And, of course, if the Congress decided to grant a monopoly over wheat production the individual farmer growing wheat for his own consumption would be impacting interstate commerce, like it not....
Which is really your problem. You don't like the idea of Congress telling a farmer what to do with his own wheat production...neither do I but bad policy != Unconstitutional Policy.
For example, in terms of the US granting a monopoly, we have Gibbons v. Ogden which was decided in 1824. In the case NY had granted Robert Livingston a monopoly to operate steamboats on all NY's waterways. Gibbons was operating a competiting service from NJ.
What's relevant here is:
1. While it didn't square with Adam Smith, the colonial era was quite familiar with and even comfortable with gov'ts granting monopolies.
2. The SC ruled that NY's grant was unconstitutional since it interfered with interstate commerce.
Given this, suppose the gov't wanted to grant a monopoly to a producer of wheat or pot for medical use. Where is your 'explicit' Constitutional prohibition on this?
Every other law does NOT have a 'self destruct'. Usually you put a 'self destruct' clause in a law because you have two or more sides who agree to give and take and they don't want to see their taking ruled unconstitutional while other people's taking remains on the books so you write a clause into the bill that says the bill becomes void should any part of it be found unconsititutional (or you can have a variation like a particular section is voided should anything be deemed unconsititutional but other sections stay).
Clearly if every bill had an 'assumed self destruct' there's be no need to write them. Quite often with a big complicated bill you DONT want a self destruct. Would you want to reauthroize the entire military because some minor section of the code had a Constitutional problem or would you just have that section overturned while leaving everything else?
I'm curious as to the legal arugment behind this. Some laws are written with self-destruct severability clauses that state that if any aspect of the law is held unconstitutional the entire law is void. The argument here sounds like it plays on the "but the law's boosters said it" idea.
If you drop the mandate there's a real danger that the prohibition on pre-existing condition dropping could make the law very expensive to private health insurance...even put it out of business. Policy wise that's undesirable but legally what's stopping it? Congress could, if it wanted, pass a law banning health insurance. Just because a law may appear expensive is a argument for legislatures to take up, not judges.
Lopez and Morrison both share a common trait in that they can be said to be twice or more removed from interstate commerce. Growing your own wheat and pot are once removed from interstate commerce because doing so, in fact, impacts the interstate trade of a good that the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate. This would not have been so strange sounding several hundred years ago when it was common for the crown to grant monopolies on various aspects of commerce (importing tea, printing playing cards etc.). Bad economic policy? Yes. The Constitution didn't outlaw it though. Contrary to popular libertarian mythology, the Constitution did not enshring Milton Friedman's Free to Choose.
How exactly does this work. Suppose Congress passed a law they said was a tax on people who made over $10M a year. The people who wrote the law said it was a tax, the law itself was titled "Tax on people who make over $10M a year". Various boosters and activists call the law a tax on people who make over $10M a year.
The law says "If you make over $10M a year you must report to the IRS office and have your left hand cut off." Outraged people who make over $10M a year go to court and argue that this isn't a tax, its a punishment and since the have not been given due process of law the courts should bar the gov't from enforcing it.
What does Justice Trumwill say? That because people called the law a tax it legally is a tax and should stand? Form versus substance.
Not to be curt about it, but the interstate commerce clause is pretty vague and honest people can draw different lines. A long long time ago we went down the path of drawing an expansive line that covered not only interest commerce directly but also indirectly (like growing a global commodity).
Now I'll respect you if you want to overturn all that but I do not believe that's what this judge is doing nor would the SC if they overturned it. They would cherry pick this law, as partisans, to overturn with an ad hoc limited reading of Interstate commerce while leaving all other precedents more or less untouched (keep in mind, for example, that state's legalizing pot for medical purposes were shot down by this SC on Interstate commerce grounds). That's judicial activism.
Nope, you had like 80 years to get used to it now. Do you have an actual substantive argument about it or should we just base the law on what your feelings are?
