In the U.S. walking has even been criminalized to some extent for those in out groups. For instance, if 4 black teenage boys walk together in an affluent, white neighborhood they can expect police to stop them. Walking is so rare that a small group of people walking together is seen as something out of the ordinary. I think it’s bad for society to be set up this way.
I walked a block with a friend yesterday next to a relatively busy feeder and someone in a passing car screamed at us. It's not a rare occurrence, I have plenty of memories of walking to the nearby gas station convenience store as a 13 year old and the same happening.
People really underestimate how antisocial people are to walkers in the US.
Well the issue can be even more profound than that: areas that actually physically cannot be walked at all (excluding technicalities like walking on busy roads). On the bright side, you can't be arrested for walking somewhere that doesn't even let you walk there.
That is something I’ve never encountered anywhere except bridges. Just because there’s no road there doesn’t mean you can’t walk (unless the space next to the road is air/water).
To be clear, the technicality I was excluding was the 'technically you can always walk on the road' part. In places without footpaths your choices often require walking on the road because of fences etc. even if momentarily that's still a horrible walking experience that will effectively cut pedestrians to zero. Also, gigantic highways across which the crossings are separated by kilometres will effectively segregate areas from anyone who has no car.
This article doesn't talk about "walking" though. It talks about two things - jaywalking, i.e. walking in places designed for motor vehicle traffic, and minor children walking on public street unaccompanied by adults. While both have arguments in favor of current regulation being excessive (the latter probably has much stronger case, my whole generation's childhood is "child endangerment" by these laws, I wonder how we survived) - you comment implies it's about generic walking and racial angle, which it is not.
A second order effect of criminalization of walking is a culture that does not value walkability. People are so accustomed to non walkability and so unaccustomed to groups of people strolling about that it does not even occur to them to think about what a loss this is.
The claim still works without the element of racism. In the extreme car-centric areas of the US you're regarded a weirdo for walking anywhere by members of your own race.
You could bet you that those four people would have the same thing happen to them in Japan's walkable cities as well. It is nothing to do with walkable cities.
at least have enough courage to admit that 4 teenagers would make you nervous. there's nothing wrong with being alert. teenagers can be dangerous and unpredictable. the dividing line IMO, would be behaving preemptively in such a scenario.
4 teenagers would not make me nervous. Happens many times per day for many of us. Parent comments are talking about something different than "common sense" or "being alert". Profiling is a real thing that many people have to deal with.
I see reference to jaywalking. The argument was "Walking is so rare that a small group of people walking together is seen as something out of the ordinary."
While I skimmed the 20+ page PDF two clicks into the "reference", I still don't see cases where walking itself has been criminalized. Of course people can walk places they shouldn't (and whether they should be allowed or not is debatable) but I really don't see anything about walking itself being criminalized as the comment argues.
So I asked a question for clarification, instead of posting about the fact the comment was conjecture.
There is no law that says walking is illegal. There are laws that prevent loitering which has a side effect of encouraging people to not hang out outside. Particularly if you don’t “belong” in the area. Knowing that you will be harassed by police even if you are doing nothing other than walking with too many friends is a form of de facto criminalization. What is being talked about is the effect of living in a culture that does not value or understand a need for walking and the attitude of police forces in this regard. Again, there is no law that says walking is illegal.
As lawyers sometimes say, you can win the case in court but will you survive the time spent in jail waiting for the trial? Effective criminalization is not limited to just what is written in the law.
Under regulation flying was so much more enjoyable than it is today. Yes, prices have come down but I’d prefer to go back to regulation. I’d be better for the mental health of the flying public.
I think Carter's de-regulation of airlines was a great thing that ushered in a new era of equality in terms of travel. Not only the rich should be able to fly.
If you personally want a wider seat and don't mind the extra cost, you can have it. It's called first class.
First class has only a few seats so that isn’t a solution for everyone. It wasn’t just rich people who flew under regulation. My family wasn’t rich when we flew in the 70s. Also, the experience of flying in the 70s being much better than today isn’t all about seat size. I think the experience under regulation was sufficiently better than it is today that I wish we would go back to regulation.
Taking the phrase literally you are correct. As it is used in common speech saying “that makes no sense” indicates more a person’s position on a topic. I generally take it to mean that the person saying this is indicating how strongly they feel about the opposing position. Or that they can’t comprehend how an opposing position can be held.
