Maggie's Farm

Jerryskids: James Madison never attended an Ivy League school, did he?

Um, Madison graduated from Princeton.

Madison was effectively Princeton's first graduate student.
https://www.princeton.edu/frist/iconography/q3.shtml

What an egghead!

On the larger point, while the U.S. Constitution is showing its age and is (and always has been) flawed, jettisoning the Constitution would be fraught with peril.

Even then, the arguments made in the article are specious:

The Sixteenth Amendment didn't break the Constitution. The U.S. continued to extend liberty to more people, even while the country was instrumental in defeating fascism and constraining Soviet communism until its inevitable collapse.

That the fiat currency inflated over the last century is not something extraordinary, but ordinary and necessary in a rapidly expanding economy. Gold and silver could never support the current size of the U.S. economy.

The claim that the Congress can't establish regulatory agencies is contradicted by a century of Supreme Court decisions. Indeed, you can't run a modern technological economy without regulation. Consider air pollution. Does Congress need to legislate the exact quantities of emissions? What about new types of emissions? It would be untenable to expect a Congressional hearing for every new chemical or sight modification of an existing chemical. Instead, Congress delegates to an agency the task of using science and economics to set policies, then along with the judiciary exercises oversight.

Nor are there J6 political prisoners. Everyone being held has been granted a bail hearing under the law, or pleaded guilty, or been tried and convicted.

indyjonesouthere: Does Congress need to legislate the exact quantities of emissions or anything or to legislate the quality of some law? Absolutely.

Then pollution would run amok.

indyjonesouthere: I did not vote for a single admin state employee to make such decisions.

No, but apparently a lot of other people did.

indyjonesouthere: The administrative state is to administer the law exactly as written and not to regulate as they cannot be given that authority.

A simple example of the regulatory state: Congress appropriated funds for invalided veterans of the Revolutionary War. Washington had Hamilton set up an agency to determine eligibility for disbursement of the funds "under such regulations as the President of the United States may direct."

Invalid Pension Act of July 16, 1790, ch. 27, § 1, 1 Stat. 95
https://archive.org/details/actspassedatthir00unit/page/n73/mode/2up

indyjonesouthere: ALL fiat currencies self destruct due to the inability of the state to control its spending.

Perhaps. But there just isn't enough gold in the world to support a modern economy. Of course, the American people can decide to enact a more rational fiscal policy. That would mean paying the taxes necessary to support the social programs that they want. But demagogues will demagogue and promise the people can have their cake and eat it too.

indyjonesouthere: There are lawsuits and class action lawsuits.

Your solution entails waiting for people to be hurt. Another problem is that the damage is often diffuse and hard to prove for specific cases. The cost of litigation can be very high with an uncertain outcome, while the polluter continues to damage the community. People may not even know they are being poisoned as many chemicals are invisible. Only after the fact, when clusters of disease are found, and even then, the polluter will claim that they are either random clusters or that some of the cases are unrelated to the pollution. Furthermore, the polluter is almost always richer and more politicallly connected. They can afford to tie the issue up in courts, as they continue to make money while the case drags on. Indeed, most pollution occurs in poor communities.

Coasian bargaining assumes there are low transaction costs, which is often not true with pollution.

indyjonesouthere: Do FISA courts, FBI and DOJ ring a bell?

They're all subject to judicial oversight. It's not a perfect system, but that's not an excuse to tear everything down.

indyjonesouthere: There was enough precious metals until the FDR and LBJ empire builders decided that war and bread and circuses was affordable.

All the gold in the world represents only one month of global GDP.

ANother guy named Dan: So what's the issue with the expert agencies reporting to Congress recommendations on proposed regulations, with a subsequent congressional up/down vote on the regulations prior to their becomming law?

That's one way to handle it, but that would be unwieldy. You might acknowledge that Congress is slow to act, glacial even, ill-equipped to understand the technical details of advanced technology (how much cis-1,2-dichloroethylene should be allowed in drinking water?), and due to its inherent undemocratic structure, easy for moneyed interests to manipulate.

A legislative veto is the more effective method. Though a direct legislative veto was ruled unconstitutional in INS v. Chadha, it's still in use, with Congress acting through the budgetary process. But again, Congress it not well-equipped to deal with the rapidity and complexity of technological change.

ANother guy named Dan: If Congress is too busy for such trifles, as you suggest, could the root issue be that there are just plain too many regulations to begin with?

As with the Invalid Pension Act of 1790, Congress directing the President to set up regulations is more effective. Expecting Congress to approve each application for a pension is not just silly, but contrary to what the founders envisioned for how the government would work. Modern society is far more complex than what the Congress in 1790 faced.

ANother guy named Dan: The rurrent Federal Register system that allows regulations to carry the force of law without Congressional action is a breeding ground for the growth and expansion if governmental power beyond the limits of the Constitution.

Next thing you know, the department of transportation will put up traffic lights and punish you for ignoring them. "You can only go on green, Comrade!"

But we agree that government can grow too big, too unwieldy, and too distant from the people. But eliminating regulations is not the solution.