If you want to discuss form then do so in the courts. But then don't cite 'the law's boosters' who talk about the law in the public debate which centers mostly (not entirely) around function.
OK you can say the laws boosters are liars. More accurately I'd say what it is would be in the eye of the beholder. Legally I'd say its a tax esp. given the fact that there's nothing illegal about opting not to get insurance and paying the penalty.
This is in contrast to, say, parking illegally. The ticket or fine may be trivial, say $45 but that doesn't quite make it the same as a town that runs a parking garage for $45. Economically yes it's the same but legally it's not. Form versus function. Economics and most of the time when we talk about policy we care about function. But often form makes a difference if you're talking law.
Replace it with a tax? It is a tax! There's explicitly no criminal penalty, the mandate is enforced by the IRS which is specifically excluded from using its criminal powers to enforce it. Aside from maybe terminology, exactly what would you change about it in order to make it a tax?
Actually the way I read it the rural white person whose on disability would be in the 'entitlement class' while the one that's a self employed home contractor would be in the 'labor class'. Both, though, may enjoy the same lifestyle choices and ability to consume. What I take from his graph is that you can have a low ability to consume and be in the 'capital class' (I was when I was a kid, my father died when I was very young and left my mom a trust fund from his life insurance payout. While the fund provided a monthly stipend sufficient to have a lower to middle middle class lifestyle, we were technically living on capital the way Paris Hilton is). The graph is stubby near the bottom because while you can be an 'entitlement class' person and achieve some pretty impressive levels of consumption there is a limit. 'Welfare Queen' rhetoric from Reagan's California years aside, you probably can't find a way to live like Paris Hilton off of food stamps, Medicaid and general assistance.
This applies to both ends of the scale. Society is becoming increasingly removed from the confluence of income and survival; that is, you don’t have to work anymore to obtain what’s needed for survival (and, depending on your tastes, the what’s needed for luxury.)
Yes but the usual thinking with a market system is that rewards (here ability to consume) should follow productivity. Warren Buffet enjoys a large ability to consume because he works to move capital into worthy investments. Likewise 'The Dude' from The Big Lebowski choose not to do much of anything and as a result doesn't have the options to consume much of anything aside from bowling and pot.
What's interesting about this observation by Transplanted Lawyer is that the market seems pretty good at creating a useless 'capital class' that, like the entitlement class, doesn't actually do much of anything but is rewarded with the ability to consume. This class is not looked down on as much because technically it's 'their' money and because the market actually caters to their illusion that they are doing useful things (like day trading or in Lawyers case have hours of legal time spent on pie in the sky 'business deals' that at the end of the day amount to nothing of value). Here I think Bravo's Housewives show is a really, really good illustration of the market's cottage industry that works to create the delusion that a portion of the 'capital class' is actually doing something productive. Contrast this with either Paris Hilton or The Dude, both of whom seem quite aware they aren't doing anything productive and are simply out to enjoy whatever ability to consume they can.
An argument perhaps for an estate tax without a large exemption to accomodate the standard sob story about the 'family farm' that must be sold to pay the estate tax. I remember Jack Kemp used to argue for lower capital gains taxes on the grounds that it 'frees up capital' since people will sell their stock that has built up large gains and presumably use those funds elsewhere when capital gains taxes are low but will opt to 'hold and hold' their stock when capital gains taxes are high (thereby making it 'dead capital' invested in old industries rather than new and exciting ones).
Maybe, though, income inequality driving huge estates at the top is actually creating large pools of 'dead capital' that is less interested in being productive and more interested in preserving a class distinction for the unproductive. An estate tax forces some of this dead capital on the market where it will be priced according to its actual productivity
Mean or median makes a big deal of difference here. Having Stephen King in your average will make the compensation look great, even if 99 out of 100 people don't break $10K a year.
