No, I don’t think his views are universal among Democrats, but I think they’re met with widespread acceptance / support within his party. The audience cheered after he announced his intention to revoke the tax-exempt status of traditional Christian (and other) churches. When he was ranting about taking people’s AR-15s, he wasn’t met with boos and hisses, but (metaphorical) nods of agreement and atta-boys.
He’s polling at 3%. Upon what do you base your opinion that his views enjoy widespread support?
First of all, just to get this out of the way, show me at any point where I stated definitively that such a law would be declared unconstitutional. I have repeatedly and consistently said that it would most likely be struck down and have cited numerous reasons why. I’ve cited actual quotes from the Court and other relevant Constitutional principles used by that same Court. You on the other hand have provided no relevant legal cites and instead offer your personal opinion on the issue instead of offering up what the actual Court which would decide the issue has said.
In fact, you seem to have a limited grasp of all these issues so I’ll quickly run them down as a list to save time.
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How can you say nothing in the Constitution prohibits taxing religious institutions when you admit that the law is ultimately unsettled on the point? The Constitution, in the context of Constitutional Law, is not limited to the four corners of the document but includes the entire case law as well. So far the only thing you can say is the Constitution says nothing directly on the issue either way. However, it says quite a bit indirectly and those are all the things I’ve already cited.
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So the exemption is a statutory creation. So what? So is the tax. How do you know that the tax wouldn’t have been struck down had it not contained such an exemption in the first place or if that exemption was ever removed?
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When you say that the issue has never come before the Court and that “the default is Congress could act in this space” you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how our legal system works. Congress can always “act in this space” regardless. This isn’t an issue of preemption. Congress can always “act” to pass any law it wants, even a blatantly unconstitutional one. Whether or not the courts have weighed in on the issue is ultimately irrelevant in that sense. So no, I did not concede your point because you have in fact made no point.
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The only assertion I have made is that it is far more likely such a law would be struck down than not and I have provided actual legal cites and pointed to Constitutional doctrines that support this conclusion. You on the other hand have offered only your personal opinions, no relevant legal cites, and some arguments based on poor logic. And somehow based on all that you seem to believe that a change in the status quo is as likely or more likely than the continuation of the status quo that has existed for pretty much the entire history of the country.
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I am not so much incredulous that reasonable people can disagree, especially generally speaking about an issue where the final authority has not yet spoken. But the fact that the Court has not yet spoken on the issue does not mean all outcomes are equally probable or that we have no present insight into what form the most likely outcome would take. So I’m more incredulous when one side has presented actual evidence that their side is more likely correct and the other side has presented no such evidence and yet inexplicably still sees the situation as the kind of equal-footing or impasse scenario that lends itself to an “agree to disagree” outcome.
The thing is, I have read lots of lawyers give theories about how certain rights can be inferred. Yours rings rather hollow. I’m sure you don’t care but I just don’t get the feeling you are enough of a legal scholar to make such a reaching pronouncement.
We are not dealing with an inferred right. We are dealing with the explicit rights granted under the Free Exercise/Establishment Clause. That is far from an insignificant distinction.
And what parts of my arguments ring hollow? The direct and immenintly relevant quotes from SCOTUS? The references to the relevant Constitutional doctrines? I could easily add a lot more but at some point it would overwhelm the original topic of the thread. So instead of me writing several pages minimum on this complex topic why don’t you find a single legal cite which seems to contradict anything I’ve said and we can move past this general sense some of you have that I’m wrong but somehow you just can’t articulate why exactly. I mean Bone tried to at least make a specific argument as to why I was wrong. It lacked any sort of cite to legal authority and relied on poor logic but it was something concrete at least.
I gave you a couple of data points already: the reactions of the crowds and other candidates when he said them. Others have posted polls about dem support for taking people’s ARs. I’d be a bit surprised if someone has actually run a poll about dems revoking churches’ tax exempt status.
I don’t think you could. In the sense that you couldn’t say “this organization doesn’t get tax exemption because 80% of its spending is a speech on weekends about religious matters, but a different organization that only gives a play or an opera or a lecture on weekends but not on religious subjects gets the exemption”. Because that is discrimination against the first organization.
Bone’s proposal of eliminating the tax exemption for all non-profits doesn’t even depend on any definition of actual vs. non-actual charitable work. If every non-profit organization is subject to tax, that is one thing. Picking out one organization and giving it tax-exemption but not any other, based on whether or not they are religious, is another.
I have no doubt that such a poll would find more support among progressives and atheists and the SDMB. Among the general electorate, it is pretty much a non-starter. Which probably explains why Beto is at 3% and is likely to remain there until he drops out. Beto is pretty badly out of touch with the mainstream, as are most of the extreme elements of both parties (although the extremists on the right are trumpeted as representative of the GOP on the SDMB and among the progressives). If nut-picking is fair game for one side, it is fair game for both.
Except when the other side does it. Then it is totally unfair. 
