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Learning About Constitutional Law With Star Wars
An anonymous reader writes: In an upcoming paper (PDF) for the Michigan Law Review, scholar Cass Sunstein draws on Star Wars to make a couple key points about how constitutional law evolves. He writes, "Human beings often see coherence and planned design when neither exists. This is so in movies, literature, history, economics, and psychoanalysis—and constitutional law. Contrary to the repeated claims of George Lucas, its principal author, the Star Wars series was hardly planned in advance; it involved a great deal of improvisation and surprise, even to Lucas himself. Serendipity and happenstance, sometimes in the forms of eruptions of new thinking, play a pervasive and overlooked role in the creative imagination, certainly in single-authored works, and even more in multi-authored ones extending over time. ... The misdescription appears to respond to a serious human need for sense-making and pattern-finding, but it is a significant obstacle to understanding and critical reflection. Whether Jedi or Sith, many authors of constitutional law are a lot like the author of Star Wars, disguising the essential nature of their own creative processes."
The importance of having air support for a military conquest.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It could be worse, you could be trying to learn Constitutional law from the average elected official, especially the last few presidents.
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I thought the political message of Star Wars was clear: a powerful executive gradually demonizes, marginalizes, ignores and then disbands a representative body, while using force to intimidate and even kill anyone who resists or speaks against the central government.
Now where could we find a parallel....hmmm...
It isn't like the partial law from Star Wars isn't based on the well documented Roman System of governance.
You know the idea that there was a Republic system of government with a constitutional rule that will grant someone emergancy full authority in times of war. Which was abused by Julius Caesar to allow him to create the Roman Empire. Or was it Senator Palpatine who created the Galactic empire?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Does Cass Sunstein write Vogon poetry too?
The Communists were less Evil...
Tens of millions of Chinese & Russians along with other eastern European & Asian countries might disagree. I wonder why communists always seem to get a free pass on the tyranny train?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Of course it is not all thought out!
That is why we have Amendments and the Supreme Court.
The other side of the coin is "living document" where we change the meaning of the words to fit the current times.
I am much more in favor of using the tools given to us to change the Constitution vrs changing it's meaning based on current interpretation.
That "precedence" concept of common law should not apply to the Constitution, which is not "written in stone" but should be difficult to change to avoid repeats of Prohibition. The fact that Prohibition is one of the few "flip flops" in the Constitution shows that it works pretty well.
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I was thinking more inline with the Reichstag fire. Especially since both events were fabricated by those who sought to gain power (and no, for anyone who is thinking it, 9/11 was not done by the US government). While most of the prequel trilogy is laughable, the one line Natalie Portman says about liberty dying to thunderous applause is probably one of the stronger lines of all 3 movies.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
And the best quote from the Ars comment section was "Darth Vader" is pretty much a Germanic version of "Dark Father"... so for all of Lucas's failings, that " I am your father" moment that the paper is largely based on was likely not one of the serendipitous ones that the paper hopes it to be.
"Han shot first", OTOH, we see cropping up in law ALL THE TIME.
...could be worse still: Slashdot could be teaching Constitutional Law, which means you'd start with a car analogy.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
TBH, I don't even get why the TFA author's idea was necessary. The US Constitution was built out of a long series of debates, compromises, and not a little effort towards future-proofing (and let's be honest, idiot-proofing). That, and they included mechanisms to modify it as needed.
Sure, the process was arduous and it involved a lot of potential inclusions that would quite frankly scare many folks today. That said, once finalized and ratified, it's in place and should be treated as the original document. If you (or anyone) want it changed, then use the mechanisms included to do just that. We've managed to do so for a couple of centuries now without violating the thing, so why get all creative about it now?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The Terrorists are considered an Evil group. However they are are just a bunch of bullies, who haven't (compared to the military actions in the past) gained much foothold.
The Communists were less Evil, but more a solid threat, the Soviets had taken control of many countries, and having a Nuclear Arsenal as well made them really scarry.
There is some disagreement about those people being evil, especially the communists. One could easily say that the capitalists are the greater evil, especially the owners big corporations, because they pollute the Earth, are utterly greedy, etc and have no concern for the distribution of resources among those who need them. The CIA, on behalf of a capitalist state, participated in coups d'état in various countries, the US invaded Nicaragua, Panama, Hawaii, just to name a few countries. Thus, capitalism is evil.
About the terrorists, I can say that the main distinction between a terrorist group and a state is that other countries recognizes the occupation of territory by a state, but not by a terrorist group, no matter the opinion of the people in the occupied territories.
