labor less economically efficient.

But if it were to come down to slavery ending on its own due to economic reasons, or a military conflict that would end it abruptly, I'd take the latter in a heartbeat. Who knows how long it would take for slavery to die out on its own? Twenty years? Fifty years? A hundred? In the meantime thousands upon thousands of children would be born into slavery, and adults would die never knowing a life beyond the lash. Even though a great deal of Americans died during the Civil War, their deaths ensured freedom for a greater number of people.
The end of slavery was the only good to come out of the end of the Civil War, but remember that there were unintended consequences to follow. The federal declaring secession to be illegal took a very important tool away from the states, race relations actually degraded after the Reconstruction, southern states never forgave the north for percieved(and some real) abuses. A lot of the economic disagreements were never solved, and to this day the northern and southern states often have open contempt for each other. Matter of fact, southern agricultural plantation owners found yet another way to screw former slaves, the sharecropping model was almost as bad, with southern former slaves being seldom well educated, many were shorted in those deals.

Tyranny is subjective, but I'd hardly consider slight economic marginalization to fit under even the loosest definition of the word. Here's just an outline of why secession isn't constitutional:

1. Madison's aforementioned opinion on secession - that it binds every state to it, and that only through the consent of the other states or abject tyranny may a state leave the Union
Still, there is no denying the constitutional facts at hand. The power to enforce the Union was never stated in the legally binding Acts of the constitution, and secession was never prohibited the states. That is the part SCOTUS never tried to reconcile.
2. The Articles, more decentralizing than even the Constitution, openly stated that the US could not be dissolved. Maybe this was implied when carried on to the Constitution, since it was designed to place greater controls upon the states, not less.
The Constitution was meant to close a few gaps that the federal needed when the Articles of Confederation failed. It wasn't meant to create a federal government that was more powerful than the states, only to give the federal just enough power to "play referee". Main focuses were on a common defense, a common currency, and the ability to settle interstate economic disputes.

3. States cannot not form "confederations" and do not have the sovereignty that independent nations have. This suggests that, unlike the leagues set up by the EU and UN, the Constitution was not intended to set up a league of countries but instead a whole, sovereign nation.
Not exactly. The states were considered sovereigns, and most of the signatories of the Constitution alluded to that.

4. Being a manner that affects the entire nation rather than just that state alone, secession would be a federal manner rather than a state manner - similar to the admission of new states.
I disagree to an extent. If a federal government asserts that states surrender powers and to the effect no longer represent that state's best interests, it can be more than effective to threaten secession. Either the federal reigns itself in and respects it's bounds, or finds itself at the mercy of the new trade rules from that former state, this can be a very powerful threat. Imagine Vermont maple syrup now having a higher trade value to the U.S. as an imported good, or Maine Lobster now being an imported luxury. Even more pressing, say Louisiana and Texas secede because the federal encroachment is overbearing, we have the oil, and Louisiana specifically has quite a bit of the nations seafood business, and is a popular tourism destination. Sure, seceeding states risk losing business from the U.S. at large for retaliation, but the economic damage would be mutual. Under a secession talk though, both sides are supposed to talk, when they break down it becomes a big game of "chicken", but it can be good for the discourse on proper law and rights.

There are limits to every right. The First Amendment does not permit shouting fire in a theater, the Second does not permit one to fire their guns into the air or point them at people. The Preamble isn't legally binding like the rest of the Constitution, but it does give insight into what kind of a government the Framers intended to set up.
Absolutely right. The thing about not shouting fire is not so much about the speech, or the words, much like firing into a crowd with a weapon, it is about dangerous actions that endanger the lives(natural rights) of others. IOW, we cannot abuse our rights by crossing a boundary that would hinder the rights of others.

I don't see anything in the Constitution that would permit the President to suspend habeas corpus; on the contrary, it blandly states that suspending habeas corpus may be used in a time of war by Congress. Only they would have the legal right to do so.
I've come to a different conclusion based on war powers readings, I'll have to do some reviewing. Because the president is the commander in chief it would preclude that he can suspend HC, but it is specifically mentioned for Congress iirc.