Likewise the definition of artist here is important. Is a person who does illustrations in an advertising agency an artist or just a person who creates illustrations that are sold as art? Is acting in a commercial for mouthwash making a living as an artist or only acting in a drama/comedy? In both cases you can say technically everyone here is making a living doing art but only the latter examples are making a living as an artist.
It doesn't quite dovetail that nicely. You can have two rural white people both with average incomes but belonging to two different classes....one person's 'average income' coming from say being a contractor and another person's 'average income' coming from disability payments.
The first thing I thought when I read this was that we should look at policies to address the 'entitlement class' because getting them off the dole should be a high priority. But more interesting is that it seems the 'capital class' creates its own 'entitlement mentality'. There are indeed a class of people who make their way by being parasites on the 'capital class' either as heirs to fortunes or simply 'hangers on' (think of OJ's "Kato" Kaelin, his 'houseguest'.....on the Housewives series you also notice that some of the women have 'houseguests' who seem to have found a way to enscone themselves in the homes of the rich).
This is somewhat ironic IMO because you'd think the market system would drive towards efficiency and productivity but it seems like many in the 'capital class' are not very efficient nor productive. Yet it does seem to create an upper class of people whose culture has little place for actual work (shared by the lower 'entitlement class'). This charge is deflected by the claim that they are doing 'very important stuff' (day trading, playing in real estate markets, 'putting together' business deals.....I'm reminded of the numerous Housewives shows where the rich wives spend their time putting on fashion shows, launching lines of clothes, jewelry, perfume, recording songs or writing self-esteem books. It would seem a whole industy exists to cater to helping some rich people delude themselves into thinking they are being productive just as a industry exists to help the entitlement class feel good about capturing the various entitlements they secure (think of those 'structured settlement' commercials you see on daytime TV as well as commercials for slip and fall /disability lawyers)).
It makes one wonder if there is perhaps something backwards here. Perhaps the 'entitlement/rich' class are the smart ones and the workers are the suckers? :)
My impression was classical consolidation. There's plenty of jobs and money in these things, but it doesn't look the way it did when it was new. You can't start a search engine in your basement anymore. Just about everyone has cell phones now so $7/hr clerks sell them at Wal Mart rather than botiques in the mall.
That's a very old story, though. Rockefeller put thousands of small oil drillers out of business. Carnagie did the same with steel. 1860 to about 1910 was about thousands of railroads going bankrupt and consolidating. There was once dozens of car companies until they got consolidated into the 'big three'. You can even say the same for the big Hollywood studios. None of this was about 'regulation' as much as a maturing industry where economies of scale meant a few large companies rather than lots of little ones.
I suspect there are more jobs working with, say, web sites, today than there were in 2001 or 1995. I suspect there are more 'cell phone' jobs today than in 2001. By definition 'outsourced' means jobs, just jobs that someone other than you is getting.
On the other hand the American Revolution was a distinct reaction to perceptions and actual abuses of state power and the arbitrary wielding of executive/police power. So to the extent that libertarians have stood out consistently as the voices against the same on behalf of the war on terror, war on drugs, etc... I think it's hard to see how the philosophy is alien to AmericaOn the other hand the American Revolution was a distinct reaction to perceptions and actual abuses of state power and the arbitrary wielding of executive/police power. So to the extent that libertarians have stood out consistently as the voices against the same on behalf of the war on terror, war on drugs, etc... I think it's hard to see how the philosophy is alien to America
It's not quite so alien, but being against 'abuse' is hardly unique to libertarian philosophy. I think, though, you're neglecting the parts of our history that don't quite mesh with 'retconning' classical American views as libertarian ones. The American Constitution was a decade after the Revolution written with the intent of forming a stronger union, not a more limited one. The ink wasn't dry before ideas of 'social engineering' were being floated and debated (see the Bank of the United States, the Lou. Purchase, the Homestead Act). This was not a libertarian POV. This was a POV that wanted planning, control, regulation and so on but wanted it in a way that represented a consensus of society with checks and balances for both individual and group liberties. Hence the Founders felt it was very important that the Constitution gurantee all states have "a republican form of government" but said nothing about "a free market economy".... Technically libertarians would reverse that order and feel very comfortable with, say, a strong monarchy committed to open markets and financial freedoms, a type of state the Founders would not want as part of the Union.
