I think you're correct to point out the connection between low risk tolerance, safetyism, and equity-obsessed anti-Ameicanism. The demand to be protected from everything - injury, mean words, poverty - is in every case a repudiation of both liberty and responsibility.
Sadly the Safety Last mindset cannot be legislated. It must spread organically, memetically, culturally. I'm skeptical that urban millennials can be won over, but Gen Z may be open. Never has any generation been as terminally bored....
Thanks for the feedback! Safety last can't be legislated directly, and I wouldn't want it to be anyway given my voluntaryist predilections. There is a lot of safety first type legislation that probably could be repealed allowing people with higher risk tolerance the freedom to assume more personal risk. I think this would benefit society in a way that the cowardly would also be able to enjoy. I think urban millennials are about to face a lot of economic pressure to reconsider life's deepest questions. I suppose they could easily just go full commie. I can't really know for sure either way, and in these circumstances I think optimism is appropriate.
Indeed, legislating it would be inconsistent with the ethos, in any case.
But on further consideration, a constitutional amendment could provide a safeguard. As currently written, the Constitution mainly identifies a set of inalienable rights. Implicit in this formulation is that anything not identified is fair game for legislation, regulation, etc. That's been exploited as a loophole by the regulatory state, which has violated the spirit of the document by ring-fencing the various enumerated rights without, in most cases, directly touching them.
This could be neutralized with a few judicious amendments:
- mandatory sunset (laws must be actively renewed)
- a maximum number of laws; thus, a new law requires an old law to be retired
- enumeration of the specific topics on which the state is allowed to legislate, with explicit statement that any domain not so identified is assumed to belong to the realm of natural rights and is therefore beyond the reach of legislature or regulatory body
Regarding the identification of inalienable rights implying that anything not identified is fair game, while this has been the case practically, the 9th and 10th amendments explicitly outline this isn't the case. The 9th amendment "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." and the 10th "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The main loophole that is exploited is conditional funding, which is of course powered by the federal reserve system. If the federal government can borrow unlimited money, it can hand it out to states on the condition that states pass laws that the federal government wants passed, but has no constitutional authority to do so. This is why the drinking age is 21 throughout the U.S. and why there is any federal influence over primary education.
The idea of amending the constitution to close these loopholes is a good one, but I think ending the fed would work better. The thing is, there are a lot of potential solutions, especially if people who hold American values are the ones trying to develop them to solve what are obvious problems. I hold that the biggest issue is that the managerial class is anti-American, so really everything that is a bug for the American middle class that has been the main engine for prosperity in the U.S. is a feature for these folks. The constitution and the middle class are obstacles to progress in the minds of these folks. If they can be politically displaced (for a time, such a state of affairs wouldn't be permanent), it would facilitate the implementation of many possible solutions.
The problem in the 10th amendment is its ambiguity regarding whether powers are reserved to the several States or to the people. This opens the door to precisely the financial trickery you describe: the Federal government can't pass a law mandating a 21 drinking age (or smoking age, or firearms-ownership age), but it CAN pressure the states to pass such laws, which the 10th amendment can be, and is, read as giving them the power to do.
The whole thing could be fixed by simply amending the 10th to say "the powers not delegated ... are reserved to the people", thus cutting out the States entirely.
The 9th could also be beefed up to say rather more explicitly that any rights not enumerated shall be assumed to be possessed by the people, although I admit it's hard to see how it could be stated any more plainly (or violated on a regular basis any more flagrantly) than it already is.
I certainly agree that the core problem is the presence in positions of influence of a class of people who are hostile to the spirit of the document, and therefore actively seek out whatever loopholes they can find to get around it.
Given my own values I wouldn't be opposed to the 10th amendment being changed as such, but I don't think this would ever be popular enough to pass. There are certain issues where federalism provides a useful solution to an otherwise intractable problem.
Another loophole that gets exploited is the commerce clause. Funny how gun control advocates complain about how weapons have evolved, but conveniently ignore how pretty much all commerce is interstate now, which, if foreseen, certainly would have precluded the inclusion of the commerce clause. Just more evidence that motivation is the master of reason.
Indeed, the commerce clause is probably the single biggest loophole that gets exploited.
Perhaps the Constitution should have stipulations that office holders be virtuous men, whose record before seeking office has demonstrated a commitment to liberty.
