Is the definition of human too big for the states?
Submitted by trianglechoke on Sat, 10/06/2007 - 13:19According to Ron Paul, the federal government does not have the right to dictate to the states on issues such as abortion, and at the time, slavery. Is this correct?
If so, it seems to me that according to Dr. Paul, the federal government does not have the right to define personhood, or what is means to be human. But if that is the case, then Dr. Paul would have to admit that right now, a state should have the capacity to rule that all people above the height of 6'5" are not persons. Because slavery has been outlawed at the federal level, anyone above the height of 6'5" would not be anyone else's property, so it would be legal to kill or steal from any such person (nonpersons don't have rights).
This is something that has bothered me for a while. Set me straight: is this Dr. Paul's position, and if so do you agree with him even though it leads to absurdities? If it's not, please reiterate his position for me.
I'm still 110% behind Dr. Paul - you don't have to agree with everything a person says to vote for them.
Common Misconception
Ron Paul does believe the federal government should define life at conception, as is evidenced by his house resolution HR 1094, "To provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception" (source: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.01094:). What he DOES NOT believe is that abortion should be outlawed or universally permitted at the federal level.
Slave state.
The issue of slavery is an important example of the hypocracy of the Federal Government and government as a whole. Although slavery was officially abolished, it was reinstated when the federal income tax was instituted. Only thing different is that most of the time back in the old days, slaves were privately owned and worked to produce and build the wealth of their owner's property close where they lived. So eventhough giving power back to states may not be the perfect answer, since we still would not be free from laws, taxes or local income taxes; but given a choice, if we are to be slaves, then surely it is better to work for a state or local government, then to have the fruits of our labor go to some big white plantation house in Washington. Of course in a perfect world, we would all be free, follow the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, freely donate our money to build and maintain our communities and have liberty and justice for all.
You have it screwed up
The constitution is vague, but the supreme court has essentially ruled that life begins at birth. So anyone that's been born is a person. Dr. Paul has suggested that there should be an amendment to specify life beginning at conception.
Abortion is then viewed as a type of medical care, and is regulated by the states, like the assisted suicide laws, or other medical ethics things.
By the way, the constitution outlaws slavery with the 13th amendment.
Its different
Ron says the Federal government shouldn't mess with this issue for the sole reason that as the constitution didn't assign violent crimes jurisdiction to the Fed. Constitutionally, if something isn't assigned to the fed, it defaults to the individual states.
All men are created equal....
We all know that all races are human...the consitution covers that we are all created equal and that we have certain rights that can not be taken away. Clearly that covers that....
Now on to what the states could do....
Yes, it's true that one state could be dominated by a certain race there by forcing another race to choose to leave or choose to unite and "peacefully" protest via voting ect...
But the good thing about that is...now-a-days it would be hard to force anyone out of all places...which means that everyone would have places where they would be the majority (this applies to ALL races) and those states that were blatantly predudiced would go brankrupt and be forced to adopt a more open and equal stand.
Nothing is ever perfect..and we can't expect utopia...it is human nature to be dissatisfied, but less Federal Government control could never be a bad thing.
A Constitutional Republic
Hello triaglechoke, you bring up an interesting issue that I too have had some misgivings about. I don't expect the States to be any more capable than the Federal government when it comes to protecting individual rights. Government power at every level will always lean against the best interest of individual rights in favor of the collective’s wishes. That’s why our Constitutional Republic is so important to individual freedom and liberty.
Here is an earlier post concerning this issue you might find interesting:
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/2116
Since Dr. Paul is a strict constitutionalist, this is one of the few issues I find contradictory. I believe the abortion issue, as well as slavery, are valid instances of the Federal government protecting the rights of the individual against State abuse of power.
While we can certainly argue that the “Roe v Wade” decision might be wrong, I wouldn’t go so fas as to argue that our national government was not acting within its constitutional mandate to protect an individual’s freedom under the “Bill of Rights”.
