Anything touching the internet is interstate commerce, so in this non-lawyer’s opinion, state laws aren't the last say on the matter. It would be very difficult for any state to block a citizen from saying something online that is legal federally.
>Why are we using a 200+ year old document that represented the preferences of maybe 20% of the country to regulate the internet?
Because it and following interpretation provides the boundaries for law in the US.
And comparing it to a fetish, or labeling it a 200 year old document, when is has been changed since then (last amended in 1992, still has multiple amendments pending, and can be changed again) is also absurd.
The amendment that was ratified in 1992 was proposed in the 1700s.
The amendment prior to that was from 1971, over fifty years ago. We're rapidly approaching the point where we can say the constitution hasn't been updated with new ideas in generations.
The world today is wildly different from the world of the 1970s, and yet we've made no changes to the constitution. We used to update it every decade (at least). Something has changed, culturally, that makes it harder to change.
>The world today is wildly different from the world of the 1970s, and yet we've made no changes to the constitution.
No, it isn't. I'm pretty sure the Bill of Rights is still a pretty good set of basic rights. Would you be willing to roll the dice on throwing a random out to get a new one? That is what can easily happen when you make changing it easy enough to be done quickly.
Also, why would you want to change the root of all laws at any crazy rate? There is a reason Congress makes new laws, and states make new laws, every single year. You should not need to make drastic changes to the base legal framework just because someone invented an internet - you should be able to apply current legal frameworks, and if that is not enough, make small changes to address such changes. Even small legal changes at the Federal and local levels have significant cost to make needed changes throughout society. Now allow tinkerers to make constitutional changes willy nilly, and guess what the cost will be.
Or do you think it would be better for short-lived political trends to simply rewrite major sections of the Constitution every few years? That seems like an absolutely terrible way to plan a stable society.
>We used to update it every decade (at least). Something has changed, culturally,
Conversely, maybe the overall framework is pretty good, despite each subgroup not getting their way, so it doesn't need changed to add amendments for every tiny whim.
If you believe the world of today isn't materially different from the 70s, I don't know that we're going to agree on much.
On social issues, you could be arrested for being gay. You could legally be denied housing loans based on your race. It was considered impossible to rape your spouse. I could continue this paragraph, but the point is we're fundamentally different with our understanding of humanity on a social level.
On a technological level, what we have today is unthinkable to someone in the seventies. The internet, cell phones, personal computers, autonomous vehicles and drones, machine learning, predictive policing... All these things have major impacts on our way of life.
The world has changed too. Militarily, economically, socially, religiously, politically, etc.
>On social issues, you could be arrested for being gay. You could legally be denied housing loans based on your race. It was considered impossible to rape your spouse. I could continue this paragraph
Yet all of those were given protection based on Constitutional arguments, right? With no change needed to specifically add a new tiny rule to the Constitution for each single change in societal beliefs, right?
>If you believe the world of today isn't materially different from the 70s
People still work, buy houses, live by most of the same desires, needs, goals, interactions. Contract law is still useful. The Bill of Rights is still pretty useful.
In fact, I'd expect the vast majority of concepts in US law from the 1970s are still useful today. I think you overestimate the need to legislate every change in technology more than any country does.
>the point is we're fundamentally different with our understanding of humanity on a social level
I seriously doubt that. Not a single issue you raised was not an issue in the 70s with a significant amount of people working on those issues. And fundamentally changed would mean things considered part of humanity in the 1970s are now gone, which I don't think is true at all. At best we've added some features and beliefs we now think are better. But we still care about people, about life, about dreams, about relationships, about dreams, about love, and death, and right to pursue happiness, and on and on.
If your system of laws is so weak as to been updating at a Constitutional level because someone invented a drone, then that system is fundamentally flawed, because it will break and never be able to be applied to life in any reasonable way. A good system has at a Constitutional level high level concepts that provide guidelines and boundaries that are refined by local, easier to change, and less system-breaking laws. That is the one we have.
Didn’t Thomas Jefferson advocate to throw out the constituion every 20 years and rewrite it to reflect the current generation? How do you think about his position, seems like at least one person thought it would be good to re randomize…
It sounds like an absolutely terrible idea. How could you possibly plan for any future with that much constant upheaval? Businesses couldn't function, since contracts across complete rewrites would not work. You may not own any of your property across a rewrite. Maybe things you did today become felonies tomorrow, and you get jailed, buy then maybe get freed in the next rewrite....
Having stable long term laws is a pre-requisite for any modern economy to function.
