While we're on the subject of logical conclusions for extreme positions, consider this from Utah's new Tea Party Republican senator, Mike Lee. Sen. Lee is explaining his views on early 20th century legislation, specifically a law meant to end child labor in the United States:
[T]he Supreme Court acknowledged something very interesting -- that, as reprehensible as child labor is, and as much as it ought to be abandoned -- that's something that has to be done by state legislators, not by members of Congress. Why? Well, because labor and manufacturing, as the Supreme Court explained, are activities that take place in one state, at one time. They are by their very nature local activities.
And while they may have some commercial aspects to them, they are not themselves interstate commercial transactions. . . . The Supreme Court said no. . . . As laudable as its objectives may be, the law's no good.
This may sound harsh, but it was designed to be that way. It was designed to be a little bit harsh. Not because we like harshness for the sake of harshness, but because we like a clean division of power, so that everybody understands whose job it is to regulate what.
Just as gun extremists take a radical approach to the Second Amendment, so Sen. Lee is taking the radical, Tenther approach to the Tenth Amendment. Think Progress spends several graphs dismantling Rep. Lee's case. It makes for a fine morning tonic.
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Here's the headline from a New York Times article dated May 16, 1922:
CHILD LABOR LAW DECLARED INVALID; Supreme Court Holds 1919 Act Unconstitutional in That It Usurps State Function.
But that wouldn't necessarily silence his whole "10th Amendment" campaign
People, all the commets are under click on last bold part of the story, "Think Progress ..." .
The later SCOTUS decision in United States v. Darby, which overturned Hammer v. Dagenhart, also makes for fine reading. One of my favorite sections of the unanimous opinion is reproduced below:
What is wrong with the courts decision. Seems fine to me.
Of course. We all buy goods made with child labor in foreign countries, so we should follow their shining example, right?
Mark, the initial court's decision was overturned by a later unanimous court decision. The excerpt I posted above details "what was wrong" with the initial ruling.
Commerce Clause. 'Nough said.
I'm asking for your input & feedback here:
Rachel & gang fighting fire with fire, illogical with rationale... is a never-ending battle. The Right's capacity for illogical production SWAMPS TRMS capacity, and pretty much the ENTIRE progressive side of arguments. 63 house swing says that and then some. Reaganomics is still in effect today, 30 yrs out.
There is no change of narrative here. I'm NOT advocating unilateral disengagement. But I am for a change of narrative, which is what Bernie Sanders talked about for 8 1/2 hrs on the Senate floor. Yes, segments on illogical policy/arguments are still needed. But MORE segment time with a change of tactics... and STRATEGY. We're fighting an unproductive battle for our country, currently.
How about this? Greater focus on those truly responsible, we American voters and what our own votes have gotten us. As opposed to progressives focusing on idiotic leaders... IT IS STILL IDIOTIC in focus.
I'm talking multi-trillion dollar issue voter paths. A hollowed out economy -- HOW & WHY. America's most dominant industry, by millions of miles, TRILLIONS of dollars, is our vastly UNPRODUCTIVE and oh so risky FINANCIAL SECTOR -- HOW & WHY? Going from the greatest creditor nation in the world to thee GREATEST debtor nation in the world IN A SINGLE PRESIDENTIAL TERM -- HOW & WHY? After 205 yrs as a nation, we only amassed $1.0 Trillion, yet in just the last 30 years we racked up $25 TRILLION in deficits, debt & carrying costs & burdens -- HOW & WHY? We were EARNING our prosperity by being a net surplus trading nation, then for the past 30 years we have been engaging in MASSIVE borrowed prosperity on an epic scale via our huge trade deficits -- HOW & WHY? Etc, etc, etc.
We the voters voted for this SEA CHANGE in direction the past 30 years -- HOW & WHY?
That would really wake people up as to the how & why's, catching the nation by surprise, and the Peabody's & Pulitizer's ;-) and other journalistic trophies would come raining down on Rachel and Gang for the new focus on where this great country went so terribly off the tracks via voters' misguided direction & focus.
