(no subject)

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

1) If any state makes any thing a tender in payment of debts which isn't gold and silver coin, then that state has broken the supreme law of the land vis-a-vis Article one Section ten.
2) All fifty states make federal reserve notes a tender in payment of debts.
Therefore:
3) All fifty states have broken the supreme law of the land.

Some of you want to say the U.S. constitution is irrelevant, or the interpretation of the U.S. constitution is somehow fallacious. I'd like to point you to Cornell Law School's site. Notice how there's a hyperlink in section nine for the direct taxes clause, and the link takes you to the sixteenth amendment. The U.S. went through the amendment process to invalidate an original law of the constitution, but the Federal Reserve Act merely went through Congress and then to the President's desk. The exact same thing happens with the war on drugs. We amend the constitution to prohibit alcohol, but we don't amend the constitution to prohibit a less harmful drug like marijuana.

Where's the irrefutable logic which shows how the U.S. doesn't have to amend the constitution?

Comments

[jennem.livejournal.com]

I direct your attention to #9: to make.

As in, the power "to make" money.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

That's actually an expression -- not money. As in, "she coined a new phrase to make fun of her opponent because her legal arguments lacked sufficient strength".

[jennem.livejournal.com]

No. That's just the example the dictionary used. Its not limited to "an expression."

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

If it's not limited to "an expression", what else besides an expression and paper money can be coined?

[jennem.livejournal.com]

At any rate, let's pretend for the sake of argument that you're totally right. The federal government has been getting away with this huge constitutional violation for the last 70 years or so, and you're the bright guy that's going to shine the light on this illicit and unconstitutional practice.

What's to stop the federal government from making something out of a metal (any metal, pick your poison), and saying, "this is worth $1, this is worth $10, this is worth $20, this is worth $50, and so on). Based on your limited interpretation of the word "coin" (to exclude paper, and include metal), such a practice would be completely constitutional. (Note: they already do this with the penny, nickels, quarters, etc. Are you seriously arguing that the constitution requires us to walk around with a bunch of coins that jangle in our pockets (weighing us down). You really thinks that's what the constitution requires?)

If you put a little sliver of metal in a paper dollar, does that fix your constitutional conundrum?

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Show me past and present state legal tender laws -- something to the effect of the states saying "you can accept these cupro-nickel coins if they're minted by our super secret state bank which works outside of the constitutional restriction stating we cannot coin money". Until then, no, it doesn't.

[jennem.livejournal.com]

What do past and present state legal tender laws have to do with the federal government's power to assign coined (according to your definition) money value?

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

The federal government solely has the power to coin money. That is legal tender because it's money. States cannot coin money, but they can make something a tender in payment of debts. Can their power to make something a tender in payment of debts a power of legislation reserved to them via the 10th amendment?

[jennem.livejournal.com]

What does that have to do with Congress' power to coin money using metal (as required by your myopic definition of the word "coined'), and then assigning that tiny little coin a specific value.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Here you go.

For nearly three-quarters of a century after the adoption of the constitution, and until the legislation during the recent civil war, no jurist and no statesman of any position in the country ever pretended that a power to impart the quality of legal tender to its notes was vested in the general government. There is no recorded word of even one in favor of its possessing the power. All conceded, as an axiom of constitutional law, that the power did not exist.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=110&invol=421

The power did not exist then, and the power still does not exist today.

[jennem.livejournal.com]

You're not answering my question. The Constitution does not specifically require Congress to coin money on a gold standard. According to your limited definition of "coin," the Constitution only permits Congress to create money out of metallurgical elements.

Given the absence of a gold or silver standard requirement, would it be constitutional (in yahvah world) for Congress to create coins out of various metals and assign those coins value. If it is unconstitutional for Congress to do that in yahvah world, why?

If it is constitutional for Congress to do that, could "paper money" be constitutionalized by placing small strands of metallurgical elements in it?

You've avoided answering a fairly direct question for the past few comments. You're either interested in discussion, or you are not interested in discussion. If you're not interested in having a discussion, I have to wonder what the hell you're doing in this community.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

I would've thought by now you'd realize I won't accept your proposal. Clearly the dissenting justice's opinion, which you reject without providing any reason why it's wrong despite evidence to the contrary from the federalist papers, is insufficient.

[jennem.livejournal.com]

The Federalist Papers didn't discuss a limitation on federal power in the section you previously cited. It discussed a limitation on State power, which I pointed out to you at the time you cited it.

I have provided reasons for why the dissenting justice's opinion is wrong. Every single response I have made in this post has been an exercise in demonstrating why Field's opinion is wrong. Hell, the majority opinion re-iterated a majority of the arguments I made throughout this post. I'm not going to re-write all of my responses just because you made a drive-by citation of a dissenting judge's opinion in a case that went 8-1.

I'm just trying to nail down your position. You're not advocating for a gold or silver standard, but you think that Congress can't value coined money outside of its intrinsic value. Is that your position?

