But the difference is that Article V of the US Constitution didn't prohibit anything like the 18th Amendment!
What's the substantive difference between taxes and a mob protection racket? Someone's taking your money against your will via the threat of force, and that money was taken to use for the benefit of themselves and their organization, and in theory some of what that organization does benefits you as well. Same thing, right?
It doesn't matter if, in the end, congress could have reached the same ends via similar means, it matters what they actually did. The other two branches are not supposed to work alongside congress to support it's operation, they are supposed to work against it and check it's power, to force congress to do its own legwork and do things the right way.
There really isn't a difference between taxes and a mob protection racket other than the fact that the former are supposed to go for the public good.
Anyway, my overall point here is that it shouldn't matter how Congress *labels* something, only what it looks like. It can label it a tax, penalty, whatever, but so long as it looks like a tax, it should qualify as a tax.
Your overly pedantic approach here could result in courts being forced to adhere to the letter of the law even in the event of a Scrivener's error. After all, if Congress made a typo in writing a law (a tax law or whatever), then they should be forced to correct it, right?
This is the line of logic that the Biden admin used to support it's CDC eviction ban or the OSHA vsx mandate, which did indeed look like public health measures but were only legally justified under logic that would allow those agencies to do literally anything under the vague mandate of "public health".
The framework you are supporting here would seem be geared around supporting the actions of a government of good people who you are assuming have good intentions, but the problem is you're demolishing the guardrails that exist to protect us from bad people with ill intent. Which is a problem, because we're more likely to have a government of the latter.
There is a clear difference between those two, are your use of the term "scrivener's error" demonstrates. Courts are aware of and can distinguish between "congress accidentally mistyped this and the law as intended is still valid" and "congress quite intentionally typed this and the law as intended is not legal".
This is why judges should legitimately examine whether any public health rationale legitimately holds up. As for people who refuse to get vaccinated, I have no problem with them playing Darwin's Game in theory but they should also be expected to give up their hospital beds to vaccinated people unless of course there is a suplus of hospital beds, in which case they would get their own hospital beds as well.
What if the US Congress would have labelled the Obamacare mandate as a penalty but also said (either in the bill itself or in oral arguments for SCOTUS) that it is justified based on the US Congress's taxation power?
Couple of problems with that.
1. No, it really isn't a tax. It enacts a penalty if you behave a certain way. That's a fine.
2. The law began in the Senate. No tax may be initiated in the Senate, it must come out of the House IIRC.
That's not really possible. Judges don't have the expertise to do that sort of thing, and it goes against basic fundamentals of government to go "well, you don't actually have the authority to do this, but your reasoning holds up, carry on". A fundamental point of the federal constitution was to restrain the government from taking action by limiting it's authority and the scope of actions it can take, and creating system to police those boundaries.
Would that logic apply to other people that are hospitalized for things that are in large part thier own fault? Smokers, drug abusers, alcoholics, the overweight, etc?
Then the bill probably wouldn't have passed.
History Learner
Well-known member
Poll: A third of Americans say violence against the government can be justified
By the numbers: A majority of adults still say violence is never justified. But that number, 62%, is a new low, per the Post. Some 90% believed it was never justified in the 1990s.
- The new poll found that 40% of Republicans and 41% of independents said violence can be acceptable, compared with 23% of Democrats. Forty percent of white Americans said violence can be justified, compared with 18% of Black Americans.
- Flashback: The percentage of adults who said violence is justified was 23% in 2015 and 16% in 2010 in polls by CBS News and the New York Times respectively, according to the Post.
What they're saying: "People’s reasoning for what they considered acceptable violence against the government varied, from what they considered to be overreaching coronavirus restrictions, to the disenfranchisement of minority voters, to the oppression of Americans," the Post writes.
- "Responses to an open-ended question on the survey about hypothetical justifications included repeated mentions of 'autocracy,' 'tyranny,' 'corruption' and a loss of freedoms."
SpaceOrbis
Well-known member
I have said this before and I'll say it again here we must work on fixing the nation and healing the divide that Trump so skillfully widened in his time. Otherwise, we will be walking down a path that takes us far too close to a civil war. Before 1-6-2021 the mere thought that we would be attacking our own nation would have been a thought I would have dismissed as nuts. But today I feel that attacks like it may not be far off if the right doesn't get their way in 2024.
The past few years have without a doubt been some of the hardest years to live through. It's like we have lost our flipping minds and don't see how bad we fucked up with Trump. Things like this doesn't make me feel like we are going to have an easier year in 2022 than in 2019, 2020, or 2021.
Sobek
Disgusting Scalie
Ah yes, Trump caused the divide. It's all the fault of the right. Sure isn't the fact that when Trump won the collective minds of the news media went down the drain and they spent 4 years attacking anything he did.
