The so-called three-fifths compromise is widely misunderstood by modern readers. What it actually did was to limit the power of the slave states, because had the entire populations of slaves been counted for the purposes of apportionment, the slave states would thereby have had many more seats in the legislature. The populations of enslaved people in the slave states were a huge proportion of the total population-in 1790 making up more than 1/3 the total population of the South-but those enslaved were not granted any power to vote or hold office, so counting slaves as full people would have resulted in that many more white men in office. The compromise was necessary, because had the slave populations not been counted, at all, the slave states would simply have refused the ratify the Constitution, and if the slave populations has been counted fully, the free states would have refused to ratify the Constitution. Now, one can certainly argue that perhaps the Constitution should never have been ratified, and that is certainly an opinion one can hold, but it is a not an opinion which is relevant to the actual history, and no one can say how much longer slavery would have persisted without it. Additionally, it needs to be recognized that Madison and the other Framers very specifically did not use the word "slavery" anywhere in the Constitution, precisely so that it could not later be used as evidence that the Constitution permitted slavery. Lysander Spooner famously wrote an entire book on this subject, called "The Unconstitutionality of Slavery" (1845), in which he argues correctly that the Constitution does not permit slavery. And don't come at me with how the UK banned slavery in 1832, because they only did so by paying 20 million Pounds Sterling to slaveholders as compensation, which amounted to about 40% of the entire budget of His Majesty's Government, and is equivalent to nearly 20 billion GBP, today. A massive amount of debt was incurred to pay that bill, debt which wasn't fully repaid until 2015. The list of beneficiaries of that payment, none of which was made to any enslaved person, lies at the root of the family fortunes of most of Britain's richest families, today. Whatever else we can say about the Constitution, we can say clearly that the slave states entered into the Constitution fully aware and knowing that the intent of the Constitution was to eventually eliminate the practice of slavery. This is obvious from the text of Article I, Section 9, which states that no laws prohibiting the admission of people to the states would be entertained before 1808, and on the very first day of 1808 (actually, it was passed in the Senate on December 17, 1805, passed in the House on February 13, 1807, and signed by President Jefferson on March 2, 1807, to take effect January 1, 1808) that was exactly what they did-ban the further importation of slaves. This history is quite clear that the slaves states went into this knowing full well what the future held. It's also important to note that the "Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves" of 1807 was NOT the first law Congress passed to restrict the slave trade. That was in 1794, the Slave Trade Act of 1794, which prohibited US ships from participating in the slave trade. And it should also be noted that the penalties for violating these laws were extremely stiff, even by the standards of the era.
Regarding Article 1 Section 2 All legitimate powers held by government are delegated by sovereign individuals based on their inalienable rights over other sovereign individuals. If a sovereign does not have an inalienable right to do something to another sovereign, then it cannot be delegated to government. If government claims to have such non delegable authority, it is illegitimate and blatant tyranny/usurpation.
Some would say that individuals never are and never have been sovereign; that rights are never truly inalienable; and that legitimate government powers are aggregated from citizens collectively rather than delegated by them individually. It would seem that in your view governments cannot have 'legitimate' power to create laws, demand taxes, imprison criminals and so on, since none of those are legitimate activities (let alone inalienable rights) of individual citizens. But quite the opposite, America's own Declaration of Independence states that within the overarching framework of protecting individual "unalienable" rights, people are or should be free to structure their government more or less as they see fit: "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." In that framework slavery and Article 1 Section 2 were fundamentally wrong both because they violated fundamental rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and because they were not established according to the consent of the governed (ie slaves etc. had no democratic voice). By contrast taxation and so on do not violate fundamental rights, and to the extent that they limit mere social rights such as property they are nevertheless justified in terms of consent of the governed.
