quote:You've told me why the government acts as it does - legal reaons - but I'm asking for the moral justifacation that gives the government the right to do so. The government does have some moral right to act on the behalf of the majority of people, but not at the expense of a minority. And that's assuming that the majority of the people support what the government is doing here, which has yet to be proven or even suggested.
You asked why the government has the right to refuse to fund something contrary to its interests when individual taxpayers don't, and the answer is because they're the ones with the money.
You as an individual have the right to fund schools with your own money based on whatever criteria you decide. Once you pay taxes, that money is the government's, and it has the right to allocate money, in general, as it sees fit. Now, we restrict the government's rights to spend its money in ways we don't restrict the individual's right. This case will decide if the government's right will be further restricted. But this is based on an entirely different set of moral and legal principles than the ones which prohibit you as a taxpayer from refusing to fund something you don't want to.
quote:But do you think the federal interest in getting new recruits for its JAG program from a certain law school overrides the federal interest to fund an entire institute of higher education? What the government is threatening to do (quit funding an entire institution because it can't have miliatry recruiters at the law school) places the first interest above the second.
I don't. I've not spoken up in support for this law once.
However, I think we elect people to decide how our tax dollars are spent. We elect people to decide which interests get placed above other interests.
From a powers perspective, ignoring rights, the federal government has the power to make this decision. They are the ones specifically elected to make those decisions. That's basically unquestionable.
What is contestable is whether they violate institutions' first amendment rights by this particular exercise of power. If they do, they should be stopped. But because of a particular infringement on a particular identifiable right, not because they have misprioritized the interests involved.
The solution to misprioritization is the electoral process, not the courts.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: You asked why the government has the right to refuse to fund something contrary to its interests when individual taxpayers don't, and the answer is because they're the ones with the money.
You as an individual have the right to fund schools with your own money based on whatever criteria you decide. Once you pay taxes, that money is the government's, and it has the right to allocate money, in general, as it sees fit. Now, we restrict the government's rights to spend its money in ways we don't restrict the individual's right. This case will decide if the government's right will be further restricted. But this is based on an entirely different set of moral and legal principles than the ones which prohibit you as a taxpayer from refusing to fund something you don't want to.
But this doesn't answer my question. Simply because some one or thing has money doesn't give them the moral right to spend it however they would like. To take an extreme example, suppose the government decided to spend taxpayer's dollars to fund a program that enslaved a minority within the country. And the majority of the country agrees with this allocation of funds. Does that give the government the moral right to spend this money in this way? And not funding something works along the same basic principles.
quote: However, I think we elect people to decide how our tax dollars are spent. We elect people to decide which interests get placed above other interests.
From a powers perspective, ignoring rights, the federal government has the power to make this decision. They are the ones specifically elected to make those decisions. That's basically unquestionable.
What is contestable is whether they violate institutions' first amendment rights by this particular exercise of power. If they do, they should be stopped. But because of a particular infringement on a particular identifiable right, not because they have misprioritized the interests involved.
The solution to misprioritization is the electoral process, not the courts. [/QB]
I think we're pretty much agreeing here, but we're coming at it from different angles. I'm coming off an all-nighter, so I may not be all that coherent in my replies. Sorry. Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Such wars protect your freedom in the long term because they demonstrate to our enemies that we are unwilling to permit ourselves or our friends to be threatened, killed, or intimidated.
To be fair, that's not exactly a fact, just an opinion. You could also argue that we would have far less enemies if our foreign policy was a little different.
I would agree that such wars may protect certain interests, or prevent future threats to our interests, but there's a big gap between "using a show of force to make the bad guys afraid of us" and "defending our freedoms." And really, what freedoms are we talking about here? Certainly not territorial freedom, the days of warring over land and territory (at least for the US) have long since past. Certainly not freedom in the sense of having basic rights, that's determined right here on US soil.
So really, what you're talking about is preventing future threats to our country from enemies that may or may not yet exist. In my mind, that is quite different than defending our freedoms.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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I have never disputed that, for instance, the Iraq war currently being waged is directly protecting the freedoms of American citizens living in America today. Some make that argument, but not myself. Some also make the argument that the war is being waged directly for oil.
People who speak in immediates when discussing threats to the freedoms and safety (and I'm talking safety in terms of survival) of powerful modern nations are fools. That's not how a powerful nation is brought down, ever, really, but in the modern day as well.
Rome didn't fall when their enemies sacked it. Imperial China didn't fall in the middle of the 20th century. The Soviet Union didn't fall in the early 90s. Civil rights for minorities were not won in the 60s. Women's suffrage was not won the first day a woman entered the voting booth. Freedom for slaves was not won in 1865.
Well, really, all of these things are untrue, but I think you see the point I'm trying to make. Yes, slavery ended in the USA (at least legal slavery) in 1865. But the fight to end it did not begin there, it began when the first human being came to America in chains. Truthfully it began even earlier, in England. Civil rights were officially recognized for minorities the day the high and mighty put ink to paper and made it law, but the fight started long before. The Soviet Union was rotting from within for decades, losing its battle with the USA for just as long, before finally the frame collapsed.
That's what happens when you become extremely powerful. Things become gray. Exercising or refraining from exercising that power, in and of itself, changes things. So yes, the threat is not a knife at the throat of Uncle Sam, so to speak. A lethal threat is no less lethal for being imminent and not actually made manifest.
Tom prefers we wait until the knife is at our throat-he has said as much, we should not exercise our military save when our safety as an entire nation is threatened. Some prefer to act whenever they see someone with a knife looking at us funny. I prefer a middle road.
But of course part of the trouble with being a powerful nation is that none dare to threaten openly, therefore the threats-to us in the public, that is-will almost always be future threats that may or may not exist.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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1.) The government could require colleges to provide access to military recruiters whether it was funding them or not. If Congress can require something, it can make funding condition on that something instead.
2.) Providing access to recruiters is not speech, so compelling such access is not compelled speech. The Court said that the schools are free to protest and speak against the military policy as long as they don't interfere with recruiter's access.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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