<p>“There is little in the historic record, Hanna, that suggests A2 was interpreted as a “right” of states for 200 years. There is an abundance of historic information that points to A2 being a personal right.”</p>
<p>(1) You’re changing the subject. I’m not talking about the history of A2 decisions in particular; I’m talking about the principles that are supposed to guide every judge in every case on every subject. Principles like:</p>
<p>Always prefer the statutory reading that avoids a constititional problem.
Always prefer the statutory reading that harmonizes parts of the statute over a reading that places them in conflict.</p>
<p>as well as</p>
<p>Always prefer the statutory reading which does not render part of the statute meaningless.</p>
<p>Abandonment of that principle may be perfectly justifiable under some circumstances; it just isn’t conservative. That is so not only because disregarding the principle is a departure from tradition. It’s also because a judge who declares that half of a two-clause law has no meaning and may be ignored is substituting his judgment for that of the law’s drafters, who apparently thought that both clauses mattered.</p>
<p>(2) Why do you assume that following this principle is inconsistent with the right to bear arms being a personal right? I don’t see that at all. In the altered First Amendment I proposed, the right to free speech would still be a personal right; it would just have different contours according to the drafters’ stated goal of ensuring unfettered political debate. Likewise, a court could find that the right to bear arms is a personal right, but that the contours of that right are defined by the drafters’ stated goal of achieving a well-regulated militia. Under that kind of scheme, certain gun-control measures like background checks, trigger locks, etc. would probably pass constitutional muster, but restricting gun ownership to members of the National Guard probably would not.</p>
<p>Absolutely. Money and capital is nothing more than a means to achieve financial security. That is exactly what social security provides. It is also something that is quite progressive - the lower income people get a lot more in return for what the put into the system than what the wealthy do. To exclude this in the total comparison of financial assets would truly be “cooking the books”.</p>
<p>They don’t have to be physically “there” - as long as the government makes good on its IOU with respect to SS, it can be considered “there”. This is similar to an annuity - you don’t require that the insurance company actually have a stash of cash on hand to pay you every year - as long as they make good on their promise.</p>
<p>You are dealing with hypothticals. One thing for sure is that if SS benefits ever need to be reduced (they will never be eliminated), the reduction will come from the high-end and not the low-end. But, for any meaningful comparison of financial well-being discussed today, you would have to include the leg of the 3-legged stool that financial planners refer to corresponding to SS.</p>
<p>I agree with FF that SS should be considered an asset. If someone receives $2000/month, then that’s like having an IRA of $400k (assuming a 5% rate of withdrawal). I’m too young for SS at the moment so I don’t know what most people get. But as a fixed stream of income, it’s important for many people.</p>
<p>As far as future solvency, I’m not concerned. This country will never let SS collapse. It may change the age at which one can begin to take payments, but I seriously doubt that it will completely go bankrupt.</p>
<p>If it did, we might need the “well-regulated militia!”</p>
I honestly expect better of you, Fundingfather. Not only do you distort what I’ve been saying, but you also have cherry-picked your data to present a skewed version of reality - and you did all that just to take an (unworthy) partisan shot? </p>
<p>I know you’re savvy enough to discern from the data that the income disparity took a sharp upward spike during the dot-com boom, receded with the dot-com bust, and has only recently ridden the economy’s recovery to crest above the height of the boom. But the trend has been going on since before the IRS stats began in 1986; the Clinton Administration neither increased nor decreased the historical trend. And I’m going to call you on this one: you know your Republican/Democrat swipe was bogus, and wrote it anyway. C’mon, FF - you’re better than that.</p>
<p>As to Social Security, let’s look at what has actually transpired: for decades the SS “fund” has been incorporated into the general funds available for national spending, which meant that the highly regressive tax imposed only on earned income (no tax above $90,000, no tax on rents, interest and dividends, etc.) has funded the government while people with earned income over the limit, and people with unearned income were subsidized by the poor and working class. Now when the “IOU’s” for all that “loaned” money are coming due, as the benefits due under SS start to approach the income from the tax, do you hear anyone saying “Well, I guess we’ll have to repay the favor and subsidize worker’s retirement benefits from taxes imposed on investment income?” Not on your life. They’ll cut the benefits and continue the subsidy of the rich by the poor. </p>
