What's interesting is that Hamilton actually opposed the Bill of Rights for exactly the opposite reason. He didn't want a Bill of Rights because he believed it would imply the federal government could do anything it wanted that was not expressly forbidden in the Bill of Rights. He didn't oppose the Bill of Rights because he thought it was "too limiting."
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?
You are correct that the founding fathers were not all of one mind and that I, and others, cannot divine and invoke their collective will and intents. I will admit that I can come off as that way largely due to my own laziness. However, that doesn't mean we can't come up with some agreed upon generalizations. Let me ask you this, if the federal government was not intended to be bound by the Constitution, then what was the point of writing it in the first place? What was the point of granting any powers in the Constitution (such as the commerce clause) if the federal government could do anything it wanted? Wouldn't listing powers be redundant, pointless, and confusing?
As for the First Bank of the United States and judicial review. I think it is obvious that we cannot go by the absolute letter of the constitution. Some interpretation is necessary as we are humans and it is written using human language. It isn't black and white. That doesn't mean we can't try to interpret its meaning or that we should throw up our hands because we can't ascertain its precise meaning.
The First Bank of the United States is a good example of a stretch of the interpretation of the commerce clause. Judicial review was self evident within the Constitution. The judicial branch was clearly given oversight on interpreting laws in context of the Constitution as was discussed and unanimously agreed upon when writing and ratifying the Constitution. The phrase "judicial review" may not have been used but the power was clearly and unarguably implied. Yes, there are implied powers. No, that doesn't mean "every power is implied."
If the Constitution said "Congress may pass laws regulating jumping", Congress would then be able to write a law that says jumping with one foot should always land on the left foot. They could write that law even though the Constitution didn't expressly enumerate laws concerning jumping on one foot. Jumping is the larger category that encompasses jumping on one foot. Articles III and IV of the Constitution were jumping, "judicial review" is jumping on one foot. The commerce clause is "jumping". The First Bank of the US was argued as "jumping on one foot."
In theory, I actually agree with you. In practice, I completely disagree. If patents were used appropriately for truly innovated things and for a short duration (6 months to a few years at most) then it would provide a good incentive to innovate due to the large potential benefits of a short lived monopoly. The detriment of that monopoly could be offset by the societal benefits brought on by increased innovation.
The problem is that none of those things are true. Patents are granted for completely trivial things that have usually already been done before but with some irrelevant twist such as "on a mobile device." Patents last way too long and give excessive monopoly power. The theory is sound but the implementation is a catastrophe. I would rather have no patent system than have a horribly broken patent system. I have absolutely no faith, and have seen no evidence, that we will ever get it "right" so we should get rid of the whole mess.
I don't see how the use of the word "delegated" makes it any less clear that the federal government is only to do what is in the Constitution. It says "delegated by the Constitution." Not "by the whims of Congress" or "by 51% of voters" or "by the President". James Madison's statement on the 10th Amendment:
I find, from looking into the amendments proposed by the State conventions, that several are particularly anxious that it should be declared in the Constitution, that the powers not therein delegated should be reserved to the several States. Perhaps words which may define this more precisely than the whole of the instrument now does, may be considered as superfluous. I admit they may be deemed unnecessary: but there can be no harm in making such a declaration, if gentlemen will allow that the fact is as stated.
I really don't see how it could be any clearer that the federal government was to be limited to the powers granted in the Constitution.
As for states, you are either confused or misinformed. Look up Article IV Section 3 of the US constitution. It explicitly gives Congress the power to create states.
As for general welfare, it is a somewhat contentious topic. Jefferson and Hamilton did have different views on the topic. Jefferson's view (which is generally upheld in courts) is that the general welfare cause in the taxation section of the Constitution just states that Congress can tax to pay for what it can do, not that it can do anything it wants to. Another way to put it, if Congress is authorized to do something, it is also authorized to collect taxes to pay for it. The other mention of general welfare is in the pre-amble of the Constitution and no one cites that as a source of any federal powers.
As for governing based on what the founders thought, I agree with the sentiment that we shouldn't just do things because we think the founders wanted us to. We do, however, need to abide by the Constitution in whatever way we choose to interpret it. Learning from their insights and perspectives can help us decide what the best way to interpret it may be.
The terms liberal and conservative are almost completely meaningless today. People think liberal is a synonym for Democrat and conservative is a synonym for Republican and misuse those terms accordingly.
