This Case is Evil: Wickard v Filburn
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- In which I (JB) talk about the one case in law school that upsets me more than any other, mostly because it is still "good" law (in the sense of being valid precedent). My reaction relates to what I perceive as a major affront to personal autonomy and independence, particularly economic independence or self-sufficiency.
Link to the Wikipedia page on Wickard v Filburn: en.wikipedia.o...
The Wikipedia page on Thirlage: en.wikipedia.o...
I'm going through law school as well and just read this case in my Constitutional law class. The book doesn't even dedicate a page to describing the logic used in the decision or what it entails as precedent for future decisions. This decision is super scary and a horrifically small amount of people seem to care about it. I'm glad to have found your video discussion of the case. From one aspiring lawyer to another, good luck my friend.
The official end of the American Dream was when the Government officially was granted the authority to regulate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on an individual level.
very cool video man! I’ve been reading up on this recently after I found out Roscoe Filburn was my grandpas uncle! Still have the land he farmed the wheat on today
I don't usually go for your philosophical type videos, but I quite enjoyed this one!
I'm an econ major, vice law, and this case pisses me off just as much as it does the filmmaker.
Very interesting and well done video. Do you know of examples where Wickard v Filburn has been used as a precedent for laws that have happened after the ruling?
Edwardlewis18 yes, the Affordable Healthcare Act is one recent example
@@Ebonforge Gonzales v. Raich is also a very similar case to wickard.
@@Ebonforge what about the clause for exemption for Muslim's as it is against their religion? "insurance is a gamble"
So a lot of farmers had a bunch of wheat they couldn’t sell and liquor was illegal? No wonder they made moonshine with all that grain sitting around
I like to call this case "Wicked v. Filburn."
Thanks for the example, as well as politics this rose philosophical questions. mainly to things I should or countries should be allowed to say no to, and how to call things that infringe upon the right to say no. Pleas keep up with the good work and keep the videos coming!
Afaik "Churl" comes from the saxon "Ceorl" meaning a soldier (eg. Huscarl). Being churlish means acting like an arrogant grunt.
"Serf" comes from the latin "servus" meaning a slave (or at least a bonded labourer). So it has a slightly different meaning.
Somewhat related to how I felt communism is bad. Just in a way of an example, the one you gave. The people have access to food. Not like they're starving.
But the issue is that there's only one shop selling that food. And on those shelves is only 1 type of bread. Thus if you must eat - but there's only that bread. You are forced to buy that bread.
Thus you don't really have food - as saying No would mean starvation.
Or as the North Korean "elections", or the ones in the Russian Federation. Either there's no choice, or the other option is so evidently false that it's not an option at all.
Exactly. JB
I love the thought-provoking videos keep up the good work
Thank you so much
Absolutely agree, I have seen so many of your law videos and this continues to be. You should do a video on Kelo v. City of New London
Was this case used to justify affordable Care act? I remember Supremes asking if gov had right to force people to buy broccoli.
Very nice presentation. It also shows that you have been thinking about this topic for a while. I have thought about this topic in it's different forms for years. This has been a very tricky question for me to be answered uniformly.
For sure I believe in all forms of freedom as much as you. In my thought experiments I use scaling as a tool. I try to find some undisputable lines and also where the breakdowns occur. One extreme leads to anarchism in all it's glory and hardships. The other extreme is full on marxism. I could only find one line in between. It is the line of keeping the right of a maximum possible hard "no" on your land.
In current world, there is need for some roof organization, that deters superpowers. That means a superpower to go against it. Here is the catch: the land owner must pay upkeep for that superpower.
The form of the upkeep could be various. From the top of my head the most honest way to collect the tax, might be the tax on the area of the land you own under the protection. I know that sounds counter freedom, but the goal is to maximize the value of your "no" on your land. I have more thoughts on the topic, but for now I end here.
What about the area of defense? Should the government be able to "enthrall" people to defend their country? Does the government have the right to require participation only in certain areas, all areas, or no areas? Where's the line? or the balance? We definitely give up some personal power (rights) to be apart of the group, but where does the group start to tread on the individual, and where does the individual start to tread on the group? My quick surface answer: It's where we agree where the line should be for now (like we did when the constitution was made), meaning, it depends on the circumstances your in as a country. Sometimes we need more help from everyone to comply, because that's what helps the most in the moment, especially in a crisis. But then, it (the power, rights, etc...) should go back to the people. I know this is ideal, but if you have wise leaders, and wise supporters of those leaders, maybe its possible. But of course, once you give power to a government (to the group), history has shown you rarely get it back. Power tends to centralize and expand. The age old problem.
