Last I heard, Trump seemed more keen on issuing a "brand new" order (presumably one better vetted by White House counsel) than fighting it out over the old one in the courts.
Although in both the Lukumi Babalu Aye case and this one, there was also a smoking gun of discriminatory intent in the text of the law itself: the exemption for kosher butchers in the one, and the exemption for members of religious minorities in the other. So even if you really are looking at the text alone, as Scalia was in Lukumi Babalu Aye, it's still unconstitutional.
There's a lot to pick through here, but a key point is that on at least one occasion, Donald Trump appears to have signed an executive order without carefully reading it. [link]
That's unfortunate. Normally presidents only sign bills without reading them.
Just saying this doesn't make it true. You're going to have to explain it. Preferably with historical examples to back up your assertion.
And even what you say here has problems. Just for starters, "common law" refers to the body of rulings made by a state judiciary system. There is no such thing as common law in anarchism.
2. Who wants to subscribe to a rights enforcement agency that supports bad people? The answer is bad people. There are more good people than bad people, so good REAs beat bad REAs. It's not that hard...
In a strange way, you're right. But only if the REAs' strength is determined by the amount of people behind it rather than an amount of money. That is to say, only if the "REA" is a democratic government rather than a private for-profit agency. We all subscribe to a democratic government for precisely this reason. In short, you are yet again making an argument that undermines anarcho-capitalism rather than defending it.
(a) It's not as if people haven't tried this before. The cartel is pretty good at catching them. Maybe you make it, maybe you don't, but it's a serious risk and a huge disincentive to betrayal.
(b) How do you compete in the vaunted free and open market in secret?
While there are certainly people who believe morality is objective, Ljoss said "moral and cultural relativism", which is subjective by definition.
It's a bit more complicated than that. Think of it this way. The physical theory of relativity describes an objective, not subjective, reality. Different observers have different perceptions, but what a given observer perceives is predictable by law and irrespective of their personal opinion. There are theories of moral/cultural relativism that do the same thing.
Bad example, drug cartels are in active competition, which means there are no monopoly prices charged for drugs(although the prices are high due to the risky nature of the illegal drug business and drugs arent illegal in ancap society).
We're not talking about monopoly prices, we're talking about actions taken against competition. You say drugs aren't illegal, but that's because there are no laws. Drug cartels already operate as if there were no laws. So if you want to see what happens in a market when there are no laws, look at the drug cartels. Take-home point: competition becomes very violent very fast.
Did you forget about private rights enforcements agencies?
Of course not. Those machetes and AK-47s aren't going to wield themselves. You gotta hire guys to do your killing for you. They're even called "enforcers".
The "previous arrangement" people generally make is the establishment of a democratic government and police force.
Not An Argument against AnarchoCapitalism
Wait. Are you now claiming the establishment of a democratic government and police force is consistent with anarcho-capitalism? Because unless you're claiming that, what I said is a pretty direct argument against anarcho-capitalism.
Whenever I suggest to libertarians that if they don't like living under a government, they can just move, they complain that their home and family and friends and stuff are all where they are and they shouldn't have to move.
Not An Argument against AnarchoCapitalism
So you accept as valid what we might call the Just Move Principle: "If you don't like it, just move"? You'll stop complaining about having to pay taxes because if you don't want to pay them, you can just move?
Modern drug cartels aren't actually cartels. The name is a legacy from when the cocain trade actually did operate as a cartel, but that's no longer the case.
And if you betrayed the cartel, what do you think would happen to you?
In the case of cartels, it is beneficial to a business involved in one to cheat by going against the terms of the cartel.
Imagine you're a member of a cartel. For the sake of concreteness, let's say you're a member of a Mexican drug cartel. These are, after all, real-world examples of organizations operating outside the bounds of the law to sell a product to consumers.
Your argument, as I understand it, is that it is in your interest to betray the cartel of which you're a member. That this will be a good, wise, healthy, not-at-all-leading-to-torture-and-a-shallow-grave choice for you.
...which would be unlikely because people living in that area shouldve realized the possibility of such a monopoly occuring and made previous arrangements before moving in...
The "previous arrangement" people generally make is the establishment of a democratic government and police force.
The people living in that area could also move away to a place where they know that such a situation could not occur because of previous contract.
Whenever I suggest to libertarians that if they don't like living under a government, they can just move, they complain that their home and family and friends and stuff are all where they are and they shouldn't have to move.
