2 Americas

We often claim that we have or are headed to two Americas. One left and one right. Some on here proclaim a civil war is just around the corner. Some of us believe that’s a virtual impossibility. But maybe it’s not so improbable. This county has been vastly divided before. 24 hour politics news cycles and “see the news you want to believe that buttresses your biases” only makes it a bit worse. Many are just fine with confirmation bias as a way of absorbing the world around them, unfortunately. Shit many confuse opinion news as fact and believe that others opinions presented to them are statements of reality.

Could we end up back as a kind of loose organization of states with a severely weakened federal government? Initially I don’t really see a way that it could occur due to the interconnectivity of federal and state funding mechanisms. Also I firmly believe that poor states, mainly in the south, would quickly realize that this could only lead to their falling to extreme poverty.

Now, one of the things that kind of held us together was the thought that no matter what state one lives in, they are afforded essentially the same set of rights endowed by the federal constitution and laws. The supremacy clause ensured that states couldn’t circumvent the federal government or constitutional rights. Even though each state could lean left or right, they were bound to some constitutional center. But what if that weren’t the case?

The SC on Friday allowed the Texas legislature’s law (the abortion law SB 8) to remain in place. Forget abortion for a minute and understand what the statutory scheme is. State allows “non-state” actors to bring suit against citizens and businesses that either violate the passed law or abet in the violation of the law, and precludes federal judicial review as part of the statutory scheme. Now. In our hyper-partisan times this is a great way to get around federal law (I’ll get to that in a second). On its face, that means that a state can pass a law that abridges a constitutional right or law and the only remedy remains in that states court or states other guarantees.

Texas has pulled it off with abortion. Confirmed by the Supreme Court. California has began drafting the same law with regards to guns. I imagine we will see various iterations of the same law in various states throughout the nation as legislatures, previously bound by what we all accepted as enumerated and in enumerated rights, decide which rights they don’t like for their states. I suspect some state will go after gay marriage next since that’s an unenumerated right (would make for an interesting legal case).

What’s the overall effect of this statutory scheme? Since we live in hyper-partisan times, this will not be redressed by the federal government through congressional action. They couldn’t pass a law today even if they agreed on the content in order to defend the federal government from a state scheme to neuter the Supreme Court. And the laws that would be affected would never pass through congress. No gun rights bill or abortion rights or gay marriage bill could ever pass.

Well, since an individual or business can be sued for abetting the rights of people that they support, their options are pretty limited. They could try to vote in more people in the state legislature that agree with their view to change the law. But we know that is a slow slow slow process. Or maybe they could sue. But that’s a worse proposition because judges in most states are elected so they won’t be substantially different than the legislators.

People are left with moving to states where their belief system is supported. Migration from states where they infringe on the rights you hold dear to states that support those rights or infringe on rights you don’t care about could be a thing. Is that how we end up with two Americas? People going from state to state because the rights that matter them are supported there. Further creating separate belief systems amongst Americans. Furthering the enemy mentality.

The other factor that will emerge will be economic and business factors. Since businesses can be sued, they have every reason to pick and choose what states they will be operating in. Gun manufacturing will definitely have to leave states like New York and California, and possibly places that sell guns as well, just as an example. Companies that may have expanded to places like Texas in the tech field might see reason to leave to avoid lawsuits based in first amendment rights being effected.

Now I’m not saying this will happen overnight. Maybe never. This case might somehow find itself overturned when the Supreme Court gets a real taste of their position being relegated to nothingness by the states invoking a scheme that precludes the federal courts from declaring “what the law is”.


Here is the SC decision on the Texas law, well part of it at least. The scheme itself was allowed by the Supreme Court and as such, each state will begin to decide what rights they deem appropriate for their citizens and legislate accordingly.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinion...3_new_8o6b.pdf
winn dixie's Avatar
Segregation! Is what it is
Contrary to what many believe, The United States has has divisions for most of it’s history.
We do not remember them because most are too pre occupied with what is going on today.