@@mithrae4525 “Some” people say many ludicrous things and believe in many superstitions holding asinine beliefs not rooted in first principles. Man existed before government, and as sovereign individuals are endowed with the inalienable right to resist tyranny, and live. Their power exists because they exist. Government is a construct of man. Man can exist without government but government cannot exist without man. You either stand for the inalienable rights of all men, or no man will have rights. You should remember this when chaos ensues and the hoards of tyrants snatch you from your bed some night and beat you to death because you were too stupid to think critically about the rights of individuals to resist tyranny.
@@mithrae4525 Let’s dismantle this argument, piece by piece, with precision and logic. 1. “Individuals never are and never have been sovereign; rights are never truly inalienable; and legitimate government powers are aggregated from citizens collectively rather than delegated by them individually.” This statement is a direct attack on the foundational principles of the United States as articulated in the Declaration of Independence. It misrepresents the concept of sovereignty and inalienable rights, which are inherent to individuals by virtue of their humanity, not granted by governments. To claim that sovereignty is absent from individuals denies the very premise of natural law upon which the U.S. is built. • Sovereignty of the individual: Sovereignty begins with the individual. The framers of the Declaration argued that individuals possess inalienable rights precisely because these rights are endowed by their Creator-not conferred by any collective or government. Governments are formed to protect these preexisting rights, not to aggregate powers that somehow emerge from a vague collective. • Delegation, not aggregation: Powers of government are not “aggregated” from the collective but delegated by individuals. Each person has certain natural rights-such as self-defense-and they delegate only those specific powers to government. Aggregation implies a collectivist worldview that is incompatible with the Declaration and the Constitution, which emphasize the primacy of the individual. 2. “It would seem that in your view governments cannot have ‘legitimate’ power to create laws, demand taxes, imprison criminals and so on, since none of those are legitimate activities (let alone inalienable rights) of individual citizens.” This is a blatant strawman argument, deliberately misrepresenting the principles of individual sovereignty and natural rights. It conflates natural rights with delegated authority, and misunderstands the relationship between individuals and their government. • Government powers are constrained by natural rights: Governments can create laws, levy taxes, and punish criminals only when such powers are delegated to them by individuals. For instance, individuals have the right to self-defense, and they delegate this to the government in the form of law enforcement and criminal justice systems. The delegation is always constrained by the protection of inalienable rights. • Taxation must align with consent: Taxes can be legitimate, but only when levied with the genuine consent of the governed. Consent does not mean forced compliance through majority rule or coercion; it means that the government acts within limits defined by the principles of natural rights. • Legitimacy requires adherence to purpose: The legitimacy of government depends entirely on its adherence to its primary purpose: securing individual rights. Powers exercised beyond this purpose are illegitimate, even if they are popularly supported. 3. “America’s own Declaration of Independence states that within the overarching framework of protecting individual ‘unalienable’ rights, people are or should be free to structure their government more or less as they see fit.” This is a gross oversimplification. While people are free to structure their government, the Declaration explicitly ties this freedom to the protection of inalienable rights. Structuring a government in a way that violates these rights, such as creating tyrannies or collectivist regimes, is not justified simply by majority will or “consent.” • “Consent of the governed” is conditional: The Declaration states that governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed, but this is not a blank check for government overreach. Consent is invalid when the government acts against the purpose of securing rights. Slavery, for example, was illegitimate not because it lacked procedural consent but because it fundamentally violated natural rights. • Framework matters: While people can “institute new government,” the Declaration demands that this new government be founded on principles that secure rights-not on arbitrary whims or collectivist ideologies. The legitimacy of any government action hinges on its adherence to this purpose. 4. “Slavery and Article 1 Section 2 were fundamentally wrong both because they violated fundamental rights… and because they were not established according to the consent of the governed.” This argument inadvertently supports the opposing viewpoint. Slavery was wrong precisely because it violated the principle of inalienable rights-proving that rights are not dependent on collective consent. Even if a majority of voters supported slavery, it would still be wrong because it contradicts the natural rights of the enslaved. Consent of the majority does not justify tyranny over the minority. • Majoritarianism is not a moral principle: The “consent of the governed” does not mean whatever the majority decides is automatically moral or legitimate. It must align with the principles of individual rights. Without this alignment, “consent” becomes mob rule, which the framers explicitly sought to prevent through constitutional safeguards. 