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> Actually, I think that a great deal of America's success is because member states are NOT free to leave. The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the Unite

by wtbob 10y ago

> Actually, I think that a great deal of America's success is because member states are NOT free to leave. The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads, 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.' No Article nor Amendment of the Constitution delegates authority over secession to the United States, and thus that power is retained by the several States, or to the people thereof. Thus it's pretty obvious that member states are free to leave any time they choose; it's the only reading of the supreme law of the land which makes any sense.

PhantomGremlin 10y ago
Thus it's pretty obvious that member states are free to leave any time they choose On this subject the late, great Antonin Scalia supposedly said, more or less: "we settled that issue 150 years ago". it's the only reading of the supreme law of the land which makes any sense Much to the frequent lament of Scalia, the supreme law of the land is no more and no less than what a majority of the Supreme Court chooses to believe at that particular time.
- wtbob 10y ago
  > Much to the frequent lament of Scalia, the supreme law of the land is no more and no less than what a majority of the Supreme Court chooses to believe at that particular time. Unfortunately that's true (and Justice Scalia was complicit in that: when he was right, he was typically really right, but when he was wrong he was rally wrong); that's why I've always respected Justice Thomas, who really does seem to attempt to consider what the Constitution actually says, requires and is silent on. The one saving grace is that the Supreme Court is not, despite what folks think, a super-legislature: it only has the power to rule in specific cases. There's nothing which prevents litigants bringing a similar case as one already decided, and the Court is free to ignore a previous, erroneous ruling. So there is some little hope that with the right justices it might ignore bad precedent.
jwhitlark 10y ago
And yet the one time they tried, they were stopped by force. De facto, not necessarily de jury.
- wtbob 10y ago
  Ah, but what if South Carolina hadn't been so stupid as to shell Fort Sumter? That was the actual start of the war, and was a perfectly legitimate casus belli for the United States.

by wtbob 10y ago

PhantomGremlin 10y ago

Thus it's pretty obvious that member states are free to leave any time they choose On this subject the late, great Antonin Scalia supposedly said, more or less: "we settled that issue 150 years ago". it's the only reading of the supreme law of the land which makes any sense Much to the frequent lament of Scalia, the supreme law of the land is no more and no less than what a majority of the Supreme Court chooses to believe at that particular time.

wtbob 10y ago
> Much to the frequent lament of Scalia, the supreme law of the land is no more and no less than what a majority of the Supreme Court chooses to believe at that particular time. Unfortunately that's true (and Justice Scalia was complicit in that: when he was right, he was typically really right, but when he was wrong he was rally wrong); that's why I've always respected Justice Thomas, who really does seem to attempt to consider what the Constitution actually says, requires and is silent on. The one saving grace is that the Supreme Court is not, despite what folks think, a super-legislature: it only has the power to rule in specific cases. There's nothing which prevents litigants bringing a similar case as one already decided, and the Court is free to ignore a previous, erroneous ruling. So there is some little hope that with the right justices it might ignore bad precedent.

jwhitlark 10y ago

And yet the one time they tried, they were stopped by force. De facto, not necessarily de jury.

wtbob 10y ago
Ah, but what if South Carolina hadn't been so stupid as to shell Fort Sumter? That was the actual start of the war, and was a perfectly legitimate casus belli for the United States.