I think Donald Trump is a man lacking any redeeming qualities. He is self serving, a liar, incurious, a charlatan, etc. He was right to pull out of Afghanistan and he was right about German dependence on Russian resources and he was right about European NATO members needing to pay more for defense.
Humans prefer to have barriers to completing a task removed. No clicks is much better than one click and privacy is almost completely dead. Privacy will slowly die unless there are major changes legally and culturally. It’s worthy to fight against the loss of privacy. I think it will be a losing fight though.
Some people just aren’t capable of learning advanced concepts. It is obvious that this is so but saying this in higher education circles is akin to burning a Koran in Mecca.
If that were the case then either we wouldn't have such an advanced and we'll educated society today or that previous generations and societies were just as capable with less formal education.
When I hear people like you I always wonder how the human race is supposed to be doomed by a lack of intelligent people, yet somehow throughout history no such constraints are observable.
In the past people had lots of preconceptions of what black people couldn't do, you're doing the same and believing it is socially acceptable. The human brain is amazing, just because someone's brain scores worse than another in some motivation and culture test doesn't mean they are incapable of absurdly broad and vague things like "advanced concepts".
Can a severely intellectually disabled person learn calculus? It’s clear that not everyone has the same cognitive capabilities or potential. This is obvious. Your response is what I alluded to with my remark comparing talking about this topic to burning a Koran in Mecca. People get too emotional and throw out reason and logic.
> Some people just aren’t capable of learning advanced concepts.
...with current educational methods, that basically expect all students to "teach themselves on their own". Modern-day educators aren't even trying to meaningfully engage students who respond well to more direct forms of instruction, because that would involve actual, verifiable effort and "demean" their role.
I disagree. I think anyone can learn anything, though it may take an unreasonable amount of time and effort for some. Learning a new concept can be complicated, especially for things introduced in high school and university. All those concepts rely on others, so those lemmas have to be learned first. I do believe some people are generally quicker learners than others. But it's a continuous scale, not a yes/no thing. And interest in the subject plays a big role.
For a metaphor of education, I'd say people are like Turing machines. (A) If there is one person who can learn a concept, then any of them can; (B) some are faster than others; and, (C) the "optimal in practice" state is usually limited by need and not capability (i.e., using modern laptops too just check emails and browse the web).
>but saying this in higher education circles is akin to burning a Koran in Mecca.
I'm not a fan of preemptive impersonations of Copernicus. I'd rather read what people said and judge that.
> I disagree. I think anyone can learn anything, though it may take an unreasonable amount of time and effort for some. Learning a new concept can be complicated, especially for things introduced in high school and university. All those concepts rely on others, so those lemmas have to be learned first. I do believe some people are generally quicker learners than others.
Anyone can learn anything. But to what depth and degree within the time they have on Earth? What can they accomplish with their present knowhow or lack there of? These questions have measurable outputs. It's not enough to rely on potential. At some point, one should know his bearings and limitations.
> But it's a continuous scale, not a yes/no thing. And interest in the subject plays a big role.
Ability itself may follow a continuum, however sufficiency is digital.
Can an intellectually disabled person learn calculus? Some people are so intellectually disabled they can’t even learn to use a bathroom properly. It is clear that not everyone can learn any topic.
"Other people have it better than me, I want that too, if I accept innate differences being the cause then it means I'll never get there which is unbearable. If all humans are born the same then I can declare the others malicious oppressors - which is a powerful moral weapon - and work from there. At least I'll have a chance to get some of what the others have".
I always knew I'd never be a pro ball player nor an Air Force pilot, due to the innate configuration of my body. It wasn't unbearable. Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses. I find what I am suited for and exploit that.
In the U.S. a lot of emotions surrounding this topic come from racist policies/perceptions of the past. It’s hard to have an open conversation about this topic without someone resorting to name calling.
To have a properly functioning society there should be some level of legal uniformity on major topics. Soon two people will be allowed to marry in one state and potentially face arrest should they travel to a state where that act is illegal. Will the fact that two men (or women) are married to each other be probable cause for arrest for violating sodomy laws?
The Court should be in the business of preserving or expanding rights and not in the business of diminishing them.