It is hardly absurd to point out that the rules used in a formal system are leading to absurd, bad, broken results.
And people do fetishize the 200 year old document. (At least, the parts they like.) You see it all the time, and saying otherwise is also form of fetish or worship.
Because it’s worked. The alternative, opening up the entire system of government for debate, simultaneously, continuously, predictably tears itself apart in a generation. (That or you wind up with an unwritten Constitution only the elites can decipher.) The Constitution isn’t sacred. But it’s far from worthless as a basis of our society.
Most modern, developed nations regularly update their constitutions. The US is somewhat anomalous in holding on to an ancient document and considering it sacred.
>The US is somewhat anomalous in holding on to an ancient document and considering it sacred.
The Constitution was amended 12 times in the 1900s, the last being 1992. There are still multiple pending amendments.
And, as a Union of States, each also with constitutions and amendments, how do you treat the overall legal entity? Most developed nations are about the size of a US state - and some are slowly banding into larger groups like the EU.
So how is this anomalous? Do you have some list of developed nations rate of constitution updates? Are any of the structure like the US as a union of semi-autonomous states?
It's missing state constitutions. The US is a United States of America - a union of semi-autonomous states.
Picking only a high level misses that there are higher levels (such as world treaties and laws we are entered into) and ignores that the US is a conglomeration. When you'd pick Germany, but ignore EU rules, it's somewhat like picking Texas, and ignoring US.
It seems you're not really comparing frameworks very well.
To listen to conservatives, we spent most of the 20th century creating violation after violation of the constitution. If they're correct, then to me that means that the constitution hasn't worked in about a century.
> to me that means that the constitution hasn't worked in about a century
The century that saw America exit WWII and the Cold War victorious while navigating a civil rights revolution? All amidst a series of peaceful transitions of powers, including the removal of a corrupt executive?
I believe a conservative would say those ends don't justify the constitutional defying means that we used to achieve them. I mean, they wouldn't say that because it sounds crazy, but if you piece together what they say about the constitution, that's the message that comes through to me.
This is separate from the question of whether the Constitution worked. It did. It produced a stable, powerful society. That some people are dissatisfied doesn’t refute that track record. It just points out there are dimensions on which it failed some.
My understanding is that conservative do not believe the constitution worked; they believe that the original intent is no longer honored and they have set about a legal project to correct that wrong which is now well in control of the court system and get back to the original intent of the constitution (the original intent being what they derive it to be from their readings of history and the text itself).
That those people who are dissatisfied with that track record are now in control of the judicial branch of the US government doesn't refute that track record, I agree, but it does suggest that we are probably on a different track now, no?
> it does suggest that we are probably on a different track now, no?
Possibly. Let’s see what happens. The limited claim was that the Constitution worked over the past century. Saying some people are unhappy about the particular way it worked doesn’t detract from the fact itself.
How do you separate out the confounders in this argument, like ww2 destroying Europe, or the natural resources available in N America?
Other countries have been very successful with other forms on basic documents. The American success may have been more successful with a document written to reflect a society without slaves, where you can travel across multiple state borders within a day, etc.
I mean, it’s a fine document and all, but can we please stop asserting without strong evidence that it’s the best ever or that it is the driving force of American success? That’s what I mean by fetishizing.
The way you worded that somehow makes me think you aren't talking about the OPEC+ deal from 2020 that drastically reduced oil supply. Because strangely, not a coincidence, domestic production has been up since that deal expired.
I don't disagree that oil prices drive inflation since almost everything needs transportation, especially in the US where even domestic goods have to travel huge distances. But a "war on domestic production" is not evidence based.
Closest thing that could be serious considered a war was OPEC+, which I understand why Trump did it, prices were plummeting and we wouldn't want the entire sector to crash.
"Cheap energy" is not the boon you think it is. You have to consider other factors - deregulating the food industry and getting rid of the FDA would save millions of taxpayer's money, would lower prices of the supply chain and let consumers pay significantly less for food, yet would have drastic side effects. Cheap energy that requires deregulation, more alarming and precarious climate effects, etc might not be a net positive.
Likewise, "not starting any new wars" can be perceived as bowing to foreign nations by anyone who wants to frame it negatively, or vice versa as an amazing success for diplomacy.
Hey, I agree with you there, but my point is that any aspect of politics can (and will) be reframed by both sides to support their preconceived beliefs.
I've edited my comment to speak in a more neutral political tone.