5. “Taxation and so on do not violate fundamental rights… justified in terms of consent of the governed.” This argument depends on the false premise that consent is automatically given when a government imposes taxes. Legitimate taxation is limited to the government’s role in protecting rights, not to fund arbitrary programs or redistribute wealth. • Taxation must serve legitimate ends: Taxes are justified only when they fund activities that protect individual rights, such as defense and law enforcement. When taxation is used for purposes outside these bounds-such as wealth redistribution-it becomes theft, violating the property rights of individuals. • True consent is voluntary: Coercion is not consent. Being compelled to pay taxes under threat of imprisonment is not equivalent to giving consent. Consent must be meaningful and voluntary, which is why governments should operate with the smallest possible scope to minimize infringements on individual freedom. Final Assessment This argument collapses under its own contradictions. By denying individual sovereignty, it undermines the very foundation of rights and government legitimacy. It conflates consent with coercion and ignores the principle that legitimate power is always subordinate to protecting inalienable rights. The Declaration of Independence is clear: governments exist to secure individual rights, and any government that oversteps these bounds loses its legitimacy. The idea that collective consent can override natural rights is the kind of sophistry that leads to tyranny. Let us reject such subversive distortions and reaffirm the principles of liberty and individual sovereignty.
@@merlingrim2843 You said "If a sovereign does not have an inalienable right to do something to another sovereign, then it cannot be delegated to government." Creating laws over or imprisoning other individuals is not a legitimate activity for you or I (let alone a supposed inalienable right), so by direct and inescapable inference of your original post the creation of laws and imprisonment of those who violate those laws cannot be a legitimate function of government. Unless you want to claim that I have an "inalienable right" to pass laws over you and imprison you if you break them, then denying governments' legitimacy to do so is WHAT YOU SAID. Your choice to characterize my pointing out that fact as a "blatant strawman" simply suggests that you hadn't (and apparently still haven't) considered your position very carefully. Sovereignty is supreme authority, and that is a property which no human has ever held outside of artificial tyrannical power structures. Even in the most egalitarian societies that have ever existed, children are subordinate to parents, adults' wants are subordinate to other adults' needs or rights, and individuals are subordinate to societies - always have been. Individual sovereignty is even more of an imaginary philosophical abstraction than 'inalienable rights.' On which point, it's blindingly obvious that even the most fundamental of people's rights such as liberty or life can be forfeited in whole or in part by their actions: Otherwise you would be declaring (for a second time!) that governments cannot legitimately imprison criminals. You cannot simultaneously declare that Jeffery Dahmer has an inalienable fundamental right to liberty, and that there is no gross violation of rights entailed by his lifelong imprisonment. The logical consequence of your absolutist statements is complete anarchy, each individual trying (however futilely) to define and protect her own 'rights,' since there would be no legitimate mechanism for even creating let alone enforcing laws. That's the trouble faced by right-libertarians; they want to pretend that reasonable government the likes of which have proven to be generally successful and prosperous again and again and again around the world are some kind of 'tyranny,' so they come up with this kind of abstract, arbitrary, absolutist rhetoric... but then they don't want to actually accept the direct implications of that rhetoric, for very obvious reasons. And the particular irony here is that they're seeking to impose a special tyranny of their own by arbitrarily and severely LIMITING the kinds of things that societies through their governments can do - such as funding of healthcare and infrastructure to promote general wellbeing, implementing environmental protections to ensure societies' long-term viability, or funding of education and scientific research to promote long-term progress and prosperity. Simultaneously, intentionally or otherwise their prescriptions (and in particular their treatment of real estate and other abstract property holdings as some kind of 'natural right' rather than social convention) promote the development of an untouchable financial oligarchy, unchecked by even the meagre democratic restraints of current corrupted political systems. There's a reason why those ideologies are heavily promoted by billionaires and their wannabes. It's not clear whether you yourself are promoting the whole right-libertarian package, but you've certainly covered most of their introductory points and rhetoric. Ironically, in isolation I'd agree with probably 80 or 90% of what you've said; I've often thought that but for a few specific points of dogmatism, libertarians would be very reasonable liberals 😄
Regarding Article 3 and judicial review Every member of all government swears an oath to the constitution. As such, one could argue that the power to review all government action is implicit. In fact, all members of government, at all levels, and in all branches, are duty bound to nullify unconstitutional government actions and laws.