I am sure this has NOTHING to do with the BLM grift in 2020, where you were supposed to stay home but then it was suddenly ok to leave to protest with the "oppressed" against "white supremacy" along with Nike, Apple, Google, Facebook and all other massive corporations that were backing them with money. It's all Trump. It was his supporters that spent 6 months burning down businesses and breaking shit while his right wing media machine denied it was happening right?
January 6th truly was the worst thing to happen to the USA since 9/11, how dare those people have entered the Capitol without being invited, as if these fucking serfs have any say on how We the Government run things in this country! Why we should have just gunned down the lot of them! You can't just do violent protests like these and expect not to be met with lead! That is what they said when Trump used tear gas to clear up a crowd in D.C. to try and make it so he could go places without the Presidential Limo doing a Tienanmen Square right?
Why are they complaining about the results of the Most Secure and Fair election in history? We already said there is no fraud, there is no need to investigate any claims of fraud because We already deboonked them a priori and only a conspiracy theorist would think the US elections could be manipulated. This is projection from the fact Trump hacked the election in 2016, all that it is! None of their arguments about election fraud make any sense, which is why we will not address them or investigate anything, as that would just give them more fuel to the fire, never mind the fact this will make it impossible to prove the election was legit and result in lasting irreparable damage to the election process, it is more important we shut down any conspiracy theories about it first! The Deep State doesn't exist, and anyone claiming so is insane, there could never be a conspiracy to fix a election, we just secured it!
You know what scares me? The fact that even if you are a troll there are NPCs out there that honestly think like that. You people have become so disconnected from your fellow Americans you really think Trump caused this. Wake the fuck up: You did this yourselves. Trump was a response to Obama's insufferable smug neoliberalism and failure to bring real change after giving banks massive bail outs and keeping the stupid eternal wars going. Now we have that fucking dementia addled puppet regurgitating whatever Pelosi and the DNC tell him to say and signing trillion dollar bills to fun the expansion of bureaucracy to meet the demands of the ever expanding bureaucracy, and you honestly CANNOT UNDERSTAND HOW THAT WOULD PISS PEOPLE OFF.
When you take away people's voices, the soap box they use to complain, the ballot box they use to change leaders and the jury box they use to challenge the legality and settle matters in court, they will revolt. Because they have nothing to lose and everything to win. People like you, so disconnected from what is actually going are still living in a reality where you honestly think the last 4 years were a complete fluke and somehow none of Trump's supporters were real people. You can't just plug your ears and demand the political landscape ignore it all and goes back to 2012 paradigm. It will not happen, it will never happen.
There are plenty of opportunities for peace still. This is not yet without return. But denying the issue exists and demanding Trump supporters and the people around them just capitulate and stop trying to make themselves heard is not the way. Go down that route and THERE WILL BE BLOOD sooner or later.
In a way this is worse than slavery, because at least slavery was fairly simple a problem with a mostly clear cut issue. Even if the solution was complicated and trying to work it out fucked things over it was at least understandable, you could explain and understand it in a few dozen words. This? This is much worse. It is some 50 years of Neoliberal and Neocon policies and political moves coming to a climax. It's a fucking small novel worth of problems and issues. You either get off your high horse, stop being a fucking commie or commie enabler and start paying attention to what the actual people are saying instead of what politicians and companies and media tell you they are saying or it will end badly.
I am sure this has NOTHING to do with the BLM grift in 2020, where you were supposed to stay home but then it was suddenly ok to leave to protest with the "oppressed" against "white supremacy" along with Nike, Apple, Google, Facebook and all other massive corporations that were backing them with money. It's all Trump. It was his supporters that spent 6 months burning down businesses and breaking shit while his right wing media machine denied it was happening right?
January 6th truly was the worst thing to happen to the USA since 9/11, how dare those people have entered the Capitol without being invited, as if these fucking serfs have any say on how We the Government run things in this country! Why we should have just gunned down the lot of them! You can't just do violent protests like these and expect not to be met with lead! That is what they said when Trump used tear gas to clear up a crowd in D.C. to try and make it so he could go places without the Presidential Limo doing a Tienanmen Square right?
Why are they complaining about the results of the Most Secure and Fair election in history? We already said there is no fraud, there is no need to investigate any claims of fraud because We already deboonked them a priori and only a conspiracy theorist would think the US elections could be manipulated. This is projection from the fact Trump hacked the election in 2016, all that it is! None of their arguments about election fraud make any sense, which is why we will not address them or investigate anything, as that would just give them more fuel to the fire, never mind the fact this will make it impossible to prove the election was legit and result in lasting irreparable damage to the election process, it is more important we shut down any conspiracy theories about it first! The Deep State doesn't exist, and anyone claiming so is insane, there could never be a conspiracy to fix a election, we just secured it!
