On Sat, 12/27/08, Jon Bosak <[email protected]> wrote: The natural rights argument is an interesting one. Many years ago I read a great book called The Forgotten Ninth Amendment that goes into this in detail. **************** Jon, Another book worth that may be reading would be "The Amish and the State." It lays out a half-century of conflict between the Amish and federal, state and local governments over the power of the government to regulate, versus First Amendment fredom of religion rights. Although they have the First Amendment on their side it has still been an almost continuous struggle for them to live their lives as their religious beliefs dictate. They have not made the headlines or the history books, but a lot of their experiences are actually similar to those of the Buckeye Institute and other such groups today, including police raids, confiscation of property and jail time for Amish resisters. I think the core issues here are the concept of "police power" and the definition of "public health safety and welfare." The Constitution still grants government very broad authority in exercising its police powers to create and enforce laws that are intended to protect the public health, safety and welfare. This is the basis of just about every regulation we know, from air pollution control automobile CAFE mileage requirements to wetland protection to local zoning and building codes to seatbelt laws. You name the law, and somewhere you will find a tie to the public health, safety and welfare. As long as a law steers clear of any violation of the Constitution or its amendments there is little to be done. The Ninth Amendment may not give us much support in the face of the "police powers" and the "public health, safety and welfare" arguments. We do have a lot of natural rights, however growing what you want (e.g. cannabis, etc., etc., ) and distributing it as you like (e.g. to the general public) have to date not been recognized by the Supreme Court. The concept of government as regulator, particularly in the United States, is pretty much an invention of the 20th Century. It really took off in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of the Civil Rights, the awakening of environmental consciousness and consumer protection movements, to name a few. Unfortunately regulations invariably turn out to be a double edge sword. The challenge is to figure out where to stop the regulation and how. George Frantz --- From: Jon Bosak <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [SustainableTompkins] Raid on Organic Food Coop To: "Sustainable Tompkins County listserv" <[email protected]> Date: Saturday, December 27, 2008, 2:03 PM
[From the article:] | The Buckeye Institute argues the right to buy food directly from | local farmers, distribute locally grown food to neighbors, and | pool resources to purchase food in bulk are rights that do not | require a license. I see now that a recent reprint is available on Amazon, but at 70 bucks for just over 200 pages, I'd recommend looking around for a library copy. The ninth amendment (part of the Bill of Rights) consists of just one sentence: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." There's been a lot of argument over what this means; you can find out more than you want to know by googling "ninth amendment." But it's always seemed to me that if there are any natural rights, then growing what you want and distributing it as you like must be among them. Jon _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