I think you're correct to point out the connection between low risk tolerance, safetyism, and equity-obsessed anti-Ameicanism. The demand to be protected from everything - injury, mean words, poverty - is in every case a repudiation of both liberty and responsibility.
Sadly the Safety Last mindset cannot be legislated. It must spread organically, memetically, culturally. I'm skeptical that urban millennials can be won over, but Gen Z may be open. Never has any generation been as terminally bored....
Thanks for the feedback! Safety last can't be legislated directly, and I wouldn't want it to be anyway given my voluntaryist predilections. There is a lot of safety first type legislation that probably could be repealed allowing people with higher risk tolerance the freedom to assume more personal risk. I think this would benefit society in a way that the cowardly would also be able to enjoy. I think urban millennials are about to face a lot of economic pressure to reconsider life's deepest questions. I suppose they could easily just go full commie. I can't really know for sure either way, and in these circumstances I think optimism is appropriate.
Indeed, legislating it would be inconsistent with the ethos, in any case.
But on further consideration, a constitutional amendment could provide a safeguard. As currently written, the Constitution mainly identifies a set of inalienable rights. Implicit in this formulation is that anything not identified is fair game for legislation, regulation, etc. That's been exploited as a loophole by the regulatory state, which has violated the spirit of the document by ring-fencing the various enumerated rights without, in most cases, directly touching them.
This could be neutralized with a few judicious amendments:
- mandatory sunset (laws must be actively renewed)
- a maximum number of laws; thus, a new law requires an old law to be retired
- enumeration of the specific topics on which the state is allowed to legislate, with explicit statement that any domain not so identified is assumed to belong to the realm of natural rights and is therefore beyond the reach of legislature or regulatory body
Regarding the identification of inalienable rights implying that anything not identified is fair game, while this has been the case practically, the 9th and 10th amendments explicitly outline this isn't the case. The 9th amendment "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." and the 10th "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The main loophole that is exploited is conditional funding, which is of course powered by the federal reserve system. If the federal government can borrow unlimited money, it can hand it out to states on the condition that states pass laws that the federal government wants passed, but has no constitutional authority to do so. This is why the drinking age is 21 throughout the U.S. and why there is any federal influence over primary education.
The idea of amending the constitution to close these loopholes is a good one, but I think ending the fed would work better. The thing is, there are a lot of potential solutions, especially if people who hold American values are the ones trying to develop them to solve what are obvious problems. I hold that the biggest issue is that the managerial class is anti-American, so really everything that is a bug for the American middle class that has been the main engine for prosperity in the U.S. is a feature for these folks. The constitution and the middle class are obstacles to progress in the minds of these folks. If they can be politically displaced (for a time, such a state of affairs wouldn't be permanent), it would facilitate the implementation of many possible solutions.
The problem in the 10th amendment is its ambiguity regarding whether powers are reserved to the several States or to the people. This opens the door to precisely the financial trickery you describe: the Federal government can't pass a law mandating a 21 drinking age (or smoking age, or firearms-ownership age), but it CAN pressure the states to pass such laws, which the 10th amendment can be, and is, read as giving them the power to do.
The whole thing could be fixed by simply amending the 10th to say "the powers not delegated ... are reserved to the people", thus cutting out the States entirely.
The 9th could also be beefed up to say rather more explicitly that any rights not enumerated shall be assumed to be possessed by the people, although I admit it's hard to see how it could be stated any more plainly (or violated on a regular basis any more flagrantly) than it already is.
I certainly agree that the core problem is the presence in positions of influence of a class of people who are hostile to the spirit of the document, and therefore actively seek out whatever loopholes they can find to get around it.
Given my own values I wouldn't be opposed to the 10th amendment being changed as such, but I don't think this would ever be popular enough to pass. There are certain issues where federalism provides a useful solution to an otherwise intractable problem.
Another loophole that gets exploited is the commerce clause. Funny how gun control advocates complain about how weapons have evolved, but conveniently ignore how pretty much all commerce is interstate now, which, if foreseen, certainly would have precluded the inclusion of the commerce clause. Just more evidence that motivation is the master of reason.
Indeed, the commerce clause is probably the single biggest loophole that gets exploited.
Perhaps the Constitution should have stipulations that office holders be virtuous men, whose record before seeking office has demonstrated a commitment to liberty.