#63923 - government grants

[wired]

Wired, I think you're missing the whole point; no tax that is applied equitably can be called slavery. One of the key components in slavery is precisely that it is applied disequitably; otherwise you can call just about any government action that deprives someone of time or property slavery. The draft, the legal system, etc.

I think I agree and disagree. I definitely agree that taxes should not be called slavery - they are different. But, I have serious doubts that the disequitable application of slavery is what differentiates it from taxes. The income tax is applied disequitably; we have a graduated income tax (and with good reason!) Slavery, I believe, should refer to the forced servitude of other individuals, without their consent, and strip them of traditional civil rights. I don't think disequitable application is neither here nor there. If we forced people to labor for others and stripped their away their basic rights, based on a lottery system, it would still be slavery. And, quite frankly, the draft is REALLY close to slavery. The end purposes are different (one supports the national good, while the other serves a private good) and drafts are used only in exigent circumstances. So, yes, the draft looks a lot like slavery. Do I call it slavery? No.

My overall point is this: don't call taxes slavery because it ignores too many defining characteristics of slavery that make it so abhorrent. However, I think that, speaking purely in terms of logic and argument, saying that taxes are like slavery because they deprive an individual of a right without their consent, is true. So I see why people say, "Taxes are slavery!" even though I disagree with the use of the term.

EDIT: And to be clear, I still don't think it's responsible to say "Taxes are like slavery!" as part of the debate on taxes. It's akin to saying, "George Bush/Barack Obama is like Hitler because they supported legislation that slowly took away part of our freedoms!" It might be a useful logical exercise, but the degree is too far distant.

The other argument that you didn't quite do justice to was saying that grants and public education funding are not equivalent. They both take money from certain individuals and give it to other groups. Under the given definition, they are both equally slavery. One cannot be for one and against the other.

My argument there is structural. I am saying that an individual can oppose FEDERAL grants because they do not believe it is the FEDERAL government's role to encourage or discourage education. Instead, that role has traditionally been left to states. Thus, a person might actively campaign for a state to provide grants to students while opposing the federal government's involvement in education. So if one chooses not to benefit from any unconstitutional program, they can full well go to a public school without taking a PELL grant.

Lastly, any individual can recognize that the Bill of Rights is not only protection FROM the government, it is also protection BY the government from other groups. A strict constitutionalist may grant the former, but has no protection against the latter (including other groups such as state and local government.).

Do you mean the Constitution as a whole or the Bill of Rights? Because if you mean the Bill of Rights, as a matter of history, I can't think of any plausible way to read that bolded section that would make it true. (But I could be misreading it...) The Bill of Rights was passed specifically as limitations on the federal government's power to interfere with state's practices and individual's rights. It was limited to that specific group and no one else.

Now, the Fourteenth Amendment -- passed 70+ years after the Bill of Rights -- did begin to limit what state government's could do to individuals. The Supreme Court didn't really begin to interpret it that way until the 1920s at the very earliest. And, nothing in the Constitution is meant to protect private citizens from OTHER private citizens. (You might construe the Treason Clause that way, but even then that seems plainly a government-individual relationship again.) Often times Congress will enact laws, using their Constitutional powers, to protect people from other people, but the Constitution has no comment on the issue other than authorizing Congress to do that.

[Marduk]

Nothing in the constitution is meant to protect private citizens from other citizens? So when the supreme court ruled that "seperate but equal" was flawed by definition, and that businesses could no longer segregate customers based on race, that was not protecting private citizens from other citizens? Or when they designated that equal protection of the law made it illegal for any business to fire someone based on race or gender, that wasn't protecting me from other citizens?

You're right that those construals didn't begin until the 14th amendment mandated it. But the 14th amendment simply redefined the Bill of Rights as applying to protection from ALL entities, not just the federal government. But now we're getting into semantics, and it has nothing to do whatever with the original discussion, which was to point out that the constitution has now been used to limit the powers of state and local governments, as well as private institutions.

[wired]

Nothing in the constitution is meant to protect private citizens from other citizens? So when the supreme court ruled that "seperate but equal" was flawed by definition, and that businesses could no longer segregate customers based on race, that was not protecting private citizens from other citizens? Or when they designated that equal protection of the law made it illegal for any business to fire someone based on race or gender, that wasn't protecting me from other citizens?

