Is it your contention that a right does not exist until it is declared to exist by government? [strike]No equivocating[/strike] (edit: No equivocating on my part). I'm not willing to say that flying a plane over property not your own or driving a car on public roads has been declared a right. To my knowledge, it has not. Very clear, no BS. My question stands, though. I am not of a belief that governmental (or for that matter, any) declaration is required to establish a right, as that would mean that it was from that source that the right sprung and unless the source is our Creator, it just ain't so.The thought that comes to mind for me, SFUSMC, is "prior restraint". It's not strictly correct, but speaking generally, the requirement of a license, prior knowledge of ability, medical clearance, vehicle clearance, insurance, etc. are all limitations on a right, the right of travel or of fair use of one's own property. In the example of the 10K acre farm and the cropduster, the pilot might unsafely fly the plane off the property and into the neighbor's house... of course, the same thing did happen a year or so ago in Anderson, when a medical helicopter crashed into someone's property. Fortunately, there were no deaths. All of the items you cited (as per my condensed listing of them), with the replacement of "firearm" for "vehicle", have been proposed by gun banners as controls upon our lawful behavior. This is not an abstract exercise: mandatory firearms training, mandatory licensure, verification of health (albeit mental, and that definition is nebulous), "firearm safety inspections", or so they're called so that the serial number and the owners name can be recorded by police, insurance requirements that were discussed and perhaps enforced in Chicago in light of the McDonald ruling. Frankly, I don't care what anyone would like to know before I exercise one or all of my rights; what he, she, they, or you would like to know is irrelevant to the existence of the right and my choice to exercise it. When my exercise of my rights affects you,(i.e. the proverbial swinging of the fist and the end of your nose), then it is your rights that matter. You may call this strawmanning, but the logic is identical, and while travel by plane is not specifically in the Constitution, the 9A says it doesn't need to be, while the 10A specifies that unless that power is granted the fed. gov in the Constitution, it is not theirs on which to speak. Sadly, the fact that something merely exists is taken to mean that it affects interstate commerce and thus is actionable by Congress.
I'm having trouble keeping up with all the fallacies Bill. Flying an airplane over public property or private property (not your own) and driving a car on public roads HAS NEVER BEEN DECLARED A RIGHT. I challenge anyone to produce evidence to the contrary. Evidence. No circular arguments. No strawmen. No equivicating. No red herrings. No appeals to emotion, fear, ridicule, popularity or spite. Not 90 year old BS rulings from Virginia where the text of the decision is not available for scrutiny. Real evidence. So to start off I reject the premise that it is a right. Could it be determined to be one? Sure. But not based on any existing evidence I've seen.So your rights only exist where some authority has not been established restricting them? I know that's not what you're intendint to say, but that is how its coming across. And no, I'm not sending up red herrings. I'm not diverting attention at all. The discussion here is on rights vs. privileges. The use of travel or firearms vs. religion, speech, or housing of troops are mere examples of each. (We got onto the topic of flying one's own plane when I commented that doing so allowed you to avoid the whole TSA "security theater".) A right is something with which you are born. You have the right to travel. You have the right to use your personal property as you see fit. Concomitant with that (any) right is the responsibility for the results of your actions, whether it be the swinging of your fist, the firing of your pistol, or the shouting of "Fire" in the absence of one in a theater. You are responsible for the actions you undertake.Now as Blackhawk pointed out there are areas where you can fly (generally under 1200 feet) your own plane (ultralight-class) and with within unrestricted air space (not controlled by airports, not over populated areas, etc.) So the issue is moot. There are areas you can fly without license, maintenance records, insurance and other items needed to fly in restricted airspace.
The continual attempt to associate flying / driving licensing and firearms restriction is nothing but a red herring intended to appeal to emotion.I shouldn't need to say this at this point, but regardless, I will. I believe in the Constitution. There are some clauses in it of which I'm not fond, but I believe in it overall. To clarify, I was not saying that the Constitution was wrong to use the word "power(s)" in the 10A specifically or in any other place, I was pointing out that government has the power (that is, the might) to do many things. It does not, according to the 10A, have the power (that is, the permission, the authority) to do most of them. This is a matter of semantics and I consider it a very minor point, more of a lament than a point of discussion.^^This. If harm is done, liability is present. (Though as SFUSMC points out correctly, gov't has no rights at all, only powers and the correct term we should use, IMHO, is "authority", for gov't has much power, mostly abused and unauthorized by the Constitution)
You may not like the word power and favor the word authority. The Founders disagreed. In fact they are not synonomous. Authority derives from and is dependent on power. You have no authority unless you first have power. The Constitution uses the word power 48 times. The word authority 8. No where is the word authority used in place of the word power, nor vis versa. Waxing eloquente does not alter the meaning of words.
