Page 3 of 3 FirstFirst 123
Results 61 to 74 of 74

Thread: Thanks Obama

  1. #61
    Anyone who'd come to power under those circumstances, even if they had no link to the assassinations, would have no mandate and no respect. They wouldn't be able to get anything done. It would be worse than Ford.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  2. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    Anyone who'd come to power under those circumstances, even if they had no link to the assassinations, would have no mandate and no respect. They wouldn't be able to get anything done. It would be worse than Ford.
    Still doesn't mean it wouldn't cause crazies to try. Let me try to approach it this way...

    If you were setting up the order of succession why wouldn't you pick the house majority OR minority leader based the party of the President? IE if the speaker is a D and the President is a D the speaker gets it. If the President is a D and the speaker is an R the minority leader gets it.

  3. #63
    And yet crazies haven't tried in 240 years. In fact, one of the best predictors of who becomes a terrorist is that they're not a member of any organized political party.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  4. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    If you were setting up the order of succession why wouldn't you pick the house majority OR minority leader based the party of the President? IE if the speaker is a D and the President is a D the speaker gets it. If the President is a D and the speaker is an R the minority leader gets it.
    Because the minority leader will probably have a harder time getting things done than the speaker would.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  5. #65
    http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.c...s-rights.html/ Another Texan who doesn't respect the constitution. Lewk, can we blame conservatives for wanting to destroy the constitution?
    Hope is the denial of reality

  6. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.c...s-rights.html/ Another Texan who doesn't respect the constitution. Lewk, can we blame conservatives for wanting to destroy the constitution?
    Amending the constitution is the appropriate way to change the constitution. Far more appropriate than with judicial overreach.

  7. #67
    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    Amending the constitution is the appropriate way to change the constitution. Far more appropriate than with judicial overreach.
    More like gutting the constitution. 9 new amendments that completely alter the constitutional system.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  8. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    More like gutting the constitution. 9 new amendments that completely alter the constitutional system.
    The only threat to the constitution is people who don't adhere to what the constitution means. That waters down all of the rights we hold dear. Going through the appropriate channels to change it is perfectly OK - and due to how the constitution is set up it requires overwhelming support which he likely won't get. IE there is no problem.

  9. #69
    He wants to destroy checks and balances and federalism. Those are at the heart of the constitution. Read the Federalist papers.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  10. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    He wants to destroy checks and balances and federalism. Those are at the heart of the constitution. Read the Federalist papers.
    A. Not really. Especially the amendments regarding the Supreme Court. The courts were viewed very differently during the time of the Federalist papers. B. He's going about it the proper way. (Which he won't get the support necessary for anyway.) Ultimately he is acting more responsibly than many many others in history when it comes tot he constitution.

  11. #71
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    He wants to destroy checks and balances and federalism. Those are at the heart of the constitution. Read the Federalist papers.
    He wants to reassert federalism, which the federal government has in large part done away with. I think some of the proposals go too far and others are just window-dressing (the 2/3 state vote to overrule a SCOTUS decision is silly since that's already in place as a first step for getting a constitutional convention to do it and they haven't managed that a single time in 200+ years) but by and large it wouldn't look too dissimilar from periods in our past which weren't any more "destroyed" constitutionally than they are now. And one of them is just attempting to reassert something that's in the Constitution right now but which is habitually ignored by SCOTUS*, the 10th amendment which declares all remaining powers to be reserved to the states or to the people.

    *because it's so vague that there simply isn't any way to make adjudications from it
    Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"

  12. #72
    Prohibit administrative agencies from pre-empting state law.
    Executive agencies = useless

    Allow a two-thirds majority of the states to override a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
    Weaken the courts and the federal government.

    Require a seven-justice super-majority vote for U.S. Supreme Court decisions that invalidate a democratically enacted law
    Pretty much destroy the Supreme Court. Poland is currently being blasted in Europe for doing more or less the same thing.

    Restore the balance of power between the federal and state governments by limiting the former to the powers expressly delegated to it in the Constitution.
    I'm assuming this means removing implied and inherent powers. This would remove a vast majority of the federal government's power and prevent the US from operating like a country. I.e. there's nothing in the constitution about fighting abroad (without a war declaration). Or joining international organizations or alliances.

    Allow a two-thirds majority of the states to override a federal law or regulation.
    Weakens the federal government. Removes the job of the courts.

