Nancy Pelosi Perverts The Constitution
Nancy Pelousy is on quite the roll the past few days. Yesterday she mustered up her best Orwellian newspeak to claim that letting the Bush tax cuts expire wasn’t a tax increase.
Ah, yes. It’s not a tax cut but ‘eliminating a tax decrease that was there.’ Mmmm….Okay!
Then, yesterday the Speakerette was asked by a CNS News reporter where in the Constitution the Congress had the power to force people to by health insurance. Here’s how that went down according to CNS News (h/t Gateway Pundit):
CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”
Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”
CNSNews.com: “Yes, yes I am.”
Pelosi then shook her head before taking a question from another reporter.
(Click here for the audio of this exchange)
Afterwards, Pelousy’s office justified the mandate by – what else – invoking the Interstate Commerce Clause; liberals’ favorite part of the constitution to pervert and abuse in their undying quest to expand the federal government.
Pelosi’s press secretary later responded to written follow-up questions from CNSNews.com by emailing CNSNews.com a press release on the “Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform,” that argues that Congress derives the authority to mandate that people purchase health insurance from its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.
Not too long ago, I posted regarding the constitutionality of healthcare. Embedded in that post was this quote form The Heritage Foundation on this very issue:
Lastly, proponents might argue that national health insurance is part of Congress power “to regulate commerce…among the several states.” While progressives have often used this clause to expand the federal government, it does not apply especially to the creation of a national health insurance, because to create and engage in commerce is not the same thing as regulating commerce among the several states.
Nobody during the framing generation expected the commerce clause to expand the federal government’s authority to anything relating to or resembling commerce. James Madison wrote that it is a power “which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained.” The clause was designed to prevent some states from taxing goods that passed through their boundaries as those goods proceeded to market.
In Mark Levin’s book, Men In Black (pp. 131), Mark also highlights how the commerce clause has been undermined by the Supreme Court and, in turn, used to expand government.
Under the Articles of Confederation, each state had been free to issue its own currency and set its own tariffs. The purpose of the commerce clause was to promote commerce and trade by breaking down these barriers. But over the years, the Supreme Court has adopted an expansive definition of ‘commerce’ to justify virtually unfettered federal intrusion into the conduct of state and local governments, and to defend the establishment of massive bureaucracies and their imposition of seemingly endless regulations on private enterprise. As a result, the government has become increasingly centralized, and the economy is lurching toward socialism.
In this sense, Pelousy’s views are just symptomatic of years of abuse and wrong-headed decisions. This is the logical end when the clear intent of the constitution has been tossed aside, its limits on federal power ignored and the rights of the individual have been disregarded. And that end result is essentially tyranny.
The Commerce Clause?????
In another words, Congress has the power to regulate all commercial activity because it is commerce?
Now I see why congress is so bad. They are not crooked. They just do not have common sense.
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:12 pmUnder current Supreme Court jurisprudence, Congress gets to regulate not just “interstate commerce” but also anything having a “substantial effect” on interstate commerce. The only justice on the current Court who has expressly rejected this line of precedent is Clarence Thomas, who is trying to spearhead a more correct understanding of the Commerce Clause.
Probably the most egregoius case in this line of precedent is the case of Wickard v. Filburn, a New Deal case decided in 1942. In that case, a farmer who grew wheat on his own land for his own private consumption and not for resale to anyone, interstate or otherwise, was fined for violating a New Deal regulatory quota on the amount of wheat a farmer could grow. When the farmer challenged the fine as violative of the Commerce Clause, the Court ruled 5-4 that there was a “substantial affect on interstate commerce,” because, for example, had the farmer not grown the wheat himself he could have purchased it from the national market.
Of course, under this theory almost anything has a “substantial affect” on interstate commerce. And that is how the Court decisions went, at least until the Lopez decision in 1995 which struck down portions of the Gun Free School Zones Act. Thomas wrote the concurrence in that case as well as in a few others (such as US v. Morrison, which struck down portions of the Violence Against Women Act) – but Thomas has yet to convince a majority of the Court to re-examine (i.e., overturn) some of the horrible precedent like Wickard v. Filburn.
The Wickard case is at the following link:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0317_0111_ZS.html
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:27 pmAlso, there is probably no constitutional authority for Congress to implement the Republicans’ biggest suggestion for health reform, which is to abrogate state tort law through medical malpractice reform and limitations on tort damage awards.
The Constitution is limited for Conservatives as much as it is for Liberals.
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:29 pmNancy Pelosi, The Squeaker of the House, not only perverts the Constitution, she perverts womankind!
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:01 pmEd,
I have long advocated for a panel of knowledgeable professionals to evaluate medical claims and offer a recommendation. I felt they would be best suited to determine if something was a minor error or gross negligence. I felt that this would diminish jury luck or the practice of shopping for a favorable court.
Do you believe it would be possible to enable tort reform by requiring such a panel?
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:32 pmEd,
How can you justify precedent (let the bad decision stand), when judges are making law rather than just applying it?
Why should anyone be bound by a system that destroys natural law (God’s law)and the average person cannot understand?
This is the heart of the problem.
You can justify anything with opinions. In terms of the Constitution, judges opinions are no more valid than mine. They make them so complicated that no one (little people like me) understands their illogic.
And we have to abide by a tyrannical system on the faith that they are doing the right thing?
The major problem with legislators is that they give too much weight to judges opinions. And that is how they justify their support of bills that destroy America.
This is how national death care will be shoved own our throats – against the will of people who need and want REAL health reform.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:12 pmDi Marco,
Tort reform is only a band aid. It will not solve the real problem. If there is a bad decision in a court case, even tort reform limits will not prevent an injustice.
When real justice takes place, there will be no need for tort reform. The truly guilty party should be required to pay the damages incurred. I base my analysis on the Bible and the Constitution and not on any judges opinions.
Instead of trying to temper the effect of injustice, we should concentrate on structuring a court system that is based on fairness and justice.
That is why we need a free market court system. When there is competition, there will also be competition for justice.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:21 pmPelosi supports the PERVERTS!
October 24th, 2009 at 2:46 amGreat post, Mike!
October 24th, 2009 at 4:09 amMike, it’s good that someone asked the bitch that question. I might add that the US Constitution provides ONLY for a limited government with limited prerogatives and a limited, clearly delineated set of issues to handle. It doesn’t authorize a Big Government regulating everything. And the Tenth Amendment clearly says that anything that is NOT expressly authorized to the Federal Government is FORBIDDEN to it. The Federal Government is legally authorized to handle only a few issues like defense and nothing else.
October 24th, 2009 at 5:57 am“How can you justify precedent (let the bad decision stand), when judges are making law rather than just applying it?”
He cannot justify a bad decision. If you make a mistake, the only solution is to correct that mistake – sooner rather than later (immediately, if you can).
When a court issues a scandalously wrong ruling (like Roe v. Wade and PP v. Casey), the stare decisis principle shall be discarded. The only solution to a bad ruling is to overturn it.
October 24th, 2009 at 6:00 amDi Marco:
I do not see any authority in the Constitution for the federal government to pre-empt the tort laws of all 50 states and displace with a new, one size fits all federal rule. Nor do I think that would be a good precedent to set.
With regard to your proposal to divest juries of the power to decide cases, I think your proposal would violate the Seventh Amendment’s guarantee of a jury trial in all civil cases.
I also do not generally see the value of creating a bureaucracy of elite, medical experts approved by the government as a way to solve this problem. Government elitism never works. I think the Framers were right about the value of having juries decide both civil and criminal cases – the real problem is the bad philosophy with which people are inculcated in the public schools.
In order to get jackpot jury awards under control we need to re-educate people about personal resposibility. Doctors are not guarantors/insurers of anyone’s health. Sometimes bad things happen, and while doctors do all that they can to help they cannot always overcome nature. Punishing them for trying not only does not help, but is a further injustice as well.
Also, the threshhold for what is a frivolous lawsuit is, in my opinion and experience as an attorney, too low. I think the general rule of having each person pay his own attorneys’ fees is actually a good idea – I should not have to pay for your choice of Cadillac lawyers in the event of an honest, genuine dispute that I happen to lose with you. But too many suits that are brought today survive a motion to dismiss simply because in an academic sense a cause of action is stated, even though there is absolutely no factual basis for it and therefore no chance for success absent a spin of the jackpot justice wheel.
I think states should reform tort law. And I think the following should be part of the reforms implemented:
1. A requirement that the complaint identify particular, specific facts that would justify the cause of action. Right now most causes of action (other than fraud) do not have a specific pleading requirement; mere general allegations of wrongdoing are all that are required.
2. Relatedly, states should modify their rules regarding motions to dismiss to mirror the US Supreme Court’s decision in Twombley that was issued in 2007. Under prior federal law, a complaint would survive a motion to dismiss if there were some hypothetical set of facts that could lead to a recovery; under the new federal standard, the complaint must allege facts that could plausibly lead to a recovery. This is similar to the previous proposal.
3. By requiring more specific pleading, pre-trial discovery can be significantly curtailed. There would no longer be a need open-ended discovery if the pleadings are required to be fact specific.
4. If these reforms are implemented, attorneys’ fees could be mandatory for a motion to dismiss (which is filed at the beginning of the case, not at the end of discovery which would be a summary judgment motion). Any person who filed a complaint withgout the facts to back it up should be required to pay for the defendant’s cost of filing a motion to dismiss. And a defendant who files a motion to dismiss where sufficient facts are pled should be required to pay the attorneys’ fees of the Plaintiff defending the motion.
5. The same rules of pleading should apply to answers, defenses and counterclaims filed by defendants. They should be required to set forth the same factual basis for their pleadings as plaintiffs are – and they should be subject to the same potential awards of attorneys’ fees if they file pleadings without a factual basis.
This list is not meant to be a final, comprehensive list for states to reform their tort laws, as I am doing it just off the top of my head. But I think these proposals would do much to reduce if not eliminate jackpot justice while not barring the courthouse doors to anyone with a legitimate claim – we must remember that one of the few legitimate functions of government is to provide law courts for the resolution of honest disputes between individuals.
October 24th, 2009 at 7:58 amGene:
I was not defending bad precedent. In fact, I wrote that Clarence Thomas is the only justice who is seeking to overrule bad precedent like Wickard v. Filburn and replace it with a more correct understanding of the Commerce Clause. I do not support the bad precedent of the Wickard v. Filburn cases, and I support Justice Thomas’ courageous stand to try to reverse not just the tide, but a tsunami.
I completely disagree with you about the need for a “free market” legal system. One of the fundamental purposes of a limited government is to provide a forum for the peaceful resolution of honest disputes.
To the extent that private individuals want to contract out their disputes to a private party, the current legal system already recognizes that right for the most part. Arbitration provisions in contracts are not only respected by courts, but favored – and the federal government as well as every state has an arbitration act. So to the extent that you want “choice” that option is already available.
But your proposal of a free market legal system unanchored to any fundamental law is a recipe for disaster. Would there be Sharia courts/governments? Would private courts ever have an obligation to apply Sharia law? If not, by what principles would you determine which contractual rights are respected and which are not?
That is why you need a constitution – to establish fundamental rules and to establish a judiciary that has objective rules of evidence and procedure for use in protecting INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS. That is the proper standard by which to judgea government – and it comes from a constitution, not from the terms of an insurance contract.
A completely private legal system is, literally, anarchy. It subsumes a belief in pacifism, in the sense that it assumes that if the “customers” of Government A do not recognize the power of Government B to adjudicate their dispute that there will be peaceful enforcement mechanisms agreed to in advance by the two “competing governments.” But given that the stock and trade of a government is *force* such a system will necessarily break down to might becoming right.
But even if somehow everyone and all governments could be convinced to law down their arms and become pacifists, there would still be honest disputes among them. By what standard would these pacifist governments decide to adjudicate such disputes? By something approaching what the Framers drafted in to the American constitutions (state and federal)? What if someone (say, a socialist) doesn’t “feel” like those principles are correct? Then what? And besides – even if you could get everyone to voluntarily agree to principles such as those that underlie the original basis of American law, you would simly be accomplishing by stealth what I advocate more openly: namely, that protection of individual rights is the purpose for which governments are established, and should be the guiding principle for the implementation of government policy.
October 24th, 2009 at 8:17 amGene and Zbigniew:
“How can you justify precedent (let the bad decision stand), when judges are making law rather than just applying it?”
1. It depends on the nature of the wrong ruling. If a ruling is fundamentally at odds with individual rights, then I think Zbigniew is correct that it should be overturned as quickly as possible. However, sometimes a “wrong” decision is a legitmate way of deciding a case that perhaps should have been decided differently.