You can't have it both ways. Either you believe in the Constuitution or you don't. I do.Thank you.Our forefathers ceded the power to regulate behavior to reduce risk in the Constitution? Please specify what you mean; I'm not being argumentative here, I just want to know to what Article and Section you refer.
Section 8 of the federal Constitution:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;or to the People10th Amendment:
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 10th Amendment (State's Rights) reserves all powers not delegated to the Constitution to the StatesYou describe a top-down model, wherein the Constitution is a source of federal government power. I see it quite differently, wherein the source of that power is the people who created it and the Constitution is the "brakes", the limitation upon those very few specified, permitted federal powers. As above, I use the term power here in the sense of the authority to do something... That the fedgov has the might to do essentially anything is not in argument.. Powers. Not authority. Under the federal Constitution states are free to regulate however they choose as long as they do so within Constitutional parameters. Namely, that states not encroach on federal powers. Again, this is the governmental system our founders established.
There can be reasonable restriction of activities by the people, through their government. There are too many such restrictions, but to claim it must be all or nothing is a fallacious argument.
Further, I do not claim there should be NO restrictions, not at all. I claim that those actions a person undertakes that cause harm (actual, not potential) to another person carry with them the responsibility for those actions. I disagree with the concept of restricting and controlling because of what someone might do. (for example, I can't draw and shoot someone because I thought he might try to rape my wife. If I catch him in the act, no court in Indiana would question my sending him straight to hell.)See above question: Is it your contention that a right must be found by some authority (SCOTUS?), else it does not exist?You claim it is not debatable that the people have a vested interest in the exercise of rights. I disagree. I debate it. Until the exercise of those rights affects them, as above, they have no say. Your example of the net or barrier is concerning. It sounds like you're saying that individuals must be "properly" corralled, fenced, and controlled from without like cattle, but that within those bounds, they may do what they wish. This sounds like giving a child a choice of "You can wear the yellow shirt or the blue one when the child wants to wear his Spider Man pajama top instead...while that's fitting for a parent to control and guide his/her own child, it is not fitting for government to do so to the citizens who create it and who it is supposed to serve.
Again, I reject the premise that rights exist where there are none. Unless and until rights heretofore nonexistent are found to exist, everything else is irrelevent.And again, no, no misdirections. The presence of licensure and the like does not do what it was expected to do, any more than any little piece of government paper in one's pocket has any real effect. Were I to allow my medic certification to lapse, I would not lose the knowledge I have, a fact people count on for SHTF planning. I would simply, per government rules, not be allowed to call myself a paramedic anymore. That rule would not be what stopped me from doing so.Insofar as your court case, let us suppose that you have a plane, license, insurance, yadda yadda... jumped through all the hoops. Last week, you forgot to pay the insurance on it, and the policy has been cancelled. Not realizing this, you take your plane up, God forbid, some mishap occurs, and it crashes into my home. Hypothetically, you do not survive. Your estate has some assets, but nowhere near enough to pay to rebuild my home. What good has all of the precaution and government assurance and safety and whatever done to guarantee me or anyone anything? I submit that all of the regulation is solely feel-good crapola that assures no one of anything. Since it does not do what it was designed to do, why do we keep it? Solely because that is the paradigm to which we're accustomed?
Again, the red herring flys overhead.We do differ on the definition. I believe, as our Founders specified, that our rights are unalienable; we have them. No equivocation, no conditions. We have them. They are basic human rights; a man in China may not be allowed to speak his mind without fear of repercussion; his exercise of his right is what is being interfered with, but he was born with that right. I do not believe that government has any business picking and choosing what rights they will allow us to have; to allow that camel's nose under the tent is to say that no right is safe, and IIRC, Justice Scalia made a statement to that effect. I can't find the exact quote but it's on the order of " A right subject to interpretation by judges is no right at all." I could be mistaken about the speaker and I am almost certainly about the exact words of the quote.I think we fundementally disagree on the definition of right. I believe declaring a right requires an analysis of impact to and on others. If there is no impact, the action or bevahior is a right. If there is potential that it can impact others, depending on the severity of the impact it may or may not be a right. It may be a privilige. It may necessitate some level of regulation by the people. It may be prohibited. These are all drawn out in analyzing the action and consequences.