    So no, this isn't reasserting federalism. This is moving the US to the Articles of Confederation, which in some important ways were more federalist than these proposals.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    A. Not really. Especially the amendments regarding the Supreme Court. The courts were viewed very differently during the time of the Federalist papers. B. He's going about it the proper way. (Which he won't get the support necessary for anyway.) Ultimately he is acting more responsibly than many many others in history when it comes tot he constitution.
    The courts were meant to check the powers of the other branches. These proposals would make them obsolete. You know full well that the Supreme Court doesn't manage 7 votes on most controversial issues.

    So here's Abbott's utopia for you: a Democratic congress passes a law banning guns. The Supreme Court votes 6-3 to overturn the law. The law remains in place because you now need 7 votes. The 7 judge requirement removes the main protection against tyranny of the majority.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  13. #73
    Only I'm in Texas and under his plan the federal government can't overrule the state's law.

    Either way... it isn't going to happen. At all. Unlike the very real assault on our constitution by liberal justices.

  14. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    Only I'm in Texas and under his plan the federal government can't overrule the state's law.
    Sure it could. Those proposals limit executive agencies in their ability to counter state law, not Congress. Congress still gets to play with federal supremacy to its hearts content under those proposed amendments, it just wouldn't be able delegate its power to do so to the Executive branch.

    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    Executive agencies = useless



    Weaken the courts and the federal government.



    Pretty much destroy the Supreme Court. Poland is currently being blasted in Europe for doing more or less the same thing.



    I'm assuming this means removing implied and inherent powers. This would remove a vast majority of the federal government's power and prevent the US from operating like a country. I.e. there's nothing in the constitution about fighting abroad (without a war declaration). Or joining international organizations or alliances.



    Weakens the federal government. Removes the job of the courts.

    So no, this isn't reasserting federalism. This is moving the US to the Articles of Confederation, which in some important ways were more federalist than these proposals.
    I don't agree with some of them, the requirement for a supermajority from SCOTUS to engage in judicial review is ridiculous, and I think having both of those amendments against the executive agencies is redundant, the first one would be more than sufficient. But the way the first of those would limit the executive wouldn't make them useless, it would just counter the 200+ years Congress has spent trying to abdicate its legislative power and delegate it to the Executive branch. That would actually be more in line with the actual text of the Constitution than how things stand now. It's possible it just doesn't work in a modern world but the rise of the opaque and not terribly accountable technocracy is a major problem and source for future horror throughout the democratic systems in place today so I'm quite willing to entertain the idea regardless.

    Allowing states a method for checking SCOTUS would be a useful check against judicial overreach, one that we currently lack, and the fact that we haven't managed a single convention yet with its equal 2/3 requirement strongly suggests it would not and could not be effectively overused or abused. As I said, it's very close to window-dressing but certainly doesn't destroy our Constitutional system. Rather it enhances it and helps safeguard genuine federalism which 200 years have demonstrated the Court itself has not been able to do effectively.

    You can assume whatever you want about the limit of powers between states and the Fed but that's just making an ass of yourself. As I said, that one is literally already in the Constitution. That's exactly what the 10th amendment says, and saying it is the only purpose to the last amendment in the Bill of Rights in the first place. The fact that one of the articles of the ratified Bill of Rights has been completely ignored for so long is one of the reasons federalism has become so weak in the first place and showcases the primary failing of SCOTUS in the country's Constitutional order. And unlike the blow against the technocracy, there is very little to suggest that ignoring it is at all necessary to maintaining an actually functional state in the modern world.

    As for allowing a supermajority of states to override federal law, that's just another addition to the checks and balances. Another reinstatement of the original order of the Constitution, because similar approval was effectively required to pass federal legislation at all, back before senators were elected directly rather than selected by the states. It does weaken the federal government but that's the point, and the whole purpose of behind the concept of federalism, a flow of power back and forth between the central government and the states, checking and balancing each other. It also doesn't remove the job of the courts in the slightest. Their job isn't to determine whether legislation is good or acceptable to the country, it's to exercise judicial review on its constitutionality, a rather different metric which that proposed amendment isn't addressing at all. And I'll again point out how rarely we've seen 2/3 of the states being willing to take such steps in concert so far, even though they already possess the power to do so, albeit in a more drastic fashion.

    So yeah, this is reasserting federalism. You just seem to have no clue what federalism in the first place. Regrettable that someone teaching poli-sci and pursuing a doctoral degree is so ignorant on the matter but "federalism" is not a synonym for "centralization at the federal level," which is how you seem to be interpreting it.
    Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •