Posted on 05/13/2003 6:17:13 AM PDT by VMI70
This past weekend, my son and I went on his troop's annual father-son hike. His troop is one of many in the Robert E. Lee Council of the Boy Scouts of America, which is headquartered in Richmond, VA.
On Sunday, during the church service at the end of the hike, it was announced that the Council directors had voted to change its name from The Robert E. Lee Council, which has been in use for many decades, to something else.
This morning, the news broke on the local radio station: WRVA 1140 AM, Richmond's Morning News with Jimmy Barrett.
It never ceases to amaze me how many idiots can be stacked one atop the other in "the blue zone."
Kind of like saying you can't be against wife-beating so long as it's uniformly performed by all.
Unbelievable. Why would the Boy Scout Council assosicate with somebody such as El-Amin?
Apparently elamin is not familiar with Godwin's Law
Oh that's real cute. Did x teach you that one?
So you can take your Tommy DiLusional quotes and stick them where the sun don't shine because that's all they're worth.
Now that must have come from Illbay. Funny. The behavior of your fellow brigade and ex-brigade members seems to be rubbing off on you. I suppose you'll be posting cut n' paste ad hominems from Wlat next!
First off, that's not a quote of Dilorenzo. It's from a college level economics textbook. Second, it does not say that exporters are the only ones that swallow the costs of a tariff - it says that they are the ones who are hurt the most because they, more than anyone else, cannot do a thing about it to pass on the costs. Third, the reason this is so has to do with the fact that exporters are ultimately unable to avoid the economic costs of a tariff, which is in the destruction of trade.
The Northern wheat farmer is no more able to add to his price to cover his additional cost for imported goods than is the southern cotton exporter.
You are missing the issue entirely, non-seq. The northern wheat farmer may indeed have to pay higher prices because of the tariff, but that is not where the worst cost of it occurs. Tariffs hurt exporters the most because they kill off trade. If trade does not happen, exporters do not make money. The south made 75% of the nation's exports and had an economy that made its money almost entirely off of them. If you kill off trade, the region that gets hurt the most becomes a simple matter of mathematics. Which do you think it will be? The region that provides 25% of the nation's exports or the region that provides 75%?
I didn't say I would demand approval from the whole. I said I would demand that the decision be made by way of a process agreed upon by all. The Constitution itself was not agreed upon by the whole, if that is to say unanimously. But the Continental Congress, which was at that time the "body of the whole", delegated to the Framers the task of fixing their general government. That they did.
To review the facts, they did a complete overhaul, to the point that the Congress, upon receiving it, agreed that the best course was to send it out to the states for them to decide on it for themselves. The Constitution contained its own provision for ratification. That provision was met, and so the Constitution became law, and the Continental Congress, the body of the whole, provided whatever organization was required for the transition.
That is self government. Republicanism. The Constitution became the law of the land, by ratification upon the highest soveriegn authority. The Congress was at the center of the entire project. At the appropriate time, it was sent out to the states and dealt with according to its own provisions. End of story.
The notion that any state at any time it pleases can sever itself from its national government makes a mockery of the whole system. Madison was wasting his ink.
An anti-Lincoln bias and a history of deliberate falsehood and/or sloppy research. If DiLorenzo said that the sun rose in the east and set in the west I would double-check him.
And why are they, more than anyone else, unable to pass on their costs? That's the question I keep asking without getting an answer? The cotton farmer was at the mercy of market prices and so what the wheat farmer and the factory laborer. None of them could arbitrarily raise their prices to make up for a hike in tariff. All were equally hit.
Tariffs hurt exporters the most because they kill off trade.
How did a hike in iron tariffs kill of cotton exports? Did the textile manufacturers suddenly stop making cloth and switch to iron? Did the tariff on iron cause a glut of cotton on the market and ruin the price? Where is the connection? Did the high tariff's of the 1840's cause cotton exports to drop?
I think the difference is more subtle than what you're making it out to be.
Once the national government has become abusive of its power, it has abrogted the constitutional contract it has made with "the people." Had the states of the South gone to the state legislatures to garner approval, would that have been sufficient? Something tells me that you would still not be happy.
That's because you were making no sense. Proportinality is what you want it to be seems to be the gist of your arguement. If you are paying 5% of the tax on a larger income than I'm paying 95% of the tax on you seem justified in saying it was abusive to you.
The question at hand is whether or not the government was abusive of its tarrif power. A quick look at the Constitution might help:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Does protectionism fit into one of those categories?
The Constitution does not say that the tariffs cannot be protectionist in nature, nor does it define what protectionist is. All it says is that it must be applied uniformly throughout the country.
And on the subject of protectionism, the Morill Tariff as passed also placed significant duties on molasses, raw cotton, sugar, tobacco and tobacco products, and naval stores. All items that the south produced in quantity. Did not the Morill tariff provide a protectionist safety net to the south as well?
All Wlat and his group of pseudointellects are, are du disruptors who base their arguments on their best talent.....the abilty to cut and paste and the speed of light. He never has impressed me.
In fact, he reminds me of a gnat......irritating, but harmless. Let's continue to celebrate our southron heritage, and ignore the jerks who whiz in our punch.
I don't see how I could make this any clearer. The position that you are arguing - that a tarrif (or anything for that matter) - can't be proclaimed abusive by those who it affects the least is a non-starter, isn't it?
It seems I've provided ample corralaries to disprove this, but you keep on. Let's look at your example further.
Example 1:
The congress passes a law that those with incomes above $30K have to pay 95% tax, while those under the limit pay only 94% tax. According to the Non-Seq theory, the 94% rate is, by definition, not abusive.
Example 2:
Let's say that our no-longer-constitutionally-bound government decides that, instead of socialist ("progressive") distribution of taxation, it is going to choose something completely random and, thus, more "fair." It goes on to implement a law that anyone who's last name that begins with "L" is going to pay 95% income tax for 2004, with others paying 5%. Each year thereafter, a letter will be drawn out of a 'lucky lotto' machine to choose which last-name-letter gets to pay 95% while the rest pay 5%.
So, by your "logic," any action by those who have a last name beginning with "M" is completely unjustified.
You've got it backward: The Constitution does not authorize tarrifs that are 'protectionist in nature' unless they fall into one of the mentioned categories:
1. Pay debts.
2. Provide for the common defense and general welfare.
The Whigs (and the Republicans that followed) had no pretentions that the tarriffs they would impose had to do with either of these things. The Constitution musn't just not prohibit something, it must specifically authorize it.
I never said that you couldn't proclaim it abusive. You can proclaim anything abusive for any reason you want. I have said that since the south was paying a disproportionately small amount of the tariff then their claim of abuse does not make sense to me and the idea that it could be the primary reason for the southern rebellion is hard for me to swallow.
Read the Morill tariff . The legislation provided for the payment of outstanding treasury notes and authorized a loan in addition to fixing tariffs. That seems to meet your definition of the Constitutional purposes of a tariff and disputes your claim that the Republicans made no pretense of it being for any other purpose. Tariffs were implemented first and foremost to fund the government. They had, as an additional purpose, the protection of domestic industries, including the ones in the south, but did not in any way violate the Constitution.
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