For example, in Bush v. Gore, I think the Supreme Court came to the right conclusion that the procedure the Florida Supreme Court had approved was a farce that not only allowed for cheating and subjectivity, but invited it. Nonetheless, a reasonable argument can be made that even in regard to a federal election, it was up to the state of Florida to determine proper election procedures. I can see both sides of that argument – and I think that in such a case, even if the Court comes to a decision with which you disagree, there is a value to stare decisis and the stability/predictablity of the rule of law that warrants keeping that precedent in place even if you would have decided it differently.
2. As to Gene’s claim that judges are “making law,” the judiciary is far, far more likely to respect the Constitution today than the elected branches (see Pelosi’s quote that generated this post in the first place by Mike Proto). Whatever claims you have against the judiciary (and there are plenty that are valid), to indict the judiciary as acting beyond its constitutional role without even mentioning (let alone indicting more strongly) the elected brances is a gross, gross injustice.
As I have written several times recently on this blog, judges are frequently confronted with interpreting and applying extra-constitutional/unconstitutional laws enacted by the elected branches – and they are required to do so in an environment that says they are required to use judicial restraint to defer to the choices of the elected branches. When the elected branches put judges in impossible situations, it is beyond unfair to criticize judges for not being able to square that circle.
October 24th, 2009 at 9:04 amEd,
I am not looking for these panels to replace a jury. I am looking for these panels to possibly replace some of the “expert” witnesses that lawyers and the courts use. They would present their report to the judges and juries. I would think that this would go a long way towards a more fair outcome.
As for pre-empting the state laws. In some cases, I am almost embarrassed to say, the Commerce Clause would apply. Drugs and surgical devices and sold interstate. They could apply these panels in case that involve such interstate commerce. I would hope that it would prove to be a success and then the individual states would adopt similar reforms.
As for the aspect of a government bureaucracy, I would handle these panels similar to the way a jury is put together. There would be a number of experts representing different fields that would be randomly selected to review the case and present their recommendation to the jury.
“In order to get jackpot jury awards under control we need to re-educate people about personal resposibility.”
I agree. Unfortunately, a good lawyer can manipulate the hearts of a jury. I think it is important to recognize that difference in severity between a doctor leaving a sponge in a patient and a doctor that remove a healthy kidney instead of the diseased one forcing impacting patient for the rest of his/her life.
I agree with the concept of loser pays to avoid frivolous lawsuits and well as the other reforms you listed.
October 24th, 2009 at 9:04 amEd,
Free Market is not the same as anarchy. If it were not for free markets, America would not have gone from a land that lived like that ancients to super technology – the 5,000 year leap – in a few hundred years.
When I say that we must return to a free market in the legal trade, I am referring to the free market that we had right after the revolution. Since then, one private union – ABA – controls the legal trade.
We need to eliminate UPL laws to protect the public from the legal monopoly that has led to laws that have allowed the fake money empire to explode.
The Constitution should be the highest law of the land, not the courts.
Free markets do not lead to tyranny – they lead to freedom, wealth, health happiness, and a higher standard of living.
October 24th, 2009 at 10:45 amGene,
Free markets involve negotiation between the parties.
There should be no give and take when it comes to the law. It must be what it is.
Ed is right.
October 24th, 2009 at 11:54 am“There should be no give and take when it comes to the law. It must be what it is.
Ed is right.” DiMarco —
A message to DiMarco –
You are missing an important point. This monopolistic system is not designed to promote justice (see the book “Justice V. the law” ). Or take a course in basic litigation and you will see that justice is a byproduct, not a goal. Consequently, we do not get justice in many cases.
That point might be meaningless to those who want to maintain monopolistic control, but it results in legal abuse to a lot of people. There are many books written by former death row prisoners exposing this sham process due to overzealous plaintiffs.
By it’s very definition, the name of the current “adversary” system implies freedom to negotiate between the parties. Freedom is a necessary component of negotiation, otherwise there would be no point in the negotiation. When there is no freedom, what is the point of an adversary system?
There is no freedom to negotiate if you are required to start with assumptions that (1) judges opinions are gospel and (2)the monopoly designed litigation procedure promotes justice.
These assumptions would be OK with me if I got to choose the owner of the monopoly (me). By it’s very definition “monopoly” means that no one has control and it is running on it’s own gas.
Monopoly also implies no freedom, because control is taken out of the hands of the parties.
This problem with the monopoly is the basis of many groups springing up around the country to demand free competition in the legal industry.
The most notable is Bob Schultz’s petitions to Congress concerning the lack of Right to Redress – which is supposed to be guaranteed by the Supreme law of the land…..and it “ain’t” judges.
Gene
“Too big to fail, powerless to represent citizens”
October 24th, 2009 at 2:50 pm“I am not looking for these panels to replace a jury. I am looking for these panels to possibly replace some of the “expert” witnesses that lawyers and the courts use. They would present their report to the judges and juries. I would think that this would go a long way towards a more fair outcome.”
Who would appoint these panel members? Would they be government employees? I could already see liberals infesting and manipulating these panels for their own personal gain and to suit their agenda.
October 24th, 2009 at 2:54 pmMike,
This blog is too addicting – got to shut down this computer so that I can get back to work.
Anyway –
There is a movement in many States to empower a Citizen Grand Jury and also a Citizen Panel to oversee the court system.
You bring up a good point, though. How do we assure that these panels really represent Citizens and not just the current legal monopoly?
That brings us to another point.
If it were possible to empower panels that represent citizens, we would not need any more groups to oversee citizens, because citizens would have already chosen that representation in our current government.
This is a good subject for debate in some kind of civic class.
Thanks for the comment.
Gene
October 24th, 2009 at 3:12 pmMike,
Since you quoted me, I believe I should have the pleasure of answering.
Just like we now have a pool of citizens from which we select a jury, I believe we can have a pool of experts. The people considered experts could run the gamut from doctors and nurses to hospital administrators to academia to people in the medical insurance field to bio-chemists.
October 24th, 2009 at 8:01 pmGene:
Perhaps you need to define your terms. The difference between the free market and anarchy is a (limited) government that protects individual rights and imposed the rule of law on everyone within its jurisdiction.
What is a “free market?” Free of what? It is “free” of having physical force (including fraud) initiated against you.
Individual righrs can only be violated by the initiation of physical force (including fraud). Because human beings have free will, they always have the ability to initiate force against other people. That gives rise to the three proper functions of a limited government: the police, to protect men from domestic criminals; the military, to protect men from foreign invaders; and the law courts, to peacefully resolve honest disputes between men without the need of resorting to physical force.
As I mentioned earlier, the current legal system already allows – and indeed, even encourages – individuals to contract out their disputes to alternative dispute resolution. Why is that not enough “competition” for you? Can you state specifically what more you want?
“Competing legal systems” is the principle that defines the United Nations. It says that there is no system that is objectively better than any other, and men may adopt any legal system their whims desire. Sharia law is just as legitimate under this theory as liited government, free market capitalism.
But competing legal systems is not free market capitalism or free entreprise, both of which pre-suppose a legal system and a “rule of law” that protects individual rights, including property rights. You cannot even talk about free markets before there is a government properly limited that imposes the rule of law, regardless of whether any statist wants to accept it or not.
And why do you continue to ignore my invitation to condemn the elected branches for violating the constitution even more frequently, egregiously and audaciously than the judiciary? What exactly is the judiciary supposed to do when the elected branches act extra-constitutionally 99% of the time, and the judiciary is beaten over the head by both sides about how important it is to defer to the elected branches? However many bad decisions you can find from the judiciary, I can confidently say that they are far fewer in number than statements like the one from Nancy Pelosi that inspired this post from Mike Proto.
October 24th, 2009 at 9:52 pmDi Marco,
I think Mike Proto’s comment is correct. I don’t see how such government approved specialists would not quickly become captive industries, just as happens when a regulatory body oversees an industry.
But more fundamentally, I have no idea what you are proposing or how you foresee it working. At what point would these so-called elitists, I mean specialists, become involved in the legal process?
As for your embarrassment at invoking the Commerce Clause – with due respect, you should be!
Just because some input into a product was sold in interstate commerce does not mean that the entire chain is subject to regulation by Congress. The fact that drugs are manufactured and sold wholesale across state lines does not transform the presciption of a drug by a doctor to a patient into a transact in interstate commerce. Liewise with a medical device that a doctor uses as part of his intrastate treatment of a patient.
I will grant you though, that under currrent interpretations of the Commerce Clause, your plan would probably pass constitutional muster. But just about everything does these days. That is a reflection of the fact that the constitutional barriers have been breached and there are effectively no limits on federal power today – just watch Congress any time there is a problem, no matter how local, it is always taken for granted that Congress must do something.
October 24th, 2009 at 10:01 pmEd,
“However many bad decisions you can find from the judiciary, I can confidently say that they are far fewer in number than statements like the one from Nancy Pelosi that inspired this post from Mike Proto.”
I agree but one of the reasons that the courts have the reputation that they do is that their decisions are frequently the end of the line. With the emphasis on stare decisis, there is little hope of rectifying many bad decisions. With the elected branches, you can vote them out and change the law.
As for my panel of experts….their job would be their only qualification. They would replace the expert witnesses that each side currently brings into a dispute. They would provide a jury with their assessment of the situation. The jury would not need to sit through hours upon hours of conflicting technical jargon without having a clue.
The jury will still be able to weigh the other evidence as they do currently.
October 24th, 2009 at 10:39 pmbotox’s days as speaker are numbered
October 24th, 2009 at 11:04 pmDi Marco:
1. THere is no way the science would not be politicized under your proposal to replace private litigants’ experts with government approved experts. Just look at grant funding for the global climate change hoax. The only people certified to act as experts by the government would toe the government’s line in their policy positions the same way and for the same reasons that scientists on the government dole toe the government’s line on climate change issues. And if you say that you would literally open up these new “experts” to anyone in the field without any government certification, I don’t see how that would be different from the current system of expert witnesses, other than that the experts would be on the government dole rather than paid by the private litigants themselves.
2. With respect to the judiciary being the end of the line, that is true. But how much responsibility do Conservatives have for the judiciary’s timidity in striking down the extra-constitutional legislation passed by the elected branches? Conservstives hound the judiciary to not overrule the acts passed by their elected representatives – even though it is the judiciary’s most sacred responsibility to strike down acts of the elected branches that do not comport with the Constitution.
And just so that it is clear that I am not just blaming Conservatives, you should look back historically at FDR’s Court packing scheme and the 1936 election to see the Left’s complicity in the Court’s abdication of responsibility, too. The Supreme Court courageously struck down most of FDR’s agenda during his first term in 5-4 decisions. In response, FDR threatened to enlarge the Court with enough new justices so as to make the 9 then-current members of the Court irrelevant – and when FDR won a landslide victory in 1936, Justice Roberts suddenly switched his vote, supposedly to save the integrity of the Court from FDR’s court packing scheme. By 1938, the Court had begun the process of rubber stamping most acts of Congress – a position supported by many Conservatives today (I know not you) who oppose judicial review. (The Wickard v. Filburn case that I cited yesterday was decided in 1942). So both sides have played a critical role in pushing the judiciary to abdicate its most important responsibility.
Yes, it is true that we can vote out the elected branches. But the fact is that we don’t. This reflects that fact that the judiciary’s problems are largely a symptom of a much larger disease in our culture and body politic, and that the judiciary’s problems are not the cause of that disease.
The judiciary has to at least pay lip service to reason and justifying its actions. As Nancy Pelosi’s quote here shows, the elected branches are completely detached from either requirement.
There are no shortcuts to healing and fixing the culture. We have a lot of work to do, and it will not be complete in one or two election cycles. The problem is that most people are confused about what liberty and freedom mean, and what their implications are. When you look at the resistance we get from the RINOs in our own party to advocating liberty and freedom, that should give you an idea of just how hard it will be to win this argument more widely in the culture. That is one reason why it is more important right now to defeat RINOs than it is to defeat the Left: the RINOs stand culturally for giving people the Left’s agenda by stealth, i.e., without being honest about it. When given a straightforward, honest choice between liberty and socialism, the American people have in the past and at least for the foreseeable future will likely continue to choose liberty: but RINOs stand for taking that choice away from Americans and merely giving them a choice of socialist masters to follow. That’s why it is much more important to defeat them than it is to defeat the Left right now.
October 25th, 2009 at 7:32 amEd,
Again, I will repeat. There are no “government approved experts”, just like there are no “government approved” juries today.
October 25th, 2009 at 7:45 amOk..so then how is your proposal different from the current system of expert witnesses? I’m not criticizing – I really do not understand.
October 25th, 2009 at 8:11 amThe people evaluating the technicalities will have knowledge of what they are presented.
I frankly do not believe that most people that serve on a jury has the background to evaluate heavily technical information. Having so-called expect witnesses present conflicting information only confuses them further. Due to this lack of being able to grasp the facts, many jurors will skip over the stuff they don’t understand and make a decision based on their feelings and the personality of the attorney.
Look at it as a jury within a jury. One jury evaluates the technical aspects and then presents its findings to the jury that is responsible for the verdict.
This format can be used in any case that involves heavily technical information.
October 25th, 2009 at 9:59 amQuotes are From Ed Mazlish
“Individual righrs can only be violated by the initiation of physical force (including fraud).”
OK – this is the major difference in our debates. You believe that corporatism is OK. You believe that “force” is good, regardless of how it destroys liberties. That explains why you see nothing wrong with a legal monopoly.
On the other hand, I see legal monopoly OK ONLY if I am the owner of that monopoly. I would make a great king.
I will just give you one personal example. The last two times that I went into court with a lawyer, the lawyer refused to use my strategy. I let the lawyer do what he wanted to do and it destroyed the case. I took control as a pro se and got the cases dismissed.
Judges opinions are no more valid than my own opinion. If I do not want to pay a lawyer to promote this dialectic nonsense, then why should it be required?
Personally, I would feel more comfortable with non-lawyer counselors in most cases, but UPL laws only allow members of their union to argue cases, unless you can work out a deal under the table with a non-lawyer. This is crazy, to send people to jail because they are not members of the legal monopoly.
My situation has been multiplied around the country and there are many groups that meet on a regular basis, including many teleconference calls each week(almost every night), where people discuss how they had to stop using the legal monopoly because of strategies that are limited to judges desires and not Constitutional law.
“That gives rise to the three proper functions of a limited government: the police, to protect men from domestic criminals; the military, to protect men…”
That is right. Protect. We need protection from a legal monopoly that writes its own rules and laws. There is no free market when you are required by law to answer a complaint from the legal monopoly and they will drag you in front of a judge if you do not answer. I’ve lost a case due to bad precedent and did not have the time or money to file a certiorari. How do you justify the force? If you have ever been wrongly convicted, you would want a free market in the court system.
To start, we should eliminate UPL laws and allow anyone to be a counselor. As I said, in many cases, I would be more comfortable with a non-lawyer as a legal coach, than a lawyer who will not use my evidence or does not like my strategy. It’s my case, and I should be allowed to use any strategy I like.
Pro Se is the only alternative, and that is no alternative for little people like me who cannot spend my life in law libraries.
“But competing legal systems is not free market capitalism or free entreprise…”,
This is irrelevant. We are not discussing competing legal systems. We are talking abut eliminating the legal monopoly. The next time that a lawyer tells me that I “MUST” allow him to argue the lowest form of law, I will fire him. In reality, the lowest form of the law is not law, it is judges opinions and they do not have any Constitutional validity.
“And why do you continue to ignore my invitation to condemn the elected branches for violating the constitution even more frequently, egregiously and audaciously than the judiciary?”
That is not the issue. All branches should be checks against each other. If the other branches violate the Constitution more than the judiciary, that does not absolve the judiciary. So it ia a moog point.
Once again, we need a free market. We must break the legal monopoly that has given us a negative form of legal positivism. And that is contrary to the reason for the Declaration of Independence.
October 25th, 2009 at 10:35 pmGen e:
You quoted me as follows:
“Individual righrs can only be violated by the initiation of physical force (including fraud).”
You then opinined:
OK – this is the major difference in our debates. You believe that corporatism is OK. You believe that “force” is good, regardless of how it destroys liberties.
How you go from my quote to your conclusion is beyond puzzling. I believe that the initiation of force against other men is the paramount evil in the world, and one of the things for which a proper government is created to protect men.
With respect to the rest of your post, if all you are arguing against is repeal of the ban on non-lawyers practicing law and on legal licensing requirements, we are in full agreement. That is not what I thought you have been arguing, however. Your attacks on the judiciary and legal precedent suggested (and even in yoru last comment, continue to suggest) to me that your proposed free market pertained to the legal system and not the system of representation.
If you were only advocated repeal of legal licensing requirements then I agree. If you were suggesting that the judiciary and its system of legal precedent and stare decisis was illegitmate, then I still strongly disagree for all the reasons previously stated. Judges may and often do make mistakes: but their opinions ARE more important than yours (or mine, as an attorney) – if they were not, there would be no rule of law on which litigants could depend.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:31 amEd,
Thanks for the online debate.
We probably agree on many of the other issues.
This will probably be my last post on this issue until late next week or later
October 26th, 2009 at 10:50 am