Infamous dotcom-founder/sex predator raises $12 on Kickstarter

boing
62

[Head in hands]. Please don’t tell me that. I know that. We’re just going round in circles now. This thread is now so long that it would be completely unreasonable for me to expect you to read so far back. But that remark (not your fault) just caused me to fall into a black pit of deep despair.

I’ve tried, twice now, to state it as simply as I can and I’m clearly failing. I think now I’m just wasting everybody’s time, for which I’m deeply sorry.

I tried to introduce an abstract model to explain my perplexity (in a reply to @catgrin way back) and to ascertain if it was reasonable for me to be perplexed, in terms of that model.

It appears now that this model has served only to further confuse the issue since there are now those who think I’m trying to model the US legal system with that model, and not simply use it as an aid to describing my perplexity. Additionally, I’ve had no remarks confirming that ‘yes, if you put it like that it’s understandable you’re perplexed, but that’s because …’.

For reference, I’m going to repeat my problem one more time (but using the better suited to purpose word ‘nation’ instead of land).

There’s the law of the nation

There’s the law of the state

The nation comprises a set of - geographically - mutually exclusive (non-overlapping) states

One may break the law of the nation, or the law of the state (or both - it’s not xor).

[From here I’ll reword since my earlier wording may have allowed water-muddying]

If you’ve already conceded it possible to break a law of the nation - why should it be a necessary component of that breakage that the lawbreaker move from one state to another (and possibly another and another …). Why not just say “hey chum, you just broke a nation law” regardless of where it happened. You’ve already agreed that the nation is a legitimate (legal) structure which can prosecute offences against it (as opposed to against its member states).

First, do you agree that there are such laws in your particular nation (e.g. the Mann Act) and that this is a legitimately perplexing requirement?

If not, then I’m just insane and we may all move along and go about our business.

Honest - you can end it all right now by just saying that I’m not entitled to be perplexed by this. I don’t mind being declared insane by consensus at this point. I’d almost be grateful.

But - to me - it just seems an unnecessary requirement that you cross a state line to break a nation law (I have to call it nation because the word I’d normally use - with reference to anywhere other than the USA - would have been state, but that term’s already taken).

Having said that, one law of the nation which would instantly dispel such perplexity would be a law preventing the introduction of any nation law whatsoever which could be broken by perpetrating it within the confines of only one state.

Now I believe I’m being told that there is no such law, so either I’m correct in that belief or (having got this far) it’s still legit for me to remain perplexed.

63

Of course you can be perplexed by it… and I’m sorry if my answer was not clear, or it was always something you understood. Also, my bad for not reading through all the comments… bad form on my part!

Yes, if you break a federal law, even if you don’t “cross a state line”, then you are under federal jurisdiction. Period. Crossing state lines can come into play when it’s something that would normally fall under state law, but it happens to to involve moving from one state to another, especially in order to avoid state prosecution. This is one reason why crimes either committed online or facilitated by the internet tend to fall under federal jurisdiction.

But, in general, if an individual who commits a crime in one state and then leaves, in many ways it’s just like going to another country. The first state has to ask for extradition and go through that process (although I doubt it’s as tough as between nations, but I suspect that depends on any number of variables). So, sometimes, the feds will either step in or at times even be asked to step in if one state isn’t cooperating or there is some other difficultly in prosecuting where the crime was committed.

One example of the use of federal power in regards to failures by the state was during the Civil Rights era. The state of Mississippi (among most of the rest of the deep south) had a deep aversion to prosecuting lynchers and murders, so the civil rights groups began to put pressure on the federal government to intervene on their behalf, using the supreme court rulings. One example is the federal investigation into the deaths of the 3 civil rights workers at the beginning of freedom summer.

Now! Clear as mud? Good! There will be a quiz next week!

1 Like
64

Hello :slight_smile: Sorry about the delay in response. I can see other people stepped in, but I will go ahead and drop in my two cents’ worth.

Okay… going to try this once again. Federal law is higher law than state law is higher law than local law. You’re interpreting that correctly. However, we have a lot of restrictions written into our Constitution designed to allow people to act without too much government oversight.

I should note quickly here that, due to the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, clause 2) of the Constitution, federal law will always trump state law where there is an argument. That’s why state laws that allow medicinal marijuana growth are resulting in federal involvement. Currently, we have a conflict between state and federal law. Hopefully, this will be resolved.