Another Guy Named Dan: Congress should not be in the business of voting on stoplights.

No, but somebody obviously is. That means some agency of the government studies the traffic and decides to put up a traffic light. Then they force you to stop when the light is red.

But the point is the same for federal regulation. For instance, a regulation says you can't dump your sewage into the river shared by other communities. The regulation is enacted under laws which grant the power to the agency to study the problem and enact regulations, subject to judicial review. The court then determines whether the regulation is consistent with the law, and whether the agency followed the proper procedures as defined by law.

Another Guy Named Dan: I'm not talking about a up/down vote on each regulation, but at least a vote, subject to the amendment process, on all regulations brought forward by the executive agencies.

Congress can pass legislation to overrule any regulation, or eliminate the regulatory agency in its entirety.

So, how much cis-1,2-dichloroethylene should Congress decide to be allowed in drinking water?

Louis Miller: Do you have an exhibit that shows details of total detained, each charge and outcome?

You're welcome.

OneGuy: But if they are doing this at the request of the government, which it certainly appears that they are, then it becomes an illegal unconstitutional act.

A social media company can cooperate with the government in one legitimate area, such as preventing foreign interference in the election, while also independently working to prevent domestic voter interference in another. For instance, if someone plants a meme with the wrong election date, then a responsible social media company could and probably should take it down.

OneGuy: If so you would know that the government cannot ask, bribe or force a private company or individual to break the law.

That's right. Do you have evidence the government is coercing a private company to break the law?

John Fisher: To date no one has found a smoking gun.

That's right.

John Fisher: But there have been a lot of comments from government officials that fall under the heading of 'will no one rid me of this troublesome priest' and the social media giants immediately do just that.

Many such cases are overstated. However, there should be pushback when government officials overstep the line, or even when they cozy up to it.

OneGuy: I don't have evidence so I suggest we authorize a search warrant for the FBI to enter their offices and homes in the middle of the night and take everything, every document, every computer, every file, every phone and any product they have created since they became a business.

That would require a court finding probable cause of a crime being committed, of the evidence to that crime being in a particular location, and the particular evidence to be seized.

OneGuy: OR, as in the precedent I cited, a biased judge with a shady past that the FBI knows about to approve the warrant.

Judge Who Approved Trump Search Warrant Was in Role by Chance
 

indyjonesouthere: Coasian bargaining is what the government uses to mandate its EPA requirements on companies and individuals.

Huh? Coasian bargaining is a market solution in an ideal environment. It's the lack of well-defined property rights or high transaction costs that preclude Coasian bargaining.

indyjonesouthere: The DOJ-NSD has no inspector general as set up by Holder and Obama.

U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General

indyjonesouthere: Look around, inflation is everywhere.

The inflation rate has averaged about 3.3% over the last century. Until the recent spike, inflation has averaged about 2% over the last 20 years. If your claim that runaway inflation was due to fiat money, then the currency should have melted away generations ago. Rather, the money supply has to increase as the economy grows.

Consider this simple case: A century ago, a doctor might visit you at home to tend to your sick daughter with a sore throat. He prescribes honey and lemon. Times are hard, and you don't have a lot of cash, so you pay him two chickens. The doctor is happy because he can eat the chicken, and he can give the other chicken to the poor family down the road he also tends to. Nowadays, the doctor doesn't come to the home. Instead, you go to her office and wait and wait, and then she prescribes an antibiotic, which actually cures your daughter, and she charges you the equivalent of 2000 chickens. But you can't pay her in chickens. Sure, she might eat a chicken two, but what the heck is she going to do with 2000 chickens?!

The modern economy is vast. You can't pay in chickens and you can't pay in gold and expect the economy to work. There's just not enough chickens or gold in the world for a world that produces $100 trillion in goods every year.

indyjonesouthere: The DOJ-NSD is exempt from the DOJ inspector generals office.

No, they're not exempt. Rather, there are exemptions, and disputes as to those exemptions, such as grand jury evidence.

indyjonesouthere: So you accept that the government mandates through its agencies is due to government not respecting property rights or transaction costs of companies or individuals.

Huh? You said it was Coasian bargaining, but Coasian bargaining is a market phenomenon.

indyjonesouthere: When the Fed prints rather than borrow from individuals then it creates hot money that drives inflation.

It certainly can. But it's not inevitable, as you had indicated. The U.S. has had low inflation for long periods, even with fiat money.

indyjonesouthere: Congress has no right to oversight over DOJ-NSD

You either don't read your own links, or you don't understand them. Laufman is not a representative of the government.

Per longstanding convention, the Congress shouldn't intrude on an ongoing criminal investigation, even if the investigation concerns classified information, which would normally warrant the attention of the Intelligence Committee. At some point, the Intelligence Committee will be involved. Laufman just says it is too soon, not that Committee has no oversight role.

indyjonesouthere: He's up to his neck in the Russia hoax.

He may be, but that doesn't justify misrepresenting his comments. (Your link is just speculation from back in 2018. Nothing apparently came of it.)