The Political & Philosophy Thread

[Elric of Melniboné]

The Fourteenth Amendment says that people shall have the right to marry. The Supreme Court is endowed to make declarations on how legal documents, including the Constitution, are interpreted. They made a ruling on a case that fell within their jurisdiction on how to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment.

Again, this is literally what happened and was within their legal boundaries to do.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

Looking to the first section of the amendment in question it does appear you're right, seeing as marriage does fall under "privileges". I'd forgotten it was "rights and privileges", and not simply rights. This being so, pardon me, you're correct, that does render their actions constitutional. The real quandary begins in terms of state marriages and religious marriages. This being said however, I still disagree with marriage of any kind being federally guided, for obvious reasons, mainly, it's not some suit in Washington's business who anyone marries as long as it's not a sex crime of sorts.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

Oop, I removed part of this post when I read your reply a second time.

The Supreme Court is endowed with the ability to interpret legal documents and make rulings that may cause extant laws to be considered unconstitutional, provided that the law they are interpreting applies to a case that is within their jurisdiction, which is what they did in this instance.

They have invoked this authority countless times during our history and there is nothing about this one instance that makes it drastically different from a legal perspective.

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/obergefell-v-hodges/

This is the case in question and you can see that the ruling is what rendered those laws unconstitutional.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

Oop, I removed part of this post when I read your reply a second time.

The Supreme Court is endowed with the ability to interpret legal documents and make rulings that may cause extant laws to be considered unconstitutional, provided that the law they are interpreting applies to a case that is within their jurisdiction, which is what they did in this instance.

They have invoked this authority countless times during our history and there is nothing about this one instance that makes it drastically different from a legal perspective.

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/obergefell-v-hodges/

This is the case in question and you can see that the ruling is what rendered those laws unconstitutional.

I'm aware of this, no quarrel here.

 

[Talos of Atmora]

I think their interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment regarding gay marriage was fine because giving gay people the right to marry shouldn't be a state's rights issue. At all. There is no real reason why individual states should be making this specific decision.

 

[Dak]

There is no real reason why individual ___________ should be making this specific decision.

You could fill in the blank here with anything and no more or less correct.

 

[Einherjar86]

@Einherjar86

You've said on multiple occasions and with more recent frequency you think the Constitution needs reworking. I don't necessarily disagree but at the same time I'm not sure how it could be clearly/certainly improved. Do you have particular areas you think need scrapping? Does the entire thing need to be more or less scrapped for a new construct? Or do you think changes needed are more on the level of "tweaks"?

You know what I think would be a great change? An addition at the head of the document that says: This document is a cultural artifact, and subject to change according to the political, economic, and technological developments that transform the relations between citizens.

I don't have any specific suggestions for changes, or specifics as to how changes would be made. But honestly, even if no changes were made, I would still feel better if it sported that disclaimer. My reservations toward it are generally directed at appeals to the Constitution as a mythic text, meaning I'm as skeptical of people's perspectives on the Constitution as I am of its content.

 

[Dak]

You know what I think would be a great change? An addition at the head of the document that says: This document is a cultural artifact, and subject to change according to the political, economic, and technological developments that transform the relations between citizens.

I don't have any specific suggestions for changes, or specifics as to how changes would be made. But honestly, even if no changes were made, I would still feel better if it sported that disclaimer. My reservations toward it are generally directed at appeals to the Constitution as a mythic text, meaning I'm as skeptical of people's perspectives on the Constitution as I am of its content.

Well I'm irritated by people who revere the Constitution but don't know the difference between it and the Declaration of Independence. It is more than a cultural artifact though, and the Constitution has been amended quite a few times (17), so it's not as though there's some precedence against changing it.

 

[Dak]

I don't get much of value from the Mises site anymore, butt I thought this article provided some nice clear visuals:

https://mises.org/blog/when-it-comes-household-income-sweden-and-germany-rank-kentucky

Beyond the point that McMaken makes is that if you look only at the chart of US states (Figure 2), there's a pretty stark divide between "blue" and "red" states in terms of income. The overwhelming majority of blue states have a median income above the national median, and almost all of the red/"battleground" states cluster below the national median. Taking a Marxist perspective, it would seem that it is the Democratic Party that is the party of the bourgeois, especially when education is factored in as well:

http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/a-deep-dive-into-party-affiliation/

Democrats lead by 22 points (57%-35%) in leaned party identification among adults with post-graduate degrees. The Democrats’ edge is narrower among those with college degrees or some post-graduate experience (49%-42%)

And where are those college degrees clustered? In those rich/blue states (the clustering of post secondary education maps on pretty well with the income rankings in the mises article):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_educational_attainment

Therefore, Trumpenproles are merely engaging in necessary revolutionary action that class warfare necessitates.

