Why can’t they understand?

I get frustrated with people when they don’t understand simple principles. Here is my latest example:

After their vote, Biden said, “Love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love,” adding their vote made “the United States one step closer to protecting that right in law.”

Schumer also said he had “zero doubt” the bill “will soon be law of the land.”

But multiple groups disagree, arguing it’s unconstitutional for the same reasons the Supreme Court struck down DOMA. Because the court already ruled Congress doesn’t have the constitutional authority to define marriage under Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, and because ROMA is nearly identical to DOMA, they argue it will also likely be struck down.

The principle is the Federal government has not been granted the power to do anything in this domain. This is a power held by the states. Read the founding documents! It is really simple.

And while I have my blood boiling…

If you think any government has the power to outlaw guns, then you must also believe that same government has the power to mandate gun ownership for anyone.

If you think any government has the power to change the terms of a student loan and not require repayment, then you must also believe that same government has the power to change the terms of the loan and require immediate payment of ten times to remaining principle.

If you think any government has the power to give “free” healthcare to everyone, then you must also believe that same government has the power to deny healthcare (or at least make it extremely expensive) for anyone.

If you think any government has the power to take from the rich and give to the poor, then you must also believe that same government has the power to take from the poor and give to the rich.

If you believe any government has the power to deny marriage to people because they are homosexuals and biologically incapable of conceiving a child then you must also believe that same government has the power to deny marriage to people where one party is infertile.

If you think any government has the power to outlaw marriage between certain classes of people, then you must also believe that same government has the power to mandate marriage between certain classes of people. As in, “John Q. Public, you will marry Jack O. Public next Sunday regardless of what you think of homosexuality and your lack of affection for each other.”

If you think any government has the power to outlaw abortion, then you must also believe that same government has the power to mandate abortions.

I could go on for quite some time, but you get the idea.

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18 thoughts on “Why can’t they understand?

  1. For those unaware, “love is love” is a pedo slogan, as in “we love each other, and she’s a really mature 4-year-old, so of course we should be able to sleep together and get married, because love.”

    Yes, this bill would require churches to recognize child marriage, gay marriage, poly-marriage, etc., if they wanted to keep their “church” or 501(c)3 status.

      • Yeah but they have abused it by moving the age beyond the limits of biology and culture. If you really want to be puzzled, take a deep dive into Romeo and Juliet laws. These are designed to not have to prosecute high school kids for statutory rape but lead to some strange results.

  2. Your thesis denies the existence of just government; to wit:

    “Any government that has the power to outlaw rape has the power to mandate rape.”

    False premise, false conclusions.

    • The purpose of government is to protect the rights of the people. Punishing rapists helps protect the rights of the people.

      Forbidding marriage between two consenting adults is not protecting the rights of anyone. Similar things can be said about the others except in the case of abortion.

      On the abortion analogy, a good case can be made that there are rights being protected by outlawing it. But a case can also be made that rights are violated by not allowing women control over their own bodies. It’s a competing interest case and there are no clear, easy answers.

  3. You have the power you SEIZE. It’s as simple as that.
    And we only have the Rights we will fight for, die for and most importantly KILL for.

  4. Re “why can’t they understand” it’s not clear if they don’t understand, or if they just deliberately ignore the Supreme Law of the Land. Given the vast amount of available evidence I am forced to conclude the latter.
    As I’ve said before, it’s VERY worth while reading St. George Tucker’s book on the Constitution. It was published in 1803, and has quite a lot of material describing how the Constitution was trampled by politicians even back then. In other words, while the modern anti-Constitutional government really got moving under Wilson and FDR, it started long before. Lincoln certainly contributed a lot, but the way I would put it is that it started as soon as the ink on the Constitution had dried. Consider the Sedition Act for a nasty example.

  5. And as Vox Day says; “If you can force me to bake you a cake, I can force you to pick cotton.” Democracy sucks like that.
    I would posit that under the 10th amendment marriage is not even a state issue.
    Marriage is a vow one gives to another person in front of witnesses. Among which some include God.
    For the state to be involved reduces it to a contract.
    As for abortion, I would say an unwanted pregnancy was the consequence of a woman not wanting to be in control her body. As ways of not getting pregnant are to numerous to mention. Woman have a right not to get pregnant. And that’s all. It’s not all her body anymore, that’s a separate human-DNA she’s carrying.