Because of that problem of centralization and the ratchet effect of power added to the state staying in the hands of the state, you need a people who are a little bit crotchety, slightly reckless (hence unwilling to bow to the excuse of trading rights for safely in an emergency as an excuse to expand central power in all but the most obvious instances), and personally independent enough morally, physically and intellectually to be unswayed by pathos, false analogies, misreadings of history, or strong but temporary social trends. JB
@@GoodandBasic Jefferson called that crochety group "the independents," (he also said it would be the agrarians (the georgics) that would save our country). Being crochety, I don't know if we will ever have another chance to finish what the founders started with the supreme court, as it was not properly "checked and balanced" (as in Wickard v Filburn) as the other branches were originally. (If we survive what's coming, we might get that chance, hence, keep thinking and improving articulation). The "natural" crochety group is the one you are always beholding to. The usual busyness, distractions, of life has definitely caused a "weak" grip though. A weakened auxiliary precaution and a weak grip might be to much.
Sounds like the requirement to participate in health insurance.
Interesting and disturbing.
Me too. JB
Wouldn’t this allow taxation on private gardens and tomatoes and peppers? Wouldn’t it enable taxation on do it yourself home improvements where you would otherwise hire a contractor? Or fixing your own car? Making your own clothes? It’s really endless.
It's not related to the taxation power. This is a federal power to regulate, ban, mandate anything related to any activity that even tangentially affects interstate commerce. There's nearly no limit. JB
@@GoodandBasic but a fine is a tax, or another word for it. And if I’m growing my own tomatoes, then it could be said that I was not engaging in market activities that I otherwise would have, and couple that with the fact that it’s common for vegetables to be transported from one state to another, then I have affected the economic market, and have denied the sale of goods to commercial farmers. Of course in the WvF example, there were limits in place on what was permitted, but the Supreme Court did not define what limits were constitutional and which are not.
Once again, I quite liked this video and thought the background was explained well.
Although, I do have some concerns with your very Blackstonian definition of exclusionary property, especially coupled with your focus on freedom and autonomy.
I'm happy to accept these forced-consumption laws create 'unfreedom'. What I won't accept is that a more libertarian regime would necessarily create more freedom (as I suspect you imply?).
For a much better articulation of this argument than I could ever give I'd wholeheartedly recommend Felix Cohen (citation below).
Though overall, as usual, I enjoyed this video.
Cohen, G. H., "Capitalism, Freedom, and the Proletariat", in "On the currency of Egalitarian Justice and other essays in political philosophy", Princeton University Press 2011, pg. 147 - 165
More people should know about W v. F. It is responsible for the growth of the federal bureaucracy.
BTW: What does that plaque on your shelf say?
als je niks te doen hebt doe het dan niet hier
If you don't have to do anything then don't do it here
I'm Hindu n do not eat how meat for religion belief... Govt can not force me to eat or consume cow meat which is constitutional injury...so this ruling also unconstitutional
I feel that every government is founded more or less on a single principle, which is the exclusive legitimate monopoly of that government over the use of force.
This takes the positive form of a legitimate monopoly on the use of force against it's citizens in the compulsion of lawful behaviour (you don't have a right to murder, your use of force against another would be illegitimate in that instance, and you likewise don't have a right to fight back against a police officer detaining you for a crime, but the police officer has a legitimate right to employ force to enforce your compliance with the agreed rules of that society).
But the states legitimate monopoly on the use of force necessarily has the potential to be misused.
The question becomes: Does the state have any obligation to honour your right to exclude yourself from that society, and it's a hard question. You cannot extend the right to your citizens to voluntarily exclude themselves from whatever aspect of society they disagree with, or else taxation would be impossible, police enforcement of the law would be impossible, ultimately rule of law and the provision of common goods and infrastructure would be impossible. But at the same time people have a right to be free of tyranny.
At what point does society draw the line and say NO, you may no longer exclude yourself without paying the price that you no longer gain the protection of that society, at what point do you become 'outlaw'. Every society must draw its own line, and it is in the interest of the society itself to draw that line far short of where the individual may be comfortable with.
Ultimately, society will punish those who seek to exclude themselves from some aspect of that society while benefiting from other aspects of it. What seems to one person to be liberty, may be interpreted by others as free-riding. In a democracy the hope is that the needs of society can be balanced again the needs of a plurality of the people, but it will always be, and must necessarily be, an uneasy and tenuous balancing act.
Some stuff is not practically to opt out on. Don't know how to solve that. Like in my country you have to pay for waste disposal (don't matter if you have any). I don't think laws against murdering and stuff that harms other people is controversial.
