On Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 9:25 PM Tanner Swett via agora-discussion
<agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote:
>
> Gratuitous postmortem arguments on CFJ 3796:
>
> I don't think it's necessary to bring Rule 217 into this at all; scams
> of this type simply can't work. I'll explain why I think that.
>
> Imagine that the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan enacts an ordinance
> which states that, the United States Constitution notwithstanding, the
> ordinance itself is the supreme law of the United States and takes
> precedence over all other United States law. Further suppose that the
> ordinance contains sufficient language that it does not "leave
> anything out" in the way that H. omd says that Gaelan's rule does—the
> language of the ordinance is airtight and claims precedence in every
> necessary way.
>
> Would this ordinance have any "fighting chance" against the United
> States Constitution? One may say that yes, it would. After all, the
> Constitution is part of United States law, and the ordinance is also
> part of United States law. The Constitution claims precedence over the
> ordinance ("This Constitution [...] shall be the supreme Law of the
> Land"), but the ordinance also claims precedence over the
> Constitution. And there is (as far as I know) no "third law"
> explaining how to resolve conflicts between the Constitution and city
> ordinances.
>
> But that's nonsense, isn't it? The Constitution is supreme, and other
> laws can't wrest this supremacy away from it simply by saying so. Or,
> at least, that's the conclusion we would like to be able to come to.
> And in order to come to this conclusion, we have to hold, as an axiom
> of law, that supremacy is "sticky"—if circumstances change such that
> two laws each claim precedence over each other, then the law which was
> supreme before the change remains supreme after the change.
>
> I think many would agree that the supreme law of Agora currently
> consists of those rules whose Power is 3 or greater. Those rules have
> unlimited capacity to make rule changes and govern the game, and all
> other rules are subordinate to those rules. If a new rule is enacted
> which claims to be supreme over those rules, supremacy nevertheless
> "sticks" to the Power 3-or-greater rules and does not pass to the new
> rule without a particular reason why it should.
>
> —Warrigal, who, in the eyes of Agora's rules, is subordinate to all of themGratuitous postmortem counterarguments: With the greatest respect for Warrigal, I opine that e is misinterpreting the situation. I agree with eir example about Grand Rapids, Michigan, I just disagree about the reasons why the Constitution maintains supremacy, and I shall counter with another fictional example. Back in the early days before the Constitution, the city of Shortsightedness, Rhode Island, had an independent streak (for reasons that will be apparent to anyone who knows the founding story of Rhode Island). Shortsightedness was so independent that, upon its founding, it passed an ordinance to the effect that "the ordinances of the city of Shortsightedness shall be the supreme law of the land, and the people of the city and the judges thereof shall be bound by those ordinances and only those ordinances, and no other law shall be binding upon the city or the people or judges thereof". At the time of its founding, the city of Shortsightedness was not bound by any other legal document, because a royal charter had not yet been issued for the colony of Rhode Island. When the charter was issued, it did not ever claim supremacy over the ordinance, and the issue never arose. The people of the city of Shortsightedness contributed taxes to the Rhode Island Colony, always taking care to tell the tax collectors that their compliance was purely voluntary, and that they were not bound by the laws of the Rhode Island legi doslature. The tax collectors laughed and took the money. When the Constitution was ratified by Rhode Island, the city of Shortsightedness was bitterly opposed. Having just rebelled against a king, they had no interest in a new "federal government". When the first federal taxes came around, they refused to pay. They pointed out that under their ordinance, which long predated the Constitution, they were not bound by federal law. Under Warrigal's stickiness theory, it's clear what happens next. Shortsightedness is right. Its laws are supreme, because, having never abandoned their supremacy, they retain it. Under our actual theory, things are different. If the city tried to present its arguments in court, they'd be laughed out of the courtroom. The reason the Constitution is binding is not that it is senior in age, it is that it represents a magical and legally omnipotent force, the Supreme Will of the People of the United States. The Supreme Will of the People of the United States does not care about the puny ordinances of the puny city of Shortsightedness. Those laws are irrelevant before its grandeur. The reason the ordinance of Grand Rapids, Michigan fails is the same. It is the fundamental position of the US legal system that the Constitution is, by definition, the the Supreme Will of the People of the United States, and that that trumps any other consideration. No such principle is applicable in Agora, whose rules all collectively represent the the Supreme Will of the People of Agora. -Aris