I'm not sure what you're referring to. I said that in any political situation, people tend to posit the evidence to support their own beliefs. It sounds like you're referring to false balance [0]. But that's not what I'm doing at all - I'm not posing any political beliefs as equally valid, I'm stating that everyone will change the parameters of an argument in order to solidify their beliefs.
Go to the gas station and tell the struggling families how good for the environment it is that they have to choose between essentials and going to work.
The current high gasoline prices have little to do with environmental regulation. They are up because the global price for crude oil is way up, due to production cuts that had nothing to do with environmental factors couple with a sharp increase in demand due to recovery from the pandemic.
First, in 2020 the US told Saudi Arabia that the US might cut weapons sales and military aid if the didn't cut production. In response to that OPEC agreed to a big cut production for 2 years.
Second, Russia invaded Ukraine which led to more disruptions in the global oil market.
Some like to try to blame it on the current US administration cancelling sales of new oil leases on Federal lands, but the oil companies already have a ton of existing oil leases on Federal lands that they can put into production but are choosing not to. They aren't choosing to because they know that the aforementioned reasons for the current high prices are temporary and putting those leases into production would just lead to a glut later and low prices, making it unlikely they would come out net positive on those leases.
I've also heard some try to blame it on cancelling Keystone XL, but Keystone XL would not have increased supply. It would have just made it cheaper for some Canadian producers to get their oil to refineries. Because the oil market is a global market, costs rising or falling for those Canadian produces wouldn't have a measurable affect on the market price of oil. It just would affect how much profit those producers could make on their oil.
To so called "war on oil" that people have been accusing anyone who tries to promote clean energy of since Obama was elected, if it even exists, is about the least effective war in the history of wars on things, as any examination of global oil production by year will show.
Yeah, that sucks. We've gotten ourselves into a bad situation where we're still dependent on a horrible form of energy for common needs. That doesn't change the fact that every gallon of gas we burn screws up the entire planet just a little bit more.
If anyone made a mess it isn't the single mom trying to feed her kids, she shouldn't be the one who is punished.
How about huge tax on international travel? On the order of say 500%, make it totally unaffordable. A trip to Europe produces far more carbon than a few years worth of trips to the grocery store and isn't at all necessary.
I mean, that seems like peak Big Government Overreach, but to each their own. Alternatively, people could quit buying wholly inappropriate vehicles. If your job requires you to carry lots of cargo around, then a pickup makes a lot of sense. If you drive a spotless Ram 2500 that never leaves the suburb, then I don't want to hear a damn thing about the price of gasoline.
And even if you personally don't drive an idiotically wasteful vehicle, a huge portion of Americans do, and their gas guzzlers drive up demand for the same fuel that you and I want to purchase, causing its price to skyrocket.
We don't all need to be driving something like a Nissan Versa, but a lot of people whose real requirements would be met perfectly by something like that are driving Yukons and whining about gas prices.
I haven't gone on a distant vacation in many years, so not I'm not sure why you're bringing that up. But yes, a suburban-dwelling, daily commuter Expedition is absolutely a recreational choice, and an irresponsible one at that.
If you really think the war on fossil fuels in the West is in the citizen's best interests, you are delusional.
In the West everything is a scam. Our health system is a scam, the military industrial complex is a scam, our education system is a scam, our currency is a scam, our media is a scam, the president is a scam. What makes you think that ANYTHING going on in the West ISN'T a scam?
Trump is a troll, but when he was president, he did his job like all presidents before him.
I actually don't think the US president has that much power in practice. After considering the constitution, expert studies, standard procedures, state finances, and public opinion, for most decisions, the president doesn't have much choice. He will however choose how it is presented: make a show out of it or do it discreetly, take full credit or present it as somewhat forced, present a different aspect of it, etc...
In big democracies, heads of state are mostly the face of the country, but most work happen behind the scenes. Even in less democratic major countries (Russia, China,...) there is a limit on what the ruler can do. And if you are asking, I don't think that the Ukraine war is Putin's war, he played a role, but I think it is the almost unavoidable result of decades of tension and complex politics between Russia and the West.
That has nothing on Al Gore, who invented the internet! And in much the same way as any other president doing something popular and uncontroversial: it would've happened almost no matter who was at the top.
(Point is, most legislation and XOs are largely bipartisan. Policy is driven much more by the machinations of hundreds of thousands of faceless/nameless actors than by the guy at the top. In both good ways and bad. The same is true in companies. The genius of leaders is mostly in their salesmanship.)