Arguing that the Constitution was designed to grow as needed is almost entirely unrelated to whether or not they thought we should have a small government. They certainly thought we should have a federal government that was restrained by the constitution and its amendments. The idea was to enumerate the powers of the federal government in the Constitution. If we wanted to expand those powers, we would have to amend the constitution through an intentionally difficult process where a super majority of states agree with the change. As of right now, neither Democrats nor Republicans respect limitations imposed on the federal government by the Constitution. They think "if 51% of people want it, we can do it!" which is little more than mob rule. This isn't exactly new but I do think it has steadily been getting worse.
From a pedantic, technical standpoint you are correct. Congress would have to be nonexistent for U.S. Congressmen to not matter at all. However, Kohath clearly wasn't talking about them not mattering at all. He was saying what they think about these types of issues wouldn't matter at all. Yes, it was implied and not explicitly stated. Protecting the physical security of our country and its people is a totally separate function from determining what is in a schools curriculum and deciding where to put research dollars (excluding military related R&D obviously, it appears we must spell everything out though).
I suppose I could be giving Kohath too much credit but I don't see how he could have meant it any other way.
Environmental regulations are more lax in China plus you still need to have people maintain and operate the machinery and that labor should still be cheaper than in the US. Would be interesting to see some more quantitative analysis of those costs vs the cost of transportation of goods.
I may be off here but I thought the main argument for eating organic was that it wasn't covered with pesticides and herbicides that you end up ingesting.
Stole the thoughts right out of my brain (I'm sorry, it must have been scary!). You could probably add "stare at a computer screen all day" to the list of things heavy coffee drinkers typically do.
I don't understand austerity; is the idea "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today"? I bet that will work about as well as it sounds.
Nope, the idea is "Don't sacrifice tomorrow to spend more today." Spending has to be paid for one way or another. Either now or in the future, directly via taxes or indirectly via inflation. There is no free lunch.
Many countries have been going on spending sprees and now they have to pay for it. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it is painful. Proceeding as usual (or increasing spending) will just make the pain worse, albeit in the future. Right now the US pays about $500 billion in interest per year. Our deficit is about $1.3 trillion. Our spending is about $3.8 trillion. That means roughly 13% of our budget and 38% of our deficit each year is spent paying interest on past spending sprees. Those percentages will only get worse as we continue our spending sprees. That is money that we could be using to pay for education, research, medical care, etc. Instead, we have to pay for over spending in the past. The goal of austerity is to no longer continue down that path and even to reverse it.
The only way to spend your way out of debt is if it actually stimulates the economy enough to pay for the debt. There is no evidence that has ever worked or is currently working (what do you think we've been doing for the last 5 years?). And no, LBJ didn't prove this worked, most of the worlds industrialized production was destroyed in World War II except in the US. The US then became a manufacturing leader and the economy made an astounding recovery.
Except a large portion of the US deficit is military spending and spending as a result of war (nation building). Wars don't stimulate economies, they waste and destroy resources. The way for capitalism to get out of economic crisis is for the government to stop bleeding it dry and continually futzing with it. That would also prevent the economic crisis in the first place. You need to stop hanging out with Mary Jane so much.
Listen. Learn. Positive, sensational results get published. Negative results only get published if they contradict a well known study/result/notion. Of course there are exceptions, as always.
Hopefully something like http://openscienceframework.org/ will actually take off. It won't solve all problems but it might help move things in a positive direction by encouraging scientists to determine their methodology before data is collected, share that methodology more completely, and make their data more accessible. It will also provide a, hopefully, easy means for people to "publish" confirmation studies and work that wouldn't normally make it into journals but are still useful science.
Re:While we're talking about sexism in Science
on
Sexism In Science
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Yes, lets punish the upcoming generation of males by preventing them from getting scholarships to write the wrongs committed by the current/previous generation of males in the work force. Good thinking.
"LDL particles vary in size and density, and studies have shown that a pattern that has more small dense LDL particles, called Pattern B, equates to a higher risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD) than does a pattern with more of the larger and less dense LDL particles (Pattern A)."
The companies themselves don't write the regulations, they tell the regulatory bodies how to write them and fill the regulatory bodies with past and future employees. Ever heard of the revolving door?
If you wanted to regulate an industry, you would want to fill your regulatory body with people who are experts on the industry. Well, where do you think experts on an industry typically come from? From the industry itself.
And so? You have no legal protection from being offended, nor should you. Freedom of speech is entirely freedom of offensive speech. Anyone should be able to legally disrespect anyone else, and anyone else's beliefs.