Why should the court be in the business of expanding rights? I think you should go read and understand what the three branches of the federal government should do.
I think people have gotten used to the supreme Court that pushes a semi-majority opinion of certain topics across the country. We've seen this with abortion, same-sex marriage, and many other topics. The problem is this overrides the Democratic process.
While some people will complain that the federal government is really slow at passing laws, I see that as a good thing. And makes it so that an opinion must be popular around the entire country before it can really become law.
Do you want a supreme Court passing what are effectively new laws if that court had a majority of fundamentalist Christians on it that weren't originalist, but rather pushing their agenda? Then you would get the supreme Court saying there is no right to gay marriage. We could also get the supreme Court to rule that a baby in utero is considered a human life and aborting it would be murder.
Pushing the supreme Court to be only a body that rules on the laws that are available to it and not reading new language into then, I think will make everybody happy in the long run.
The statements in the U.S. Constitution collectively have quite a few logical consequences. The 5 axioms of Euclidean Geometry lead to a vast array of theorems (logical consequences). The Court’s job is to navigate the logical consequences of the statements in the U.S. Constitution.
The Constitution says nothing about a Department of the Air Force. Should it be legal to have a Department of the Air Force? The Constitution mentions “War Department”. It says nothing about a Department of Defense. Should that be legal? Well, the courts would throw out any challenge to the constitutionality of the Department of the Air Force because of the logical deductions of the statements in the Constitution.
Repeat the process for all statements in the Constitution and after 200 years you get a vast collection of legal opinions and judgments.
Respectfully, the court is a small group of unelected old people. If I do not like the way they think, there is mostly nothing I can do about it.
The court should not be in the business of preserving or expanding rights - it should be in the business of enforcing laws our legislatures create. I would state 'in my opinion' but this was also the prevailing opinion for most of our history (including our founding).
To change this will require constitutional changes as its just not how our country was set up.
The primary role of the court is to preserve rights. It’s job is to make sure laws aren’t enforced that violate established rights. It’s job is to tell governments at all levels that certain laws passed are illegal because they violate rights. Imagine a city saying that burning a Koran is illegal and a crime punishable by death. I very much hope the Court would step in and say that law is illegal. I think you don’t understand the historical role the court has played. It does more than preserve or expand rights but that is one of its primary functions.
EDIT: Let me be more precise. The purpose of the Court is to clarify rights. It’s job is to decide what exactly is meant by “equal protection”, “freedom of speech”, etc.
I feel like we are talking past each other and that may have been my fault.
I think we agree that the courts job is to enforce laws, and the constitution, that define our rights (or the reach of government).
I think we agree that it would be improper for a court to just make up a right - All people with blond hair can skip lines at dairy queen.
I think the point we are (perhaps?) disagreeing on is what makes a right. I think the historic context of it is the constitution and government laws. I think (perhaps wrongly, I don't know whats in your mind) state that the courts can define new rights.
Like I said - its a hot button topic, and I think I will probably need to remove myself from it soon, but I see this as the court previously creating a right where none exists and asking the legislatures to do their job. I hope that helps explain the thoughts from my side.
EDIT: I understand your position. It makes sense. There is nothing objectionable with it. Below is what I see where the essence of the divergence of views on this topic come from. Have a great day!
Three highly intelligent and very knowledgeable members of the Court wrote an opinion on why Roe should not be overturned. Their eloquence and reasoning are far greater than mine. You should read what they wrote to see the legal basis of their position. It was not some right made out of thin air as in your Dairy Queen example.
Now 6 members of the court who are equally intelligent and knowledgeable wrote an opinion on why Roe should be overturned. Their eloquence and reasoning are far greater than mine. I read parts of their decision. I disagree with their reasoning. Herein lies the problem.
Human language lacks mathematical precision (I’m a mathematician and not a lawyer) and so we end up in a situation where equally smart, knowledgeable people have completely different conclusions about the same set of statements. This in itself is a cause of chaos.
In what I’ve written to you I have avoided saying things like, “there is no legal basis for overturning Roe”. Clearly there is a legal basis for doing so. Clearly there is a legal basis for not doing so. What I concentrate on are the consequences for this decision. I think the unintended consequences will be dire. Personally I think the Constitution needs to be rewritten. What worked in 1800 isn’t necessarily workable in 2022 in a much larger country with a much larger population.
