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Federal Judge Strikes Down Idaho ‘Ag-Gag Law’

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Re: Federal Judge Strikes Down Idaho ‘Ag-Gag Law’

#151

Post by celticninja »

cwbrandsma wrote: post #42

I'm mixed on this. For background, I'm from Idaho and the son of a dairyman in this state. I know the intimate details of how this law came about, I know the dairyman whose operation was filmed, and I've seen the film. From the viewpoint of the guys in ag, their concern is more about the lies that got spilled out over the initial film, and the death threats that came afterwards. Couple of side facts: * some of the em…

Video monitoring works both ways, if you have it in place then you can use it to support your claims of no abuse ocurring, it can also assist in ensuring employees guilty of abuse can be caught and fired. It is like wanting the police to wear body cameras, it helps promotoe good behaviour and assists in catching bad behaviour.

This was a crappy law i agree, however it really was not doen to support small farmers (and you pretty much agree that they didnt like the law). There are already laws to deal with death threats, as for the reputation the farmers can monitor their own premises and use this to refute any BS claims.

Re: Federal Judge Strikes Down Idaho ‘Ag-Gag Law’

#152

Post by harryh »

laGrenouille wrote: post #108
fredkbloggs wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not expressing an opinion on abortion or agriculture. Let's talk about "disproportionate" representation. Idaho is home to 1.6m people ( http://www.census.gov/popest/data/state/totals/2014/tables/N... ). It has 2 votes in the Senate, like every other state, or 2% of the total, and 2 votes in the House ( http://www.house.gov/representatives/#state_id ), or 0.46%. According to the Census Bureau ( http://www.census.…

The issue with your math is that you're incorrectly assuming that a vote in the House is equally powerful to one in the Senate. On the contrary, a seat in the Senate is far more powerful due to procedural differences, significantly longer terms, and the smaller size of the body. When just looking at the representation in the Senate, Idaho has 4% of the votes but only 0.49% of the population... A factor of nearly 10.…

Idaho has 2% of the votes in the Senate, just like every other state. Not 4%.

Re: Federal Judge Strikes Down Idaho ‘Ag-Gag Law’

#153

Post by rayiner »

kelnos wrote: post #148
rayiner wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: the Bill of Rights didn't even apply to the states until 1925. At the time of the founding when the Constitution was presumably still all American and whatnot, a law like this to protect the unique interests of an agricultural state would've been kosher. There might have been a state constitutional issue, but those are much easier to amend. The idea of a federal court striking down a law duly enacted by a s…

The idea of a federal court striking down a law duly enacted by a state legislature (by more than 2/3 of each house) on the basis of the federal constitution, as happened here, would have been very disquieting to the framers. I very much doubt that's the case: if so, they were fairly stupid. Giving federal courts the ability to strike down state laws is necessary when we have the Commerce Clause. It's about balance:…

States have their own constitutions and their own courts to protect their own citizens. The original purpose of the federal courts was to ensure a neutral forum for the enforcement of federal laws, not to be a second level of oversight of how states treat their own citizens.

But I agree with you, the original design was stupid. I'm just saying that before people start frothing at the mouth about the spirit of the first amendment, they bear in mind it wasn't originally intended to be used the way it was here.

Re: Federal Judge Strikes Down Idaho ‘Ag-Gag Law’

#154

Post by dragonwriter »

rayiner wrote: post #85
x0054 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you not consider active and intentional erosion of the very cornerstone of the United States Constitution an act of War against the union. Couldn't one argue that by undermining the very definition of what makes America America, these people are directly giving aid to our enemies, what ever those might be?

Fun fact: the Bill of Rights didn't even apply to the states until 1925. At the time of the founding when the Constitution was presumably still all American and whatnot, a law like this to protect the unique interests of an agricultural state would've been kosher. There might have been a state constitutional issue, but those are much easier to amend. The idea of a federal court striking down a law duly enacted by a s…

Federal courts were striking down state laws for violating the federal constitution while the founders were still politically active; most notably for intruding on Congress's Commerce clause authority.

They might have been disquieted by the kind of restrictions on the state that emerged later based on the civil war amendments, especially the 14th, but then, many modern Americans would be disquieted by the founders acceptance of slavery while speaking of equality popular sovereignty.

The founders weren't gods, but men taking some controversial--even among each other--steps forward for the political context of their day.

Re: Federal Judge Strikes Down Idaho ‘Ag-Gag Law’

#155

Post by dragonwriter »

rayiner wrote: post #153
kelnos wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of a federal court striking down a law duly enacted by a state legislature (by more than 2/3 of each house) on the basis of the federal constitution, as happened here, would have been very disquieting to the framers. I very much doubt that's the case: if so, they were fairly stupid. Giving federal courts the ability to strike down state laws is necessary when we have the Commerce Clause. It's about balance:…

States have their own constitutions and their own courts to protect their own citizens. The original purpose of the federal courts was to ensure a neutral forum for the enforcement of federal laws, not to be a second level of oversight of how states treat their own citizens. But I agree with you, the original design was stupid. I'm just saying that before people start frothing at the mouth about the spirit of the fir…

> The original purpose of the federal courts was to ensure a neutral forum for the enforcement of federal laws

The Constitution is a federal law; the enforcement of the Constitution -- including against State violations -- is included within the enforcement of federal law. This is fairly express in the Constitution, and it was clear in practice in the first couple decades the Constitution was in operation.

Now, the protections in the Bill of Rights didn't extend to the States under the original Constitution, so its true that enforcing the Bill of Rights against the States was not part of that -- but not because the original design didn't involve the federal judiciary enforcing the federal Constitution against the States, but because that part of the federal Constitution didn't apply to the States. (And, technically, it doesn't now, either, however the current understanding is that 14th Amendment due process applies protects fundamental rights -- many of which are coextensive with, or at least closely approximate, those protected against federal encroachment by the Bill of Rights -- against state encroachment.)

Re: Federal Judge Strikes Down Idaho ‘Ag-Gag Law’

#156

Post by hueving »

marricks wrote: post #133
hueving wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You linked to cows on an island that have no predators. That's meaningless in the context of cows from Idaho (the context of this thread) where they have to deal with the predators. Your assertion that their life in a farm is worse than a life in fear of predators is largely unfounded and seems to be based on "no humans = humane" doublethink.

I didn't say they should be all let free immediately, you created some false dichotomy to aid in your construction of a straw-man to argue with. I answered your question and told you what I thought was my ideal, steep reduction in production until it's gone. We choose to put all these cows into the world (even though we don't need them) and give them shitty conditions. The onus is on us just stop the cycle and let th…

You're anthropomorphizing cows with no basis in reality. It's difficult to argue against someone who thinks cows have the same capacity for thought and emotions as humans.

Mountain lions toy with prey and cause very violent deaths that can orphan calves leading them to starve. I fail to see how that is a better outcome.

Re: Federal Judge Strikes Down Idaho ‘Ag-Gag Law’

#157

Post by marricks »

hueving wrote: post #156
marricks wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say they should be all let free immediately, you created some false dichotomy to aid in your construction of a straw-man to argue with. I answered your question and told you what I thought was my ideal, steep reduction in production until it's gone. We choose to put all these cows into the world (even though we don't need them) and give them shitty conditions. The onus is on us just stop the cycle and let th…

You're anthropomorphizing cows with no basis in reality. It's difficult to argue against someone who thinks cows have the same capacity for thought and emotions as humans. Mountain lions toy with prey and cause very violent deaths that can orphan calves leading them to starve. I fail to see how that is a better outcome.

You keep on trying to put words in my mouth... I didn't say they had the same capacity for emotions as humans, I said they had feelings and enjoyed being around eachother. Look up sentience, it's largely agreed all mammals are, which is why we have medical boards to review if an experiment is ethical to do on an animal.

I wasn't kidding about looking stuff up, you're the one arguing based on your gut feel of what you think the world is rather than trying to support your claims.

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