You know what scares me? The fact that even if you are a troll there are NPCs out there that honestly think like that. You people have become so disconnected from your fellow Americans you really think Trump caused this. Wake the fuck up: You did this yourselves. Trump was a response to Obama's insufferable smug neoliberalism and failure to bring real change after giving banks massive bail outs and keeping the stupid eternal wars going. Now we have that fucking dementia addled puppet regurgitating whatever Pelosi and the DNC tell him to say and signing trillion dollar bills to fun the expansion of bureaucracy to meet the demands of the ever expanding bureaucracy, and you honestly CANNOT UNDERSTAND HOW THAT WOULD PISS PEOPLE OFF.
When you take away people's voices, the soap box they use to complain, the ballot box they use to change leaders and the jury box they use to challenge the legality and settle matters in court, they will revolt. Because they have nothing to lose and everything to win. People like you, so disconnected from what is actually going are still living in a reality where you honestly think the last 4 years were a complete fluke and somehow none of Trump's supporters were real people. You can't just plug your ears and demand the political landscape ignore it all and goes back to 2012 paradigm. It will not happen, it will never happen.
There are plenty of opportunities for peace still. This is not yet without return. But denying the issue exists and demanding Trump supporters and the people around them just capitulate and stop trying to make themselves heard is not the way. Go down that route and THERE WILL BE BLOOD sooner or later.
In a way this is worse than slavery, because at least slavery was fairly simple a problem with a mostly clear cut issue. Even if the solution was complicated and trying to work it out fucked things over it was at least understandable, you could explain and understand it in a few dozen words. This? This is much worse. It is some 50 years of Neoliberal and Neocon policies and political moves coming to a climax. It's a fucking small novel worth of problems and issues. You either get off your high horse, stop being a fucking commie or commie enabler and start paying attention to what the actual people are saying instead of what politicians and companies and media tell you they are saying or it will end badly.
When you say "we" "fucked up", with Trump, who do you mean by we, and how exactly did that we fuck up?
I see that the lies about Trump's term and 1/6 still hold sway with you.
That you think the GOP and Trump are responsible for the division in this nation, and not the willing liars in the news media and political/pundit class, shows how pervasive and insidious the lies and mistruths about about the last 5 years or so have become.
If you want to heal divisions in this nation, stop parroting a lot of lies about the people you claim you want to reunite with.
Because very few of us have any interest in humoring the bullshit we've been debunking for years now.
Your newbie status here will not protect you from mockery and derision on this issue if you persist, because most of us have run out of patience for having to repeatedly debunk this shit again and again, when most of the time people spouting it are trolls or the willingly ignorant.
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Sobek
Disgusting Scalie
The most charitable interpretation I can see is "We should have picked a different R" which might be true in a way but also painfully unrealistic. The GOP was really gunning for Rubio, Jeb! or Cruz (and remember, this is 2016 Cruz not the bearded and wiser Cruz of today). Even Fox News was trying to shake Trump off, going as far as say he lost the 1st debate with Hillary before they gave in to the MAGA train.
Trump played the media perfectly to get that nomination, you can see a subtle but important shift between GOP primary Trump and Candidate Trump, first he played only to win GOP base, then the rest. Fact is he was the best opportunity for 2016. It was either Trump or a weaksauce GOPer who wouldn't be able to play the younger generation and give Hillary the win.
Doomsought
Well-known member
Fuck that noise. The divide is cause by many republicans having principles and Democrats being intolerably evil. Trump did not do enough to widen the divide.
We are not too close to a civil war, the opposite really, we are too far away from one. Democrats are allowed use terrorists to influence politics their way every ele3ction cycle, violate nearly every article in the constitution, and murder babies with an efficiency that would make Hitler jealous.
We should have had a civil war as soon as Roe VS Wade dropped. We should have had a civil war when BLM burned down cities with the express approval of Democrats in the legislature. We should have had a civil war when our entire nation was illegal put on lockdown and the fourth amendment was flushed down the toilet.
The only reason that we haven't had a civil war yet is because the Republican leadership is full of cowards and corruption.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
You are either willfully ignorant, or disingenuous; regardless, you're coming across like a Nazi apologist, pleading that we need to make peace with Hitler (I realize that I'm invoking Godwin's Law here, but comparisons to Nazis are literally the only thing these people understand).
Sobek
Disgusting Scalie
The parasites are just itching to kill any who stand in the way of the glorious multiculti progressive Utopia.
To be fair, the US military has been conducting these sorts of exercises for decades. Especially once we got into Iraq and Afghanistan.