Likewise pre-occupations of 'classical American' politics like states rights are not very big on libertarian concerns. To a libertarian only individuals, not states have rights. "States rights" are therefore nonesense except maybe as a tool to counter non-libertarian Federal laws but even here the 'states rights' are only a means to the true end of individual rights. The classical American view sees communities like states, counties, towns as very real things that assert themselves in the debate and negotiations about gov't just as much as individuals do, more so even. The libertarian perspective came in much later. Again note how our 'ACLUish' view of things like freedom of speech and religion as highly individual centered (with the textbook examples of neo-nazis being allowed to march through some town or school children being allowed to defy their principals and protest the Vietnam War) came about more in the 20th century than 18th or even 19th. This is due to the influence of libertarians. The view of liberty as a highly individualized right to be very 'eccentric' is a modern view, not a classical one. As you can see even though I put down modern libertarians, I do it gently. I think the importation of libertarianism has resulted in some good ideas. I think it's better that we view, say, free speech today as highly individualized as opposed to the classical Americans who seemlessly adopted the 1st amendment and then proceeded to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts, prohibited abolitionist literature beng sent thru the mail etc. But keeping perspective is also important and rejecting libertarianism is not the same as rejecting 'classical American' values. There's a difference between something that just overlaps and something that perfectly overlays. Libertarianism is not the latter.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Florida Judge Voids Affordable Care Act”
And, of course, if the Congress decided to grant a monopoly over wheat production the individual farmer growing wheat for his own consumption would be impacting interstate commerce, like it not....
Which is really your problem. You don't like the idea of Congress telling a farmer what to do with his own wheat production...neither do I but bad policy != Unconstitutional Policy.
"
For example, in terms of the US granting a monopoly, we have Gibbons v. Ogden which was decided in 1824. In the case NY had granted Robert Livingston a monopoly to operate steamboats on all NY's waterways. Gibbons was operating a competiting service from NJ.
What's relevant here is:
1. While it didn't square with Adam Smith, the colonial era was quite familiar with and even comfortable with gov'ts granting monopolies.
2. The SC ruled that NY's grant was unconstitutional since it interfered with interstate commerce.
Given this, suppose the gov't wanted to grant a monopoly to a producer of wheat or pot for medical use. Where is your 'explicit' Constitutional prohibition on this?
"
Except in early US history when Congress gave you a list of items you had to buy as part of your militia requirements.
"
Every other law does NOT have a 'self destruct'. Usually you put a 'self destruct' clause in a law because you have two or more sides who agree to give and take and they don't want to see their taking ruled unconstitutional while other people's taking remains on the books so you write a clause into the bill that says the bill becomes void should any part of it be found unconsititutional (or you can have a variation like a particular section is voided should anything be deemed unconsititutional but other sections stay).
Clearly if every bill had an 'assumed self destruct' there's be no need to write them. Quite often with a big complicated bill you DONT want a self destruct. Would you want to reauthroize the entire military because some minor section of the code had a Constitutional problem or would you just have that section overturned while leaving everything else?
"
Where is that explicitness? The only thing explicit about monopolies in the Constitution as granting Congress the right to make patent law.
"
I'm curious as to the legal arugment behind this. Some laws are written with self-destruct severability clauses that state that if any aspect of the law is held unconstitutional the entire law is void. The argument here sounds like it plays on the "but the law's boosters said it" idea.
If you drop the mandate there's a real danger that the prohibition on pre-existing condition dropping could make the law very expensive to private health insurance...even put it out of business. Policy wise that's undesirable but legally what's stopping it? Congress could, if it wanted, pass a law banning health insurance. Just because a law may appear expensive is a argument for legislatures to take up, not judges.