I think you are right that we may not agree with each other but I now understand your position and appreciate you explaining it.
Its funny - we probably agree with each other on the items you think we disagree.
Seriously though, I do suggest reaching out to your local state representatives if you have never done it. I've done it multiple times and have always been impressed by the discussion, their opinions, and actions from it. This is just general advice disconnected from the article / topic. Hopefully you have a similar experience.
We will soon be a country where an act is legal in one city and a death penalty offense in another. This is an absurdity and such a state of affairs is not conducive to having a properly functioning society. It is not hyperbole to say that the Supreme Court’s direction portends chaos.
Consider this scenario. A woman in Texas goes to New Mexico and gets an abortion. The doctor that performs the abortion later decides to fly to Tennessee. The first leg of the trip involves a layover in Houston. Can the doctor get arrested for murder in Houston? Will people have to be careful where they travel now?
What the Court did was take away a right that women have had for over 50 years. What they did is to say that states are free to take away a right. This is an astounding action by the Court. The access to a healthcare procedure will now be at the whim of state or federal legislatures? When talking about the legal ramifications of the Courts decision it is hard to speak hyperbolically. One member of the Court openly said the right to have consensual sex, the right to birth control, and the right to marry freely should be overturned.
This is a divisive issue for many so I think we should be kind in our replies.
In that vein, I disagree with a few points you stated.
We, in the US, are a nation of states. It has always been the case that laws differ from state to state. Consider a legal gun owner in one state that does business in another - if he keeps his weapon on him in a restricted state, he will be jailed and possibly face prison. This fact - that we are a collection of states - was an important consideration to the forming of the united states as a whole. I would argue that the increasing federalization of laws is likely the opposite of historic norms in the united states.
I know this does not help if you feel strongly about this - and many do. In this ruling, which has impacted so many, the court did not take away a right. The court stated that it had taken away the power of the people and created a law where none existed.
If we, the people, dislike this then we petition our government to change the laws. . . and we start in our state. Today - literally today - I can call up my state reps office and schedule a lunch or a chat with her. I have, in the past, done just that.
If the current laws bother you, and I think they do, then you should absolutely do the same. Look - its one of the great parts of America.
> In this ruling, which has impacted so many, the court did not take away a right. The court stated that it had taken away the power of the people and created a law where none existed.
This ignores the fact that the previous status quo was that not that the court had taken away the power, but that the court had recognized that a inalienable right existed based on the 14th amendment, and as such was not something that the states had power to legislate. This is not the creation of a law, but an interpretation of it. See Roe at p33 [1]
Given that we as a society have for 50 years believed that we had such an INALIENABLE right, that a court of any regard can take such a right away is pure nonsense.
I guess the easiest question to ask of you is do you "OrangeMonkey" believe in an inalienable right to privacy, whether it's enumerated explicitly or not in the constitution. Because this all falls on that singular point regardless of the outcome on Roe / Dobbs. As a male, Dobbs doesn't directly affect me in its impact of whether I can have an abortion. But it affects my understanding of what the state can or cannot do with respect to my private actions. See Roe at para 77 [2] and especially para 117 [3].:
In the words of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, Great concepts like . . . 'liberty' . . . were purposely left to gather meaning from experience. For they relate to the whole domain of social and economic fact, and the statesmen who founded this Nation knew too well that only a stagnant society remains unchanged.
One of Dobbs effects is that the 14th amendment is narrowly constructed to only mean as much as "liberty" could possibly mean when it was passed. There is much ado about the concept of "ordered liberty", which although it explores did not exist in the framer's construction. Dobbs claims that the court does not have the ability to interpret the idea of liberty with respect to the context of society (that is overwhelmingly pro-choice). When interpretation is the entire rationale for the courts existence, this point is particularly ridiculous.
Euclidean geometry is a vast subject with many theorems. Those theorems are logical consequences of the 5 axioms of Euclidean geometry. Just 5 statements are the basis for a large number of logical consequences. Imagine then how many logical consequences are possible from the many statements of the U.S. Constitution.
