I was only speculating.



Federalist No. 46

Quote:
Every one knows that a great proportion of the errors committed by the State legislatures proceeds from the disposition of the members to sacrifice the comprehensive and permanent interest of the State, to the particular and separate views of the counties or districts in which they reside. And if they do not sufficiently enlarge their policy to embrace the collective welfare of their particular State, how can it be imagined that they will make the aggregate prosperity of the Union, and the dignity and respectability of its government, the objects of their affections and consultations? For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects. The States will be to the latter what counties and towns are to the former. Measures will too often be decided according to their probable effect, not on the national prosperity and happiness, but on the prejudices, interests, and pursuits of the governments and people of the individual States.

Quote: Original post by KaptainKomunist

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by HostileExpanse
I find it strange how libertarian types ramble endlessly about freedom, yet they never seem to actually take advantage of it....

They take advantage of the freedom to rant! It seems that they resent paying taxes, perhaps because they don't directly benefit from them or aren't aware of the ways they benefit from them. They might also have a need to cling to that resentment as a denial of their frailty and a source of self-righteousness. The closer the government gets to providing a universal benefit, such as health care, the more unhinged their opposition to that benefit becomes.

If anybody wants to get a feel for what a nation without strong central government looks like, you don't have to look much further than Somalia.

No useful central government [check]
No arms control [check]
No government funded services, including health care, roads, national army, police force, navy, communications, etc. [check]

Yes, truly this is the Libertarian Utopia. This is the promised land spoken to us by the prophet Ayn Rand.

Shhh! We don't want the Atlas'es of our great nation to shrug, and shuffle off to that wondrous Mecca.




Babies starving to death for a simple lack of bulldozers...

Now, the nation's breadbasket requires food assistance for the first time since a nationwide famine from 1991 to 1993....
Somalia is also paying the price of years of anarchy, some residents said.

In the village of Boodle, south of Jawhar, children escaped the heat Tuesday by splashing in a giant lake. But the newly created lake sits atop the flooded ruins of the town's crops, immersed two months ago when the banks of the Shabelle River overflowed because of years of neglect and erosion.

"We tried to maintain the banks, but it requires bulldozers and tractors," said Hamdi Musei Osman, chief of the village. "When we had a government, they would do it. But we can't do it ourselves."

Surely THIS is the type of pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps-or-die type of attitude every country should embrace!

Quote: Original post by LessBread
In regard to the 75% extrasupermajority threshold for removal, I find that anti-democratic. What's wrong with 50% + 1?

I can see needing some sort of supermajority. Immunity is kind of important for justices. If an arbitrary committee can remove judges at will with a simple 51% majority, it holds virtually all power over the Supreme Court. With that kind of accountability, what's the point of having a Supreme Court at all?

I just don't see how a justice can be free from political control in this sort of situation. True, the Supreme Court has a great deal of power, but I think Andrew Jackson illustrated the chink in their armor quite well.

Quote: Original post by KaptainKomunist

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by HostileExpanse
I find it strange how libertarian types ramble endlessly about freedom, yet they never seem to actually take advantage of it....

They take advantage of the freedom to rant! It seems that they resent paying taxes, perhaps because they don't directly benefit from them or aren't aware of the ways they benefit from them. They might also have a need to cling to that resentment as a denial of their frailty and a source of self-righteousness. The closer the government gets to providing a universal benefit, such as health care, the more unhinged their opposition to that benefit becomes.

If anybody wants to get a feel for what a nation without strong central government looks like, you don't have to look much further than Somalia.

No useful central government [check]
No arms control [check]
No government funded services, including health care, roads, national army, police force, navy, communications, etc. [check]

Yes, truly this is the Libertarian Utopia. This is the promised land spoken to us by the prophet Ayn Rand.

Cute. However, I find that, when referring to any particular ideology, insults work best when you have some remote understanding of what people of that ideology believe. I've never in my life met a libertarian who didn't believe in some form of taxes, nor have I met one that didn't believe in a national army (though I'm sure a few of these exist somewhere).

While the staw man is amusing, it's about the equivalent of a republican accusing democrats of killing babies for sport, or a democrat accusing republicans of running theocratical oligarchies.

Unfortunately, a lot of idiots do just that. I suppose it's a lot easier to disagree with someone when you villify them.

Quote: Original post by SeraphLance
Cute. However, I find that, when referring to any particular ideology, insults work best when you have some remote understanding of what people of that ideology believe.

"Having an understanding" .... that's good advice.

