dagblog - Comments for "The Marriage of Libertarians and Racists"

Know-it-alls? My first pet

Verified Atheist — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 23:28:59 +0000

Know-it-alls?

My first pet peeve (and the order is not actually that significant) would be people confusing the meaning of the word ape with the meaning of the word monkey. My second is the incorrect use of apostrophes.

That said, two things about my pet peeves. One, it's not going to be a pet peeve if it's not something that happens frequently (or all-too-frequently), so please don't take my comment as an insult to you. Two, pet peeves are for peccadillos — things that shouldn't annoy me as much as they do. (And truth-be-told, they don't annoy me as much as I might be jokingly indicating.)

Sticking with the marijuana

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 17:44:25 +0000

In reply to Slavery and Civil Rights

Sticking with the marijuana example, what is the compelling reason for not allowing states themselves to decide whether marijuana should be legal, medical marijuana should be allowed, etc.?

If you're for legalization, states' rights is good at this point - until the feds decide to legalize it, at which point states rights will be bad - allowing slow states to continue criminalizing it. The choice can be very arbitrary. As long as the Supreme Court is down with Roe v Wade, states rights is bad for abortion. As soon as the Court overturns, states rights will be the path back to abortion rights.

Even on a city level, we see

rmrd0000 — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 15:29:57 +0000

In reply to Slavery and Civil Rights

Even on a city level, we see physical assault. NYC Mayor Bloomberg thinks that too many Whites and too few Blacks are being stopped by "Stop and Frisk".

87% of the Stops are Black and Latino. Only 9% are White.

Slavery and Civil Rights

rmrd0000 — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 14:00:38 +0000

In reply to Aside from slavery & civil

Slavery and Civil Rights failures are hard to overlook. We stick to the US and not Burma because we are discussing the impact issues have here in the States. Can a state legalize marijuana and nullify Federal law? Can a state tell a woman who wants to have an abortion that she has to undergo an unnecessary probe ordered not by her doctor but by the state? Can a Governor be the sole decision maker whether a woman has the right to an abortion? Some states are allowing individuals the ability to use marijuana, freeing people from the threat of incarceration. Other states are enacting laws that are restrictive. SCOTUS gave states with a history of voter suppression a green light to return to the good old days, Texas and North Carolina could not wait to block voting rights. States' Rights remain controversial because States can be very authoritarian.

Aside from slavery & civil

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 06:48:43 +0000

In reply to Thanks for your input. Always

Aside from slavery & civil rights, were there any issues the federal government was way ahead of the states and had to educate or discipline them?

And is this not really a shifting of values from "more enlightened states" (YMMV) to the remainder?

Below's a map of states with women's rights before the amendment passed, green states having full suffrage. Would have been interesting for the green states to invade the red states to save their downtrodden sisters.

More seriously, we seem to ignore the sometimes tough dynamic between states and federal that makes our system interesting - whether ideal or in need of change. It's doubtful that the Founding Fathers saw the US as emerging as a global power, so the need for a strong centralized voice was probably less (maybe Hamilton was an exception). The growth of the US tended to give a "best of breed" set of rules to new states even as older states were recalcitrant to change. Likely a good deal of haves vs. have-nots also prevailed with new states, where it's easier to manipulate laws for a sparsely populated region all dependent on a single employer like a railroad or banker or ranch.

What the demonization of Jefferson and anointment of Hamilton seems to ignore is that many (most?) colonialists and settlers of any type during this age were fleeing the tyranny of European monarchs and dictators, that their prime driver was to be left alone, to self-organize, to have some freedom to do what was unacceptable on the continent.

Sure, Jefferson was de facto a racist and hypocrite for not freeing his slaves, etc. But the lessons from the French Reign of Terror (oppression by the raving masses) don't really justify faith in centralization alone as referenced here:

When French secularists renamed Notre Dame "The Temple of Reason" and proceeded to decapitate hundreds weekly in its shadow, Hamilton concluded that reason was as easily appropriated into the fanatic's arsenal as religion.

A fanatic can be an isolated lunatic, a states' rights proponent or the head of one of the parties in Congress.

The issue of racism in terms of modern politics is more complex. It's often something of a litmus test, or kind of a braggart's bravado in a boy's club - an ornament rather than a belief, tied in with a half dozen behaviors to be in with the in-crowd. Just as Hamilton turned more religious to counter the returned atheism/deism of Jefferson (his arch-rival), modern politicians and adherents put on all the trappings of their supposed stance on the political spectrum, which now runs mostly A-B rather than A-Z. Tough Republicans hold tough positions on race and social issues - the Marie Antoinette position. What do they really think? Hard to tell.

So analyzing states rights on a partially aritificial posture of convenience is difficult, unless you want to include the idea that all these constructs - centralized government, state federalism, communes, etc. - can be hijacked.

Instead, folks seem to want to prove states' rights as flawed, so focus on its greatest failure. Of course we have tons more greatest failures of a strong centralized state, such as Mao's disastrous Great Leap Forward, the mistreatment of large minorities or majorities in countries like Burma or South Africa, as well as our current government's efforts to spy electronically on all of us, but those arguments never seem to appear in the discussion - we turn parochial and only want to talk about our local modern politicians, and not the more general examples we have at hand.

Wow. We agree. This is going

rmrd0000 — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 02:37:00 +0000

In reply to Go round and round? I don't

Wow. We agree. This is going to take some time to digest.

You're third pet peeve is

ocean-kat — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 02:28:38 +0000

In reply to Pet peeve #3: the use of the

You're third pet peeve is interesting. Your going to tell us the first and second aren't you? Guess what my pet peeve is.

Go round and round? I don't

ocean-kat — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 02:22:12 +0000

In reply to The current Congress is the

Go round and round? I don't understand. I thought after all our disagreements you'd be happy we finally see eye to eye.

I too wish this congress would only do the relatively benign, almost harmless impeachment of Obama instead of the far worse behavior of being unproductive. I mean, god, unproductive! That's so much worse than impeachment. Its so crazy now.

Well, in o-k's defense, since

Unverified Atheist — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 01:32:54 +0000

In reply to Oops

Well, in o-k's defense, since o-k was being sarcastic it still kinda works…

Oops

rmrd0000 — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 01:14:38 +0000

In reply to Pet peeve #3: the use of the

Oops