I really don't like the 'seconday' vs 'primary' distinction. The rules about who makes the rules are logically primary and the rules that apply directly to people are secondary.
Although the Constitution does not explicitly grant the power of judicial review to the courts, it was widely understood in the Founding Era that in the common law tradition we inherited from England, judicial review was an assumed part of the duties of courts of law. It's not at all accurate to say that the SCOTUS "gave itself" that power.
So this guy is just going to point to the antiquated provisions in the plain text of the Constitution that were amended and tell us these are “interesting?” Okie dokie…
@Drain Bamage Wow! you're really that smart? You're like so smart! Wow! So this stuff bores you? OMG you're smart. Probably the smartest commenter here... I want to be like you! So, what do I do? Oh. I see. Take the time to watch stuff someone worked hard to create in order to teach us valuable information, and then use my skills and knowledge and time & energy to disparage the creator of the presentation. ok. great! 😅
Thank you, sir. I have watched all the episodes of Philosophy of Law, and I hope you will explain Hans Kelson and Joseph Raz.
I've really enjoyed this series so far. Thanks
This video is criminally under-liked!
An excellent exposé. Thanks.
A very interesting semantic study.
love these lectures! Such a great teacher/professor
Slavery wasn't abolished by the 13th Amendment: It was exclusively licensed by the Prison System.
I'm not a law student, but I love your videos ❤️🕊️
Few will drink from the fountain of wisdom. Even fewer will apply it's use.
The so-called three-fifths compromise is widely misunderstood by modern readers. What it actually did was to limit the power of the slave states, because had the entire populations of slaves been counted for the purposes of apportionment, the slave states would thereby have had many more seats in the legislature. The populations of enslaved people in the slave states were a huge proportion of the total population-in 1790 making up more than 1/3 the total population of the South-but those enslaved were not granted any power to vote or hold office, so counting slaves as full people would have resulted in that many more white men in office. The compromise was necessary, because had the slave populations not been counted, at all, the slave states would simply have refused the ratify the Constitution, and if the slave populations has been counted fully, the free states would have refused to ratify the Constitution.
Now, one can certainly argue that perhaps the Constitution should never have been ratified, and that is certainly an opinion one can hold, but it is a not an opinion which is relevant to the actual history, and no one can say how much longer slavery would have persisted without it. Additionally, it needs to be recognized that Madison and the other Framers very specifically did not use the word "slavery" anywhere in the Constitution, precisely so that it could not later be used as evidence that the Constitution permitted slavery. Lysander Spooner famously wrote an entire book on this subject, called "The Unconstitutionality of Slavery" (1845), in which he argues correctly that the Constitution does not permit slavery.
And don't come at me with how the UK banned slavery in 1832, because they only did so by paying 20 million Pounds Sterling to slaveholders as compensation, which amounted to about 40% of the entire budget of His Majesty's Government, and is equivalent to nearly 20 billion GBP, today. A massive amount of debt was incurred to pay that bill, debt which wasn't fully repaid until 2015. The list of beneficiaries of that payment, none of which was made to any enslaved person, lies at the root of the family fortunes of most of Britain's richest families, today.