I'm pretty sure that those policies began under the previous administrations and that Congress was mostly to blame. The slave states could cry me a river over their economic woes, but I digress :p
Some of those were abolitionist tools, but many of those precluded even a major abolition movement. The thing is even though slavery was obviously wrong and hypocritical compared to the constitution the constitution still allowed for no trade discrepencies amongst the states.


It wasn't up to the Union to kowtow to the Confederacy. Again, whether secession was legal or not, Sumter was US military property and therefore would not belong to the Confederacy. They had a lot of gall to secede in the first place, but to attempt to coerce the US into giving up lawful property was adding insult to injury. It was their fault for attacking, not the Union's fault for not bowing down to their every whim.
The Union could have asked for payment rather than daring the south to attack. It's not black and white as an issue. I'll just leave you with this, daring a southerner is not the best of ideas.

I wouldn't consider slavery a last straw issue, everything political in the South was at least indirectly tied to slavery.
Eh, not exactly. We were an agricultural society, there are many writings of the time that show the north wanted the south to industrialize at the south's expense. It's not as simple as school history makes it out to be.

Even if secession was totally legal, and if the Confederacy never aggressively attacked the Union, I would be totally fine with the Union invading the Confederacy and the Civil War happening the way it did. I agree with Henry David Thoreau's belief: that if violence, breaking the law, and even treason are necessary to end an institution as evil as slavery, then they should be carried out to their fullest extent. What bothers me is revisionists who try to whitewash the Confederate side of history by portraying them as victims who had every right to do everything they did. Even though a lot of their claims are irrelevant, for truth's sake they must be countered.
It's not a simple issue. It's easy to blame the south based upon the simplified history of the issue, but realistically the north was just as guilty. As well, the war was not as much about slavery as forcing the Confederacy back into the Union, Lincoln's own accounts pretty much spelled that out.
Oh well. Opinions do change over time. He also presided over a nation at war, so civil liberties are bound to be restricted.
Had nothing to do with the war, he was openly anti-constitution prior to his presidency when he was a college professor at Princeton. In fact, people who hate the Federal Reserve can thank him and that Congress directly.

Taxation powers can only be used to an extent. It's similar to how the commerce clause was used to expand the government right up until it was used to further gun control. Certain things have nothing to do with either commerce or taxation.
Ah, but Robert's ruling expanded the taxation powers. The government doesn't even have to prove it has regulatory or enumerated powers over something now. That's the problem, Roberts said Obamacare was unconstitutional, except for the tax. This opens the door for other powers not found to just "be taxed".

There was a lot of other stuff going on at the time for anything else constitutionally-speaking to be at the forefront of his mind.
And much of that was created by his administration, exluding the World War and the Depression obviously. FDR's expansions though are largely regarded as power grabs that accomplished nothing of real value.

The New Deal and ACA aren't bad laws, from my point of view as an economic liberal :mrgreen:
Oh you don't want to get me started. :peace

He did his best.

God damn it, it took me over an hour to respond to your post :lol:
Well. The good news is there are protocols to fix whatever needs fixing, the bad news is it takes a populace so furious that a lot of lousy politicians need to update their resumes.
 
Well. The good news is there are protocols to fix whatever needs fixing, the bad news is it takes a populace so furious that a lot of lousy politicians need to update their resumes.

That's PERFECT! It's what I want DONE! :D
 
I think it is grandstanding and that the Supreme Court will rule against all such laws and the States know it.
I'm inclined to agree.

The coming Missouri law only makes it a misdemeanor, not a felony, for the federal agent. My guess is, that's to set up a court case for precedence not to actually stop federal agents from doing their job.
 
Despite the fact that nullification is unconstitutional, I still think it has it's uses.

The first is sending a message to Congress that the citizens they claim to represent are not happy with what they are doing, which serves to compel reconsideration of support for unpopular laws and opens the possibility of repeal or modification. This chance increases the more States show discord by enacting similar laws (case in point, medical and general use marijuana laws).