The Nazis, on the other hand, are held as the embodiment of evil, almost unanimously.
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The 17th Amendment was a response to some seriously corrupt shenanigans, but I'm not sure it was the right response.
The worst things that have happened to our federal system have come through the 14th, 16th, and 17th Amendments.
Individual Americans were never supposed to have a direct relationship with the Federal government; it was formed as a union of states, not of people.
I don't know how to fix this, but I think it should be fixed.
I don't agree with Lord Vader, but I support the Stormtroopers.
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I know that the Ewoks are controversial among the original, older crowd of Star Wars fans. I watched the movies as a kid and I thought that anything with spaceships and lasers was awesome. However I also thought that the furry buggers actually make sense in the context of the story.
Emperor Palpatine could foresee almost everything, he does claim so a couple of times himself. But the furry little natives of Endor probably seemed so insignificant to him that they didn't even register on his radar. Which ultimately tipped the balance of power to the Rebels and led to his doom.
Both were acts of terrorism committed by fringe lunatic outsiders, and both were immediately and skilfully exploited by politicians who had the goal all along of subverting the rule of law.
The other side of the coin is "living document" where we change the meaning of the words to fit the current times.
I am much more in favor of using the tools given to us to change the Constitution vrs changing it's meaning based on current interpretation.
That's exactly the problem. Nobody wants to amend the Constitution, they want to "interpret" it, as if the meaning of it weren't clear enough as is. You mentioned Prohibition, which I think is one of the best examples. Nobody so far has been able to explain to me why we had to pass a constitutional amendment to outlaw alcohol, but the same thing is not necessary for any other drug. The entire war on drugs is an unconstitutional sham.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Oh and knocking down sufficient trees to provide clear lines of fire around important facilities.
They're seen as being less competent. The Nazis were scary because they were both evil and effective.
The Communists were less Evil, but more a solid threat, the Soviets had taken control of many countries, and having a Nuclear Arsenal as well made them really scarry.
The reason communists get a pass is because most of the media and the current president have so much common cause with Marxism.
Nobody so far has been able to explain to me why we had to pass a constitutional amendment to outlaw alcohol, but the same thing is not necessary for any other drug.
Because the Constitution "changed" (at least in its interpretation) in 1937. Long story short: from 1789 to 1937, the Supreme Court believed that enumerated powers existed, thus putting rather restrictive and fundamental limits on the powers of the federal government.
For some reason in 1937, one of the justices on the Supreme Court switched sides. And ever since, the Supreme Court has basically interpreted certain sections of the Constitution (e.g., "interstate commerce," "general welfare," etc.) to mean "the federal government can do anything any state or local government can do."
Now, whether this shift was due to FDR threatening to pack SCOTUS with his cronies or whether Owen Roberts just changed his mind for some other reason, it happened. And once voters saw the effects -- like getting benefits from Social Security, Medicare, more sweeping Civil Rights legislation possible, etc. -- they kept endorsing the idea that the enumerated powers shouldn't matter.
So yeah, before 1937, federal power was limited (though it should be noted that some previous SCOTUS decisions had interpreted various enumerated powers more or less broadly). After 1937, there is no effective distinction between what the federal vs. more local governments can do.
The Nazis, on the other hand, are held as the embodiment of evil, almost unanimously.
Because the Communists won the PR war. Literally. When Stalin decided to denounce someone he called them Fascist.
It boggles the mind that any former Communist, an ideology that killed over 60 million people can be accepted just fine today and any former Nazi is forever considered the worst creature to have walked the Earth.
This is not to cry over some perceived unfairness to the Nazi, but rather to stand astounded that all Communists aren't being rounded up today with the same fervor. You claim to want justice for totalitarian perpetrators of genocide? Great, just don't pick and choose.
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
Villainized, sure.
But the hard facts are Communists make the Nazi's look like punters.
Mao: 70 Million
Pol Pot: 3 Million
North Korea: 1.5 Million
Stalin/Russia: 61 Million
Nazi's? 20 million in the various Concentration Camps and starvation campaigns. They do get "points" for being so efficient and doing it in such a short time I guess.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
" One could easily say that the capitalists are the greater evil, especially the owners big corporations, because they pollute the Earth, are utterly greedy, etc and have no concern for the distribution of resources among those who need them."
Really?
Wow I guess you have not seen what the old USSR did in the areas that controlled as far as the environment, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A....
Or the quality of air in China...
"and have no concern for the distribution of resources among those who need them."
Wow.. again http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Yea... You need to read a lot more history.
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