Completely agreed, Completely agreed, protection against murderers and other bad actors is part of the allure of civilisation, as is the provision of infrastructure. Nobody would complain about being “protected”, but people may worry about being “policed”. People want to have safe roads, sanitation and clean drinking water, but they may object to being taxed for those things. Civilisation offers huge benefits, that's why it's so popular! But it also requires a degree of 'buy in' that once you've consented to it does impose limitations on personal liberty.
If you said “almost every country”, I would agree. If you include the USA, then I must disagree. Go read the Second Amendment. That is exactly why it was included in the Bill of Rights: to prevent a monopoly of force existing in the hands of the government.
I did say 'almost' every country. The second amendment is an extremely unusual provision if interpreted in the broadest possible terms, but there is a tendency to interpret it broadly enough to be an endorsement of something akin to anarchy. It is worth bearing in mind that there has been a continued tension over the interpretation of the second amendment since it was written, but I don't seek to litigate that here.
My argument was not that it was necessarily a good thing that the state exercise a monopoly on the 'use of force' without limitation. Indeed I pointed out the inherent potential for abuse in the state's use of force. My argument would be that the state's monopoly extends only to legitimate force employed within that societies democratically arrived at rule of law. That it is a required limitation on individual liberty in order that something that could be called a 'society' to exist. Try simply not paying taxes in the USA as a private citizen, see how far that gets you.
Whatever form of governance you have in a society is invested with a monopoly on the "legitimate use of force", no further. The moment that the governments use of force exceeds the agreed rule of law for that state it becomes illegitimate and should rightly be resisted by the population by any means. I would argue that the second amendment quite rightly exists to limit the state from unlimited exercise of illegitimate force, but that a monopoly on legitimate use of force still resides with the state, except in those instances where they have expressly codified an exception in rule of law. A citizens arrest is (in certain exceptional circumstances) legitimate, but vigilante justice, lynching and locking people up in private compounds without trial is not, just as an example.
Citizens United would be another one, in my opinion. And yes! Making me buy someone else’s crap IS evil!
Oh yeah! And I still remember Monsanto commercials back in the early 2000’s saying something to the effect of “please don’t pirate our soybeans”. Better not see any of our roundup ready soybeans in your fields or you’ll be in trouble! Sheesh
What's the dutch saying doing there?? ;)
In The almighty dollar we trust. Pitiful. Who are our god's of our day? That we put monetary value on the value on a person, The founding fathers would roll over in their graves if they saw such a perversion of the principles they held so deerly. Created equally, Unalienable rights?
What about loaded choices? So, if you had the right of NOT consuming wheat, or opting out.. however, nobody is growing anything else (through coercion or any other reason) therefore you have nothing to eat and die by opting out. Do you truly have the right to opt out? You can break this argument either way.. you can stretch it and say if a government wants to force you to buy wheat, they don't need the quota, they can just restrict anything else. Conversely you cannot opt out of breathing oxygen, however there's nothing evil about that restriction. and having no alternative besides death isn't seen as an infringement on your rights. Where's the line?
Well said. No one has ore should desire perfect freedom. My choices are constrained in their range by things like the need to breathe and eat, to continue living and making choices. This doesn't bother me. What bothers me is when choices that are naturally within my responsibility are usurped by others. I need final accountability on those things I am responsible for or I am not responsible for them. JB
I mean I think it will be necessary to force people not to produces products for the market in the future because of Climate change. But I'm on your sides when it comes to this case forcing someone to not produces for himself that is evil. Where ok we can make a case that someone producing something illegal like chemicals that a banned (like DDT) even if he will not sell it he should not be allowed to do it but since this was about food yeah that is an evil ruling.
You defined the argument and your stance against it, but I'd be interested to hear your definition of "evil", if possible without reference to religion (which is quite an ask, I do appreciate!)
Evil is difficult to define but relatively easy to identify. Basically it is wrong action (defined either by wrong process or effect) which is combined with intent that is not redeemed by either ignorance or sufficiently benign intentions. Mostly, the honest truth is that I identify it in this case by a pre-intellectual revulsion. The words came after the feeling. JB
@@GoodandBasic interesting. Personally i think that defining evil by an activity or specific action doesn't sufficiently identify something quite so significant. Take, for example (and i apologise for the subject matter but its that or nazism and the latter is a complicated and confused situation) paedophilia. I have no problem in defining this as evil, but the intent behind the act could be driven by something much more complex than wanting to do a bad thing. A troubled (well, perhaps more accurately psychologically disturbed) individual could act on such an impulse, creating significant damage and long standing harm to another, but not necessarily be evil. The hypothetical individual could have suffered the same at an earlier age. Perhaps I'm trying to apply absolutes to a world that has no such thing. I'm not trying to pick holes in your argument about the jurisprudence of the WvF case, by the way, instead trying to instigate a debate on the subject of evil. I will end with this, however: i don't believe that evil is the absence of good. The absence of good, when applied to an activity, i would argue is an action without specifically good intentions. I struggle to define exactly what evil is without citing examples. I think we all probably recognise evil, but I'd love to hear a definition without reference to example or reference to "good"... if such a thing is possible!
