gdp's Comments

Tenth Amendment Center Blog : We Already Have a Balanced Budget Amendment

Wed, 3 Aug 2011 23:31:44 +0000

I'm not quite ready to give up on Harrisburg yet. The Tenth Amendment Center has only been in Pennsylvania for a bit over a year. We're just getting started, so it's not time to throw in the towel just yet... But, that doesn't let the people of the hook. With or without help from Harrisburg, it still falls to the people. Initiatives like "We Won't Fly" and "Lemonade Freedom Day" and numerous others will continue to be vital. The Whiskey Rebellion is a great example of successful resistance by the people from Pennsylvania's own history (http://pennsylvania.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2010/03/the-individual-and-the-tenth/). We all need to learn to stand for Freedom in the same way that those 1790s Pennsylvanians (and other Americans) did.

New Jersey Tenth Amendment Center : Gene Hoyas Gets It Wrong on Nullification

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 02:37:52 +0000

I'm thinking we need a new name for a logical fallacy. The "time travel fallacy" or the "mind reading fallacy" or something like that. For people who argue that the states can't nullify because they imagine that they already know how the Supreme Court will eventually rule in the dispute. Of course, your rebuttal is right, and the Supreme Court doesn't get the last word. But even if we imagine that the Supreme Court does get the final word, a state would still have a 50/50 chance of winning when the nullification dispute goes to court. If the state doesn't nullify, they've got a 0% chance of winning. I'd venture to guess that if 50 states all nullified the same Unconstitutional act, the court would take notice and their chance of winning in court would be well over 50/50. Hoyas seems to think the states should just roll over and mindlessly obey an Unconstitutional action because of the mere possibility that the Supreme Court might eventually rule against them. Definitely a logical fallacy. Even coming from the erroneous perspective that the Supreme Court gets the last word.

Pennsylvania Tenth Amendment Center : But It Is Personal...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 21:49:43 +0000

Thank you for the feedback Tracilyn, I think you're right. It certainly turned out that way in the conversation I mentioned in the article. I had a hard time getting a word in edge-wise.

Tenth Amendment Center : Heritage Foundation: Just Don't Call it Nullification!

Mon, 23 May 2011 20:26:03 +0000

I touched on this question briefly in an article back in December. Basically, I think that it's a self-correcting system. http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2010/12/27/do... -

Similarly, if a small number of states incorrectly nullify a Constitutional power, they are unlikely to be able to maintain resistance over long periods of time. Eventually, the state politicians will change, and the federal government will pounce on the opportunity to eliminate the erroneous nullification.

Tenth Amendment Center : Heritage Foundation: Just Don't Call it Nullification!

Sun, 22 May 2011 21:41:03 +0000

lol. I'm amazed by the time stamps. Your comment wasn't there when I started typing. Looks like I was proof reading for 55 minutes!

Tenth Amendment Center : Heritage Foundation: Just Don't Call it Nullification!

Sun, 22 May 2011 21:33:50 +0000

I realize that the folks on this website like to expand the definition of nullification to include all those things. But I think those things are analytically different from legal nullification and it is not helpful to combine them and discuss them as a single concept.

Now that's progress! If you want to use nullification to mean, "legal nullification" elsewhere, please do (although I'd suggest that someone needs to do a better job defining that term 'cause as used by Spalding, it's very confusing), but here on this website, we can feel free to use the definition used by "the folks on this website" (and Jefferson). Under that definition, it now appears that we are in agreement that nullification is a valid recourse for the states when confronted with an unconstitutional federal action. Welcome to the resistance! So let's start talking about "when", not "whether" to use nullification. IMO, a much more useful topic of debate. BTW, I note that you didn't respond to my earlier comment. If you still want to claim that "legal nullification" somehow violates the Constitution, you have to show us where it is prohibited. Since the Constitution uses black lists (as in article I, section X, for example) to restrict the states' powers, if a power is not explicitly prohibited, then it's not prohibited at all. So where in the Constitution did the states agree that they would not act to prevent the federal government from performing unconstitutional actions?

Tenth Amendment Center : Heritage Foundation: Just Don't Call it Nullification!