There is no explicit right to an abortion stated in the U.S. Constitution but courts 50 years ago said that this healthcare procedure can’t be completely outlawed. They enshrined it as a right. It has been a right for 50 years. Now it is not. I talked with a conservative justice on a state Supreme Court many years ago. He told me that the legal basis for Roe had slowly been established by precedents over the years. He did not say whether or not he agreed with those precedents. I’m just pointing out that the expansion of the rights of women to an abortion was not without a well reasoned path. Sort like how after enough theorems one can see that then sum of the degrees of a triangle is 180 degrees.
There have been historical variations in laws between states. Slavery is the quintessential example of this and it led to the Civil War. If there is too much variation on the legal protections between the states this can lead to chaos. The Court should be in the business to equalizing rights across the nation and not diminishing them. The Court is in the process of trying to equalize the rights to guns across the nation. While I oppose the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment most people have it should be equalized across the nation. This is particularly true since travel is so much easier now than in the past.
We will soon live in a country where an act is legal in one city and a death penalty offense in another. The last time that happened we ended up in a civil war. I don’t believe we will end up with a civil war over abortion but I can see liberal states telling Texas to go ahead an secede when Texas declares their right to do so (as they have done at various times over the past 40 years).
The Court’s action is extremely divisive and I don’t think state legislatures should have to right to limit medical procedures. Let’s assume we both agree that at conception the embryo is a human being with all the accompanying rights. I don’t think state legislatures should able to force a person to risk their life to save that embryo. Should legislatures have to the right to force me to donate blood to someone or donate a kidney to save someone? I think not. Legislatures should not have the right to force women to risk their lives to save an unborn child.
We disagree strongly on this issue. We disagree on the role of the Court. There are major power imbalances with regard to the power distribution among the states. These structural problems are coming to the fore due to results like overturning abortion. Such is my view.
I hope you have a good day too. I will read any response you make but won’t respond further. I doubt you will convince me my position is wrong and I doubt I’ll convince you but it is fruitful to read other peoples’ opinions.
Now you know first hand why Thomas Jefferson so feared the Judiciary/Supreme Court. This is exactly the type of destabilizing effect it can have. There is tremendous power vested in largely unaccountable, unelected Justices, such that they could be wielded as a tool by one party or another to instill one view or another over the populace with no recourse.
The Courts are the nuclear option in our System, and disturbingly, people have been looking more and more to them as the way to get things their way in the abscence of a non-assenting populace. I fear that our common law system may have too much to it to be reasonably refactored without some serious innovation in the space of jurisprudence, or to be accepted without giving widespread access to every last citation and point of historical fact that weighs into one particular decision or another by the Court.
The crows must come home to roost in the Justice System at some point. If we can't agree on the facts at the Federal level, we've got bigger issues, and we've got a tragic contention for having historically factual evidence honored for acts of the judiciary, and the need for a judiciary that can collate and parse those facts fast enough to make decisions within a reasonable timeframe without Yoloing it. Trying to do that though, increasingly feels to me like work more appropriately done by the legislature.
Perhaps there needs to be a sort of link between the legislative and judiciary as far as facilities for research? Both seem to be in dire need of the same thing.
I agree that the system is in need of reforms. I’m nit insightful enough to know what those reforms should be but I definitely agree that things are amiss.
While I think your view of what will happen is exaggerated, I think the overall situation shows the reality of how much division there is between states and parties.
> Will people have to be careful where they travel now?
It seems pretty clear to me that in your scenario Texas wouldn't have jurisdiction over anything that happens outside its border. I'm certainly not a lawyer though and would be interested to hear if there is any precedent that says otherwise.
Isn't this already the case with marijuana? Legal in one state, if you travel with it to another state, but make a stop in an illegal state, you can go to jail?
I don't know much about laws on that topic, but it seems to be a similar case to me.
Crossing state lines with marijuana elevates your offense to the Federal level, regardless of the legality situation in the source and destination states.
Federally, marijuana transport across state lines is still trafficking in illegal narcotics. That the States don't help enforce it doesn't change a thing.
>It seems pretty clear to me that in your scenario Texas wouldn't have jurisdiction over anything that happens outside its border.
States enforce laws across state lines all the time, doing so for abortion - now considered a crime - would be no different. Several states, including Texas, have or are attempting to pass laws making it illegal to cross state lines to obtain an abortion. South Carolina is banning websites which describe how to get an abortion. So this affects not only freedom of travel, but freedom of speech.