The second is forcing a confrontation over such laws which compel the Chief Excecutive to either refuse to enforce or challenge in support of Federal law before SCOTUS. If nothing else, it serves to determine what is constitutional under the process of judicial review.
 
I realize that it doesn't explicitly say in the amendment that naturalization is a power, however, and not interpreting mind you the states are bound to the citizenship requirements as is the federal. The reason the federal assumes these powers is because it's an amendment, the constitution most pertains to the federal.

Nobody is arguing otherwise. Immigration is not citizenship. Residency is not citizenship. Nothing in the 14th about Naturalization was new or different than what was already in the constitution except for the idea that state's could not treat naturalized citizens any differently than they treated other citizens. It has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with immigration, though. Creating uniform rules of naturalization is an enumerated power in Article 1 section 8, so defining who can become a naturalized citizen and how they go about it has always been a federal power. The 14th had no effect on that.

Ergo, the 14th could not possibly have had any effect on immigration, since nothing about naturalization changed with the 14th.



Yes, the Congress passes a proposed constitutional amendment, this is the process of asking the states to surrender that power voluntarily, 3/4ths of the states must agree. That IS the amendment process.

Which has nothing whatseover to do with this discussion, because no amendment was passed regarding immigration. No amendment was passed regarding naturalization, either.


Immigration is part of the naturalization process

False.

Yes, it sounds extreme and we aren't speaking to a martial situation, but it is a non-military invasion nonetheless.

I won't even address the inherent hyperbole in your argument, I'll just point out the statement of yours, which I highlighted, which proves it is not a defense issue. Doublethink, dude. Doublethink.

Okay, this is fair. Now to throw a monkey wrench into the logic, with gangs like MS 13, drug running(the violence that ensues), traffickers, coyotes(human smugglers), etc. this does become a violence issue, along with terrorists, etc. So yes, there is a defense component in this and this is a rare instance where the federal does in fact have a valid interest in knowing who is crossing borders.

And as I said earlier, repeatedly, if the individual involved is deemed to be a legitimate threat to the nation, it returns to the federal purview under the defense powers.


I disagree because of the 14th, and yes, I know you disagree that the 14th provides for federal naturalization, but until that is not a factor for interpretation it is what it is.

You are the person interpreting the 14th. It doesn't make naturalization federal, because defining the naturalization process was always federal. Article 1, section 8. You implied earlier that you knew what the enumerated powers were in this discussion. NOw you ar eimplying that you have no idea what they are, because you seem to think the 14th had something to do with naturalization.

There was no need for an amendment in order to state that all person's born in the US were citizens. There was a need for an amendment to ban states from treating one group of citizens differently from another group of citizens as far as laws go.

The key word there is citizens.

Not all Immigrants are citizens, nor are all immigrants required to be on the path to citizenship (aka in the process of naturalization).


There is no way it is false, deportation is a matter of record.

So are gun bans. Logic fail.


Okay, for "not becoming a citizen" granted, people aren't being forced to become citizens, but they have no permanent standing to remain in the U.S.

False. Millions of non-citizens have permanent standing in the US. They are called a permanent resident aliens for a reason. They have been granted legal residency for an unlimited amount of time. that's permanent standing. They only lose that standing as a result of due process. It does not expire. Even if their green card expires, they can renew it with little difficulty. Much like how your drivers license expires and you just go and renew it without any trouble.

they are here at the discretion of the federal and may be deported at any time the visa expires they may also be deported for commission of any crime, they do not have the same standing as permanent citizens.

think for a second, LA. Think about what you are trying to use as evidence that the federal has the constitutional authority to control immigration in a debate about whether or not this authority was usurped from the states.

Now that you've thought about that for a second, explain how saying "This is the way it is" has any ****ing bearing on a debate about "How it became the way it is".

There is no answer to it, because it's a stupid as me saying "Illinois has gun bans, ergo, gun control laws are constitutional."



Think about it a bit more. I commit a robbery(not going to happen, but for hypothetical's sake) and am arrested, I go to jail, serve time, and return home. A person on visa with no intent to become a citizen commits same crime they can be deported. This is why I gave that example.