Sun, 22 May 2011 20:37:17 +0000

The edit worked and I saw it in the hotline too. Thank you!

Tenth Amendment Center : Heritage Foundation: Just Don't Call it Nullification!

Sun, 22 May 2011 17:00:46 +0000

Thanks Michael, but the link got cut off (at least in my browser). Possibly due to the length? I'm guessing this is where you were pointing me - http://goo.gl/5oX41 - "From Interposition to Nullification: Peripheries and Center in the Thought of James Madison, (# Recanting ’98), By Kevin Gutzman"?

Tenth Amendment Center : Heritage Foundation: Just Don't Call it Nullification!

Sun, 22 May 2011 16:52:31 +0000

As I said, Madison's Notes on Nullification, written almost 40 years after the Virginia resolutions, have already been adequately discussed by Woods and others and it's not really the subject of this article. Anyway, we can toss quotes around in comments all day long and change no one's opinion. Let's try a different test. Elementary logic dictates that if the states are required to comply with unconstitutional federal actions, then that requirement can only be imposed by the Constitution. If the requirement is not in the Constitution, then the requirement doesn't exist. So, please show us where the Constitution requires the states to follow all federal laws and directives, whether Constitutional or not. (note... Please don't try to retreat to supreme court precedent. It is an obvious fact that the supreme court cannot claim a power for itself that was not first delegated in the Constitution.)

Tenth Amendment Center : Heritage Foundation: Just Don't Call it Nullification!

Sun, 22 May 2011 00:07:59 +0000

Right, No support at all from Madison, like in the Madison report of 1800, where Madison wrote,

"The resolution, having taken this view of the federal compact, proceeds to infer, "That, in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states, who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties, appertaining to them." "It appears to your committee to be a plain principle, founded in common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential to the nature of compacts, that, where resort can be had to no tribunal superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must be the rightful judges, in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been pursued or violated." AND It specifies the object of the interposition, which it contemplates to be solely that of arresting the progress of the evil of usurpation, and of maintaining the authorities, rights, and liberties, appertaining to the states as parties to the Constitution.

(does "arresting the progress of the evil of usurpation" sound something like "to make nothing" of an unconstitutional federal action?) You might also recall that Madison and Jefferson were collaborating by mail when they composed the Virginia & Kentucky resolutions, so it's clear that they were not in disagreement at the time. Anyway, you're changing the topic. Your claims have already been adequately refuted in other Tenth Amendment Center articles and in Tom Woods' book, "Nullification". We don't need to rehash these in comments. If it's your claim that the Northern States should've complied with the Federal Fugitive Slave acts and forcibly returned escaped slaves to captivity instead of nullifying those barbaric laws as they did during the early / mid 1800s, we're not likely to make much progress anyway. This article wasn't intended to justify nullification. That's already been done. The topic of this article was the puzzling position taken by the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation supports the Firearms Freedom Act, the Lightbulb Freedom Act, Real ID resistance, Health Care Freedom Acts... things I would consider to constitute nullification, yet they reject nullification by name. The intention of this article was merely to shed light on this curious contradiction.

Tenth Amendment Center : Heritage Foundation: Just Don't Call it Nullification!

Sat, 21 May 2011 22:49:15 +0000

It seems straight forward to me, too. Apparently, not everyone agrees.

Tenth Amendment Center : Heritage Foundation: Just Don't Call it Nullification!

Sat, 21 May 2011 22:29:40 +0000

I think this was probably my source for that quote, "GÖDEL AND THE NATURE OF MATHEMATICAL TRUTH [6.8.05]", http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/goldstein05/golds.... Perhaps he was paraphrased in that article, but Godel was reported to have made the statement during a conversation with "the mathematician Menger" (Karl Menger, I presume).

Tenth Amendment Center : Heritage Foundation: Just Don't Call it Nullification!