"
Lopez and Morrison both share a common trait in that they can be said to be twice or more removed from interstate commerce. Growing your own wheat and pot are once removed from interstate commerce because doing so, in fact, impacts the interstate trade of a good that the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate. This would not have been so strange sounding several hundred years ago when it was common for the crown to grant monopolies on various aspects of commerce (importing tea, printing playing cards etc.). Bad economic policy? Yes. The Constitution didn't outlaw it though. Contrary to popular libertarian mythology, the Constitution did not enshring Milton Friedman's Free to Choose.
"
How exactly does this work. Suppose Congress passed a law they said was a tax on people who made over $10M a year. The people who wrote the law said it was a tax, the law itself was titled "Tax on people who make over $10M a year". Various boosters and activists call the law a tax on people who make over $10M a year.
The law says "If you make over $10M a year you must report to the IRS office and have your left hand cut off." Outraged people who make over $10M a year go to court and argue that this isn't a tax, its a punishment and since the have not been given due process of law the courts should bar the gov't from enforcing it.
What does Justice Trumwill say? That because people called the law a tax it legally is a tax and should stand? Form versus substance.
"
Errr I don't argue for gay marriage based on 'feelings'. I agrue that it's good policy for many reasons.
"
Not to be curt about it, but the interstate commerce clause is pretty vague and honest people can draw different lines. A long long time ago we went down the path of drawing an expansive line that covered not only interest commerce directly but also indirectly (like growing a global commodity).
Now I'll respect you if you want to overturn all that but I do not believe that's what this judge is doing nor would the SC if they overturned it. They would cherry pick this law, as partisans, to overturn with an ad hoc limited reading of Interstate commerce while leaving all other precedents more or less untouched (keep in mind, for example, that state's legalizing pot for medical purposes were shot down by this SC on Interstate commerce grounds). That's judicial activism.
"
Nope, you had like 80 years to get used to it now. Do you have an actual substantive argument about it or should we just base the law on what your feelings are?
"
Or if you do cite them then don't be surprised that different forums come with different conventions.
"
If you want to discuss form then do so in the courts. But then don't cite 'the law's boosters' who talk about the law in the public debate which centers mostly (not entirely) around function.
"
OK you can say the laws boosters are liars. More accurately I'd say what it is would be in the eye of the beholder. Legally I'd say its a tax esp. given the fact that there's nothing illegal about opting not to get insurance and paying the penalty.
This is in contrast to, say, parking illegally. The ticket or fine may be trivial, say $45 but that doesn't quite make it the same as a town that runs a parking garage for $45. Economically yes it's the same but legally it's not. Form versus function. Economics and most of the time when we talk about policy we care about function. But often form makes a difference if you're talking law.
"
Replace it with a tax? It is a tax! There's explicitly no criminal penalty, the mandate is enforced by the IRS which is specifically excluded from using its criminal powers to enforce it. Aside from maybe terminology, exactly what would you change about it in order to make it a tax?
"
Only meaningless and stupid when they aren't true.
"
Never again should the right be allowed to utter the words 'judicial activism'
On “Three Classes”
Actually the way I read it the rural white person whose on disability would be in the 'entitlement class' while the one that's a self employed home contractor would be in the 'labor class'. Both, though, may enjoy the same lifestyle choices and ability to consume. What I take from his graph is that you can have a low ability to consume and be in the 'capital class' (I was when I was a kid, my father died when I was very young and left my mom a trust fund from his life insurance payout. While the fund provided a monthly stipend sufficient to have a lower to middle middle class lifestyle, we were technically living on capital the way Paris Hilton is). The graph is stubby near the bottom because while you can be an 'entitlement class' person and achieve some pretty impressive levels of consumption there is a limit. 'Welfare Queen' rhetoric from Reagan's California years aside, you probably can't find a way to live like Paris Hilton off of food stamps, Medicaid and general assistance.
