Cruz To Protect States' Rights...err...Homophobia...

[Simon_Jester]

I'm trying to make no assumptions about whether or not there will be any no-issue states in, say, 2020.

See, I don't actually consider 'full faith and credit' being applied to concealed carry permits to be a good thing OR a bad thing in and of itself. The issue is of interest to me for two reasons.

1) The legalities are interesting in their own right, purely as a question of theory.

2) I do like to get occasional confirmation that I'm not just interpreting the Constitution as mandating that I get everything I want, while nobody else gets anything I don't want. It seems like a very blatant and common ideological flaw in American politics throughout its history.

So I find it good for the soul when I realize that IF the Constitution is interpreted in such a way as to give us something I think should happen, that it also has other consequences which I personally find neutral or even disagreeable. That's a good thing.

The Constitution is supposed to be a "rules for governing a functional democracy" document, not a "give Simon_Jester's political movement what they want" document.

[Irbis]

So I find it good for the soul when I realize that IF the Constitution is interpreted in such a way as to give us something I think should happen, that it also has other consequences which I personally find neutral or even disagreeable. That's a good thing.

How is that good for the soul?

Yes, no one will agree on all laws, but I would never think law that directly impacts your security without you possibly influencing it in any way could be argued to be a good thing. Would you also praise other historical US examples, such as slavery permits, or documents decreeing certain races have 3/5 of a vote, or certain people having no right to vote as it was permanently transferred to another person without permission?

Anyway, marriage is basic civil right. Gun owning, and even more to the point, carrying, is not. What congress passed was collective right to bear arms, not individual one, regardless of what pro gun groups did to that law later. Had it been universally recognized right, you might have a point, but it isn't, not even in the whole of the US.

[Beowulf]

How is that good for the soul?

Yes, no one will agree on all laws, but I would never think law that directly impacts your security without you possibly influencing it in any way could be argued to be a good thing. Would you also praise other historical US examples, such as slavery permits, or documents decreeing certain races have 3/5 of a vote, or certain people having no right to vote as it was permanently transferred to another person without permission?

Anyway, marriage is basic civil right. Gun owning, and even more to the point, carrying, is not. What congress passed was collective right to bear arms, not individual one, regardless of what pro gun groups did to that law later. Had it been universally recognized right, you might have a point, but it isn't, not even in the whole of the US.

Which is why "the people" in the second amendment is the people as a whole, while "the people" in the 1st, 4th, 9th and 10th amendments (the only other amendments in the Bill of Rights that bear that phrase), have the people as individuals that each have that right listed. That gun control laws have been racist in designed application for most of their history in the US does not mean that the right was not an individual right. Note that there are state constitutions contemporarous with the Bill of Rights also include a right to keep and bear arms some of which are more explicit in that the right codified is an individual right: "the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state" (PA constitution of 1776). If it were a right of the militia to keep and bear arms, as a selected subset of the people, it would have listed it as being a right of the militia to keep and bear arms. There is no textual evidence in the constitution that "the people" in the second amendment should not refer to each individual in the mass that makes up the US, like every other part of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

The Bill of Rights is a check on the government's power. Defining the right to be collective, such that it can only be utilized by a government selected subset of the people, makes it useless. It's no check on the government at all, but is rather a statement of the government's power. Note that even the dissents in Heller agreed that the Second Amendment protected an individual right:

I take as a starting point the following four propositions, based on our precedent and today’s opinions, to which I believe the entire Court subscribes:

(1) The Amendment protects an “individual” right—i.e., one that is separately possessed, and may be separately enforced, by each person on whom it is conferred. See, e.g., ante, at 22 (opinion of the Court); ante, at 1 (Stevens, J., dissenting).

and

The question presented by this case is not whether the Second Amendment protects a “collective right” or an “individual right.” Surely it protects a right that can be enforced by individuals.

The dissents concerned whether the right protected the keeping of bearing of arms for self defense, with the conclusion that they did not.