Regular segments like this... for the next 6 years... THEN... maybe we'll be on the right tracks again... and a President Hillary Clinton can then take us to the promised land. ;-) Obama simply has massive, unglamorous repair work ahead of him for 6 yrs.... to pave a new path for the NEXT great president.
We progressives have to pick up our game, not sink to conservatives' level. Smart. Educational. Reflective. History's path & ramifications. Learning Lessons. Exposing wedge issues for what they are: to divide us as a people. Etc, etc.
But it won't happen if WE VOTERS REMAIN IGNORANT as to our past performance as ballot box managers of our nation. On that front, I nominate Rachel to lead the way.
Do I hear a second? I BEG for your response. PLEASE chime in here. Rachel has that potential, I know it. And we "commentors" have to pick our collective game up too.
This might be okay if the logical conclusions being protested were really the logical conclusions of someone. Case in point: the above post is not about child labor laws (as the title implies) or the ability to enact them, it is about the limited role given to the federal government by the Constitution.
There were two attempts by the federal government to make laws stopping child labor, both rejected by the Supreme Court, until the Fair Labor Law Act did so successfully. By then, the states had already enacted their own laws.
There is nothing wrong with the concept of a limited federal government, it is constitutional.
RobDon, I agree with your statement, so long as the limitations are those provided by the Constitution. I think the kernel of the SCOTUS United States v. Darby opinion was in pointing out the fallacious limitation suggested by the previous decision in Hammer v. Dagenhart.
No idea why Rob or Dutchie are tagging on to my post here, wasn't even remotely talking about that... simply this focus of fighting (in general) illogical conservative positions with logic, is just tit for tat unproductivity.
My post here was advocating for a SEA CHANGE in focus by Rachel & gang.
Sorry Phx, I was just responding to RobDon.
@RobDon: "The Congress shall have Power To...provide...general Welfare of the United States."
If child labor is against the general Welfare of the United States, then it is an implied power of the Congress to ban it. The language of the 10th Amendment does not revoke that power.
Q.E.D.
Full Clause:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"
You stated:
Never minding the violence implied in your analogy, you seem to be saying that you wanted more challenging of what this posting purports to do, challenge the "logical extreme."
You also said:
I was giving you mine. Sometimes the positions Ms. Maddow/TRMS challenges are not held by anyone (or a minuscule few).
The title of this post states:
No one is saying child labor can't be outlawed, Sen. Lee goes on to say that it eventually was (although the post title would have you believe otherwise) The example was being used to illustrate that the federal government has limitation. Although a poor choice of examples because this specific one was later overruled.
So, that is why I tagged your post. I do not believe your idea is a good one. Feel free to disagree.
Rob, we're speaking different languages.
The set of mega trillion dollar questions I posed up atop here are, I believe, very educational as to the direction WE THE VOTERS have taken our own country. And important point, I believe they all lead back to Reagan, Reaganomics, Voodoo Economics as coined by Bush Sr himself, Nixon's defaulting on American obligation under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the rest of the world via trade thus leading to massive borrowed prosperity via cheap imported goods and the displacement of American factories & jobs overseas that had a great deal in turning America being the greatest creditor nation in the world to the largest debtor nation in the world within a single presidental term via the explosion in the TWIN DEFICITS of trade and fiscal budgets under Reagan and The Conservative Revolution, with their Starve the Beast policy strategies and charge-it & forget-it conservative paynot values.
Rachel could spend the next 6 years INFORMING the public, we the voters, of OUR OWN GOD AWFUL piss poor ballot box management skills and win millions of conservative voters over with her style and FACTUAL information, every night, a segment a night, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, for 6 years, until we collectively get our heads around the mess WE have created. Conservatives WILL listen to Rachel, they can stomach her. Slowly, progressives AND conservatives might be tuning in by the millions & millions. It will take nothing short of GREAT journalistic effort. Forget idiotic leadership!!!!!!! We the voters are what count and we are a sorry ass bunch of voters, meaning the collective USA.