Federal law comes in several forms. In some forms of federal law, the law is applied nationally, and actively supersedes local and state law at all times. (Like FDIC bank robberies.) That’s because there’s a federal component to the crime, and that allows for federal involvement at all times.

In some other forms of federal law, movement or trade is required not simply because it is federal law but because the definition of the law requires movement or trade. For example, kidnapping only becomes a federal offense if the kidnappers remove the child from his/her home state. The goal here is to keep the feds out of state action until their involvement is warranted. In each state, we have laws that cover kidnapping as an offense.

The federal law for kidnapping 18 U.S.C. § 1201 is different from either the California or the Nevada state laws. California and Nevada are right next to each other, but have different punishments, and some different definitions of “kidnapping”. If someone moves from one state to the other, we need to be able to agree on how to best address the crime. After all, even though a kidnapping starts in one place - it doesn’t stop until the victim is retrieved. Both states will believe they have jurisdiction.

The way around interstate conflict is to involve the feds as soon as the border is crossed, and use a law that is the same for both states. @Mindysan33 is right to say that moving between states in the U.S. is a lot like moving between countries. Legally speaking, it is. Our laws can be that different! We do have law in place for interstate extradition, and it has historically been used.

So that’s the deal. According to our Constitution, Federal law does always supersede state law if there’s a direct conflict, but they really aren’t supposed to push the issue. That means federal law only gets put into action for certain circumstances - mainly ones that are by nature federal, or that have to do with trade or interstate issues.

Think I’ll let @Mindysan33 write that quiz!

  • C@
65

Miss’ssipi Burnin’. One of my favourite films.

66

Yup. But my perplexity is not concerned with those federal laws but only those acts (e.g. the Mann) leading to federal laws which (in my view, unnecessarily) specifically mention crossing state lines before they can be applied.

Again, yup. But these are not perplexing. So, again, not relevant. (I’m being brusque here since I’m trying to keep responses out of tl;dr territory - being ‘sugar on top’ Mr Clean here, if you get my drift.

67

We-ell, at the risk of causing further trouble down the line, my simple perplexity model doesn’t mention any such hierarchy, or require it (yet). I’m just saying that now in case you use it against me later! :slight_smile:

That’s fine. I’d probably expect that and it wouldn’t perplex me in the slightest. Having said that, though, since I also know how states like to manage themselves as much as they can (that’s my understanding of federal government - a term I by no means associate solely with the USA btw), I’d be equally unsurprised if state trumped nation. That’s why I’m careful to keep hierarchy out of this because I believe my model can engender my perplexity without needing hierarchies.

Yup. Again, my model puts no constraints onto the laws of the nation and the laws of the states, so it’s quite possible to have contradictions. Still doesn’t affect the ‘perplexiferous example’ though.

[quote=“catgrin, post:64, topic:35647”]
Federal law comes in several forms. In some forms of federal law, the law is applied nationally, and actively supersedes local and state law at all times. … bank robberies …[/quote]

Yup. And I expect that few, if any, of those laws (or the legislative acts behind them) make any mention of the illegality requiring a crossing of state lines before they can be applied. So, again, not perplexing…

OK, so now we’re approaching ground zero. In fact it’s so close that it’s probably worth stopping here to consider this for a moment.

I think it wouldn’t be too far from the truth to claim that for almost any other state on this planet (by which I mean, of course, nation state), kidnapping would be regarded as an offence against that state. Full stop. (I mean, Period). Crossings of internal borders, whether merely geographical, or municipal, or sub-legislative, would not be required.

EDIT - dammit I meant to italicise but instead prematurely replied.

So already I find this perplexing. Why would your nation - or states, as a collective (if that’s not a poisonous socialistic term) - not wish kidnapping to be a crime against the nation? It carries with it a hint that it wouldn’t be an offence if perpetrated within a state. Now I know that of course it would because I’d be reasonably confident that states, regardless, and all of them, would have their own laws against kidnapping. But a national law would render individually maintained state laws for such things entirely redundant.

At this point I must probably concede that @bwv812’s earlier comment that I’m thinking about efficiency more than logic may have some merit here, but, still …

So that’s perplexing to me. At which point I’m required to yield a shout out to the person - so far back now I cannot find it - who mentioned the importance of flexibility provided by maintaining a strong hold on having laws set at state level rather than nation.