I am not saying you have to prove something a right, but rather consider all aspects of the outcomes of engaing in a behavior before deciding so. You appear to declare everything a right and then place the burden of proof on others why they should enfringe your rights. Please tell me if I'm wrong.
The divergence in our positions make it interesting for debate.
I do not have to consider the possible outcome that my carry of a firearm might result in an accidental or negligent discharge so long as my pistol remains safely in its holster, any more than I have to consider the possible outcome that my reciting of a prayer in Hebrew might cause someone to scream "Allahu Akbar!" and come running at me with murder in his eyes.
My contention is that others must prove a reason to infringe upon rights only to the extent that they must show an actual injury has occurred to them by someone's exercise of them. The much-used swinging of the fist in a circle comes to mind. My right to do that stops at the tip of your nose, but, seeing that I'm standing here swinging my fist around in a circle, if you approach and I don't see you stick your nose into the line of the swing, whose fault is it you got hurt, vs. if I'm walking toward you. You should not have to back up or get out of my way as long as it's obvious I can see you; it is my responsibility to take what steps I must to prevent striking you... or to compensate you for any injury or loss you incur.
SemperFiUSMC said:Ah, but it is that easy. Happens all the time.I answered the other posts, forgetting I meant to come back to this one first.
What would be the incentive to create a radio business? I suppose, like any other matter, we can deal in persuasion or we can deal in force. If you and I each start a radio business and we both want a specific frequency, I suppose we could each come to the table and make a deal or we could share the channel like everyone else has to do or we could both change and instead of 92.7 mHz, you could you 92.9 and I, 92.5. This is what happens when people work together. Instead, we have force of government requiring this and mandating that.
We have government exerting authority to regulate an asset (radio waves) owned by the people. Would that it were as easy as let's all just get along. It isn't.
Which people do you contend own the radio waves? Don't forget that HAM can reach worldwide with about 8 bucks worth of cable in a back yard and an AC powered transciever.What if they didn't? Then people would move to other bands. Plenty of room for everyone. Yes, amateur operators all are licensed to the best of my knowledge. Is that the cause or the result of people complying and cooperating? (The various nations of the world have agreements, all of which were voluntary, in re: the band plans... it's not because of law that they comply.You said you're not a HAM operator, and this is evident. No insult in that, BTW. (I hold an Extra license, but my only transceiver is a little 2m handheld, so I don't consider myself an operator, either, though I'm familiar with the agreed-upon rules-of-the-road, so to speak.) On those frequencies, whoever is there first has priority; even if I have a weekly or even a daily "net" on a specific frequency, if someone else is there first, I can ask them to change or I can change... I have no ability to force them to do so, nor do they have the ability to force me. It's simple etiquette. For this reason, regular nets have multiple redundancies in place... "If we can't meet on this frequency, we'll be on that one. If not there, then here. If not here, then thus. Further, the band plan is not defined by government but rather by the amateur community. Is there anything stopping someone with a "technician" license from transmitting on "extra" frequencies? Nope. If he's caught doing so, the FCC can pull his license, but nothing is stopping him from doing it even then.
It's good that HAM operators tend to cooperate. What if they didn't? You rely on the goodness of others. Others who by the way have licenses to operate if I'm correct.No unicorns, no cotton candy, no rainbow farts. The reality that you acknowledged as well is that we have too da*n much regulation, too much law, too much force. People do not need that. They have in some ways become dependent upon someone else stepping in, exercising authority, and forcing behavior or compliance. In other ways, people continue to prove that all of that is suited to Romper Room, but not to adult interactions.
In the final analysis, it's been said before that government is force. While there is a place (a small one) for force to be appropriate, I am of the belief that persuasion, etiquette, and common decency are preferable methods for people to interact.
Blessings,I too am all for unicorns and cotton candy. That is not the world we live in. At some point we must acknowledge reality, if only for sanity's sake.
Bill
And yes, the difference of opinions does make for good debate. Would that it would make a real difference somewhere. I keep hoping some folks will read it, wake up, and start ending the BS.
IMHO, the insanity you seem to fear exists in restrictions, bars, bans, qualifications and licenses far more than in individual liberty.
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