This applies to both ends of the scale. Society is becoming increasingly removed from the confluence of income and survival; that is, you don’t have to work anymore to obtain what’s needed for survival (and, depending on your tastes, the what’s needed for luxury.)
Yes but the usual thinking with a market system is that rewards (here ability to consume) should follow productivity. Warren Buffet enjoys a large ability to consume because he works to move capital into worthy investments. Likewise 'The Dude' from The Big Lebowski choose not to do much of anything and as a result doesn't have the options to consume much of anything aside from bowling and pot.
What's interesting about this observation by Transplanted Lawyer is that the market seems pretty good at creating a useless 'capital class' that, like the entitlement class, doesn't actually do much of anything but is rewarded with the ability to consume. This class is not looked down on as much because technically it's 'their' money and because the market actually caters to their illusion that they are doing useful things (like day trading or in Lawyers case have hours of legal time spent on pie in the sky 'business deals' that at the end of the day amount to nothing of value). Here I think Bravo's Housewives show is a really, really good illustration of the market's cottage industry that works to create the delusion that a portion of the 'capital class' is actually doing something productive. Contrast this with either Paris Hilton or The Dude, both of whom seem quite aware they aren't doing anything productive and are simply out to enjoy whatever ability to consume they can.
"
An argument perhaps for an estate tax without a large exemption to accomodate the standard sob story about the 'family farm' that must be sold to pay the estate tax. I remember Jack Kemp used to argue for lower capital gains taxes on the grounds that it 'frees up capital' since people will sell their stock that has built up large gains and presumably use those funds elsewhere when capital gains taxes are low but will opt to 'hold and hold' their stock when capital gains taxes are high (thereby making it 'dead capital' invested in old industries rather than new and exciting ones).
Maybe, though, income inequality driving huge estates at the top is actually creating large pools of 'dead capital' that is less interested in being productive and more interested in preserving a class distinction for the unproductive. An estate tax forces some of this dead capital on the market where it will be priced according to its actual productivity
"
Mean or median makes a big deal of difference here. Having Stephen King in your average will make the compensation look great, even if 99 out of 100 people don't break $10K a year.
Likewise the definition of artist here is important. Is a person who does illustrations in an advertising agency an artist or just a person who creates illustrations that are sold as art? Is acting in a commercial for mouthwash making a living as an artist or only acting in a drama/comedy? In both cases you can say technically everyone here is making a living doing art but only the latter examples are making a living as an artist.
"
It doesn't quite dovetail that nicely. You can have two rural white people both with average incomes but belonging to two different classes....one person's 'average income' coming from say being a contractor and another person's 'average income' coming from disability payments.
The first thing I thought when I read this was that we should look at policies to address the 'entitlement class' because getting them off the dole should be a high priority. But more interesting is that it seems the 'capital class' creates its own 'entitlement mentality'. There are indeed a class of people who make their way by being parasites on the 'capital class' either as heirs to fortunes or simply 'hangers on' (think of OJ's "Kato" Kaelin, his 'houseguest'.....on the Housewives series you also notice that some of the women have 'houseguests' who seem to have found a way to enscone themselves in the homes of the rich).
This is somewhat ironic IMO because you'd think the market system would drive towards efficiency and productivity but it seems like many in the 'capital class' are not very efficient nor productive. Yet it does seem to create an upper class of people whose culture has little place for actual work (shared by the lower 'entitlement class'). This charge is deflected by the claim that they are doing 'very important stuff' (day trading, playing in real estate markets, 'putting together' business deals.....I'm reminded of the numerous Housewives shows where the rich wives spend their time putting on fashion shows, launching lines of clothes, jewelry, perfume, recording songs or writing self-esteem books. It would seem a whole industy exists to cater to helping some rich people delude themselves into thinking they are being productive just as a industry exists to help the entitlement class feel good about capturing the various entitlements they secure (think of those 'structured settlement' commercials you see on daytime TV as well as commercials for slip and fall /disability lawyers)).
