4. Impose an export tariff on all tobacco products.
Why? Export tariffs rarely serve much useful purpose: they shove supply around a bit, but they usually don't achieve all that much meaningful. I see no likely effect save to cause other countries to buy their tobacco elsewhere.
6. Term limits on congress.
Mixed feelings here. The incumbency effect is an unfortunate one, and I'd like to combat it, but I generally dislike term limits.
Writing good legislation is hard work, and takes a long time to learn: some of the more senior legislators are also conspicuously among the best at making the hard choices and compromises that make government work. So I tend to view term limits as throwing out the baby with the bathwater: I'd rather look for other ways to fight the incumbency advantage.
8. Constitutional amendments supporting same-sex marriages and abortion. And one making the death penalty illegal.
Absolutely not as stated. I'm opposed to amendments supporting the first two for much the same reason I'm opposed to amendments banning them -- these are matters of *law*, and don't belong in the constitution, which is about higher-level philosophy (and governmental structure).
The closest that would possibly be appropriate IMO would be higher-level (and more difficult) statements of philosophy. The first isn't about marriage, it's about *equality*. If you're going to make a statement, it shouldn't be a narrow statement about marriage (which belongs in law), it should be essentially an equal-rights amendment. That would, frankly, be a much harder fight, but it's the only correct one. (And it should be about more than sexual orientation -- it's really all about what the government's rights are to discriminate among its citizens, and what its responsibilities are to prevent discrimination. That's a broad, difficult, and important topic.)
The second is harder yet, because it's legally messing in philosophical and religious territory. Unfortunately, most people in the pro-choice camp are unwilling to viscerally admit that this is really a debate about how you define a "person" -- at what age a lump of cells becomes a citizen. There is, in all likelihood, no objective measure that actually works for this. The pro-choice view is one way of slicing that decision -- giving the mother the decision -- but that's not really any more philosophically valid than the pro-life view, which gives the state that decision.
Putting this whole mess together, I honestly don't think the constitution is the right place to put it. We have to decide these issues as a society before it's appropriate to codify it at that level: otherwise, we're just as guilty of politicizing the constitution as the right wing.
As for the death penalty, I'm actually a little more sympathetic to that one, but again I'm suspicious that we're not ready for it as a society. That one is code for the more fundamental debate about whether we are focusing on retribution or healing in our judicial system -- one of many related problems. The only reason I'm sympathetic to it is in a variant form: "The State does not have the right to kill its citizens". That one I actually like philosophically, but it's not at all the same statement...
no subject
4. Impose an export tariff on all tobacco products.
Why? Export tariffs rarely serve much useful purpose: they shove supply around a bit, but they usually don't achieve all that much meaningful. I see no likely effect save to cause other countries to buy their tobacco elsewhere.
6. Term limits on congress.
Mixed feelings here. The incumbency effect is an unfortunate one, and I'd like to combat it, but I generally dislike term limits.
Writing good legislation is hard work, and takes a long time to learn: some of the more senior legislators are also conspicuously among the best at making the hard choices and compromises that make government work. So I tend to view term limits as throwing out the baby with the bathwater: I'd rather look for other ways to fight the incumbency advantage.
8. Constitutional amendments supporting same-sex marriages and abortion. And one making the death penalty illegal.
Absolutely not as stated. I'm opposed to amendments supporting the first two for much the same reason I'm opposed to amendments banning them -- these are matters of *law*, and don't belong in the constitution, which is about higher-level philosophy (and governmental structure).
The closest that would possibly be appropriate IMO would be higher-level (and more difficult) statements of philosophy. The first isn't about marriage, it's about *equality*. If you're going to make a statement, it shouldn't be a narrow statement about marriage (which belongs in law), it should be essentially an equal-rights amendment. That would, frankly, be a much harder fight, but it's the only correct one. (And it should be about more than sexual orientation -- it's really all about what the government's rights are to discriminate among its citizens, and what its responsibilities are to prevent discrimination. That's a broad, difficult, and important topic.)
The second is harder yet, because it's legally messing in philosophical and religious territory. Unfortunately, most people in the pro-choice camp are unwilling to viscerally admit that this is really a debate about how you define a "person" -- at what age a lump of cells becomes a citizen. There is, in all likelihood, no objective measure that actually works for this. The pro-choice view is one way of slicing that decision -- giving the mother the decision -- but that's not really any more philosophically valid than the pro-life view, which gives the state that decision.
Putting this whole mess together, I honestly don't think the constitution is the right place to put it. We have to decide these issues as a society before it's appropriate to codify it at that level: otherwise, we're just as guilty of politicizing the constitution as the right wing.
As for the death penalty, I'm actually a little more sympathetic to that one, but again I'm suspicious that we're not ready for it as a society. That one is code for the more fundamental debate about whether we are focusing on retribution or healing in our judicial system -- one of many related problems. The only reason I'm sympathetic to it is in a variant form: "The State does not have the right to kill its citizens". That one I actually like philosophically, but it's not at all the same statement...