Just because the permanent residency is conditional doesn't make it impermanent. It is the indefinite nature of the residency allowance that makes it permanent (stable, unchanging). If a person who is a PRA commits a crime, the law treats that as the choice to willingly relinquish their residency status. They are informed of the requirements for maintaining their green card when they receive it, so the only way that they can lose it is by making the choice to do so.







Ah, but they are. Any country has the right to determine the path to citizenship. As long as the federal is charged with upholding citizenship and the rights therein, it's within their purview to set the standards and thus enforce.

Nobody has ever argued otherwise in this thread. You've simply attempted to make a false equivalency between that and immigration in order to ignore the fact that control over immigration is NOT an enumerated power, nor is it a power granted by any amendments.

Again, if people are not here legally, they can be deported.

The only reason a person is here illegally is because the federal government stole the power of determining residency from the states. Deportation due to unconstitutional federal laws is unconstitutional.

If a person is going through the naturalization process, they are here legally.

And a person can be here legally without going through the naturalization process (hint: million of pimmigrants are here legally without going through said process), so that comment is worthless nonsense that has no bearing on the discussion.

But, does that person have the right of residence if they do not have the right to be here?

Depends on what the state they reside on says about it. If the state decides they have a right to residency, they do have a right to be here. The feds stole the power to determine who has a right to be here from the states via judicial activism.


So then you agree that immigration (which is not crossing the border, it is obtaining residence in a country other than the country of birth) is not under the federal purview.

I think we're conflating two issues here. The federal has the power to enforce immigration, but no, they do not have the right to hinder a person seeking residence.

I'm not conflating two issues. Immigration is the act of a person seeking residence. That's what it is. One must cross a border in order to immigrate, but that doesn't make immigration the act of crossing a border nor does it mean that those who have control over who may or may not cross a border can make a determination about who may or may not immigrate. They can only make the determination of whether or not said person can cross the border, and they can only do that AT the border. If the feds fail to do their job AT the border, they lose their opportunity to make any determination about residency (according to the constitution, specifically the 10th amendment).

The immigration decision is made by the State, or was until the feds usurped via judicial activism.



And slight disagreement here, if a person is not here legally, I do argue that the government has the authority to enforce.

The feds do not have the authority to determine if a person is here legally or illegally. At best (in a constitutional sense), they can charge someone for crossing the border "illegally", but that is charging someone for the feds' incompetence at protecting the border and monitoring people crossing said border.


Under a constitutional republic, yes, when I have to suffer unconstitutional laws because of it, no.

Once you yield on the principles by employing a big government mentality, you are engaging in the very behaviors you claim to oppose and have become your own ideological enemy.



Not what I am saying. Not in the least. The federal has the right to insure that representative to the federal are elected properly.

The respective states are the people who determine the proper way to elect their own representatives. The feds do not have that authority. They have the authority to determine how many representatives come from each state. They ave the authority to determine the way the representatives get split up within a state. There is NOTHING in the Constitution which grants the federal government the authority to ban non-citizens from being given the right to vote. Nothing. Check it out.

It has been made a federal crime for non-citizens to vote in federal elections, but that is, too, a federal usurpation of State sovereignty. In the past, many states allowed their aliens to vote.




I'll take a religious nut over a control freak like Pelosi, Reid, and Schumer any day. But yes, just about all of them are ****ing stupid.

So we're ****ed anyway if the feds continue to have powers they usurped (such as power to determine who is or is not a "legal" immigrant). Idiots will elect idiots as their representatives. And most people are idiots. Just because they are idiots doesn't mean they should not be able to choose their representatives, though.

Keep in mind I'm not calling for anything more than federal elections being done correctly

"Correctly" is determined by the states, as it is their federal representative. Nothing in the constitution grants the feds the authority to ban aliens from voting for a State's representatives in the federal government. Nothing.


Dude, not making anything up.

You kind of are.


Analysis, pure analysis.

Deeply flawed analysis based on fictional assumptions.
 
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