[Simon_Jester]

So I find it good for the soul when I realize that IF the Constitution is interpreted in such a way as to give us something I think should happen, that it also has other consequences which I personally find neutral or even disagreeable. That's a good thing.

How is that good for the soul?

Because few things disgust me more than the political mindset which says "I have to win in every detail!"

The fact that I can still see that once in a while, constitutional constraints mean I'll have to accept something I don't want is a signal to me that I'm still capable of recognizing the difference between 'this is unconstitutional' and 'this isn't what I want, therefore it should not happen.' Which is vital if you're going to keep up enough mental flexibility to even try and understand other people's points of view, or deal intelligently with political realities, or become anything other than a shriveled zealot endlessly panicking about how the world is going to hell.

Inability to understand the difference between "unconstitutional" and "undesirable," between "tyranny" and "losing," is a huge problem in US politics, mostly on the right with dashes of it on the left. Elsewhere I've seen it evident in history with lots of parties. And this... mindless inability to compromise is costing the US dearly; I can't speak for what it costs other nations.

The gun issue specifically is a huge example of this in America because it's driven large numbers of people into the arms of right-wingers who will reliably misrepresent their interests on every single issue but guns.

Yes, no one will agree on all laws, but I would never think law that directly impacts your security without you possibly influencing it in any way could be argued to be a good thing. Would you also praise other historical US examples, such as slavery permits, or documents decreeing certain races have 3/5 of a vote, or certain people having no right to vote as it was permanently transferred to another person without permission?

You are spectacularly missing the point, which disappoints but does not surprise me.

My point here is that we have a reasonable constitutional rule (states are required to recognize licenses and permits granted by other states as valid legal documents). Remember that constitutions have functions other than "grant rights. They also provide basic ground rules for how national and provincial governments are supposed to operate and interact. In this case, states should recognize each other's legal documents. Seems fair to me.

ONE consequence of this is the desirable one- that a marriage license granted in one state is recognized in others.

But there can easily be other consequences, consequences that you did not predict when you said "ah-ha, we can use full faith and credit to win the gay marriage debate in America!" Constitutional provisions (in any nation) do not exist purely so that they can be pulled out of a hat by progressives looking to get the next reform accomplished.

So there may be OTHER consequences of this reasonable constitutional rule. Maybe there are other kinds of state permits and licenses that various states stubbornly refuse to recognize coming from other states, even though the Constitution says they should. Those kinds of documents, too, would be covered by the "full faith and credit" clause, because the clause itself is neutral. It doesn't take sides, it is not a Democratic or Republican constitutional provision.

And this can then result in me losing a political battle (granted, one I didn't have much stake in). So be it.

This is not on par with declaring people second-class citizens or denying them any right; your choice of analogy is hysterical, in multiple senses of the word. It is not an injustice to take a constitutional provision that says "State A must recognize State B's marriage license" and say that by the same logic, the same provision also says "State B must recognize State A's concealed carry license."
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And in general, I will simply say this: If you insist on winning every single time, and assume that the rules should be interpreted so as to allow you to win every single time, it's a damn good sign that you're willfully misinterpreting the rules.

I normally see that kind of behavior only from people who have no respect for the rules at all, who don't actually care in their heart of hearts what the rules say, as long as they get their way.

That kind of thinking has no place in responsible, democratic politics.

Anyway, marriage is basic civil right. Gun owning, and even more to the point, carrying, is not. What congress passed was collective right to bear arms, not individual one, regardless of what pro gun groups did to that law later. Had it been universally recognized right, you might have a point, but it isn't, not even in the whole of the US.

This is debateable, and I'm not going to get into it. You choose to view the right to go armed as not being a fundamental right of a citizen, and you might be correct. Others do not, for all I know they might be correct too. Frankly, I don't much give a damn whether it's a "fundamental" right or not. Is it a right granted by the US constitution? Hard to say; the US constitution is ambiguous on the matter.

In the final analysis, whether people have a right to carry guns has very little to do with whether the states are obliged to recognize other states' concealed carry permits. You don't have a fundamental right to drive a car- but states recognize each other's driver's licenses.