Sat, 21 May 2011 17:32:10 +0000

"The idea that institutions established for the use of the nation cannot be touched nor modified even to make them answer their end because of rights gratuitously supposed in those employed to manage them in trust for the public, may perhaps be a salutary provision against the abuses of a monarch but is most absurd against the nation itself. Yet our lawyers and priests generally inculcate this doctrine and suppose that preceding generations held the earth more freely than we do, had a right to impose laws on us unalterable by ourselves, and that we in like manner can make laws and impose burdens on future generations which they will have no right to alter; in fine, that the earth belongs to the dead and not the living." --Thomas Jefferson to William Plumer, 1816. ME 15:46 (via - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/dubo... As I recall, he applied the principle that the earth belongs to the living to the national debt, too. Showing why it is immoral for one generation to run up the debt and leave it for future generations to pay. For example, why should today's children be left holding the bag for the debts of the baby-boomers after they've gone? I'm not sure I see how this is a problem with nullification, though...

Tenth Amendment Center : Proposing a Nullification and Interposition Framework

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 04:22:48 +0000

I would like to know that too.. We do have versions of health care freedom act and firearm freedom legislation in Pennsylvania, but neither has made it out of committee yet. We have to get them on his desk before we find out if he'll sign them or not.

Tenth Amendment Center : Proposing a Nullification and Interposition Framework

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 16:53:55 +0000

Thank you for the feedback everyone. The comments have given me some insight into reasons behind the various ideas about what these words mean. It is interesting that even in the comments here, we find a variety of ideas about what "nullification" means. Just out of curiosity, I did a quick search for the etymology of "nullification", "nullify" and "interposition". According to the Online Etymology Dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=nullification), "Nullification" traces to Jefferson in 1798, but "Nullify (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=nullify) traces back to 1590. "Interposition" (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=interposition) goes back to the 15th century (and 12th century, old french, "interposicion")... So these words apparently had meanings even before they were used by Jefferson, Madison and Calhoun (assuming Jefferson's use of "nullification" was an adaptation of "nullify"). It is useful to know how Jefferson, Madison and Calhoun used the words, of course, but since 1.) Jefferson and Calhoun may(?) have had different understandings of what "nullification" means and 2.) People today definitely have different understandings of what the words mean, I do think it is a useful exercise to continue to clarify our own definitions and to be constantly aware that another's understanding of these words may not be identical to our own. I would suggest that there are two questions that should be kept separate - 1.) What do the words mean & 2.) When are they used (or what are they used for)? From reading through the comments here, I suspect many of the different ideas materialize when people attempt to combine those two questions into one. It seems to me that we need to work towards a common understanding when we're talking about these things or we're going to be talking past one another.

Pennsylvania Tenth Amendment Center : Pennsylvania Legislature Joins the TSA Resistance Movement

Sat, 12 Mar 2011 04:02:17 +0000

I don't see that this legislation is inconsistent with your viewpoint. It's not about profiling. It's about unconstitutional searches. In fact, this legislation says that it is illegal to inappropriately touch "Grandma and Jane Smith from Arkansas" in the absence of a search warrant or probable cause.

Massachusetts Tenth Amendment Center : Of Anarchy, Nullification, and Democracy

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:31:03 +0000

Note to self - Never use the word, "anarchy" in another post. ;-) Yes, my definition was based on the popular understanding of the word. I also checked webster when composing the article you reference. Webster gives several definitions for "anarchy" along the lines of what I was thinking - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anarchy.... 1a/b and 2/ab, especially 2.b. "absence of order : DISORDER" are along the lines of what I was thinking. I learned from the comments to my article that many people have very different understandings for the meaning of that word. Thank you for exploring this question from a different perspective. What someone means by "anarchy" definitely makes a huge difference and I agree with your conclusion that philosophical anarchists of the sort you describe will find a comfortable home the tenth amendment movement.

Colorado Tenth Amendment Center : Colorado Uniform Enumerated Powers Act

Thu, 7 Oct 2010 01:59:18 +0000

"6. Under VI of the Constitution" should be "6. Under *Article* VI of the Constitution" ??? I like it!

Pennsylvania Tenth Amendment Center : Two Points of View

Tue, 5 Oct 2010 21:45:48 +0000

It seems to me that one quote celebrates diverse points of view while the other vilifies them.

Tenth Amendment Center Blog : Free Pigs!

Thu, 2 Sep 2010 01:06:48 +0000

"Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil.", Thomas Paine