Interesting thought experiment. It does seem to strip intent from the definition. I think that a key feature of evil is desecrating something sacred. It's failing to respect as holy something of great value. Like children in your example. The action thus demonstrates a problem with the ontology that produced the action. It seems like evil gets something disturbingly wrong about the nature of the universe on a true false level as much as a right wrong level. JB
Does this mean that they could create laws to make your channel itself illegal considering its content? How do you feel about that?
Control over the distribution of knowledge does appear to be the current goal direction of governments, what does access to information about the process to create things from scratch mean in that context?
Much harder. The jurisprudence on free speech is complicated but extremely expansive in the US. It would be very difficult for the Congress to ban this kind of content. RUclips is a private company though. So if they decide this is a problem then the first amendment can't say much about it. JB
may not be trouble here but china is another story especially with them implementing social scores though it's easy to wear a mask and a dark cloak to hide who you are.
Therefore: Taxation is theft!
Checkmate statists :P
Where would you draw the line? Can you handle yourself on your land against an invasion force of China for example?
@@varer Good question.
@@varer As was said in the video, freedom has extremely high value. This may be one of the reasons why.
also look at what happened to Ukrainian Crimea. Russia just said: U know what? is mine now! Where is your protective goverment now? Gave it up without fight. People around you? Gave it up without fight.
Mostly You are alone. You can rely on close friends, but dont expect, that your goverment or your countrymen will rise up if China will kidnap you or your dog(property). For whatever reason this would happen.
Sort of like the individual mandate in Obama care.
It was used as precedent for that case. JB
@@GoodandBasic The Affordable Care Act was intended to help even out the cost of healthcare by discouraging people from going without insurance and then going to the emergency room for everything and not being able to pay for it, thus driving up the cost of healthcare for everyone else. I've always thought it was a good idea. Short of going to full social medicine like they have in the UK, don't you think it's a step in the right direction? It's kind of like requiring everyone to pay property tax in order to support the police, fire department, road maintenance, and other infrastructure. Although I can see how it ties in with the whole concept of government-mandated consumption. I guess the other option would be to allow doctors and hospitals to outright refuse to treat or admit people who don't either have insurance or proof of financial resources to pay for the services themselves, which I don't think is something we as a society want to allow. What's your thought on this issue? (Incidentally, I've watched a lot of your videos and really enjoyed them. Even if I choose to use automation and power tools to do something, I feel that knowing how it's done without these things gives valuable insight, along with an appreciation for "how good we have it". I hope to keep seeing things from you in the future.)
@@Culturedropout Require health care providers to actually post prices. For most basic needs, in reality, 90% of the population can afford basic services out of pocket. There is actually precedent for that. Then, require high deductible, low premium plans for major and long term, but relatively unlikely, medical care. And, especially given how much impact it on during COVID, but had almost no discussion, we need to have a realistic discussion and realization about preventable diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, and the impact they have. Actually taking action on that would go a long way towards reducing overall healthcare costs.
We're still serfs. You're still 'bonded' to your country, one way or another...
Reminds me of Jefferson.
But he did sell the extra wheat. The purpose and point was to increase the prices of farm goods for ALL farmers. This farmer didn't want to follow the rules to lift all farms. Again, to save all farms, this law was enacted. You are not telling the truth. He planted ACRES of extra wheat and sold the wheat into the system. You are misleading people but I should've gathered that when you talked about fascism...
Whether he sold the wheat or not is immaterial. My issue is with the reasoning the court actually used to make its ruling and the effect that ruling had on the limits of congressional power. There are a host of rather stupid assumptions built into the idea of using price controls to help all farmers. For one thing, it means we are institutionalizing the idea that the proper role of a farm is growing cash crops which they then sell to support themselves by buying other people's produce when they have the means of production in their hands directly. The best advice for farmers has always been debt avoidance, diversification of product, and domestic production to fulfill as much of their own needs as possible. The law was misguided at every conceivable level, but most misguided in its lack of authority to enact in the first place.
I make no apology referring to the New Deal as fascist, because it is textbook fascism. See Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany’s 1933-1939 by Wolfgang Shivelbush. JB