It could very well be that this is enough to say ‘well that’s why kidnapping [regardless of stateline crossing] is not a federal offence’. Maybe you need to hold something back here, wrt kidnapping. I cannot imagine what it could possibly be, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. It might only mean I have a poor imagination.

I think I’ll leave it there.

68

Well, in regards to the Mann Act itself, there is a specific set of historical circumstances surrounding this law. It was a situation that the federal was outside of its jurisdiction (prostitution, “white slavery”, etc). Young women were working in cities, living alone in greater numbers, there was a fair amount of legal prostitution in many states, and then there was this guy, the first African American man to win the world heavyweight boxing title, who often kept company with white women… this all led to the federal mann act because there was specific pressure from public opinion that white women needed to be protected against “predators” like Johnson (of course, he wasn’t and the real rape crisis at this time was of black women by white men and that was rarely, if ever prosecuted). He was sort of the “poster boy” for fears many whites had about black men’s power, sexuality, and at times wealth. So this particular federal act was passed to fill in a perceived gap in the law between state and federal - I don’t think there were federal laws at this time dealing with what is perceived as a crisis in the US. It was a horribly racist and sexist law to be sure, but that’s about the long and short of it.

Does that answer your question better?

69

We’re so very nearly there, I’m almost afraid to breathe …

So I have to ask; but why hobble it with the ‘crossing state lines’ component. Why not just make it a straight federal offence regardless of crossing state lines?

Please note that - literally - all you have to say here is “because the constitution would not allow it” and we’re done.

But I’d be gobsmacked if you did. Since there’s been ample - by which I mean incredibly amazingly ample - opportunity for somebody to have already said that - and nobody has.

70

Your confusion is in part due to some bad answers but also because I don’t think you’ve really read some of the answers.

As myself and others have said before, the federal government (and “federal” is the correct term since it invokes the concept of federalism, which refers to how power is divided between the federal and state governments) is limited by the Constitution to only the powers enumerated in the constitution. It can’t make any laws it wants, but needs to have some constitutional justification for the laws. One of the enumerated powers that has been used to justify a lot of federal laws is the commerce clause, which allows federal regulation of commerce between the states. This has traditionally been thought to require the transfer of money, people, or things across state lines in order to be interstate commerce, and this explains why there is an “across state lines” requirement in many federal laws (especially older ones).

If the federal government is not relying on the commerce clause (or if what they’re regulating is inherently related to interstate commerce), then there is no state-line requirement because they have an alternate basis for legislating.

71

Many of the comments (not yours, I hasten to add - except in one minor instance) have given me the impression that they’ve not read what I’d said, so I tend not to spend much time on them. I appreciate there’s a risk of missing something germane there.

Having said that, I’ve certainly paid attention to those mentioning the commerce clause (this, despite their not being obviously relevant to shifting people between states since that’s not really commerce is it? I know, I know, it kind of is, when talking about sex-trafficking, and is indeed why I was paying attention there).

I’d’ve hoped that, by now, I’d demonstrated that my understanding of federalism was just fine. (Bearing in mind that my ideas of it are possibly more general than those applied merely in the USA). But you may disagree.

I’ve never been under any illusion that the federal government can make any law it wants. Honest guv.

72

OK, ducks in a row. I’ve read the posts. I’ll go for it again. :smile:

I’m glad you understand the commerce clause, but it isn’t alone in federal law that trumps state law. The reason for this is that (as I explained) according to the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.” (my italics)

That all matters because U.S. Code Law (all federal laws not part of the Constitution) must pass Judicial review by SCOTUS. All federal law is Constitutionally vetted, so when push comes to shove, it all trumps state law.

Some federal laws are written to include wording for the commerce clause because that’s the type of crime they deal with. They deal in movement of goods or people, trafficking, and trade. They’re written to discuss between-state action because that’s when federal law kicks in to act as a mediator between two opposing state laws. The idea is to unify law as much as possible without overly interfering.

Our country likes “freedom”. We don’t want to be told what to do, and that’s part of what makes our laws extra complicated.