 

[Baroque]

I'm just going to leave this here

http://53eig.ht/HackingScience

 

[Dak]

I'm just going to leave this here

http://53eig.ht/HackingScience

Indeed, when Simonsohn analyzed the distribution of p-values in published psychology papers, he found that they were suspiciously concentrated around 0.05.

I'm sure there's p-hacking going on, but some of this is a result of the "file-drawer problem". Non-significant results are less likely to get published.

 

[Einherjar86]

I don't get much of value from the Mises site anymore, butt I thought this article provided some nice clear visuals:

https://mises.org/blog/when-it-comes-household-income-sweden-and-germany-rank-kentucky

Beyond the point that McMaken makes is that if you look only at the chart of US states (Figure 2), there's a pretty stark divide between "blue" and "red" states in terms of income. The overwhelming majority of blue states have a median income above the national median, and almost all of the red/"battleground" states cluster below the national median. Taking a Marxist perspective, it would seem that it is the Democratic Party that is the party of the bourgeois, especially when education is factored in as well:

...

Therefore, Trumpenproles are merely engaging in necessary revolutionary action that class warfare necessitates.

It's fun to see the guys over at Mises finally coming around to this, but academics have been writing about the contradictions of political ideology and class interests for decades, going back to Louis Althusser.

I feel like the author's impetus behind making this point lies in exposing a contradiction in the democratic party, and I completely agree that it's a bourgeois political party. But I don't think any committed Marxist would claim that the democratic party is a communist party; and I think that plenty of academics vote democrat because they don't self-identify as "Marxist."

 

[CiG]

The democratic party aren't self-identifying Marxists for the most part, but much of their platform is like Marx-lite.

 

[Einherjar86]

I know that policies like welfare and other kinds of federal support are often labeled "collectivist," but this is usually more for rhetorical effect and less for identifying something genuinely (or intellectually) communist about the democratic platform - much less Marxist.

The democratic party today is the Clinton party, and I mean that more in terms of Bill's legacy than Hillary's candidacy. The Democratic Party is a neoliberalist organization, a primarily globalist and resolutely capitalist initiative.

 

[CiG]

Capitalist in what sense that has any meaning? They like money? Like the republicans they're very much of the crony (corporatist) feather.

I would say that the democratic party is definitely entwined with a Marxist worldview, in that many things they support are based in that thought. You must have noticed that they've attached themselves to pretty much every modern identity politic there is?

 

[Einherjar86]

Capitalist in what sense that has any meaning? They like money? Like the republicans they're very much of the crony (corporatist) feather.

Capitalist in that they believe in markets comprised of private agents.

I would say that the democratic party is definitely entwined with a Marxist worldview, in that many things they support are based in that thought. You must have noticed that they've attached themselves to pretty much every modern identity politic there is?

Most committed Marxists are deeply opposed to identity politics.

 

[Dak]

The difference between theoretical Marxists and acting Marxists. Theoretical ones wait for the system to naturally implode and Communism is the natural result in the aftermath. Acting Communists act to implode it so they can insure themselves to be a little more equal than others in the aftermath.

 

[Dak]

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ails-show-who-runs-america-and-how-they-do-it

Class warfare.

 

[CiG]

Most committed Marxists are deeply opposed to identity politics.

Somehow I find that very, very hard to believe. Also, "most" must consist of about 7 people because how many committed Marxists really are there?

 

[Einherjar86]

Somehow I find that very, very hard to believe. Also, "most" must consist of about 7 people because how many committed Marxists really are there?

It isn't a matter of belief. Marxism and identity politics are methodologically contradictory. Marxist politics don't target marginalization based on identity, and identity politics don't target class inequality.

Recent theorists who propose a kind of Marxist identity politics practice a brand of intersectionality that's still fairly controversial.