Throwing a temper tantrum and exploding all ove the place just because you were offended is immoral and wrong.
Nuh uh! *throws a temper tantrum and explodes all over the place*
Was merely pointing out something that everyone should already know but many don't seem to know.
People have a right to express themselves, offensive or not, but we also have the right to ask them to knock it off. Being intentionally offensive generally just alienates the other people and increases divisiveness. That doesn't mean it should be illegal but it does mean you shouldn't do it. You can call the angry, crazy person with a gun names if you want to but it probably isn't in anyone's best interest.
Apparently a few mod's have accidentally selected "Insightful" when they meant to select "Troll." Remember, "Insightful" != agree and "Troll" != disagree. "Insightful" means the post is insightful and "Troll" means the poster is trolling.
I'm not sure about your colon but it won't clog up your arteries. Vegetarian and other high carb diets actual result in higher levels of LDL cholesterol, particularly small dense (aka very bad) LDL cholesterol, and VLDL cholesterol. Look up Stanford's "A TO Z: A Comparative Weight Loss Study." All of the biomarkers for health and longevity were the same or better for people on the Atkins diet than all the other diets. That being said, throwing in lots of leafy greens and other vegetables would make it even better. So, you actually aren't far off except you can/should eat more meat than 1.5 cubic inches of the stuff a day. Fish would be better but beef isn't bad, especially if it's grass fed.
By "land area under cultivation" you mean open pastures where cows walk around and eat things? I find it hard to believe that would result in more erosion, more C02 release, and more pollution that tilling a plot of land, spreading it with fertilizers and chemicals, seeding it, spraying it with more chemicals, using tractors and other machines to harvest it, processing the corn, shipping it to the cows, and giving antibiotics to the cows so they don't die before slaughter. It is a matter of tallying it all up so I suppose you could be right but using corn seems incredibly unlikely to have lower impact to pollution, erosion, and C02 release.
People starving around the world is a distribution problem and a local food growing problem, not a food production problem in the US. We could produce 10x more food than we do now and it wouldn't really help to keep people from starving.
You are pretty much spot on about everything else.
Have they not considered a user specified, targeted add strategy? As compensation to a company for providing a service/website, have users specify at least a few categories of products they might be be interested. They will only be shown ads from those categories. That makes ads more pertinent to the user, which is a good thing for the user, and makes an advertisers ads more effective, which is a good thing for advertisers. The only downside is that you have to tell companies what broad interests you have but I don't think that is a very high price to pay for the otherwise "free" content they provide. It doesn't even have to be personally identifiable or tracked, they just read a cookie of what you tell them you'd like to see when you visit the site.
Someone please tell me why this isn't a win/win? The only companies I can see really loosing out are the companies that gather and sell data to the advertisers.
Slashdot Mirror
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?
You are correct that the founding fathers were not all of one mind and that I, and others, cannot divine and invoke their collective will and intents. I will admit that I can come off as that way largely due to my own laziness. However, that doesn't mean we can't come up with some agreed upon generalizations. Let me ask you this, if the federal government was not intended to be bound by the Constitution, then what was the point of writing it in the first place? What was the point of granting any powers in the Constitution (such as the commerce clause) if the federal government could do anything it wanted? Wouldn't listing powers be redundant, pointless, and confusing?
As for the First Bank of the United States and judicial review. I think it is obvious that we cannot go by the absolute letter of the constitution. Some interpretation is necessary as we are humans and it is written using human language. It isn't black and white. That doesn't mean we can't try to interpret its meaning or that we should throw up our hands because we can't ascertain its precise meaning.
The First Bank of the United States is a good example of a stretch of the interpretation of the commerce clause. Judicial review was self evident within the Constitution. The judicial branch was clearly given oversight on interpreting laws in context of the Constitution as was discussed and unanimously agreed upon when writing and ratifying the Constitution. The phrase "judicial review" may not have been used but the power was clearly and unarguably implied. Yes, there are implied powers. No, that doesn't mean "every power is implied."
If the Constitution said "Congress may pass laws regulating jumping", Congress would then be able to write a law that says jumping with one foot should always land on the left foot. They could write that law even though the Constitution didn't expressly enumerate laws concerning jumping on one foot. Jumping is the larger category that encompasses jumping on one foot. Articles III and IV of the Constitution were jumping, "judicial review" is jumping on one foot. The commerce clause is "jumping". The First Bank of the US was argued as "jumping on one foot."