Quote: Original post by SeraphLance
I've never in my life met a libertarian who didn't believe in some form of taxes, nor have I met one that didn't believe in a national army (though I'm sure a few of these exist somewhere).

If you're referring to compulsory taxation [as opposed to services run by subscriptions/donations/whatever], then here's Rothbard deriding the idea of both of those in the same essay:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard146.html


The Tannehills are also well-known advocates of the idea where there is no centrally-funded national military.


Here's a website deriding taxes as "immoral" and advocating repeals:
http://www.theadvocates.org/library/issues-taxes.html

More to the point though, this thread plainly contains a contributor who equates [compulsory government] taxation with robbery.

Quote: Original post by SeraphLance
While the staw man is amusing, it's about the equivalent of a republican accusing democrats of killing babies for sport, or a democrat accusing republicans of running theocratical oligarchies.

Yeah.... uh huh.

Quote: Original post by SeraphLance
Unfortunately, a lot of idiots do just that. I suppose it's a lot easier to disagree with someone when you villify them.

No one's been "villified." If their ideas seem absurd, that's their own fault. Seems you feel inclined to defend libertarianism .... you may not be on the extreme end like so many that infest the internet, but that doesn't really justify wandering in here to start throwing out the "strawman" accusation.

[Edited by - HostileExpanse on October 26, 2009 2:01:23 PM]

Quote: Original post by SeraphLance

Quote: Original post by LessBread
In regard to the 75% extrasupermajority threshold for removal, I find that anti-democratic. What's wrong with 50% + 1?

I can see needing some sort of supermajority. Immunity is kind of important for justices. If an arbitrary committee can remove judges at will with a simple 51% majority, it holds virtually all power over the Supreme Court. With that kind of accountability, what's the point of having a Supreme Court at all?

You're not taking into consideration the inherent difficulties of impeachment. Remember, this is the Supreme Court. Any effort to remove a Justice would be a major undertaking, with a lot of publicity, a lot of partisan fighting and partisan infighting. With a 75% requirement, you might as well make it impossible to remove one of these judges from office.

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by SeraphLance

Quote: Original post by LessBread
In regard to the 75% extrasupermajority threshold for removal, I find that anti-democratic. What's wrong with 50% + 1?

I can see needing some sort of supermajority. Immunity is kind of important for justices. If an arbitrary committee can remove judges at will with a simple 51% majority, it holds virtually all power over the Supreme Court. With that kind of accountability, what's the point of having a Supreme Court at all?

You're not taking into consideration the inherent difficulties of impeachment. Remember, this is the Supreme Court. Any effort to remove a Justice would be a major undertaking, with a lot of publicity, a lot of partisan fighting and partisan infighting. With a 75% requirement, you might as well make it impossible to remove one of these judges from office.

Why not impeach the Justice the same way we can impeach a President? 2/3 majority. And yes, impeach != removal. But in today's political climate, it's taken to be the same thing.

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by SeraphLance

Quote: Original post by LessBread
In regard to the 75% extrasupermajority threshold for removal, I find that anti-democratic. What's wrong with 50% + 1?

I can see needing some sort of supermajority. Immunity is kind of important for justices. If an arbitrary committee can remove judges at will with a simple 51% majority, it holds virtually all power over the Supreme Court. With that kind of accountability, what's the point of having a Supreme Court at all?

You're not taking into consideration the inherent difficulties of impeachment. Remember, this is the Supreme Court. Any effort to remove a Justice would be a major undertaking, with a lot of publicity, a lot of partisan fighting and partisan infighting. With a 75% requirement, you might as well make it impossible to remove one of these judges from office.

Maybe 75% is too much, but I think it should be more than 50%+1. I don't want a judge to get the boot for illegitimate political reasons or each time he makes a dissenting opinion on a case that isn't 100% clear cut. If a judge constantly makes bad decisions or makes a ruling that is way out of bounds, then that is when I think he should be removed.

Impeach would mean removal in the case of a judge. With a President, impeach is technically equivalent to indict. There is only one President, so a 2/3 threshold is sufficient. There are several justices of the Supreme Court. The removal of one judge impedes but doesn't completely block the court from doing it's work.

Move to impeach federal judge is a rarity

Quote:
A federal appellate court's impeachment recommendation leveled against U.S. District Judge Thomas Porteous last week ranks as such a rare occurrence that none of the 7,400 complaints filed against members of the nation's judiciary in the past decade met the same fate, according to the most recent statistics.