Marduk, you're actually thinking of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That was a statute enacted by Congress (re-emphasizing my point). It's not the 14th Amendment or any provision of the Constitution that prohibits those actions. In fact, similar statutes to those were passed prior to the 60s and were shot down as not being sufficiently connected to an enumerated power. However, the Supreme Court validated them in the 60s on the new interpretation of the Commerce Clause. So, the power Congress uses to enact those statutes isn't even the Fourteenth Amendment.

If those statutes were repealed, individuals would have no recourse against people for discrimination.

There's a significant part of Constitutional law called the state action doctrine; it delineates when a government entity is acting, and therefore, whether the Constitutions strictures should apply. So really, nothing in the Constitution is meant to protect private citizens from other citizens. It is meant to prevent certain governmental actions and empower the government to make a limited set of laws.

[Marduk]

No, I'm not. I'm thinking of Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company, and Brown v. Board of Education. The second was in a state institution, the first, however, was not. Both were precedents which lead to the aforementioned act, but the key principle here is that the 14th amendment (and the interstate commerce clause) were used to overturn segregation by private entities; by legal precedent first and statute about 10 years later.

Anyway, I guess the line isn't as clearly delineated as I thought it was, but I'm still convinced that constitutional principles have been used to prevent citizens from harming other citizens.

[wired]

As you mentioned, Brown was about public schooling. Keys, an administrative law decision, was about Section 216 of the Interstate Commerce Act. Again, it required a statute to reach private conduct. So it has little precedential value in terms of what the constitution means and it isn't construing the Constitution to reach private action.

EDIT: Typed on smart phone and the typos showed it.

[Dragon Lady]

Yup, just asked MSJ. She was, in fact, joking. She was writing a response to CPM saying as much, but got sick before she could finish it so they posted the question without her response. So not that this has much to do with the main meat of this thread, but I just wanted to clear her name for her.

[Katya]

Fair enough.

[Marduk]

Unfortunately, the joke she is making is a sentiment that is all too real in politics right now. Therefore, all joking aside, it has to be dealt with seriously.

[Dragon Lady]

Unfortunately, the joke she is making is a sentiment that is all too real in politics right now. Therefore, all joking aside, it has to be dealt with seriously.

And sure, please continue to discuss it in here. I'm not saying to stop. I just want to make sure you all aren't thinking poorly of MSJ for something that she intended tongue-in-cheek and didn't get a chance to defend herself.

I do that. I defend people that are innocent.

Please continue discussing the topic, though. (I assume that's what y'all are discussing. It's not my cup of tea (but not tea party, mind you) of a topic, so I haven't actually read it. Just glanced through enough to know that early on at least, people thought MSJ was serious.)

[Katya]

I had to laugh at Hypatia's comment to this question. Somehow I don't think that "is it constitutional to receive Pell grants? Who cares?" is going to do much to sway a diehard constitutionalist.

[Tao]

I agree, with one caveat: family finances probably shouldn't be allowed to fall into the category of "he cares a lot, but she doesn't really give a hoot, so he makes all the decisions." It's one thing for your husband to make the hard water decisions because you can't tell the difference; it's entirely another to not care about something that affects you in a significant way.

Again though, there is a lot we just don't know. I know of couples who solve the money problem by maintaining separate accounts throughout married life. As long as he covers his portion of things, if he truly feels morally obligated to pay from his own pocket, I could easily see such a situation arising.

[Architect]

I agree, with one caveat: family finances probably shouldn't be allowed to fall into the category of "he cares a lot, but she doesn't really give a hoot, so he makes all the decisions." It's one thing for your husband to make the hard water decisions because you can't tell the difference; it's entirely another to not care about something that affects you in a significant way.

Again though, there is a lot we just don't know. I know of couples who solve the money problem by maintaining separate accounts throughout married life. As long as he covers his portion of things, if he truly feels morally obligated to pay from his own pocket, I could easily see such a situation arising.

That's true...it's hard to answer questions like this when we really don't know 98% of the details.