Whatever else we can say about the Constitution, we can say clearly that the slave states entered into the Constitution fully aware and knowing that the intent of the Constitution was to eventually eliminate the practice of slavery. This is obvious from the text of Article I, Section 9, which states that no laws prohibiting the admission of people to the states would be entertained before 1808, and on the very first day of 1808 (actually, it was passed in the Senate on December 17, 1805, passed in the House on February 13, 1807, and signed by President Jefferson on March 2, 1807, to take effect January 1, 1808) that was exactly what they did-ban the further importation of slaves. This history is quite clear that the slaves states went into this knowing full well what the future held.
It's also important to note that the "Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves" of 1807 was NOT the first law Congress passed to restrict the slave trade. That was in 1794, the Slave Trade Act of 1794, which prohibited US ships from participating in the slave trade. And it should also be noted that the penalties for violating these laws were extremely stiff, even by the standards of the era.
This an excellent comment
Thank you for correcting the information! I hope the teacher and everyone who watched the video read and learned from this comment.
Regarding Article 1 Section 2
All legitimate powers held by government are delegated by sovereign individuals based on their inalienable rights over other sovereign individuals. If a sovereign does not have an inalienable right to do something to another sovereign, then it cannot be delegated to government. If government claims to have such non delegable authority, it is illegitimate and blatant tyranny/usurpation.
Some would say that individuals never are and never have been sovereign; that rights are never truly inalienable; and that legitimate government powers are aggregated from citizens collectively rather than delegated by them individually. It would seem that in your view governments cannot have 'legitimate' power to create laws, demand taxes, imprison criminals and so on, since none of those are legitimate activities (let alone inalienable rights) of individual citizens. But quite the opposite, America's own Declaration of Independence states that within the overarching framework of protecting individual "unalienable" rights, people are or should be free to structure their government more or less as they see fit:
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
In that framework slavery and Article 1 Section 2 were fundamentally wrong both because they violated fundamental rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and because they were not established according to the consent of the governed (ie slaves etc. had no democratic voice). By contrast taxation and so on do not violate fundamental rights, and to the extent that they limit mere social rights such as property they are nevertheless justified in terms of consent of the governed.
@@mithrae4525 “Some” people say many ludicrous things and believe in many superstitions holding asinine beliefs not rooted in first principles. Man existed before government, and as sovereign individuals are endowed with the inalienable right to resist tyranny, and live. Their power exists because they exist. Government is a construct of man. Man can exist without government but government cannot exist without man. You either stand for the inalienable rights of all men, or no man will have rights. You should remember this when chaos ensues and the hoards of tyrants snatch you from your bed some night and beat you to death because you were too stupid to think critically about the rights of individuals to resist tyranny.
@@mithrae4525 Let’s dismantle this argument, piece by piece, with precision and logic.
1. “Individuals never are and never have been sovereign; rights are never truly inalienable; and legitimate government powers are aggregated from citizens collectively rather than delegated by them individually.”
This statement is a direct attack on the foundational principles of the United States as articulated in the Declaration of Independence. It misrepresents the concept of sovereignty and inalienable rights, which are inherent to individuals by virtue of their humanity, not granted by governments. To claim that sovereignty is absent from individuals denies the very premise of natural law upon which the U.S. is built.
• Sovereignty of the individual: Sovereignty begins with the individual. The framers of the Declaration argued that individuals possess inalienable rights precisely because these rights are endowed by their Creator-not conferred by any collective or government. Governments are formed to protect these preexisting rights, not to aggregate powers that somehow emerge from a vague collective.
• Delegation, not aggregation: Powers of government are not “aggregated” from the collective but delegated by individuals. Each person has certain natural rights-such as self-defense-and they delegate only those specific powers to government. Aggregation implies a collectivist worldview that is incompatible with the Declaration and the Constitution, which emphasize the primacy of the individual.
2. “It would seem that in your view governments cannot have ‘legitimate’ power to create laws, demand taxes, imprison criminals and so on, since none of those are legitimate activities (let alone inalienable rights) of individual citizens.”
This is a blatant strawman argument, deliberately misrepresenting the principles of individual sovereignty and natural rights. It conflates natural rights with delegated authority, and misunderstands the relationship between individuals and their government.