That's probably not because he has mental problems (and people need to stop throwing the mentally ill under metaphorical buses), but because he's spent most of his life as a sheltered rich person, what with inheriting his dad's money and batches of sycophants.
No, Trump has a mental problem. Not all sheltered rich people behave the way he does. His own daughter is obviously better adjusted than he is (jury's still out on his sons). And even if his behavior can all be traced to his upbringing, that doesn't make it any less of a mental problem. Narcissistic personality disorder is narcissistic personality disorder regardless of where it came from; the DSM is agnostic on the matter.
So that has just removed one potential conflict of interest in the matter. That large political donation is still worrying considering that one of Trumps first actions made the ETP Chief Executive significantly richer.
Whilst there is no proof at the moment and it is unlikely that any would surface,neither are idiots after all, it is smelling a lot like the cash for questions scandal we had over here.
I don't like Trump any more than the next guy. But if we can't keep our facts straight, if we repeat everything we hear that makes our political opponent look bad and just shrug our shoulders when it turns out to be untrue... isn't that behavior pattern supposed to be why we don't like him?
Also, Trump's refusal to drop his financial ties means that the previously canceled pipelines he's used an executive order to keep building might be directly profitable for him. [link]
There is nothing in the linked article which establishes or implies the conflict of interest you're claiming here.
You sure about that?
Shares of ETP, the company building the 450,000 barrel-a-day Dakota pipeline, ended the day up 3.5 percent in U.S. trading.
Trump owned ETP stock through at least mid-2016, according to financial disclosure forms, and ETP's chief executive, Kelcy Warren, donated $100,000 to his campaign.
That states that he had a very recent and potentially continuing interest in one of the companies that has directly benefited from the pipeline being approved. And that the chairman of that company donated a significant sum of money to Trumps Presidential campaign. Whilst Reuters are hedging their bets and not directly saying that Trump still has an interest in ETP, probably because they don't have absolute proof. The fact that so soon into his presidency he could be seen to be blatantly rewarding one of his supporters is worrying especially if the White house is going to be applying pressure to the relevant departments to expedite the approval process with out giving enough time for discovery.
Also, Trump's refusal to drop his financial ties means that the previously canceled pipelines he's used an executive order to keep building might be directly profitable for him. [link]
There is nothing in the linked article which establishes or implies the conflict of interest you're claiming here.
One of my biggest concerns about the Trump Administration is how they could effectively end the Entertainment Industry as we know it especially in regards to the Anime/Manga Industry, Video Game Industry, and the Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game Industry...
Trump, and parts of his cabinet, are also still under investigation for treason/financial misbehavior.
Even in the worst-case scenario they are not guilty of treason. Aaron Burr was acquitted for treason, and he conspired to carve an empire for himself out of American territory. The Rosenbergs were never even tried for treason, and they gave the USSR the atomic bomb at the height of the Cold War. In all, there have been less than thirty treason prosecutions in United States history. Treason is a very, very specific crime:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
Is a hypothetical Russian-Sleeper-Trump levying war against the United States? No. There is no war. Is Russian-Sleeper-Trump adhering to enemies of the United States? He's certainly adhering to a foreign power, and that foreign power is hostile to U.S. interests, but it is not legally an enemy of the United States. If, God forbid, we do go to war with Russia and Trump sells us out, then he would be guilty of treason. But that's what it would take. The allegations against Trump et al., if true, may merit a host of charges up to and including capital espionage (see again the Rosenbergs)... but it's still not treason.
Violent protests (and violence at protests) don't change the fact that the number of hate crimes spiked last year, coincident with the US election and Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric (and, judging by the data, with the Republican Party's related push in anti-transgender laws). [link]
Let's be careful with our figures. The number of hate crimes didn't "spike". It's up 6%. The number of violent crimes in general is up 5% or so. This is a troubling development, and we don't know why it's happening after a decades-long downward trend, but it does rather change the significance of that 6% hate crime statistic. The specific surges in crimes against Muslims and transgendered people are more credible indicators of a real problem, but there too we must be cautious. When I see that a stat has gone up 67%, that certainly looks like a dramatic spike. But when I see that it has gone up to 257, in a country with a population of 325 million, that number is so low that even a 67% change could be a result of mere noise. Think of it this way: If just a single bigot snaps and starts beating up a Muslim a day for a month before he gets caught, that one guy alone could account for almost twenty points of that 67%. If nothing like that happens next year, the figure would drop down again just as "dramatically". So it's really, really hard to take changes in such small numbers as conclusive evidence for a particular narrative. (And believe me, I would be saying the same thing in reverse if somebody were citing a 67% drop in anti-Muslim hate crime as sign of a positive cultural change.)