Scale really does matter here. You asked whether a crime against a state shouldn’t equally be a crime against the nation, and that’s why the question of “how big is the state?” should be asked. Let’s check out some populations:

California 38.04 million (2012)
France 65.7 million (2012)
U.S. 315.1 million (2102)

So, something happening in California is like something happening to half the population of France. That’s the size of the population you’re already dealing with before you add another single state. In the U.S., I’m sorry to say, many people don’t even know the current news for the states surrounding them - let alone the country. We are isolated by scale.

Because states are allowed to have their own laws, and those laws can change costs or liabilities, we tend not to share. One example is murder and the death penalty. While it is legal federally, many states have abolished it, and one reason is the cost. When a state takes on additional cost by writing a certain law, it’s not acceptable to have another state take on part of the burden of paying for their choice - they didn’t vote for it. It’s only when a law is federal that we do.

73

That’s not true. If it were true, then federal laws would never be later challenged or invalidated as unconstitutional, yet they regularly are.

This isn’t why federal laws based on the commerce clause are written. They are simply written because Congress wants to do something, and the commerce clause gives them the basis for doing it.

Clearly your understanding isn’t fine, or you are being deliberately obtuse, or you wouldn’t have such a hard time grasping that the federal government can only legislate in the areas it is allowed to legislate, and that these restrictions mean that it can’t legislate as widely or comprehensively as you would think logical. I mean, if you understand that states have spheres of legislation upon which the federal government can’t impinge (as you claim to understand), what is the mystery about federal legislation requiring movement between states in order for it to become a federal crime?

It’s not hard to look up the Mann Act. The wiki page mentions commerce in the second sentence, and the actual statute begins as follows:

Whoever knowingly transports any individual in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or Possession of the United States, with intent that such individual engage in prostitution, or in any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.

To the extent that prostitutes charge for services, I’m pretty sure it’s commerce.

74

Without a written comprehension test, I suppose that neither of us is in a position to measure my understanding of this. I am subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect and you are constrained by lack of information about my internal mental states.

I can, nevertheless, assure you that I have no trouble whatsoever grasping that the federal government can only legislate in the areas it is allowed to legislate. I have no trouble grasping the concepts of states wishing to have as much power as possible. My very first discussion of the ideas of what federalism is, if you care to read that far back, should leave you in no doubt of this. I’ll even go so far as to say that the very idea of federalism meets with my strong approval, not that this has anything at all to do with anything, other than to suggest that it’s a bit difficult to imagine why I would not grasp what I was broadly in favour of. It’s certainly possible, but if you truly believe you’re talking to such an idiot then I wouldn’t wish to engage with someone willing to continue talking to somebody like me. Is that harsh?

Do you really believe I haven’t looked up the Mann Act page on Wikipedia? It’s one of the very first things I did. It didn’t help me understand the ‘logic’ because it didn’t explain why they had to do it that way. Why would it? It isn’t a meta-legal entry.

75

And your tactics here are verging on the disgraceful, I’m sorry to say. You - quite correctly - quoted my remark about the Mann Act ‘not really [being about] commerce’ but chose to omit the immediately following part which agreed that it practically was (indicating my acceptance that the commercial provenance of the Mann Act was appropriate). I can only conclude now that you’re looking for a fight. So, tata, mate. Catch ya l8r.

76

Oh, so you read about the Mann Act and saw that they explicitly talked about commerce. And despite the wiki on the law not being meta-legal, you had the further context of comments here talking about the commerce clause and how it regulates inter-state commerce, which clearly contextualizes the use of the word ‘commerce’ in the Mann Act. In addition to this you understand federalism and the limited power of the federal government except for the powers enumerated in the constitution, one of which is the regulation of interstate commerce. Plus you agree that prostitution is commerce, even though you feel the need to qualify this admission by saying it really isn’t commerce even though it practically is.

So you have 2 and 2, and people have already told you how to put them together, but you claim you’re still having trouble understanding how they add up to 4, and why there is an “across state lines” requirement. I agree with your earlier suggestion that your failure to understand really is a problem with you, though I suspect you are really just playing the fool.

And to give the simple answer you said you would accept earlier, the reason the state-line requirement exists is because the constitution requires it (or was understood to at the time the law was written).

77

Thanks for your patience. A Canadian has lost patience with me.

Right. Again with this. I see you’ve been called out over this one with (in my view) a rather trifling point that this would mean such laws are unchallengeable. I’m pretty sure we both understand that it means no such thing and that any law, wherever, whenever, is always open to later challenge. But - regardless - earlier on I made the point that my perplexity didn’t rely on any hierarchy of lawmaking in any case, so I believe such ‘trumpage’ remains irrelevant.

