BBC news reports that English doctors want to further the smoking ban in public places in England. They want to make it illegal to smoke in your own car. Not simply buses or public accommodations like a subway, but your own vehicle. This illustrates well the tension between rights, responsibilities and authority.
I have said here and elsewhere that rights imply responsibility and accountability for choices and behavior. Responsibility also carries with it authority, however. Here is the problem in ceding responsibility to others. If we get a ride in someone else's car, they determine where we go, how we get there, when we leave and how long it takes. We get the advantage of not being responsible for our own ride, but in giving that responsibility to another, we also give away authority to determine our coming and going.
So it is in the balance between the individual and government. Our Constitution was set up in reaction to oppressive British policies and to the failure of the Confederation from 1783-1788. The Constitution gives certain rights to the central government that addressed evident failures of the Confederation- uniform money, a postal service, the right to set tariffs, to declare war, to make treaties with foreign powers, and to 'regulate commerce between the several states'. These powers avoided the ludicrous conditions which rapidly developed in the Confederation- the possibility that Pennsylvania might declare war on another country, different monies in different states (really!), complex and inhibitory trade rules between states.
The power to regulate interstate commerce has been broadly interpreted since the 1880s. As written, it was meant to avoid states setting interstate tariffs, or specific exclusionary tariffs directed against one state. Trade rules were to be uniform among the severals states. As commercial and business monopolies extended across states, the clause was interpreted as allowing the government to regulate companies through the right to regulate interstate commerce. Essentially all federal trade regulation, the Interstate Commerce Commission, even rules about emissions, flow from this clause of the Constitution.
As originally construed, rights and powers were to be retained by individuals, or the states. Over time, the federal government has acquired more and more power and authority, given to it by us in the name of, and for, common good. This is easy to understand in regulating an exploitational multi-state company. It is less understandable in regulating personal behavior. This is my complaint with seat belt laws. I always use a seat belt. I wish they were 5 point racing restraints (tells you something about my driving). But I have never supported the governmental requiring of wearing a seat belt. I do not see what part of the Constitution allows the government, any government, to tell me what I must do for my own welfare. I am perfectly comfortable with laws punishing those who do not wear seat belts, but not with coercion to wear them.
If we give responsibility to the government, we give with it authority. In a public health system such as Britain's doctors are state employees. Health rules are governmental pronouncements. It is therefore possible for the government, through doctors, to demand that smoking in a private vehicle be illegal. Is this the path we want ourselves and our country to walk?
Like the Constitution, I am comfortable with the federal government being responsible for international treaties and defense, and interstate tariffs. I am not comfortable with using the commerce clause as an excuse to regulate personal behavior, specifically, requiring individuals to purchase health insurance.
It is a difference of degree, not of kind, for the government, by providing wireless internet bandwidth, to claim it can regulate what you read or say on the internet.
I'm no kind of white supremacist, hide in the woods kind of anti-government activist. I am very concerned with the ceding of responsibility to government, because with it goes my authority and autonomy, my freedom. Freedom implies responsibility. Giving away responsibility implies loss of freedom.
We all need to think hard about what freedom we are willing to lose for what relief of responsibility.
Ted
I have said here and elsewhere that rights imply responsibility and accountability for choices and behavior. Responsibility also carries with it authority, however. Here is the problem in ceding responsibility to others. If we get a ride in someone else's car, they determine where we go, how we get there, when we leave and how long it takes. We get the advantage of not being responsible for our own ride, but in giving that responsibility to another, we also give away authority to determine our coming and going.
So it is in the balance between the individual and government. Our Constitution was set up in reaction to oppressive British policies and to the failure of the Confederation from 1783-1788. The Constitution gives certain rights to the central government that addressed evident failures of the Confederation- uniform money, a postal service, the right to set tariffs, to declare war, to make treaties with foreign powers, and to 'regulate commerce between the several states'. These powers avoided the ludicrous conditions which rapidly developed in the Confederation- the possibility that Pennsylvania might declare war on another country, different monies in different states (really!), complex and inhibitory trade rules between states.
The power to regulate interstate commerce has been broadly interpreted since the 1880s. As written, it was meant to avoid states setting interstate tariffs, or specific exclusionary tariffs directed against one state. Trade rules were to be uniform among the severals states. As commercial and business monopolies extended across states, the clause was interpreted as allowing the government to regulate companies through the right to regulate interstate commerce. Essentially all federal trade regulation, the Interstate Commerce Commission, even rules about emissions, flow from this clause of the Constitution.
As originally construed, rights and powers were to be retained by individuals, or the states. Over time, the federal government has acquired more and more power and authority, given to it by us in the name of, and for, common good. This is easy to understand in regulating an exploitational multi-state company. It is less understandable in regulating personal behavior. This is my complaint with seat belt laws. I always use a seat belt. I wish they were 5 point racing restraints (tells you something about my driving). But I have never supported the governmental requiring of wearing a seat belt. I do not see what part of the Constitution allows the government, any government, to tell me what I must do for my own welfare. I am perfectly comfortable with laws punishing those who do not wear seat belts, but not with coercion to wear them.
If we give responsibility to the government, we give with it authority. In a public health system such as Britain's doctors are state employees. Health rules are governmental pronouncements. It is therefore possible for the government, through doctors, to demand that smoking in a private vehicle be illegal. Is this the path we want ourselves and our country to walk?
Like the Constitution, I am comfortable with the federal government being responsible for international treaties and defense, and interstate tariffs. I am not comfortable with using the commerce clause as an excuse to regulate personal behavior, specifically, requiring individuals to purchase health insurance.
It is a difference of degree, not of kind, for the government, by providing wireless internet bandwidth, to claim it can regulate what you read or say on the internet.
I'm no kind of white supremacist, hide in the woods kind of anti-government activist. I am very concerned with the ceding of responsibility to government, because with it goes my authority and autonomy, my freedom. Freedom implies responsibility. Giving away responsibility implies loss of freedom.
We all need to think hard about what freedom we are willing to lose for what relief of responsibility.
Ted
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