. . . by a self-styled radical Libertarian who also thinks I am a Communist.
(And Dana Garrett thinks he has problems with people who cannot distinguish between Social Democrats and Socialists.)
Since it would probably come as a surprise to most people in the Delaware blogosphere that I believe a government tyranny, the story might be worth telling.
At Third Party Watch, Libertarian presidential hopeful George Phillies (whom I have endorsed) published a position paper against the Constitutionality of signing statements such as Dubya has used to vitiate any number of laws presuming to restrict his War Powers.
This apparently upset a few of the anarchists at the fringe of our little fringe.
Included below is my exchange with a Libertarian known only as G. E..
G. E., by the way, holds such mainstream positions as the following:
With all due respect to those of my Libertarian and Anarcho-Capitalist friends who hold more radical views about the elimination of government than I do, I'd offer two observations:
1) Calling other people idiots and fascists is probably not the way to get votes or convert people to your cause. (OK, so I made an exception myself to this rule with Eric Dondero yesterday, but I was not trying to convert him, I was trying to warn the rest of you against accepting him as a Libertarian.)
2) It's all well and good to rhapsodize about the wonders of a society without government coercion, and to condemn anyone who so much as breathes a hint of the idea that we have to start with the State where it is and then work back toward restoring personal and economic freedoms that have been lost, but to do so give you less than an absolute zero chance of convincing sufficient American voters to go along with your program.
Which, since you disavow coercion (but apparently not name-calling), is the only way you can ever implement your vision.
Before Libertarians can field a legitimately competitive national ticket (Bob Barr and Mike Gravel notwithstanding), we're going to have to actually demonstrate competence in putting our ideas to work at the local and state levels.
And that means dealing with things as we find them, rather than running around in our aluminum hats declaring that nullification* is in the Constitution and that the 14th Amendment was never ratified (but nobody noticed).
*It would have been difficult, just as a matter of chronology, for nullification to be included in the US Constitution, since Thomas Jefferson and James Madison didn't think up the doctrine until several years later, when they wrote the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.
To borrow a picture from Shirley:
(And Dana Garrett thinks he has problems with people who cannot distinguish between Social Democrats and Socialists.)
Since it would probably come as a surprise to most people in the Delaware blogosphere that I believe a government tyranny, the story might be worth telling.
At Third Party Watch, Libertarian presidential hopeful George Phillies (whom I have endorsed) published a position paper against the Constitutionality of signing statements such as Dubya has used to vitiate any number of laws presuming to restrict his War Powers.
This apparently upset a few of the anarchists at the fringe of our little fringe.
Included below is my exchange with a Libertarian known only as G. E..
G.E. Says:
May 1st, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Phillies is sooo off the mark again.
“A President who feels a law is unconstitutional has one legal path: He seeks a ruling from the courts. That’s why they’re there.”
Maybe that’s what the Marxist Poly-Sci profs at Phillies’s school told him, but it’s NOT true.
The headline of this press release should have been: PHILLIES AGAINST NULLIFICATION - ADMITS W.A.R. MORE LIBERTARIAN
“In contrast, if elected, I will obey the law of the land.”
What he means by this, of course, is that he will follow the dictates of the Supreme Court and NOT the Constitution.
“... the Constitutional duty of the President to see that our laws are faithfully executed, even the ones he does not like.”
Says who? The Supremes? Alternate headline: PHILLIES AGAINST NULLIFICATION - CONDEMNS LIBERTARIANISM IN FAVOR OF LIBERALISM
Steve Newton Says:
May 1st, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Uh, G. E., when you write,
“... the Constitutional duty of the President to see that our laws are faithfully executed, even the ones he does not like.”
Says who? The Supremes? Alternate headline: PHILLIES AGAINST NULLIFICATION - CONDEMNS LIBERTARIANISM IN FAVOR OF LIBERALISM
I wonder if you missed this phrase from Article 2, Section 4, US Constitution:
“he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed”
So yes, speaking in Constitutional terms, Phillies is dead on the mark here.
G.E. Says:
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:21 am
Steve Newton – No. All branches of government are sworn to defend the Constitution. When Congress passes laws that are unconstitutional, it is up to the president to nullify them. Or do you believe your Marxist Poly-Sci prof who says only the Supreme Court determines what’s constitutional? If so, you belong in the leftist Phillies campaign.
Steve Newton Says:
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
G. E.
Mind quoting the section of the Constitution that provides for nullification?
Oh, that’s right: it’s not there. Phillies was discussing laws he personally disagreed with, not necessarily unconstitutional laws.