Even it it’s beginning, the Colonies were divided on the issue of declaring independence from Great Britain. I would venture a guess that if the people were polled back then the way they are now, the majority would have chosen to stay a Colony.

Of course, the “Civil War” was probably the most extreme example of division. It finally took hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers on each side to settle that.

The era of The Robber Barons, where a few of the great industrialist who owned the Country, there were severe divisions among the population as to whether the Government should break these Companies up.

And of course the era of Prohibition high lighted one of the most severe divisions the Country knew up to that point.

Even during the two great World Wars, America was far from all being on the same page. Even after Pearl Harbor, 30% of the population was against the US getting involved.

Korea, and then Vietnam saw radical divisions among Americans that still linger.

The Abortion issue brings such visceral responses because it is so personal. What it really comes down to is if what is growing inside a woman’s womb is part of her body. Science says no, but those ignorant of mammalian reproduction say it is.

The Country was founded on States Rights. We had a terrible war that actually changed the way most referred to the Country.

Befor the Civil War, the common name for our Country was “These United States”. After the War, the term became “The United States”.

The majority of our Country are quite ignorant of our history. We did terrible things to people in order to strengthen the concept of The United States. Manifest Destiny meat herding indigenous peoples that would not get on board into what were really concentration camps.

Slavery is recognized as our great crime. We rectified that with the fore mentioned hundreds of thousands of soldiers deaths.

The United States of America is not perfect.

But it is still the greatest and most free Country on the Planet.
  • H&H
  • 12-14-2021, 04:01 PM
Moving is not always that easy though. Not always but sometimes and Unless you are willing to take less usually when jumping state lines. Some states are similar like Iowa/Nebraska. But moving from midwest to the coast not so easy. It is a big change to leave a conservative state for a liberal one and liberal for conservative. The geographical situation would be a logistical nightmare for both countries on the split unless the left is okay with flying over or being taxed driving through the middle. A civil war is coming, I just don't know when...maybe in 5 years maybe in another 50 dunno. OR the conservatives can just realize that there's no return and accept it which could just as likely take place.
Moving is not always that easy though. Not always but sometimes and Unless you are willing to take less usually when jumping state lines. Some states are similar like Iowa/Nebraska. But moving from midwest to the coast not so easy. It is a big change to leave a conservative state for a liberal one and liberal for conservative. The geographical situation would be a logistical nightmare for both countries on the split unless the left is okay with flying over or being taxed driving through the middle. A civil war is coming, I just don't know when...maybe in 5 years maybe in another 50 dunno. OR the conservatives can just realize that there's no return and accept it which could just as likely take place. Originally Posted by H&H
The biggest division in this Country revolves around the old adage, “He who takes from Peter and gives it to Paul can count on Paul’s vote”.
... Even if Paul's illegal.

... Or "Dead"...

### Salty
eccieuser9500's Avatar
Modern Republicans finally prove they are not the party of law and order. Because attempting to assasinate the Vice President wasn't enough, Texas makes every citizen judge, jury and executioner.

Don't fuck with Texas. From a man in a wheelchair. BALLS! I'll give the mental cripple that much.




Marbury v. Madison


https://www.britannica.com/event/Marbury-v-Madison


Marbury v. Madison, legal case in which, on February 24, 1803, the U.S. Supreme Court first declared an act of Congress unconstitutional, thus establishing the doctrine of judicial review. The court’s opinion, written by Chief Justice John Marshall, is considered one of the foundations of U.S. constitutional law.


Background

In the weeks before Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration as president in March 1801, the lame-duck Federalist Congress created 16 new circuit judgeships (in the Judiciary Act of 1801) and an unspecified number of new judgeships (in the Organic Act), which Adams proceeded to fill with Federalists in an effort to preserve his party’s control of the judiciary and to frustrate the legislative agenda of Jefferson and his Republican (Democratic-Republican) Party. Because he was among the last of those appointments (the so-called “midnight appointments”), William Marbury, a Federalist Party leader from Maryland, did not receive his commission before Jefferson became president. Once in office, Jefferson directed his secretary of state, James Madison, to withhold the commission, and Marbury petitioned the Supreme Court to issue a writ of mandamus to compel Madison to act.

Marbury and his lawyer, former attorney general Charles Lee, argued that signing and sealing the commission completed the transaction and that delivery, in any event, constituted a mere formality. But formality or not, without the actual piece of parchment, Marbury could not enter into the duties of office. Despite Jefferson’s hostility, the court agreed to hear the case, Marbury v. Madison, in its February 1803 term.

Some scholars have questioned whether Marshall should have removed himself from the case because of his prior service as Adams’s secretary of state (1800–01). Certainly, later judicial standards would have called for recusal, but at the time only financial connections to a case led judges to step aside, as Marshall did in suits regarding Virginia lands in which he had an interest. The Republicans, always quick to criticize Marshall, did not even raise the issue of the propriety of his sitting in the case.

The issue directly presented by Marbury v. Madison can only be described as minor. By the time the court heard the case, the wisdom of Jefferson’s desire to reduce the number of justices of the peace had been confirmed (and the Judiciary Act of 1801 had been repealed); Marbury’s original term was almost half over; and most people, Federalists and Republicans alike, considered the case to be moot. But Marshall, despite the political difficulties involved, recognized that he had a perfect case with which to expound a basic principle, judicial review, which would secure the Supreme Court’s primary role in constitutional interpretation.

The decision

The chief justice recognized the dilemma that the case posed to the court. If the court issued the writ of mandamus, Jefferson could simply ignore it, because the court had no power to enforce it. If, on the other hand, the court refused to issue the writ, it would appear that the judicial branch of government had backed down before the executive, and that Marshall would not allow. The solution he chose has properly been termed a tour de force. In one stroke, Marshall managed to establish the power of the court as the ultimate arbiter of the Constitution, to chastise the Jefferson administration for its failure to obey the law, and to avoid having the court’s authority challenged by the administration.

Marshall, adopting a style that would mark all his major opinions, reduced the case to a few basic issues. He asked three questions: (1) Did Marbury have the right to the commission? (2) If he did, and his right had been violated, did the law provide him with a remedy? (3) If it did, would the proper remedy be a writ of mandamus from the Supreme Court? The last question, the crucial one, dealt with the jurisdiction of the court, and in normal circumstances it would have been answered first, since a negative response would have obviated the need to decide the other issues. But that would have denied Marshall the opportunity to criticize Jefferson for what the chief justice saw as the president’s flouting of the law.

Following the arguments of Marbury’s counsel on the first two questions, Marshall held that the validity of a commission existed once a president signed it and transmitted it to the secretary of state to affix the seal. Presidential discretion ended there, for the political decision had been made, and the secretary of state had only a ministerial task to perform—delivering the commission. In that the law bound him, like anyone else, to obey. Marshall drew a careful and lengthy distinction between the political acts of the president and the secretary, in which the courts had no business interfering, and the simple administrative execution that, governed by law, the judiciary could review.

Having decided that Marbury had the right to the commission, Marshall next turned to the question of remedy, and once again found in the plaintiff’s favour, holding that “having this legal title to the office, [Marbury] has a consequent right to the commission, a refusal to deliver which is a plain violation of that right, for which the laws of his country afford him a remedy.” After castigating Jefferson and Madison for “sport[ing] away the vested rights of others,” Marshall addressed the crucial third question. Although he could have held that the proper remedy was a writ of mandamus from the Supreme Court—because the law that had granted the court the power of mandamus in original (rather than appellate) jurisdiction, the Judiciary Act of 1789, was still in effect—he instead declared that the court had no power to issue such a writ, because the relevant provision of the act was unconstitutional. Section 13 of the act, he argued, was inconsistent with Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution, which states in part that “the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction” in “all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party,” and that “in all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction.” In thus surrendering the power derived from the 1789 statute (and giving Jefferson a technical victory in the case), Marshall gained for the court a far-more-significant power, that of judicial review.