<p>Sjmom - you’ve fallen for a standard tactic of the wealth gap obscurers - defining wealth classes by deciles or quintiles. The interesting thing about the increasing gap in wealth and income is that it’s exponential: in contrast to the “rising tide” example, what has actually happened is that the income at the 50th percentile over the past 20 years hasn’t risen at all; at the 75th percentile it’s up 8%; income at the 90th percentile has risen by 20%, the income at the 95th is up by 31%, at the 99th percentile it’s by 72%, etc. (It’s all in the IRS charts - check it out for yourself.) Since there are 10 times as many people above the 90th percentile than above the 99th, and the gap between the 90th percentile folks and the 50th percentile folks hasn’t increased all that much, obscurers define “wealthy” as the 90th percentile - thus reaching into the realm of the middle class. An income “over $100,000” is not wealthy - why am I not surprised that the Heritage Foundation chose that benchmark, though?</p>
<p>If this conversation is going to continue, those involved may want to consider an additional thread. SCOTUS won’t be ruling on Social Security and gun rights really don’t have much to do with income disparity. It’s certainly an interesting debate but it’s an interesting debate in the wrong place.</p>
<p>ninja.of.love: You know though every conversation, especially one that gets into the hundreds of posts, is bound to take a turn and end up off topic.</p>
Sorry, kluge, but just to remind you, you were the one who introduced this deviation from the main topic with this swipe:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So which is it? Is the economic raping going on at the behest of evil Republicans as you first stated or is it just part of a long term trend regardless of which party is in power as you now seem to be claiming? Sheesh, I know that you are not currently a Hillary supporter, but you certainly have her knack of trying to have it both ways.</p>
<p>Your SS discussion is also bogus (and I think you know it as well). You conveniently leave out the part that people making more than the current $100K per year who stop paying into the system also have their returns capped. You also leave out the part that the lower income people get a much higher percentage of their money returned to them in the form of SS payments than do those at the top end of the scale. So, what you say is highly regressive is not that at all … it is highly progressive. A “fair and balanced” perspective on SS is that for incomes up to $100K it is a highly progressive program. For the delta in income above $100K, the program is essentially non-existent. There is no payment into system nor is there any return from the system.</p>
<p>Something that hasn’t been discussed is the fact that even if the Supreme Court declares that the well-regulated militia clause has no effect on the bear-arms clause – and even if it finds that the right to bear arms is a personal and a fundamental right – that doesn’t make it an unlimited right. In general, governments can restrict the exercise of a fundamental right (like free speech or the right to vote) (1) if there’s a compelling governmental interest at stake and (2) the restriction is narrowly tailored to serve that governmental interest. This is why it’s perfectly constitutional for a state to put you in jail for verbally inciting a riot or to deny you the right to vote if you’ve been convicted of a felony.</p>
<p>There’s a great deal of robust law stating that the protection of public safety is a compelling governmental interest of the kind that justifies restriction of a fundamental right (see: shouting fire in a crowded theater). That means restrictions on gun ownership and use might still be constitutional as long as they were “narrowly tailored” to protect that interest. So…what’s that going to mean?</p>
<p>What I think will happen is that there will be reasonable restrictions on firearms ownership like waiting periods, background checks, requirements for reasonable gun storage, and a linking of the various government databases to prevent felons and unstable people from buying firearms.</p>
<p>Unreasonable restrictions like outright bans, prohibition of “assault-style” rifles will be overturned. The laws will become much more practical in terms of observing the right but ensuring the public safety.</p>
<p>I could not read the whole thread so excuse me if this is a repeat. The Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds wrote a scholarly dissertation about the 2nd Amendment. Google -A Critical Guide to the Second Amendment by Glenn Reynolds, if interested. Unfortunately, the server holding the paper is down for maintenance, but should be up soon.</p>
so I don’t know what most people get. But as a fixed stream of income, it’s important for many people.</p>