Just my opinion,
Anti-Stupid
Don't Trust the Feds to Protect Rights
Well the Bill of Rights, as most of the Constitution was meant to be a limiting factor on the Federal Government, not on the state governments. It was only when the 14th amendment was supposedly ratified and then twisted beyond its intended aims, that the idea of the Bill of Rights applied to the States and was to be enforced by the Federal Government.
There is some validity to the states being no more capable of protecting individual rights. However, the thing is that states are much more accountable to the people than the Federal government. Also, people can easily move from one state to another if they don't like how the state respects the rights of the people.
Trusting the Federal Government to guarantee all your rights will surely lead to the loss of them.
This is a question of how government should be organized...
not a question of WHAT particular policies or laws ought to be enacted.
In any system of government, there is always a chance that some 'absurd' policy could be put in place. We can always tell a story that has some faction or some hypothetical set of unfortunate circumstances conspiring together to create an obviously bad law. There is no way out of this 'problem.'
For instance, if we make the definition of 'human' a responsibility for the federal government, then there is still the possibility that the feds might say that people under 6'5" aren't human. That 'absurd' possibility is still there under this arrangement. And then some folks might say that we need to let the U.N.--or some other international organization--override the U.S.'s decision. Afterall, the definition of human is just too big for nations to decide.
I'm not poking fun at your concern; it is a good concern. I'm just pointing out that it isn't quite relevant to Dr. Paul's constitutionalist-federalist position.
Granted that humans should be defined in a reasonable and historically-consistent way, the question is "What level of government makes that determination?" And the answer Dr. Paul gives is "Not the federal level!" Why not? B/c the constitution doesn't delegate that power to the feds.
This is not an absurd consequence of constitutionalism. The founders knew that they were leaving this sort of thing out. They did it on purpose. It's not like Madison and Hamilton et al left Philadelphia in 1789 and said "D'oh! We forgot to say that the feds should be able to make laws against murder, define human, etc.!" :-) They deliberately left this sort of law-making power to the state and local governments. That's not because it's not an important issue to know who is human and who is not, but b/c important though it may be it's even MORE important that the decision be made within the context of local communities who share similar goals, values, conceptions of the good life, etc. Also, as some others in this thread have already hinted, decentralization spreads out the 'risk' of bad laws. If Utah decides to ban coffee, at least it only affects people living in Utah. Nevada and Colorado and Idaho can keep it legal, and act as a 'shining light on a hill' to Utahans. People in Utah can relocate to more libertarian states, if they so desire and if they can afford it. Also, Utah will start to feel pressure to stop being so silly when it stands alone among its neighbors.
But if one central authority gets to make the decisions for everyone, then if some anti-coffee coalition manages to get control of the central legislature we'll all be screwed.
As to how 'human' should be defined, "common law" tradition and the tendency for cultures to gather around certain shared values has probably rendered this question moot, historically. But now in the last several decades as modern society has fragmented more and more these sorts of issues start to become more contentious. But this only confrims the wisdom of Dr. Paul's position, if you ask me. Since we all have trouble agreeing on these things, it makes even MORE sense to let lots of local communities (or states) make the decisions for themselves rather than imposing one solution from the top down.
The possibility that one state would do something ridiculous like define 'human' as being taller than 6'5" or declaring that left-handed people can be killed with impunity is not really worth worrying about as a pracitcal matter. But even if it was it wouldn't solve the problem to let the feds make a decision for everyone. B/c in ten years those feds might change their mind and we're stuck with an even bigger problem than just one state doing something horrible.
No
Ron Paul doesn't believe slavery is up to the states. It is clearly in the Declaration of Inependence that everyone has a right to Life, Liberty and Happiness. Also in the Constitution there are many laws that would prevent slavery from ever happening legally in the country again. The only reason they had slaves back then is because people were ignorant and did not believe they were human. No state can make a law that is conflicting with the Constitution.
The Declaration of Independence is not law, though
That doesn't mean it's not important for shaping our political sensibilities, but it is not law of the land. The Constitution is the law of the land, not the DoI.