But what collective wellbeing is ? The point is: defining wellbeing (specially "collective wellbeing") is already engaging in political ideology. So you can't care for one more then other.
Yup.
Although in both the Lukumi Babalu Aye case and this one, there was also a smoking gun of discriminatory intent in the text of the law itself: the exemption for kosher butchers in the one, and the exemption for members of religious minorities in the other. So even if you really are looking at the text alone, as Scalia was in Lukumi Babalu Aye, it's still unconstitutional.
More discussion from a law professor.
And even what you say here has problems. Just for starters, "common law" refers to the body of rulings made by a state judiciary system. There is no such thing as common law in anarchism.
In a strange way, you're right. But only if the REAs' strength is determined by the amount of people behind it rather than an amount of money. That is to say, only if the "REA" is a democratic government rather than a private for-profit agency. We all subscribe to a democratic government for precisely this reason. In short, you are yet again making an argument that undermines anarcho-capitalism rather than defending it.
(a) It's not as if people haven't tried this before. The cartel is pretty good at catching them. Maybe you make it, maybe you don't, but it's a serious risk and a huge disincentive to betrayal.
(b) How do you compete in the vaunted free and open market in secret?
It's a bit more complicated than that. Think of it this way. The physical theory of relativity describes an objective, not subjective, reality. Different observers have different perceptions, but what a given observer perceives is predictable by law and irrespective of their personal opinion. There are theories of moral/cultural relativism that do the same thing.
Of course not. Those machetes and AK-47s aren't going to wield themselves. You gotta hire guys to do your killing for you. They're even called "enforcers".
Wait. Are you now claiming the establishment of a democratic government and police force is consistent with anarcho-capitalism? Because unless you're claiming that, what I said is a pretty direct argument against anarcho-capitalism.
So you accept as valid what we might call the Just Move Principle: "If you don't like it, just move"? You'll stop complaining about having to pay taxes because if you don't want to pay them, you can just move?
And if you betrayed the cartel, what do you think would happen to you?
Your argument, as I understand it, is that it is in your interest to betray the cartel of which you're a member. That this will be a good, wise, healthy, not-at-all-leading-to-torture-and-a-shallow-grave choice for you.
I am inclined to disagree.
The "previous arrangement" people generally make is the establishment of a democratic government and police force.
Machetes and AK-47s are highly efficient means of competition.
Whenever I suggest to libertarians that if they don't like living under a government, they can just move, they complain that their home and family and friends and stuff are all where they are and they shouldn't have to move.
I don't like Trump any more than the next guy. But if we can't keep our facts straight, if we repeat everything we hear that makes our political opponent look bad and just shrug our shoulders when it turns out to be untrue... isn't that behavior pattern supposed to be why we don't like him?
Dug a little deeper:
Apparently Trump sold those shares.
Is a hypothetical Russian-Sleeper-Trump levying war against the United States? No. There is no war. Is Russian-Sleeper-Trump adhering to enemies of the United States? He's certainly adhering to a foreign power, and that foreign power is hostile to U.S. interests, but it is not legally an enemy of the United States. If, God forbid, we do go to war with Russia and Trump sells us out, then he would be guilty of treason. But that's what it would take. The allegations against Trump et al., if true, may merit a host of charges up to and including capital espionage (see again the Rosenbergs)... but it's still not treason.
Let's be careful with our figures. The number of hate crimes didn't "spike". It's up 6%. The number of violent crimes in general is up 5% or so. This is a troubling development, and we don't know why it's happening after a decades-long downward trend, but it does rather change the significance of that 6% hate crime statistic. The specific surges in crimes against Muslims and transgendered people are more credible indicators of a real problem, but there too we must be cautious. When I see that a stat has gone up 67%, that certainly looks like a dramatic spike. But when I see that it has gone up to 257, in a country with a population of 325 million, that number is so low that even a 67% change could be a result of mere noise. Think of it this way: If just a single bigot snaps and starts beating up a Muslim a day for a month before he gets caught, that one guy alone could account for almost twenty points of that 67%. If nothing like that happens next year, the figure would drop down again just as "dramatically". So it's really, really hard to take changes in such small numbers as conclusive evidence for a particular narrative. (And believe me, I would be saying the same thing in reverse if somebody were citing a 67% drop in anti-Muslim hate crime as sign of a positive cultural change.)