A parade impinges on the rights of others to use the same resource, a public street, and by inducing a public gathering, is likely to increase costs for police and trash collection. This should remind us of the issues in Presser v. Illinois http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndcourt/supreme/13sup.htm which involved a militia organization parading without a permit. The opinion is often mischaracterized as a loss for the rights of militia, but it should be pointed out that even regular military organizations like the Army normally pay parade permits when they want to parade, because of the costs parading imposes on municipal budgets. The opinion in that case neglected to distinguish between a celebratory activity like parading, and actual militia or military operations in defense of the community, which obviously would not need a permit.
The history of marriage licenses and their fees indicates several motives for them. Part of it was to discourage marriage among the poor, who tend to demand more public resources, and to put people who might be thought to be unfit, for health, mental, genetic or other reasons, before a system of intervention to prevent them from marrying. Part of it seems to have been to make it easier to establish parenthood and thereby responsibility for the upbringing of children. The rationale was the costs that marriages could impose on society if not regulated in some way. Historically, almost all societies have asserted the power to control marriage through a variety of mechanisms, so that by legal tradition marriage is not a right but a privilege.
Firearms are different in that the RKBA is closely tied to the militia duty, and to the principle that people have a right to do what they have a duty to do. In this tradition, even self-defense is seen not just as a right but a duty, because in some sense we all belong to our society and have a duty to preserve ourselves and our ability to contribute to it. The attacks on the RKBA have tracked the reduction in the militia tradition and sense of personal responsibility for, and involvement in, civic affairs, and the rise of induced dependency on government professionals. This seems to have largely been driven by a kind of "rent-seeking" behavior, discussed in public choice theory, whereby government employees seek more jobs and more pay by reducing the civic role of civilians, who are seen as competitors. It serves the interest of the faction of government employees and contractors to reduce civilians to a state of childlike dependence, producing taxes and creating demand for more services, but submitting to government control and not doing anything for which another government job might be created.
A problem with this is that civilian efforts decline faster than government services can expand to supply the need, resulting in a lower overall civic activity and a less congenial society.
Janice Rogers Brown, in her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on her nomination to the DC Circuit, seems to have discussed this idea in a speech she gave to a meeting of the Federalist Society, about which she was questioned.
From the viewpoint of many on this list, it would seem that Justice Brown might make an excellent federal appeals court justice. Does anyone know what her decisions, opinions, writings, or speeches may indicate about the topics of this forum?
Peter Boucher wrote:
marriage license fees, and even parade permit fees, are not so much for the benefit of the recipient as they are simply meant to offset the cost of the government facilitating you in the exercise of your rights
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