Impact

Marshall’s masterful verdict has been widely hailed. In the face of attacks on the judiciary launched by Jefferson and his followers, Marshall needed to make a strong statement to maintain the status of the Supreme Court as the head of a coequal branch of government. By asserting the power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional (which the court would not exercise again for more than half a century), Marshall claimed for the court a paramount position as interpreter of the Constitution.

Although Marbury v. Madison set an abiding precedent for the court’s power in that area, it did not end debate over the court’s purview, which has continued for more than two centuries. In fact, it is likely that the issue will never be fully resolved. But the fact remains that the court has claimed and exercised the power of judicial review through most of U.S. history—and, as Judge Learned Hand noted more than a century later, the country is used to it by now. Moreover, the principle fits well with the government’s commitment to checks and balances. Few jurists can argue with Marshall’s statement of principle near the end of his opinion, “that a law repugnant to the constitution is void, and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.”

Two Americas.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjVAGF-N8oQ

The Conservative scholar who doesn't know the difference between freezing and cold: Supreme Court Justice.

The downright drunk-ass attempted-murdering rapist: Supreme Court Justice.

The Catholic school girl and undercover whore: Supreme Court Justice.


https://www.phoenix.k12.or.us/cms/li...%20Marbury.pdf
winn dixie's Avatar
only tequila makes one post like that.
eccieuser9500's Avatar
Like what? The OP? C'mon youngster. Step your post game up to the majors. Don't be "skeered".
Modern Republicans finally prove they are not the party of law and order. Because attempting to assasinate the Vice President wasn't enough, Texas makes every citizen judge, jury and executioner.

Don't fuck with Texas. From a man in a wheelchair. BALLS! I'll give the mental cripple that much.




Marbury v. Madison


https://www.britannica.com/event/Marbury-v-Madison





Two Americas.



The Conservative scholar who doesn't know the difference between freezing and cold: Supreme Court Justice.

The downright drunk-ass attempted-murdering rapist: Supreme Court Justice.

The Catholic school girl and undercover whore: Supreme Court Justice.


https://www.phoenix.k12.or.us/cms/li...%20Marbury.pdf Originally Posted by eccieuser9500
The other two Branches of Government have ultimate say so over the Judiciary by Amending the Constitution. So in the end, that inscription on the wall is wrong.
eccieuser9500's Avatar
The other two Branches of Government have ultimate say so over the Judiciary by Amending the Constitution. So in the end, that inscription on the wall is wrong. Originally Posted by Jackie S
The Constitution can't be amended without the Judiciary saying it is proper. Unless it's not challenged. Sir.

Without challenge, the amendments stand. The people, we, the people, must accept the changes. Or else the Judiciary decides the proper interpretation.
Jacuzzme's Avatar
The American left wouldn’t fare well in a civil war. They should all move to California and leave us normal people alone.
eccieuser9500's Avatar
The American left wouldn’t fare well in a civil war. They should all move to California and leave us normal people alone. Originally Posted by Jacuzzme

Normal people don't force their kids to pose with automatic weapons for a Christmas photo. Much less give them a gun for the Holy holidays.

The penis mightier than the sword.
With the libtards in control this country hasn't been in this shape in 40 yrs.
The_Waco_Kid's Avatar
Normal people don't force their kids to pose with automatic weapons for a Christmas photo. Much less give them a gun for the Holy holidays.
Originally Posted by eccieuser9500

WTF u talkin' 'bout, Willis?



The penis mightier than the sword. Originally Posted by eccieuser9500

if you say so









BAHHAHAA