So many people have said this in so many different ways. I’m scratching my head wondering what it is I wrote that would lead anyone to believe I thought the opposite, or that I was all splodey-head about it.

Perhaps all citizens of the USA believe they have a unique perspective on the definition of freedom and that they’re the only ones capable of appreciating the idea that justice, or indeed any political action, is best served by dealing with it at the level closest to those directly affected by it, appealing to higher authorities only when the more local machinery available is either inadequate or involves more than one political entity at that level.

But I rant. :smile:

With respect, that’s not what I asked. You may think it’s the same question, but what I’m actually asking is why your nation cannot seem to make a law at the national level which applies (by default) at the state level (without further ado) without its transgression being required to involve a transition between at least two of those states. I have the feeling that this is - now - the fourth time I’ve presented the question in - essentially - this way.

If you’ve seen my most recent response to @Mindysan33 you’ll see that I’ve made the observation that almost every other nation-state on the planet seems capable of doing such a thing (regardless of any inner divisions they may have), and that this (not unreasonably, in my view) is the source of my perplexity.

So I pose the same to you - are you willing to respond with the simple statement “because the Constitution won’t allow it”? It’ll trip my lightbulb.

I suspect that nobody has been able to say this outright because there probably is no single continuous piece of text in the Constitution which could convey that exact semantic. I’ll go further - I’d have difficulty imagining a wording therein which could. It would have to go something like “Congress shall make no law universally applicable to all states without its transgression thereof requires movement across at least one state boundary”.

If you feel that, in practice (even if not quite so outrightly straightforward, but in a roundabout way, fashioned by pushing bits of federal legislation and Constitutional texts together) that is what you have been saying, and that I’m just not seeing it, then of course I apologise profusely.

But even then, I think - “well, because it’s complicated” - would be the essence of any such answer. My perplexity would be thereby reduced but not eliminated. But it would all be over.

Again, if that is what you’ve been saying all along then I’ve missed it and I apologise.

78

Thank you. You’re the first person who has agreed to state it this simply.

79

And, as has been answered multiple time, we can. We just need the appropriate constitutional hook. Admiralty law applies to all states. School integration and civil rights laws grounded under the 14th amendment apply within all states. Taxation under the 16th amendment applies in all states. As does copyright and trademark law. Medicare laws grounded in the government’s spending powers apply in all states. None of these laws have a cross-border requirement. For laws that are grounded under the commerce clause, however, an inter-state requirement has traditionally been thought to exist.

Other nations typically do not have such strict federalist principles baked into their constitutions, and don’t have so many checks and balances on their governance systems. This is the American “freedom” that people have been explaining to you: unless the Constitution has granted power to the federal government, they cannot legislate. And when they do legislate, there must be a constitutional basis. Congress could find no constitutional basis for prostitution laws outside of the commercial aspect of it, and then it could only be regulated to the extent it was interstate commerce.

Here’s the language you’re looking for, courtesy the tenth amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The commerce clause is arguably the most important Constitutional delegation of power to the federal government, and the basis of much legislation.

80

There is a closer equivalent in the UK. Scottish Law has historically been different to English law. People used to elope to Gretna Green because the age where someone could get married without parental consent was lower in Scotland. The difference between the laws is now 2 years (16 years old in Scotland and 18 in England) rather than up to 9 years (12 (female) or 14 (male) in Scotland, 21 in England) as it was in the 18th century.

81

But you didn’t!

Look, I can understand that you’re by now so cross with me because you believe I’m essentially now driving trollies you (and I’m equally cross with you, as it happens, for your illegitimate cherry-picking of my statements to make me look bad) that it’s impossible for us to have this conversation any more in public without posturing.

The thing is, though, that despite all that you’re the only one to have come out with that bald - and I have to say gobsmacking - answer I asked for but didn’t really expect (because why not earlier - it would have saved so much time)…

Would you like to take this, as it were, outside? Your helpful targeting of the tenth amendment which you quote as being that thing which actually quashes my perplexity is imho - still sufficiently far removed from what I would require except via some relatively long chain of entailment. Which I’m prepared to accept, but which will doubtless - especially by now - be of little interest to anyone else. Wanna exchange email addresses or something? :slight_smile: