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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: thames_sider who wrote (16821)	6/15/2001 11:53:55 AM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 82486

But the power hasn't evaporated - a government could later reinstate that (or any other) tax By your argument, though, a government has absolute, total power at all times since at any time it could take on that power. Constitutional protections become meaningless, since at any time the government could repeal them. I'm more concerned with actual power and the exercise of it than with the theoretical possibility that, having repealed the 16th amendment, the government could re-enact it. It would be enough for me if they would repeal it. That would satisfy me as a substantial, meaningful abrogation of power. By your argument, we don't really have freedom of the press, since the government, having enacted the first amendment to protect freedom of the press could repeal that and reinstate press control, so really they still have the power to do that so our freedom of the press is in reality transient and illusory. That is, I suppose, one theoretical framework for discussing government power, and if it's the framework you use, your argument wins, because all governments have at all times absolute power and it's simply their temporary kindness that allows the citizens any freedoms at all. It's not the framework in which I intended this discussion to take place. I intended a framework where, when the government gives up a substantial power, like the power to tax, the power to regulate building codes, the power to prohibit the private use of certain drugs, that is an actual abrogation of power, at least for the people involved at the time involved.