Regards,
Shodan
A crowd of a few thousand out of a nation of 300+ million; other candidates’ lack of immediate condemnation; polls on an issue unrelated to you OP; and a lack of data about the actual topic of your OP. These “data points” lead you to believe there is “widespread support” for making tax exempt status contingent on churches espousing certain doctrine.
That about sum up your argument?
The party has made no statements to separate themselves from his extremist positions.
Hey OP, forget electoral politics here. There are some churches out there that are clearly outright scams, like donations being used to pay for a fleet of private jets instead of doing good works. Do you think these sorts of churches should enjoy tax exempt status?
Yeah, he’s been in the secret meetings and knows our secret agenda and is now spilling the beans.
Trump was popular among republicans because he was just saying what they were all thinking, right? Now, I consider that remark to be a bit unfair, but he was actually nominated and elected. When Beto wins the presidency, or at least the nomination, then you can justify your broad brush smears.
You clearly are not versed in prosperity gospel. He has to have a jet in order to spread his good works to his [del]marks[/del] flock.
I didn’t suggest that. I said you could make a functional test to decide what gets charitable status. We already do that for non-churches. Yes, if we allowed Tony Robbins speeches to be tax exempt, there would be no good reason to not let Sunday sermons be tax exempt as well. So as a society we can decide, “is earning money for giving motivational speeches a charity?” or we could decide “is the money being spent to benefit society”. Churches would still be charities if they did good work. I think only the most hardcore would disagree with that.
“Ridiculously unconstitutional” fits quite nicely with “would be declared unconstitutional,” and not so well with “would most likely be struck down.”
You can’t use absolutes in your rhetoric and then expect others to believe that you believe things are unsettled.
You are inferring that their tax exempt status flows directly from that right. The Constitution could have explicitly included that if they wanted it to be explicit. But it doesn’t.
Sure. My bold below:
Now, if you want to find daylight in between “definitively” and “almost certainly” I suppose you could do that. But here’s the thing, I’m not understanding why you seem to be so combative. People disagree, and you start right in questioning their knowledge, expertise, capacity for legal analysis, aspersions about one’s profession, etc. It’s pretty off putting. Like this:
Like, why do you do that?
You cited a single case, Walz, and then threw in references to free exercise and establishment. Do you consider saying those phrases sufficient to support anything you’re saying? The holding in Walz wasn’t on point so you’re relying on dicta which is fairly thin. Simply mentioning free exercise and establishment goes absolutely no where because as you note, these general principles must be taken into context with the rest of relevant case law. You make it seem as if you’ve presented a cache of strong evidence, but really, one case and not even in the holding. That’s weak tea.
Again, you’re conceding my point. The “Constitution saying nothing directly on the issue either way” is functionally equivalent (on the parts that are relevant) to saying “there is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits taxing religious institutions”. It’s silent on the matter. In other words, there is nothing there that prohibits it. Perhaps it can be interpreted that way, but there is nothing currently that would require that conclusion.
You think I’m making an evaluation as to the likelihood? I’m not. This is a thought exercise mainly. But to the extent we are talking about likelihood, this is what I said:
Virtually nil. How do you get from virtually nil to a change in the status quo as likely or more than likely?
In any case, the point of the free exercise and establishment clauses is to establish a sort of neutrality towards religion. Neither favored, nor inhibited. Making the government blind to religious status at all, is consistent with the idea against any form of special treatment. Allowing religious institutions to be exempt from taxes by default favors them in a way that other institutions are not so favored. As you note, it is a matter of degree. Because of this, my assertion is that the constitution would not prohibit an elimination of tax exempt status for all entities. Singling out churches would be a non-starter. But if the entirety of the non profit tax scheme were to be eliminated, this is an available, yet highly remote possibility and would not be in conflict with the constitution.
Probably not, but I have rather low confidence in the government’s ability to distinguish between good and bad churches without letting partisan motives slip in. I certainly wouldn’t trust someone like O’Rourke to make that distinction.
Yup. Way I figure it, he may be entitled to argue that way. But he’s not entitled to a response from me if that’s how he tries to engage folks.
“The Party” generally doesn’t make statements along those lines. (and I should just add, his positions may not be to your liking, but they hardly qualified as “extremist.”)
No, what’s happening here is you haven’t read carefully and are conflating different statements I made about two separate legal issues. I referred to O’Rourke’s proposal as “ridiculously unconstitutional” because it is. There is absolutely no real question about that. What I referred to as “most likely to be struck down” was a law that removed the exemption for religious institutions and allowed them to be taxed like any other entity as far as property and income. Two different fact patterns, two different outcomes. Imagine that.
Cool then. Go with those since they aren’t extremist at all and would definitely be a winner.
You know, because not extremist.
And not a single Dem bobble head has said a damn thing of note against Beto’s “not extremist” positions.
They let them all hang out there in the open easily tied to the party.
Buttigeg said some weak shit but only because he’s been trying to win christian votes by being the good gay Christian. Or whatever weird angle he’s been trying to run.