    • Re marriage not being a state issue under the 10th Amendment, that’s not how I read it. That amendment says that everything is a state issue except (1) federal issues, and (2) things specifically prohibited to the states.

      In other words, the Federal government has (in theory) only enumerated powers; the states have plenary power. Subject to the limitations in the state constitutions, of course, but the US Constitution imposes few limits.

      It does impose some. Article 1 section 10 lists a number of things. A number of the Amendments do as well. For example, the plain English words of the 2nd Amendment apply to the states, not just the US government — the claim that this wasn’t so until the 14th Amendment is clearly false. What may be true is that, for the most part, courts pretended that way, but that just shows that courts have despised the Constitution from the day it was written. I remember reading in Halbrook about a Texas supreme court case, antebellum, that correctly observed the prohibitions of the 2nd Amendment applied against the state as well as Congress. The 1st Amendment is a curious exception, and one has to wonder why it was worded in that way different from all the others (Amendments 2 through 8).

      • “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
        What would be left “to the people”?
        That seems to be the dictum of trading one tyrant 3,000 miles away, for 3,000 tyrants one mile away?
        As we see government on any level will seek to control everything. Toilet water to the CO2 we exhale.
        It’s understandable what our forefathers were trying to accomplish/clarify with the 10th., in sorting and limiting powers.
        True, the states have several interests in marriage. And I miss spoke in my first comment. As incest, age, and dissolution of property in divorce. But most of those are common sense and could be codified on one page.
        Maybe our forefathers were trying to remind us, we also have power/standing in all issues not to be handled by the fed?

        • The 10th Amendment means that the limitations on state government are, for the most part, to be found in the state constitutions.
          The words are quite clear: that amendment reserves to the people those powers forbidden to the states (and, of course, not granted to the Federal government by the US Constitution). For example, the right to keep and bear arms is reserved to the people because the 2nd Amendment forbids governments from infringing it. (Note that the plain words of the 2nd apply to the states as well as the national government.) But regulating marriage is not a power prohibited to the states, therefore it is retained by the states.
          So, for the most part, the US Constitution does not protect the people from state tyranny, only from Federal tyranny. State tyranny, or not, is up to the state Constitution.

  6. I think that “full faith and credit” might reasonably apply here. But I don’t know if that’s something that Clowngress needs to legislate, so much as that’s a powerful argument that could be used in a lawsuit, if unfortunately it were to become necessary to bring such a suit. I think the courts really are the natural starting point here.

    If there’s no need to legislate, why bother?

    • I’m not sure how the “full faith and credit” clause applies. That constrains states, they can’t disregard the acts of other states. That means, for example, that CC permits should be valid nationwide just as driver’s licenses are, under that clause. It also means there is no need for a Federal law about same sex marriage, because any such marriages that are valid in any state are required to be recognized in all states.

      As for legislation, there is something profoundly silly about a law saying “you’re required to obey the other law”. That’s right up there with restraining orders that say “you’re not allowed to violate law x with respect to person y”.

      • It would mean, I think, that a non-traditional marriage (performed legally in one state) would still be recognized as valid even if both parties moved to another state that doesn’t allow such marriages inside its own borders.

        Or (my preference) marriage could become strictly a private/religious matter, without state involvement of any kind. Kind of like other stuff, like baptism, and basically everything else religious (and nonreligious) organizations do.

  7. Along your line of reasoning… if a government has the right to outlaw murder…..

    Where do you draw the line and what moral principles do you use to draw that line with?

    Which is the line drawn by some against abortion, because it’s murder and the woman while having a right to govern her own body…. Does not have the right to deprive another of life…. No matter how she might be inconvenienced by it, especially since she participated in the continuance of said life…. Yeah, even if it was against her will…..

    I am indeed curious about your opinion.

    Respectfully,

    Tim

    • As stated in the Declaration of Independence, the purpose of the U.S. government is the protection of rights. No serious argument can be made that murder is a right to be protected. Outlawing and punishing murder is one of the primary purposes of government.

      Abortion is not so clear because of the competing rights of the right to life of the fetus and the right to do with her own body as the mother desires. And in extreme cases abortion can save the life of the mother and/or the life of her other children (food shortages).

      I can imagine cases where abortion is clearly wrong. I can imagine cases where it is the least bad option available. Drawing a line is not something I’m comfortable with.

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