It makes one wonder if there is perhaps something backwards here. Perhaps the 'entitlement/rich' class are the smart ones and the workers are the suckers? :)
"
I have to say this essay was excellent!
On “Progressives vs. Libertarians”
My impression was classical consolidation. There's plenty of jobs and money in these things, but it doesn't look the way it did when it was new. You can't start a search engine in your basement anymore. Just about everyone has cell phones now so $7/hr clerks sell them at Wal Mart rather than botiques in the mall.
That's a very old story, though. Rockefeller put thousands of small oil drillers out of business. Carnagie did the same with steel. 1860 to about 1910 was about thousands of railroads going bankrupt and consolidating. There was once dozens of car companies until they got consolidated into the 'big three'. You can even say the same for the big Hollywood studios. None of this was about 'regulation' as much as a maturing industry where economies of scale meant a few large companies rather than lots of little ones.
"
I suspect there are more jobs working with, say, web sites, today than there were in 2001 or 1995. I suspect there are more 'cell phone' jobs today than in 2001. By definition 'outsourced' means jobs, just jobs that someone other than you is getting.
"
On the other hand the American Revolution was a distinct reaction to perceptions and actual abuses of state power and the arbitrary wielding of executive/police power. So to the extent that libertarians have stood out consistently as the voices against the same on behalf of the war on terror, war on drugs, etc... I think it's hard to see how the philosophy is alien to AmericaOn the other hand the American Revolution was a distinct reaction to perceptions and actual abuses of state power and the arbitrary wielding of executive/police power. So to the extent that libertarians have stood out consistently as the voices against the same on behalf of the war on terror, war on drugs, etc... I think it's hard to see how the philosophy is alien to America
It's not quite so alien, but being against 'abuse' is hardly unique to libertarian philosophy. I think, though, you're neglecting the parts of our history that don't quite mesh with 'retconning' classical American views as libertarian ones. The American Constitution was a decade after the Revolution written with the intent of forming a stronger union, not a more limited one. The ink wasn't dry before ideas of 'social engineering' were being floated and debated (see the Bank of the United States, the Lou. Purchase, the Homestead Act). This was not a libertarian POV. This was a POV that wanted planning, control, regulation and so on but wanted it in a way that represented a consensus of society with checks and balances for both individual and group liberties. Hence the Founders felt it was very important that the Constitution gurantee all states have "a republican form of government" but said nothing about "a free market economy".... Technically libertarians would reverse that order and feel very comfortable with, say, a strong monarchy committed to open markets and financial freedoms, a type of state the Founders would not want as part of the Union.
Likewise pre-occupations of 'classical American' politics like states rights are not very big on libertarian concerns. To a libertarian only individuals, not states have rights. "States rights" are therefore nonesense except maybe as a tool to counter non-libertarian Federal laws but even here the 'states rights' are only a means to the true end of individual rights. The classical American view sees communities like states, counties, towns as very real things that assert themselves in the debate and negotiations about gov't just as much as individuals do, more so even. The libertarian perspective came in much later. Again note how our 'ACLUish' view of things like freedom of speech and religion as highly individual centered (with the textbook examples of neo-nazis being allowed to march through some town or school children being allowed to defy their principals and protest the Vietnam War) came about more in the 20th century than 18th or even 19th. This is due to the influence of libertarians. The view of liberty as a highly individualized right to be very 'eccentric' is a modern view, not a classical one. As you can see even though I put down modern libertarians, I do it gently. I think the importation of libertarianism has resulted in some good ideas. I think it's better that we view, say, free speech today as highly individualized as opposed to the classical Americans who seemlessly adopted the 1st amendment and then proceeded to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts, prohibited abolitionist literature beng sent thru the mail etc. But keeping perspective is also important and rejecting libertarianism is not the same as rejecting 'classical American' values. There's a difference between something that just overlaps and something that perfectly overlays. Libertarianism is not the latter.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.