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Consider the 10th amendment for your context of the limited role of the federal government. No state can consider anything but gold or silver coin money. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts. Only Congress can coin money. The only power Congress has is to coin money and regulate the value thereof, meaning to set the weight of each coin, which they legally did with the Coinage Act of 1792. The states proceeded to use those coins as a tender in payment of debts. The restriction on the states to only use gold and silver coin as a tender in payment of debts is a logically conclusive restriction on the Congress to produce only what the states can consider money.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

You never did respond to this, and that's OK, but I just sat here and read more of the same dissenting justice's opinion, and he has the same concern of consistency and logical necessity which obviously isn't of any concern to the majority of people.

The clause to coin money must be read in connection with the prohibition upon the states to make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. The two taken to- [110 U.S. 421, 464] gether clearly show that the coins to be fabricated under the authority of the general government, and as such to be a legal tender for debts, are to be composed principally, if not entirely, of the metals of gold and silver. Coins of such metals are necessarily a legal tender to the amount of their respective values, without any legislative enactment, and the statute of the United States providing that they shall be such tender is only declaratory of their effect when offered in payment.

When the constitution says, therefore, that congress shall have the power to coin money, interpreting that clause with the prohibition upon the states, it says it shall have the power to make coins of the precious metals a legal tender, for that alone which is money can be a legal tender. If this be the true import of the language, nothing else can be made a legal tender.

[jennem.livejournal.com]

Not only that, but it was an 8-1 decision.

Srsly.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

And the people on the majority were wrong, but you don't want to accept that. Not my problem.

[jennem.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think you're wrong and you don't want to accept that. [shrug]

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

No, the logic is irrefutably correct. The problem with you and exiledv2 is you believe the Supreme Court is above the law. No branch of government is above the law.

[jennem.livejournal.com]

I've got news for you—asserting that your logic is irrefutable, doesn't actually make it so. I know this breaks your heart, but there you have it.

I didn't cite to the Supreme Court. Most of my arguments centered on the text of the Constitution. The Constitution gives Congress the power to coin money. The power to coin money is not limited to a gold or silver standard. Its not even limited to a metallurgical standard. The necessary and proper clause gives Congress all power that is necessary and proper to carry out its enumerated powers.

The Constitution specifically limits the states' ability to make or "offer" (as you like to say) to a gold or silver standard. So, clearly, the gold and silver standard were on the Framers' minds at the time the Constitution was drafted. The Framers could have limited Congress' power. The "dubious" nature of paper money was known to the Framers at the time of drafting. The Framers could have limited Congress' power. They didn't. You've provided no constitutional authority showing that they did.

I don't believe that the Supreme Court is above the law. The Supreme Court has several checks and balances on it. The Supreme Court cannot enforce its own judgments. The Supreme Court can be overriden by a Constitutional amendment. Congress controls the number of justices that can sit on the Supreme Court (and all lower federal courts for that matter), and the President has the power to appoint, with advise and consent, the justices that sit on the Supreme Court.

Your logic isn't irrefutably correct. I've refuted it throughout this thread. Eight supreme court justices refuted it in the case you cited. The problem with you is that you think you're interpretation is correct because you think you're interpretation is correct. I don't think you're correct. Most of the other posters in this post don't think you're correct. A majority of the supreme court justices that sat over 100 years ago didn't think you're right. Hell, I'm willing to bet that a majority of the current supreme court justices don't think you're right. Congress doesn't think you're right. Most of the country doesn't think you're right. You constantly asserting 'BUT, I'M RITE! I HAS IRREFUTABLE LOGIC!' doesn't actually make it so. Pretending that it does, doesn't help your position or your argument.

And, with that. I'm done having this conversation with you. Your "BUT I HAS IRREFUTABLE LOGIC" indicates that you're not really interested in having a discussion, and I'm not going to waste my time replying to your comments if that's your position.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

A little hint: legal logic varies based on axiomatic and assumed principles, which tend to vary from jurist to jurist. There is no "irrefutably correct" logic, and to think that you've magically discovered it is intensely arrogant, especially when it depends on you parsing words in a way that nobody else of consequence agrees with. Your jurist has assumptions you agree with. Good. Everybody else disagrees. This places you firmly in the irrelevant minority.

Gary Lawson (a director of the Federalist society and an advocate of original intent, to give him "cred" in your ideology) told me that most of the first year of law school is coming to terms with the fact that you can never hope to prove a legal argument, just convince a judge, and that the law and rules used for it are artificial and imprecise. You have not realized that.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

The definition of a sound argument is synonymous with the phrase irrefutably correct. Look up the difference between a valid argument and a sound argument. It's not arrogance on my part. It's a fact, which I did not create.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

My point was more that there is no "irrefutably correct" argument in law. Legal reasoning varies from your idea of what the Constitution means to the Casey opinion's definition of liberty, which includes the right to "define... meaning, [and] the universe." Try squaring the two in any "irrefutably correct" system of law, and I'm sure I can find a few people to refute it. You probably won't listen though, as you haven't in the entire discussion.

jennem did all my arguing for me. So far as I and everyone else can tell, you're willfully misunderstanding the constitution.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Telling me I'm willfully misunderstanding, which is not correct, is worse than the other attempts at convincing me otherwise.