Educate us on our paths we chose, and then ENDORSED via landslide reelection victories for Reaganomics, GW Bush, etc. I've scratch the surface here. There's enough material for 6 years for Rachel on REVISITING OUR PAST if we are to find a better path forward. Mutual rock throwing via Fox/msnbc means/mediums is so friggin unproductive. What's at stake? OUR COUNTRY & FUTURE.
DQ, chime in here. One argument alone will only drown a sorry ass death.
And of course GW Bush trying to outdo Reagan the Model, himself.
Okay.
I suspect part of the problem is just narrative. You mention Reagan. So far as I'm concerned the man was a meat puppet for all of the business and religious interests pulling his strings. But the man knew how to work a narrative. Nearly all of his policies have proven to be disastrously wrong-headed...his adventures in Central America, selling weapons to the very people who held Americans hostage, the expendability of vast swaths of the American public - the Welfare Queen scape-goat, staffing agencies charged with civil rights oversight with people who were opposed to such agencies and initiatives on principle, shredding the social safety net, his attack on a decade of progressive public education reform, operating on the premise that AIDS was God's Final Solution against homosexuals, does anyone remember when he fired all of those members of the Air Traffic Controllers Union? - not to mention all manner of deregulation which brought us the joys of Acid Rain. Among others.
People, generations later are still absolutely in love with Reagan and the narrative he brought...saying for instance that you can never have too many nuclear weapons, that America was locked in a battle against evil, and as James Watts declared "This will be the generation that faces Armeggedon." Spelled out like that, if there is no tomorrow for our children, what the point of Conservationism now?
Thanks to their bang up job and the model they have provided there is less of a future everyday even though tomorrow came and went a long time ago.
The only way to turn the narrative on its head is for it to fail beyond all argument. Had Obama not wrested the steering wheel of the economy out of its course into the Abyss, no-one would have been able to argue whether or not the nation was headed in wrong direction. But he did, and yes, they argue. Not to sound defeatist - but if, instead of arguing with the maniacs who think that no game of chicken is complete until at least one car is engulfed in a roaring fireball (having watched Rebel Without a Cause and totally misunderstood it) - we let nature take its course and concern ourselves with what's next. What actually WILL work.
Remeber that the country was in great shape because of the hard work of President Clinton, and they IMPEACHED his ass. Its the same old song, just a new verse.
Now, on the subject of Child Labor Laws...Mike Lee is a jackass. Even an anarchist can cite the Constitution...which more and more seems to be the case. The evils of Americans buying products made by children in sweatshop conditions...which as often as not comes to our shores dripping with the blood of those who made it (witness the GAP fire) makes us accessories to those crimes. We've not forgetten you Kathie Lee Gifford. If these products were made here in America, we could rest easy knowing that not only would these products be more clean morally, but every product sold would be one stitch by which the fabric of America would be made stronger.
The failing of our education system is painfully obvious.
Okay, this is stupid. Why are we worrying over a long established law that has worked far more good than ill in the world, (ending child labor in America) when unemployment is still so high?
This law is established. The time to squabble over it is dead and gone. Move on to something that is relevant today, Senator Lee. Talking about this is only going to make you into the softest target that ever there was for re-election. Child labor is bad, the federal government stepped in to stop it, and I know you hate the federal government, (which is ironic considering your job position) but this was a good thing they did. You aren't going to win this argument, and this is not the issue that your constituents sent you to Washington to debate. I believe the main items during the election were as follows: jobs (for adults, not children), economy, health care, the war.
If he continues to say stupid things like this, even a democrat, who by definition are terrible campaigners, should be able to win the next election. Child labor? That's what you want to argue about? Really?
I think the reason why we should worry about this sort of thing is that this is among the things that the far-right of the American political spectrum has never, ever reconciled itself to; and now the far-right is becoming mainstream.