I don't want to add yet another 'whacko' element to Dr. Paul's support, but hey we're all friends here at this point, right? :-) If you go to Lew Rockwell (a site to which Dr. Paul has contributed tons of articles over the years), you'll find lots of places where they argue on behalf of the Southern position from the War Between the States. This is why Bill Maher asked Dr. Paul about this in his first appearance on Maher's show back in March (or whenever it was): b/c Paul has "paleolibertarian" associations (like Lew Rockwell), and as such he is seen as a Confederate sympathizer.
I think his position on this (as he expressed it to Maher) makes perfect sense: the 'Civil War' was unjust and unnecessary. As morally problematic as slavery was, it was not necessary to fight a war to end it. And what we lost at Appomattox was far more important than what we gained, for it ushered in the era of 'big' central government in this country in a way that had never been fathomed before. It was Lincoln, after all, who first suspended civil liberties like habeus corpus, arrested dissenters from his war policy, argued that you had to 'violate the Constitution in order to save it', worked out special economic deals with corporatists and railroad barons, made cynical use of anti-slavery sentiment to secure political leverage, and introduced the income tax.
Not sayin'. Just sayin'...
Except the Declaration of Independence
is basically the document that created American democracy. It's part of out culture and our heritage and pretty much is law in the eyes of Americans. If we were to break free of the DoI, we would be breaking away from what America was founded on - independence and freedom.
Sure it's part of our culture and heritage
I agree with that absolutely. I said originally, remember, that it "informs our political sensibilities." And I certainly agree with the ideals expressed in the DoI, and I agree that if we just blatantly disregarded its ideological claims that we would be breaking away from America's foundation. Amen, and amen.
But my point is still that we cannot treat the precise statements of the DoI as law of the land. The only reason I made this point was b/c you had originally cited the DoI as proof of what Dr. Paul's position was on a particular issue. But Paul is a CONSTITUTIONALIST, not a "declaratoinist'. I'm sure he agrees with the Declaration, but that is not the document that we need to 'get back to' in the same way that the Constitution is. (For one thing, the Declaration is largely a collection of complaints against King George, not a statement of abstract political principles).
My only other point about the DoI is that it was in place for a long time but we still had slavery. The very country that issued that great document blatantly violated its precepts. The South was defeated when it tried to declare its independence from the Union even though the DoI clearly says that people have the right to cast off a gov't that no longer serves their interests and form a new one which suits them better. It's complicated.
It's mostly about devolution of power.
I don't agree with Dr. Paul on all these issues, but I can understand his resolve to return the 10th Amendment to prominence.
The original intent of the Constitution was to prevent too much power being wielded by one authority. The Constitution is a limitation on federal government's power. The 20th century witnessed the erosion of most of that protection, and currently, there is no aspect of our lives that is not intruded upon by the federal government. Most of the power in the country was originally intended to be held by the states. That way, you could move to a more hospitable environment should you not like one state's laws or governance. Power needs to be devolved back to the states.
There is also a 9th Amendment, however, that states:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." [emphasis mine]
This amendment was the compromise between the federalists and the anti-federalists that allowed the Bill of Rights to be included in the Constitution, and thus, the Constitution to be ratified by the colonies.
I would love to know Dr. Paul's position on the 9th Amendment, but it's not that important now. I am in so much agreement with him in general, I consider our differences to be too minor to worry about. I dream about a day when that level of argument even matters in this country.
The states created the federal government...
...not the other way around. The federal gov't was never meant to have much authority at all. It used to be that you were a state first and a united state second. That has reversed over time.
Hmmm
Something I just thought of is that it would be even more dangerous to allow the federal government jurisdiction on the definition of personhood because IT could define personhood based upon arbitrary criteria.
Definitely lots to think about...
There is a lot of danger either way
If you let the states do it, then all the white supremacists might agree to move to Alabama and push for all sorts of crazy new rules. (Which could be a benefit, because they'd all be in one spot that none of us would ever have to visit. Their state would go bankrupt and eventually they would turn into a Taliban like state.) The states could then choose to let them keep their new rules or vote on a constitutional amendment against whatever policies made up. I personally like that approach. That way states have a lot of flexibility and only the really serious stuff will be handled at the federal level.
(Apologies to anyone in Alabama. I had to pick one. I think it's a beautiful state!)