11 ms·

Still though, the Dollar isn't listed there as a tender that the state can utilize. I don't think "make legal tender" means "create" but rather "accept as".

ceejayoz 5y ago
> Still though, the Dollar isn't listed there as a tender that the state can utilize. That clause does not forbid the Federal government from making other things legal tender, only the states. The Federal government made paper dollars legal tender via the Legal Tender Act of 1862. (They could make blueberries legal tender, if they wanted, but Arizona cannot.) > I don't think "make legal tender" means "create" but rather "accept as". No. To make it legal tender means requiring acceptance of that item as payment for a monetary debt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender). It would impact everyone in Arizona, not just the state government.
- posterboy 5y ago
  > No. To make it legal tender means requiring acceptance of that item as payment for a monetary debt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender). It would impact everyone in Arizona, not just the state government. Yeah, that's what they said. Everyone in Arizona is Arizona. It's called metonymy.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    Arizona, the state, may choose to accept Bitcoin, for things like fines, state taxes, etc. Arizona, the state, may not choose to require Arizonans to accept Bitcoin as legal tender. That power is reserved for the Federal government. The bill attempts the latter, and is flatly unconstitutional.
    - posterboy 5y ago
      Another comment argued with sources that this is not entailed, because businesses can choose to decline electronic cash already. I have heared that Disneyland is crazy like that and EC is virtually ubiquitious, but that's not the norm. Conversely, you don't expect to pay with a 500 everywhere (if you have that, EU phased it out recently)
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        You don't (typically) incur a debt to Disneyland, so legal tender doesn't apply. Disneyland can refuse to accept cash at the ticketing office, but if they let you in and billed you later, they'd have to. The concept of legal tender is specific to payment of debts. If you did a credit card chargeback and Disneyland sued you for the new debt that caused, they'd have to accept cash as payment.
      - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
        Again, you're confused about what "legal tender" is. It is up to sellers to decide what form of payment they accept. It is perfectly legal for a seller to accept only a form of electronic payment, or only certain sizes of bank notes, or payment in bitcoin or blueberries or bubblegum. This is all totally fine and has nothing at all to do with the concept of legal tender. Legal tender is simply what kind of payment must be accepted for the settlement of a monetary debt. If you owe your bank $1,000 as an overdraft, the bank is required to accept repayment of that debt in U.S. currency. It cannot require another form of payment; meaning if it refuses U.S. currency then tries to sue you, the court will find that the debt has been satisfied. In practical terms, this never happens.
        posterboy 5y ago
        You are commiting an etymological fallacy. What counts first of all is what legal tender has been in name when the constitution was written. Second, the meaning of the word when the bill was written may have reasonably changed and it may still be sensible. If this is warranted, because the state has the power to mint gold coins, they can peg the gold coin to the bitcoin, if you want to see it that way. This is illusory of course and there might be regulations in place to prohibit this, and there might be no other ways around it. Still, this isn't simply simple and you are selling it short.
NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
I think you're confused. This part of the Constitution limits what states can do. It doesn't limit what the U.S. Congress can do, and the U.S. Congress has passed a law that makes U.S. coins and currency legal tender at what is currently 31 U.S. Code § 5103. Federal law takes precedence over state law, and therefore it is the U.S. government that has decided, on Arizona's behalf, what constitutes legal tender. The same section forbids states from making treaties with foreign powers; something that the U.S. government does all the time.
- posterboy 5y ago
  This is stretching the definition of what "to make legal something" means, because ... [1] It should be "to make something legal" or it requires "legal tender" to be something lexical and precisely not a sum of its parts, in which case they are not making the thing, they are just giving it a new name, which is not new at all and it is loaded with connotation that invites equating the denotated items to a group. Thus the problem rests on what legal tender really is. Should it be a sum of parts in origin, states have all the right to interpret what's legal. The way it's written it is nearly useless and there isn't really any precedent either unless to show that the meaning, not the word, has changed. Blueberries, as are implied by a sibling comment, are not comparable, because, I suppose, they are perrishable. So that's only an argumentum ad absurdum. Or in other words, you can't make a number illegal. [1] one could quibble about flat adverbs
  - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
    No-one is talking "making legal [something]". The compound noun "legal tender" is a legal term of art that refers to forms of payment that must be accepted in the settlement of a debt. When we say "the law would make Bitcoin legal tender in Arizona", we mean "the law would require that Bitcoin be accepted for the settlements of debt within Arizona's jurisdiction". There is no sensible alternate reading nor lexical nor linguistic ambiguity here.
    - posterboy 5y ago
posterboy 5y ago
Technicly, it is already tender and not illegal, the problem is valuta. Whatever "make" means is so poorly defined, you could as well delete it from the sentence. What they really can't do is make SCOTUS interpret the word as needed. The way I read it says a) a state must not [glob] legal tender b) unless they literally make gold and silver coin. Because states issue coin with heads in local custom as much as their reserves allow. Though an etymologic fallacy, that's closer to the sense of making bread, compare to mix, etc. Grammatically, a legal tender can well be adverbial, Gold the legal tender and nothing else shall be made by the state, where the scope of the verb is pragmatically restricted to the context as per usual.