• Government powers are constrained by natural rights: Governments can create laws, levy taxes, and punish criminals only when such powers are delegated to them by individuals. For instance, individuals have the right to self-defense, and they delegate this to the government in the form of law enforcement and criminal justice systems. The delegation is always constrained by the protection of inalienable rights.
• Taxation must align with consent: Taxes can be legitimate, but only when levied with the genuine consent of the governed. Consent does not mean forced compliance through majority rule or coercion; it means that the government acts within limits defined by the principles of natural rights.
• Legitimacy requires adherence to purpose: The legitimacy of government depends entirely on its adherence to its primary purpose: securing individual rights. Powers exercised beyond this purpose are illegitimate, even if they are popularly supported.
3. “America’s own Declaration of Independence states that within the overarching framework of protecting individual ‘unalienable’ rights, people are or should be free to structure their government more or less as they see fit.”
This is a gross oversimplification. While people are free to structure their government, the Declaration explicitly ties this freedom to the protection of inalienable rights. Structuring a government in a way that violates these rights, such as creating tyrannies or collectivist regimes, is not justified simply by majority will or “consent.”
• “Consent of the governed” is conditional: The Declaration states that governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed, but this is not a blank check for government overreach. Consent is invalid when the government acts against the purpose of securing rights. Slavery, for example, was illegitimate not because it lacked procedural consent but because it fundamentally violated natural rights.
• Framework matters: While people can “institute new government,” the Declaration demands that this new government be founded on principles that secure rights-not on arbitrary whims or collectivist ideologies. The legitimacy of any government action hinges on its adherence to this purpose.
4. “Slavery and Article 1 Section 2 were fundamentally wrong both because they violated fundamental rights… and because they were not established according to the consent of the governed.”
This argument inadvertently supports the opposing viewpoint. Slavery was wrong precisely because it violated the principle of inalienable rights-proving that rights are not dependent on collective consent. Even if a majority of voters supported slavery, it would still be wrong because it contradicts the natural rights of the enslaved. Consent of the majority does not justify tyranny over the minority.
• Majoritarianism is not a moral principle: The “consent of the governed” does not mean whatever the majority decides is automatically moral or legitimate. It must align with the principles of individual rights. Without this alignment, “consent” becomes mob rule, which the framers explicitly sought to prevent through constitutional safeguards.
5. “Taxation and so on do not violate fundamental rights… justified in terms of consent of the governed.”
This argument depends on the false premise that consent is automatically given when a government imposes taxes. Legitimate taxation is limited to the government’s role in protecting rights, not to fund arbitrary programs or redistribute wealth.
• Taxation must serve legitimate ends: Taxes are justified only when they fund activities that protect individual rights, such as defense and law enforcement. When taxation is used for purposes outside these bounds-such as wealth redistribution-it becomes theft, violating the property rights of individuals.
• True consent is voluntary: Coercion is not consent. Being compelled to pay taxes under threat of imprisonment is not equivalent to giving consent. Consent must be meaningful and voluntary, which is why governments should operate with the smallest possible scope to minimize infringements on individual freedom.
Final Assessment
This argument collapses under its own contradictions. By denying individual sovereignty, it undermines the very foundation of rights and government legitimacy. It conflates consent with coercion and ignores the principle that legitimate power is always subordinate to protecting inalienable rights. The Declaration of Independence is clear: governments exist to secure individual rights, and any government that oversteps these bounds loses its legitimacy.
The idea that collective consent can override natural rights is the kind of sophistry that leads to tyranny. Let us reject such subversive distortions and reaffirm the principles of liberty and individual sovereignty.