I would assume, perhaps rightly perhaps wrongly, that in your example Texas does not have jurisdiction and would be a third party to that action. The state government could act against an individual for something they did in their state, or the federal government could conceivably act, but not other uninvolved states.
In both of your examples, the states are controlling the behavior of people in those states. Texas is controlling people in its state (and leaving). South Carolina would be banning things brought into its state (information). I think both of these examples, if they are as plainly stated as you mentioned, are illegal for different reasons (interstate commerce clause) but I wouldn't think this is an example of states policing actions that happened in other states.
Texas will claim jurisdiction since in its eyes a citizen was murdered. Whether or not it stands legal challenges I can not say. Would you be willing to risk arrest if you were a doctor in New Mexico and a Texas resident comes to you for an abortion? Even the threat of arrest has consequences on peoples’ actions.
> Texas will claim jurisdiction since in its eyes a citizen was murdered.
But this just isn't how it works, right? "Claiming" jurisdiction I mean. Take your previous example but instead imagine the woman from Texas took a trip with her husband to New Mexico and paid a hitman to murder him during the trip. The suspected hitman would most certainly be arrested on a layover in Texas (or any other state) but that state wouldn't have jurisdiction to prosecute for a murder that happened in New Mexico. The suspect would instead be extradited to New Mexico to face charges there.
> Would you be willing to risk arrest if you were a doctor in New Mexico and a Texas resident comes to you for an abortion? Even the threat of arrest has consequences on peoples’ actions.
I certainly agree there and definitely cannot speak to the risk assessment that abortion providers might unfortunately be contending with but I can't imagine that this will remain a question for long. Federal courts definitely do not like legal ambiguities between states.
> The suspect would instead be extradited to New Mexico to face charges there.
Only because the two states have the same law regarding murder.
More comparable would be the prosecution of internationally-travelled kiddy-diddlers. Though the laws in the foreign country may have allowed such behaviour, itis illegal in the US and the prosecution will be in the US. The diddler is not extradited to the permissive country.
He could be charged with aiding and abetting, but venue would almost certainly have to elevate to the Federal courts, as they have jurisdiction over inter-state parties. This would boil down in each case to an interstate dispute.
Thereby, my most pessimum view would be if you run an abortion clinic, it may well behoove you to not take certain routes if you'd like to avoid being a test case for interstate judicial proceedings until the Federal legislature sorts things out, or a Constitutional Amendment is ratified by 2/3 of the States. It blows, but that's Government of, by, and for the People.
Absolutely nothing says the People's definition of reasonable is going to mesh with any one person's.
This all makes sense. On the flip side I'd imagine that there are some abortion clinic operators who are already strategizing with legal foundations to deliberately bring an ideal test case as soon as possible in order to establish a favorable precedent.
The thing that kills me, is that our legal system has turned into a chilling effect factory, because laws will be on the books, but prosecutors will often cherry pick or drop cases to avoid having an explicit counter precedent established. Nevermind that precedent is roughly equivalent to a longer term executive order in nature.
At some point, our system has started to look more like a system mutated through jurisprudence, rather than through sane collective action via legislation, which seems to be held up by the political machinations of special interest groups/the two main political parties, and less accessible/approachable by most constituents apparently; which leaves these types of judiciary precedent golf games to be the seemingly more accessible form of legal landscape change.
We're looking more like a country ruled by judges than by anything resembling some sort of sense in terms of how we architected the Government.
I'm not even sure I could pinpoint where the specific hangup is, or suggest a reasonable change without several years to really absorb the structural aspects of the system, and painstakingly listing out the inputs/outputs.
Tesla has increased prices a lot. What’s the difference to the consumer if the increase comes from the manufacturer or a dealership? Tesla also is known for delaying vehicle deliveries if you don’t pay extra for FSD. Tesla just appears to be better than a dealership but they engage in the same shenanigans.
People commenting on this don’t seem to understand market dynamics. The price people are willing to pay for some vehicles is much greater than the MSRP. Someone along the chain is going to sell those vehicles at the greater price. It’s either the manufacturer in the case of Tesla (they’ve massively raised their prices), or the dealership, or third party scalpers.
https://illinoislawreview.org/print/vol-2017-no-3/the-crimin...