ceejayoz 5y ago

> Still though, the Dollar isn't listed there as a tender that the state can utilize. That clause does not forbid the Federal government from making other things legal tender, only the states. The Federal government made paper dollars legal tender via the Legal Tender Act of 1862. (They could make blueberries legal tender, if they wanted, but Arizona cannot.) > I don't think "make legal tender" means "create" but rather "accept as". No. To make it legal tender means requiring acceptance of that item as payment for a monetary debt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender). It would impact everyone in Arizona, not just the state government.

posterboy 5y ago
> No. To make it legal tender means requiring acceptance of that item as payment for a monetary debt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender). It would impact everyone in Arizona, not just the state government. Yeah, that's what they said. Everyone in Arizona is Arizona. It's called metonymy.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Arizona, the state, may choose to accept Bitcoin, for things like fines, state taxes, etc. Arizona, the state, may not choose to require Arizonans to accept Bitcoin as legal tender. That power is reserved for the Federal government. The bill attempts the latter, and is flatly unconstitutional.
  - posterboy 5y ago
    Another comment argued with sources that this is not entailed, because businesses can choose to decline electronic cash already. I have heared that Disneyland is crazy like that and EC is virtually ubiquitious, but that's not the norm. Conversely, you don't expect to pay with a 500 everywhere (if you have that, EU phased it out recently)
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      You don't (typically) incur a debt to Disneyland, so legal tender doesn't apply. Disneyland can refuse to accept cash at the ticketing office, but if they let you in and billed you later, they'd have to. The concept of legal tender is specific to payment of debts. If you did a credit card chargeback and Disneyland sued you for the new debt that caused, they'd have to accept cash as payment.
    - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
      Again, you're confused about what "legal tender" is. It is up to sellers to decide what form of payment they accept. It is perfectly legal for a seller to accept only a form of electronic payment, or only certain sizes of bank notes, or payment in bitcoin or blueberries or bubblegum. This is all totally fine and has nothing at all to do with the concept of legal tender. Legal tender is simply what kind of payment must be accepted for the settlement of a monetary debt. If you owe your bank $1,000 as an overdraft, the bank is required to accept repayment of that debt in U.S. currency. It cannot require another form of payment; meaning if it refuses U.S. currency then tries to sue you, the court will find that the debt has been satisfied. In practical terms, this never happens.
      - posterboy 5y ago
        You are commiting an etymological fallacy. What counts first of all is what legal tender has been in name when the constitution was written. Second, the meaning of the word when the bill was written may have reasonably changed and it may still be sensible. If this is warranted, because the state has the power to mint gold coins, they can peg the gold coin to the bitcoin, if you want to see it that way. This is illusory of course and there might be regulations in place to prohibit this, and there might be no other ways around it. Still, this isn't simply simple and you are selling it short.

NovemberWhiskey 5y ago

I think you're confused. This part of the Constitution limits what states can do. It doesn't limit what the U.S. Congress can do, and the U.S. Congress has passed a law that makes U.S. coins and currency legal tender at what is currently 31 U.S. Code § 5103. Federal law takes precedence over state law, and therefore it is the U.S. government that has decided, on Arizona's behalf, what constitutes legal tender. The same section forbids states from making treaties with foreign powers; something that the U.S. government does all the time.

posterboy 5y ago
This is stretching the definition of what "to make legal something" means, because ... [1] It should be "to make something legal" or it requires "legal tender" to be something lexical and precisely not a sum of its parts, in which case they are not making the thing, they are just giving it a new name, which is not new at all and it is loaded with connotation that invites equating the denotated items to a group. Thus the problem rests on what legal tender really is. Should it be a sum of parts in origin, states have all the right to interpret what's legal. The way it's written it is nearly useless and there isn't really any precedent either unless to show that the meaning, not the word, has changed. Blueberries, as are implied by a sibling comment, are not comparable, because, I suppose, they are perrishable. So that's only an argumentum ad absurdum. Or in other words, you can't make a number illegal. [1] one could quibble about flat adverbs
- NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
  No-one is talking "making legal [something]". The compound noun "legal tender" is a legal term of art that refers to forms of payment that must be accepted in the settlement of a debt. When we say "the law would make Bitcoin legal tender in Arizona", we mean "the law would require that Bitcoin be accepted for the settlements of debt within Arizona's jurisdiction". There is no sensible alternate reading nor lexical nor linguistic ambiguity here.
  - posterboy 5y ago

posterboy 5y ago

Technicly, it is already tender and not illegal, the problem is valuta. Whatever "make" means is so poorly defined, you could as well delete it from the sentence. What they really can't do is make SCOTUS interpret the word as needed. The way I read it says a) a state must not [glob] legal tender b) unless they literally make gold and silver coin. Because states issue coin with heads in local custom as much as their reserves allow. Though an etymologic fallacy, that's closer to the sense of making bread, compare to mix, etc. Grammatically, a legal tender can well be adverbial, Gold the legal tender and nothing else shall be made by the state, where the scope of the verb is pragmatically restricted to the context as per usual.