And if the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals' call for impeachment wends its way to the U.S. Senate without being overturned by a higher judicial panel, dropped by congressional inaction or made moot by Porteous' resignation, the trial would become just the 12th in U.S. history.
...
The Constitution requires a majority vote in the House before the case goes to trial in the Senate. All three recent cases to spring from judicial councils ended in impeachment convictions.

Former District Judge Harry Claiborne of Nevada was convicted of filing false tax returns in 1984 and removed from office by an impeachment trial in 1986.
...
Of the 7,462 complaints filed in the decade that ended Sept. 30, 2006, eight required action by a judicial council, including four public reprimands and one private reprimand. None of the complaints were referred to the Judicial Conference, as Porteous' was.

Thousands of others were dismissed for being deemed frivolous, not conforming to statute or because they directly related to a decision or procedural ruling.
...

Quote: Original post by ManaStone

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by SeraphLance

Quote: Original post by LessBread
In regard to the 75% extrasupermajority threshold for removal, I find that anti-democratic. What's wrong with 50% + 1?

I can see needing some sort of supermajority. Immunity is kind of important for justices. If an arbitrary committee can remove judges at will with a simple 51% majority, it holds virtually all power over the Supreme Court. With that kind of accountability, what's the point of having a Supreme Court at all?

You're not taking into consideration the inherent difficulties of impeachment. Remember, this is the Supreme Court. Any effort to remove a Justice would be a major undertaking, with a lot of publicity, a lot of partisan fighting and partisan infighting. With a 75% requirement, you might as well make it impossible to remove one of these judges from office.

Maybe 75% is too much, but I think it should be more than 50%+1. I don't want a judge to get the boot for illegitimate political reasons or each time he makes a dissenting opinion on a case that isn't 100% clear cut. If a judge constantly makes bad decisions or makes a ruling that is way out of bounds, then that is when I think he should be removed.

The historical record indicates that your concerns are not well founded.

Quote: Original post by HostileExpanse
If you're referring to compulsory taxation [as opposed to services run by subscriptions/donations/whatever], then here's Rothbard deriding the idea of both of those in the same essay:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard146.html


The Tannehills are also well-known advocates of the idea where there is no centrally-funded national military.


Here's a website deriding taxes as "immoral" and advocating repeals:
http://www.theadvocates.org/library/issues-taxes.html

More to the point though, this thread plainly contains a contributor who equates [compulsory government] taxation with robbery.

It's called anarcho-capitalism, and it's a position ascribed to by very few libertarians. Hence, extremities.

I wasn't implying that they didn't exist. If the flat earth society could exist, anything can exist. However, they're exceedingly rare, and access to their opinions is, to just about everyone, only available because of the internet.

Quote: Original post by HostileExpanse
No one's been "villified." If their ideas seem absurd, that's their own fault. Seems you feel inclined to defend libertarianism .... you may not be on the extreme end like so many that infest the internet, but that doesn't really justify wandering in here to start throwing out the "strawman" accusation.

Taking anything to an extreme is a strawman, which is exactly what has been done. Their ideas seem absurd, and they are. However, that doesn't equate to an entire political ideology. The notion that Somalia is a "libertarian paradise" was idiotic when that youtube video came out, and is still idiotic today.

I've seen conservatives claim that Obama is out to make this country a socialist place at any cost, even undermining our constitution. That's absurd. I've seen liberals claim that all opposition to Obama's policies are from some diminutive, fanatical lunatic fringe, and that almost everyone else in the country is behind him. That's absurd. If there's one thing that's common, it's that few people understand their opposition at all.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
You're not taking into consideration the inherent difficulties of impeachment. Remember, this is the Supreme Court. Any effort to remove a Justice would be a major undertaking, with a lot of publicity, a lot of partisan fighting and partisan infighting. With a 75% requirement, you might as well make it impossible to remove one of these judges from office.

My mistake. Admittedly, I had forgotten about the other provision - the 9-year term. That changes things significantly. Were we still discussing impeachment over a life term, however, I'd stand by what I say.

Quote: The historical record indicates that your concerns are not well founded.

This, however, I must disagree with. Much of our traditions and rules comes from fear, not necessarily recognition. Justices were given lifetime tenure for that very reason - to provide them immunity from political pressure. There's no precedence for that.

Consider also that with ManaStone's "special body", the removal process would be much simpler.

Then again, I don't really think the changes are necessary to begin with. Really, the Supreme Court only has power because the other branches listen to it. They, as far as I know, have no enforcement capacity whatsoever.