@@merlingrim2843 You said "If a sovereign does not have an inalienable right to do something to another sovereign, then it cannot be delegated to government." Creating laws over or imprisoning other individuals is not a legitimate activity for you or I (let alone a supposed inalienable right), so by direct and inescapable inference of your original post the creation of laws and imprisonment of those who violate those laws cannot be a legitimate function of government. Unless you want to claim that I have an "inalienable right" to pass laws over you and imprison you if you break them, then denying governments' legitimacy to do so is WHAT YOU SAID. Your choice to characterize my pointing out that fact as a "blatant strawman" simply suggests that you hadn't (and apparently still haven't) considered your position very carefully.
Sovereignty is supreme authority, and that is a property which no human has ever held outside of artificial tyrannical power structures. Even in the most egalitarian societies that have ever existed, children are subordinate to parents, adults' wants are subordinate to other adults' needs or rights, and individuals are subordinate to societies - always have been. Individual sovereignty is even more of an imaginary philosophical abstraction than 'inalienable rights.'
On which point, it's blindingly obvious that even the most fundamental of people's rights such as liberty or life can be forfeited in whole or in part by their actions: Otherwise you would be declaring (for a second time!) that governments cannot legitimately imprison criminals. You cannot simultaneously declare that Jeffery Dahmer has an inalienable fundamental right to liberty, and that there is no gross violation of rights entailed by his lifelong imprisonment.
The logical consequence of your absolutist statements is complete anarchy, each individual trying (however futilely) to define and protect her own 'rights,' since there would be no legitimate mechanism for even creating let alone enforcing laws. That's the trouble faced by right-libertarians; they want to pretend that reasonable government the likes of which have proven to be generally successful and prosperous again and again and again around the world are some kind of 'tyranny,' so they come up with this kind of abstract, arbitrary, absolutist rhetoric... but then they don't want to actually accept the direct implications of that rhetoric, for very obvious reasons.
And the particular irony here is that they're seeking to impose a special tyranny of their own by arbitrarily and severely LIMITING the kinds of things that societies through their governments can do - such as funding of healthcare and infrastructure to promote general wellbeing, implementing environmental protections to ensure societies' long-term viability, or funding of education and scientific research to promote long-term progress and prosperity. Simultaneously, intentionally or otherwise their prescriptions (and in particular their treatment of real estate and other abstract property holdings as some kind of 'natural right' rather than social convention) promote the development of an untouchable financial oligarchy, unchecked by even the meagre democratic restraints of current corrupted political systems. There's a reason why those ideologies are heavily promoted by billionaires and their wannabes.
It's not clear whether you yourself are promoting the whole right-libertarian package, but you've certainly covered most of their introductory points and rhetoric. Ironically, in isolation I'd agree with probably 80 or 90% of what you've said; I've often thought that but for a few specific points of dogmatism, libertarians would be very reasonable liberals 😄
Regarding Article 3 and judicial review
Every member of all government swears an oath to the constitution. As such, one could argue that the power to review all government action is implicit. In fact, all members of government, at all levels, and in all branches, are duty bound to nullify unconstitutional government actions and laws.
Im a high school drop out and even I knew that. how did this teacher not?
I really don't like the 'seconday' vs 'primary' distinction. The rules about who makes the rules are logically primary and the rules that apply directly to people are secondary.
teach, do you right backwards cause you learned to write in hebrew?
It is debatable whether or not the change to popular election of Senators with Amendment XVII was a net benefit to the country.
Although the Constitution does not explicitly grant the power of judicial review to the courts, it was widely understood in the Founding Era that in the common law tradition we inherited from England, judicial review was an assumed part of the duties of courts of law. It's not at all accurate to say that the SCOTUS "gave itself" that power.
So this guy is just going to point to the antiquated provisions in the plain text of the Constitution that were amended and tell us these are “interesting?” Okie dokie…
@Drain Bamage Wow! you're really that smart? You're like so smart! Wow! So this stuff bores you? OMG you're smart. Probably the smartest commenter here...
I want to be like you! So, what do I do? Oh. I see. Take the time to watch stuff someone worked hard to create in order to teach us valuable information, and then use my skills and knowledge and time & energy to disparage the creator of the presentation. ok. great!
😅