In theory, I actually agree with you. In practice, I completely disagree. If patents were used appropriately for truly innovated things and for a short duration (6 months to a few years at most) then it would provide a good incentive to innovate due to the large potential benefits of a short lived monopoly. The detriment of that monopoly could be offset by the societal benefits brought on by increased innovation.
The problem is that none of those things are true. Patents are granted for completely trivial things that have usually already been done before but with some irrelevant twist such as "on a mobile device." Patents last way too long and give excessive monopoly power. The theory is sound but the implementation is a catastrophe. I would rather have no patent system than have a horribly broken patent system. I have absolutely no faith, and have seen no evidence, that we will ever get it "right" so we should get rid of the whole mess.
I find, from looking into the amendments proposed by the State conventions, that several are particularly anxious that it should be declared in the Constitution, that the powers not therein delegated should be reserved to the several States. Perhaps words which may define this more precisely than the whole of the instrument now does, may be considered as superfluous. I admit they may be deemed unnecessary: but there can be no harm in making such a declaration, if gentlemen will allow that the fact is as stated.
I really don't see how it could be any clearer that the federal government was to be limited to the powers granted in the Constitution.
As for states, you are either confused or misinformed. Look up Article IV Section 3 of the US constitution. It explicitly gives Congress the power to create states.
As for general welfare, it is a somewhat contentious topic. Jefferson and Hamilton did have different views on the topic. Jefferson's view (which is generally upheld in courts) is that the general welfare cause in the taxation section of the Constitution just states that Congress can tax to pay for what it can do, not that it can do anything it wants to. Another way to put it, if Congress is authorized to do something, it is also authorized to collect taxes to pay for it. The other mention of general welfare is in the pre-amble of the Constitution and no one cites that as a source of any federal powers.
As for governing based on what the founders thought, I agree with the sentiment that we shouldn't just do things because we think the founders wanted us to. We do, however, need to abide by the Constitution in whatever way we choose to interpret it. Learning from their insights and perspectives can help us decide what the best way to interpret it may be.
The terms liberal and conservative are almost completely meaningless today. People think liberal is a synonym for Democrat and conservative is a synonym for Republican and misuse those terms accordingly.
Arguing that the Constitution was designed to grow as needed is almost entirely unrelated to whether or not they thought we should have a small government. They certainly thought we should have a federal government that was restrained by the constitution and its amendments. The idea was to enumerate the powers of the federal government in the Constitution. If we wanted to expand those powers, we would have to amend the constitution through an intentionally difficult process where a super majority of states agree with the change. As of right now, neither Democrats nor Republicans respect limitations imposed on the federal government by the Constitution. They think "if 51% of people want it, we can do it!" which is little more than mob rule. This isn't exactly new but I do think it has steadily been getting worse.
From a pedantic, technical standpoint you are correct. Congress would have to be nonexistent for U.S. Congressmen to not matter at all. However, Kohath clearly wasn't talking about them not mattering at all. He was saying what they think about these types of issues wouldn't matter at all. Yes, it was implied and not explicitly stated. Protecting the physical security of our country and its people is a totally separate function from determining what is in a schools curriculum and deciding where to put research dollars (excluding military related R&D obviously, it appears we must spell everything out though).
I suppose I could be giving Kohath too much credit but I don't see how he could have meant it any other way.
Someone doesn't understand the difference between "small" and "nonexistent"
Environmental regulations are more lax in China plus you still need to have people maintain and operate the machinery and that labor should still be cheaper than in the US. Would be interesting to see some more quantitative analysis of those costs vs the cost of transportation of goods.
I may be off here but I thought the main argument for eating organic was that it wasn't covered with pesticides and herbicides that you end up ingesting.
Stole the thoughts right out of my brain (I'm sorry, it must have been scary!). You could probably add "stare at a computer screen all day" to the list of things heavy coffee drinkers typically do.
I don't understand austerity; is the idea "sacrifice tomorrow to pay for today"? I bet that will work about as well as it sounds.
Nope, the idea is "Don't sacrifice tomorrow to spend more today." Spending has to be paid for one way or another. Either now or in the future, directly via taxes or indirectly via inflation. There is no free lunch.
Many countries have been going on spending sprees and now they have to pay for it. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it is painful. Proceeding as usual (or increasing spending) will just make the pain worse, albeit in the future. Right now the US pays about $500 billion in interest per year. Our deficit is about $1.3 trillion. Our spending is about $3.8 trillion. That means roughly 13% of our budget and 38% of our deficit each year is spent paying interest on past spending sprees. Those percentages will only get worse as we continue our spending sprees. That is money that we could be using to pay for education, research, medical care, etc. Instead, we have to pay for over spending in the past. The goal of austerity is to no longer continue down that path and even to reverse it.