You might actually try reading the Constitution from time to time: the specific duty of the President to “execute” the laws is different from the general provision that all branches must defend it.
When Congress passes laws that the President believes are unconstitutional it is the President’s obligation to veto the bill. Congress then possesses the ability to override that veto (2/3s, since it appears you haven’t read the document recently).
At that point the Constitution (and not your ideology) would give the President four choices: (1) resign in protest; (2) carry out the law and work to repeal it; (3) seek a Constitutional amendment to counter it; or (4) [see below] challenge it and send it to the Supreme Court to “nullify” it. Yes, I know judicial review is not written into the Constitution, but your nullification theory clearly allows for it to do so.
Congress cannot nullify a law; Congress either passes laws or repeals them. Legislators nullifying themselves is an oxymoron.
Furthermore, if any individual branch of the Federal Government possesses the right to “nullify” Federal laws, then this logically supposes that judicial review by the Supreme Court is in fact Constitutional.
Your predilection for telling people where they belong or what they think does not change the fact that your Constitution arguments are based neither upon historical evidence nor textual evidence—even leaving aside precedent.
Understanding what the Constitution actually says (as opposed to what you’d like it to say) is not Statism, it’s reality testing.
For the record: I have already endorsed Dr Phillies, so you can now go on to discount everything I said above.
G.E. Says:
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Newton – WTF. What kind of law is Congress likely to pass that’s ACTUALLY CONSTITUTIONAL? You are a liberal-statist idiot. The Supreme Court is not the only branch of government that can determine the constitutionality of a law. Any branch can, as well as the states—at least they could until the Supreme Court hijacked the Constitution. No historical evidence? Ever heard of Andrew Jackson? WHERE IN THE CONSTITUTION DOES IT SAY THAT THE SUPREME COURT IS THE SOLE ARBITER OF WHAT’S CONSTITUTIONAL? Answer: Nowhere. The president takes an oath the defend the Constitution—George Phillies, like his nameseake Bush, HATES the Constitution and hates federalism and decentralism. He is unfit to serve and should join the Communist Party. He’s already affiliated with the ACLU, so he’s half-way there.
G. E., by the way, holds such mainstream positions as the following:
The 14th amendment was NOT legally ratified. You are a fascist to suggest otherwise
With all due respect to those of my Libertarian and Anarcho-Capitalist friends who hold more radical views about the elimination of government than I do, I'd offer two observations:
1) Calling other people idiots and fascists is probably not the way to get votes or convert people to your cause. (OK, so I made an exception myself to this rule with Eric Dondero yesterday, but I was not trying to convert him, I was trying to warn the rest of you against accepting him as a Libertarian.)
2) It's all well and good to rhapsodize about the wonders of a society without government coercion, and to condemn anyone who so much as breathes a hint of the idea that we have to start with the State where it is and then work back toward restoring personal and economic freedoms that have been lost, but to do so give you less than an absolute zero chance of convincing sufficient American voters to go along with your program.
Which, since you disavow coercion (but apparently not name-calling), is the only way you can ever implement your vision.
Before Libertarians can field a legitimately competitive national ticket (Bob Barr and Mike Gravel notwithstanding), we're going to have to actually demonstrate competence in putting our ideas to work at the local and state levels.
And that means dealing with things as we find them, rather than running around in our aluminum hats declaring that nullification* is in the Constitution and that the 14th Amendment was never ratified (but nobody noticed).
*It would have been difficult, just as a matter of chronology, for nullification to be included in the US Constitution, since Thomas Jefferson and James Madison didn't think up the doctrine until several years later, when they wrote the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.
To borrow a picture from Shirley:
Comments
There were also more than a few elitists of non-descript post-modern bent, who were not sure of anything but would do anything to take the reigns of power. And a few of Leo Strauss’ authoritarian read-between-the-lines-symbolic- nature-of-everything guys, who I considered real elitists, sophists or crypto-fascists.
Nothing Socrates or the other Greeks did not already hash out. Except for the Libertarians who were a distinct minority but whose commitment to the enlightenment was like a beacon in the dark wilderness. Brian
1) Garrett's odd sense of the world and
2) The odious and unconstitutional nature of signing statements:
You might actually try reading the Constitution from time to time: the specific duty of the President to “execute” the laws is different from the general provision that all branches must defend it.
When Congress passes laws that the President believes are unconstitutional it is the President’s obligation to veto the bill. Congress then possesses the ability to override that veto (2/3s, since it appears you haven’t read the document recently).