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Wow if I could give +1s on this website I would do so. I've seen a lot of that way of arguing -- for example people yelling about "states rights!" and then pas

by cwilkes 11y ago

Wow if I could give +1s on this website I would do so. I've seen a lot of that way of arguing -- for example people yelling about "states rights!" and then passing laws in Texas that forbid local cities from making minimum wage laws. Why aren't they yelling about "city rights!" Obviously because it doesn't fit their agenda. In this case I'm not sure how anyone could defend the homeowner or AirBnB when the house had a picture of the swing on the website. Granted AirBnB isn't filtering those pictures looking for potential problems (hrm, image recognition problem here that could be interesting) but the owner sure could have if he/she were trained or asked to do so. Right now they aren't -- it is just a "host your home for free and get people to give you money" without thinking about the consequences. I can see why the homeowner might not have all the insurance or knowledged needed to make it a safe(r) place. That's why they are homeowners and not hotel or apartment owners -- they aren't that sophisticated. But is it right for AirBnB to profit off of that?

chimeracoder 11y ago
> and then passing laws in Texas that forbid local cities from making minimum wage laws. Why aren't they yelling about "city rights!" Obviously because it doesn't fit their agenda. I agree with everything else you're saying, but as for the example of states' rights vs. city rights, - while this may appear to be inconsistent, it isn't necessarily. It appears to be a contradiction if you interpret states' rights to be an affirmation of delegation to smaller forms of government on pure principle, but that's not what it is. Advocates of states' rights base their argument on the Constitution, which specifically affords states (and the people) all rights that aren't provided to the federal government[0]. States reserve this power because the federal government actually draws its power from the states, not the other way around[1]. This isn't an argument that generalizes to the sub-state level, because incorporated cities and towns draw their authority from the state, just as the federal government draws its power from the federation of states that form the union. You may or may not agree with the extension of this argument to advocate for the various things that states' rights advocates promote, but I'm just pointing out that this isn't actually a paradox. [0] The tenth amendment is the most notable example of this, but there are other parts of the constitution in which states are treated as having far more sovereignty than any other subdivision of government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_... [1] Historically, this is obvious: the states had to ratify the Constitution before it ever even came into effect!

by cwilkes 11y ago

chimeracoder 11y ago

> and then passing laws in Texas that forbid local cities from making minimum wage laws. Why aren't they yelling about "city rights!" Obviously because it doesn't fit their agenda. I agree with everything else you're saying, but as for the example of states' rights vs. city rights, - while this may appear to be inconsistent, it isn't necessarily. It appears to be a contradiction if you interpret states' rights to be an affirmation of delegation to smaller forms of government on pure principle, but that's not what it is. Advocates of states' rights base their argument on the Constitution, which specifically affords states (and the people) all rights that aren't provided to the federal government[0]. States reserve this power because the federal government actually draws its power from the states, not the other way around[1]. This isn't an argument that generalizes to the sub-state level, because incorporated cities and towns draw their authority from the state, just as the federal government draws its power from the federation of states that form the union. You may or may not agree with the extension of this argument to advocate for the various things that states' rights advocates promote, but I'm just pointing out that this isn't actually a paradox. [0] The tenth amendment is the most notable example of this, but there are other parts of the constitution in which states are treated as having far more sovereignty than any other subdivision of government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_... [1] Historically, this is obvious: the states had to ratify the Constitution before it ever even came into effect!