Things that seem settled can become unsettled. That's how it works for social progress. Once upon a time child labor was simply normal. It was considered extreme and unrealistic to suggest it could be abolished. Take Karl Marx, for instance. In his Critique of the Gotha Program, Marx wrote that "A general prohibition of child labour is incompatible with the existence of large-scale industry and hence an empty, pious wish." He went on to write in favor of just regulating child labor. And, remember, this is Karl-frakking-Marx we're talking about here. The father of socialism said that prohibiting child labor was "an empty, pious wish." And yet, after decades of relentless pressure from the left, social and political attitudes changed and what Marx thought was impossible came to pass. At least, in the Western world.
The same mechanism of relentlessly pushing for an idea, no matter how radical, could just as easily work for reactionaries like those controlling today's GOP. I can easily imagine the process which resulted in the prohibition of child labor in the United States being reversed; but only if relentless pressure is exerted to prevent going backwards.
These people are dangerous. We shouldn't magnify them but we do need to actively fight against them or we risk losing the ground already gained.
See, I guess I'm just not that much of a doom-sayer. Now, would I ever vote for this guy? No. But not because I think he's a child labor advocate who is going to try to get child labor re-instated. Child labor is not going to be reversed in America. What I heard him arguing for was that the federal government shouldn't have stepped in to stop it, that rather, it was a states issue. This guy was arguing state rights, not child labor. He was an idiot to pick child labor as the platform with which to talk about it, he should have known how that would appear to people, but I really don't think he's advocating child labor.
My personal position on it is that some things are big enough and bad enough that the federal government needs to stop them. This guy probably feels that Civil Rights shouldn't have been backed by the federal government either, but I don't think he's racist. He's just a radical state's rights advocate, which in my opinion makes him unqualified for federal office, but apparently his state didn't feel that way.
I'm not saying that child labor is likely to be re-introduced, either. But I am saying that achieved gains still have to be defended because the overturning of accepted wisdom could go either way. There are people from the right--complete reactionaries in some cases--being elected to public office these days that would never gotten past a primary election 30 years ago. That, to my mind, proves the hypothesis. So although I wouldn't want to promote them by exaggerating the danger these people represent, I don't want to minimize it either merely because they are buffoons who don't actually understand the rubbish they're saying.
Alright, I'll buy that. Good point.
it's about time that two-year old start earning his way. Now, if we could only go back to the 19th century.
I'm ten years old and haven't yet proved me worth for me family...perhaps a year down the ol' col' mine will suffic'...can't dare ask for better...bin' a doctor 'n all, likes I plan...it aint jus' fantsy' t' me fantasies!!!
Back to the workhouse with ye, young ragamuffin!
Bullocks!
It's "bollocks" actually. Very different meanings between those two words. In most of the English-speaking world, what you named is lacking what I named. ;)
Oh really? lmao I didn't know ;-)
The coal mines? Selling yourself short, aren't you?
And just a year? Poppycock!
Ten years old? You'll work nicely with the
group of chimney cleaners. Sure, you'll
fill your lungs with soot, but you have to
earn yourself an education.
Watch out GlassAgate, you might be giving the reichwing some ideas.
Conservatives who think the Constitution demands "small government" hasn't read Article 1, section 9 of the US Constitution. They think Congress isn't allowed to do anything beyond the powers enumerated in section 8, but section 9 gives the sole list of what Congress can't do. If the Founders intended there to be "small government" then why didn't they say, "Beyond the powers vested in Section 8, Congress can do nothing more"?
Furthermore, they like to hoo and haw about the 10th Amendment, but I wonder how many of them have ever read the 9th Amendment? It states:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
This is in line with enlightenment thinkers who, like Rousseau, believed that "the natural state of man" is to live in complete freedom. We have the natural right to do literally EVERYTHING, and the people institute government for the purpose of limited a certain number of rights (such as the right to murder, steal, etc) for our mutual benefit.
It is for this reason, that Hamilton in Federalist 84 noted that "I...affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous." Dangerous because it may be interpreted that the rights laid out in the Bill of Rights may be the only rights Americans have. Thus, the reason why we have the 9th amendment.