The only way to spend your way out of debt is if it actually stimulates the economy enough to pay for the debt. There is no evidence that has ever worked or is currently working (what do you think we've been doing for the last 5 years?). And no, LBJ didn't prove this worked, most of the worlds industrialized production was destroyed in World War II except in the US. The US then became a manufacturing leader and the economy made an astounding recovery.
Except a large portion of the US deficit is military spending and spending as a result of war (nation building). Wars don't stimulate economies, they waste and destroy resources. The way for capitalism to get out of economic crisis is for the government to stop bleeding it dry and continually futzing with it. That would also prevent the economic crisis in the first place. You need to stop hanging out with Mary Jane so much.
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/09/nosek_on_truth.html
Listen. Learn. Positive, sensational results get published. Negative results only get published if they contradict a well known study/result/notion. Of course there are exceptions, as always.
The framework is discussed a bit on this EconTalk podcast: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/09/nosek_on_truth.html
Creating jobs?
Yes, lets punish the upcoming generation of males by preventing them from getting scholarships to write the wrongs committed by the current/previous generation of males in the work force. Good thinking.
I'm sure it could still distribute data, just not new data :P
Understandable confusion, here is an explanation from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-density_lipoprotein
"LDL particles vary in size and density, and studies have shown that a pattern that has more small dense LDL particles, called Pattern B, equates to a higher risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD) than does a pattern with more of the larger and less dense LDL particles (Pattern A)."
The companies themselves don't write the regulations, they tell the regulatory bodies how to write them and fill the regulatory bodies with past and future employees. Ever heard of the revolving door?
If you wanted to regulate an industry, you would want to fill your regulatory body with people who are experts on the industry. Well, where do you think experts on an industry typically come from? From the industry itself.
And so? You have no legal protection from being offended, nor should you. Freedom of speech is entirely freedom of offensive speech. Anyone should be able to legally disrespect anyone else, and anyone else's beliefs.
Throwing a temper tantrum and exploding all ove the place just because you were offended is immoral and wrong.
Nuh uh! *throws a temper tantrum and explodes all over the place*
Was merely pointing out something that everyone should already know but many don't seem to know.
People have a right to express themselves, offensive or not, but we also have the right to ask them to knock it off. Being intentionally offensive generally just alienates the other people and increases divisiveness. That doesn't mean it should be illegal but it does mean you shouldn't do it. You can call the angry, crazy person with a gun names if you want to but it probably isn't in anyone's best interest.
Disagreeing and disrespecting aren't the same thing.
Apparently a few mod's have accidentally selected "Insightful" when they meant to select "Troll." Remember, "Insightful" != agree and "Troll" != disagree. "Insightful" means the post is insightful and "Troll" means the poster is trolling.
hoping the butt snakes don't become self aware and escape into the wild.
I'm not sure about your colon but it won't clog up your arteries. Vegetarian and other high carb diets actual result in higher levels of LDL cholesterol, particularly small dense (aka very bad) LDL cholesterol, and VLDL cholesterol. Look up Stanford's "A TO Z: A Comparative Weight Loss Study." All of the biomarkers for health and longevity were the same or better for people on the Atkins diet than all the other diets. That being said, throwing in lots of leafy greens and other vegetables would make it even better. So, you actually aren't far off except you can/should eat more meat than 1.5 cubic inches of the stuff a day. Fish would be better but beef isn't bad, especially if it's grass fed.
By "land area under cultivation" you mean open pastures where cows walk around and eat things? I find it hard to believe that would result in more erosion, more C02 release, and more pollution that tilling a plot of land, spreading it with fertilizers and chemicals, seeding it, spraying it with more chemicals, using tractors and other machines to harvest it, processing the corn, shipping it to the cows, and giving antibiotics to the cows so they don't die before slaughter. It is a matter of tallying it all up so I suppose you could be right but using corn seems incredibly unlikely to have lower impact to pollution, erosion, and C02 release.
People starving around the world is a distribution problem and a local food growing problem, not a food production problem in the US. We could produce 10x more food than we do now and it wouldn't really help to keep people from starving.
You are pretty much spot on about everything else.
Someone please tell me why this isn't a win/win? The only companies I can see really loosing out are the companies that gather and sell data to the advertisers.