Our elected representatives are a representation of the expressed will of the People. If the People want a law for anything, it is their right to demand it. The only limitation is if it violates the rights of others, and that limitation only exists within the confines of Congress.
"Limited government" in the constitutional sense means limited to the rule of law, as opposed to the unlimited powers of a nobility that rules by divine right.
"Small government" is a fabrication by Republican criminals who want to deregulate white-collar crime. Let's deregulate workplace safety laws. Let's deregulate pensions and Social Security. Let's deregulate union rights. Let's deregulate financial service laws. Let's deregulate international trade so capitalists can enrich themselves at the expense of American workers. Watch Republicans deregulate entitlements for everyone but themselves. Watch Republicans get all scaredy about thugs climbing through their windows while they rob the national treasury of trillions.
That, Covah, is precisely the idea. And it is horrifically effective. Republicans love their "teflon Presidents."
Um, perhaps this is one of those conversations that should
have taken place at 2 AM, between college students, discussing
things in a purely hypothetical situation?
If this guy is actually wanting to weaken or abolish federal
laws, outlawing child labor, I'm guessing that if you were
to do some digging, that the homeschooling extremists
are the ones pushing it. From my limited experience around
moderate homeschooling types, and reading more radical
diatribes from the net, that is where I'd start looking.
Perhaps he's getting a lot of money from those groups?
In the 1930s Stalin straved Ukrainians because they resisted collectivization, causing the deaths of millions. He did so in the name of self-serving, arbitrary ideology.
At the same time Republican Supreme Court justices were striking down Roosevelt's New Deal programs, causing suffering to millions of Americans. The justices did so in the name of self-serving, arbitrary ideology.
Even today Republicans intend to destroy this nation in the name of self-serving, ideological purity. The question arises: which comes first, the desire to destroy the nation or the lust for ideological purity? In the case of Republicans the evidence is clear- they wish to destroy the nation and use ideological purity as an excuse.
Republicans have no use for ideological purity. They proclaim adherence to the Founders' original intent then ignore that intent when it does not conform to their agenda, cherry-picking the Federalist Papers or private correspondence when the Constitution does not say want they want it to say. They deliberately misinterpret and misquote constitutional language, particularly the Second Amendment. They use Revolutionary War rhetoric against the Constitution the revolutionaries founded. They claim the federal government itself is unconstitutional and advocate the "Enumerated Powers" then deny those same powers.
As I'd said elsewhere, even an anarchist can cite the Constitution.
Correct me if I'm wrong, or did he call Hoover a progressive president? I understand that he wasn't compared to FDR but, really? Hoover?
These guys are absurd. This let states do all their own laws looks like a step towards bringing back slavery and the civil war. I mean, really????? The example of child labor is one that could be interpreted as something that shows that there are things that can be national law without harmful effect. NO harm, no fowl. The only people an amendment like this harms regardless of what state are those who profit from child labor. RIDICULOUS rhetoric.
All this founding father constitution stuff is out of hand, could the founding fathers conceived of in their writing of the constitution the following: electricity, telegraph, telephone, radio, tv, personal computers, internet, aircraft, airlines, automatic weapons, nukes, oil, automobiles, space flight, etc.
Lets go back to the good old days of slavery, child labor, no voting for blacks or women, no fda, no national parks, no epa ( I wonder what Los Angeles air would be like now...)etc...
These nuts are really trying to turn the clock back. Some even want congressmen to carry firearms in congress!!!!!!!!!!
It is amazing what having a black president elected has brought out of the woodwork, and it ain't pretty.
The failing of our education system is painfully obvious.
Bob: I'm surprised that some conservative hasn't resurrected the old slogan ""fair day's wage for a fair day's work", once used to justify starvation wages.
It is a mark of the MSM's failure that they almost entirely refuse to acknowledge the racial animosities motivating the "Tea Party".
Fortunately the racial animosities are obvious without the MSM, very many signs where not hiding the fact. But let there be no doubt that it's not only the tea party, there are surely some that are not tea party.