There are several things you can loose your licence for. My ex currently can’t get a drivers licence because he owes something like 10k in child support. I didn’t ask the state to do it it just kicks in at a certain degree of indeptedness.
One of the things they are trying here in Milwaukee is putting parents of truants in jail. It seems at least like the idea of not letting them have licences is mostly punishing the right person. Wisconsin does not allow people to drop out at 16, they have to be in school till 18, there are exceptions for family hardship.
Simple facts are that even McDonalds is less likely to hire a drop out. Dropouts make 10s of thousands of dollars less in a lifetime than highschool graduates. So far punishing parents and sending police hasn’t done much to the truancy rate. This is the first idea that I have seen that might make a difference.
First, I will admit that as long as the law applies only to minors, it’s not as serious.
But still… Using the power of government to revoke unrelated rights in order to force social change is a damned dangerous thing to get behind. I’m always shocked when civil libertarians who will fight tooth and nail to suppor the right to, say, burn a flag will shrug when the government restricts the rights of whole groups of people because the government thinks it’s good for them.
There is also a practical issue here. Do we really want to pressure people to stay in school in this way? Think of the ramifications: First, it’s going to make it harder for high schools to get rid of troublemakers. There’s going to be increasing pressure to pass students who should be flunked.
But my main opposition is to anything that I see as government using its regulatory power not to make people follow the law, but to push and prod them into decisions that someone else thinks are the 'right’decisions. There is a bright line there for me. That’s why I also oppose mandatory seatbelt and helmet laws, anti-smoking laws, taxes that are designed not to raise revenue but to punish people for making ‘bad’ choices.
Burning the flag is constitutionally proptected free speech. There is no consitutional right to drive a car. Driving a car is dangerous. You have to be responsible and mature. Those who drop out of high school are demonstrating a decided lack of maturity and responsibility.
Personally, I don’t think minprs should drive at all and this sounds like a good start to me.
Do you think it’s a violation of civil rights to prohibit minors from drinking or smoking? I would put driving in the same category.
So is it your belief that the government can restrict the right of the people to do anything, aside from the rights specifically enumerated in the bill of rights? If the government doesn’t like football it can make it illegal?
If so, how do you explain the 9th Amendment:
or the 10th?
The bill of rights is not a document that outlines the only rights the people have. It is a document that primarily sets out the limits of government. The notion that anything that is explicitly not in the bill of rights is fair game is a fundamental misreading of what it is all about.
Is it also your position that we should take drivers licenses away from anyone who demonstrates that they are ‘immature’ and not ‘responsible’? Wouldn’t that mean that felons should never be allowed to drive? Or people who have children out of committed relationships? Or people who quit their jobs in a fit of pique?
Do you really wanted the government to be the arbiter of our good behaviour and use its power to license to compel and coerce us into behaving ‘properly’? Is that really what you are suggesting?
If the government doesn’t like football it can make it illegal?
In my view, yes. It’s not a right.
At various times and in various locations we have outlawed cock fighting, bull fighting, and games of chances. This does not mean I advocate a law against football, only that such a prohibition is possible.
What’s your solution? Leave it alone and it will get better? How do you propose we deal with dropout rates, poverty, crime, etc…?
By the way, everything related to social issues that the government does, from social security, to consumer protection laws, to minimum wage, to requiring kids to stay in school until 16, is social engineering. Take all that away, odds are you wouldn’t be where you are, and able to have this debate at all.
Calling social engineer is a bad thing is like the constant branding of ‘liberal’ as a dirty word. Same old tricks by the same old people. Neither holds up to rational thought.
Driving a car endangers other people. There is no civil right to endanger other people. Because driving a car has the potential to affect the rights of others, the goverernment has an interest in contolling who drives.
Personally, I just think that all teenagers are a menace behind the wheel and I’d like to see the driving age raised purely in the interest of self-preservation.
The answer to the questions in your first paragraph are (1) yes, so long as those rights are not also safeguarded by other sources, such as federal statutes and state constitutions and statutes, and (2) yes.
Sam, I’m shocked to find you engaging in the same type of constitutional fallacy that proponents of “living constitutionalism” routinely engage in. By the standard you’re proposing, a court can engage in limitless judicial legislation, because you’re suggesting a standardless and open-ended view of what is or isn’t a right. In doing so, you are ceding powers held properly by the people through their elected representatives to an unaccountable life-tenured judiciary.
To answer your specfic questions about the amendments:
The 9th amendment is properly understood not as a source of substantive rights, but as a guarantee that the enumeration of rights in the Bill of Rights cannot be used as an argument against finding rights in other legal sources. I also refer you to this thread.
The 10th amendment is a redundant guarantee of what should be obvious from the constitutional text: that the federal government is one of limited, enumerated powers, and that all powers not so enumerated belong to the states or the people. That’s the most significant objection I have to Kerry’s platform: it’s a states rights issue first and foremost, and is beyond the reach of the federales. But that doesn’t mean a state government can’t legitimately pursue those policies.
No, Sam, you’re missing what it’s all about. The Constitution principally establishes a government driven by the people speaking through their elected representatives. Those areas not explicitly made off-limits by the constitution or its amendments are in fact fair game. That’s called representative democracy. That’s called putting power in the hands of the people. You join the ranks of leftism when you claim otherwise.
The government does this all the time. It wants to encourage investment, so it gives preferential tax treatment to capital gains. It wants to encourage home ownership, so it gives a tax deduction for mortgage interest and property taxes. It wants to encourage marriage among partners who both work, so it twists things around to get rid of the marriage penalty. And so on and so forth.
Sam, Bush Jr. advocates mandatory school attendance for children under the age of 16, and is willing to use the power of the police to enforce this mandatory attendance at school. What are your thoughts on such naked social engineering?
Googling, all I could find was a blurb about Dubya supporting homeschooling while gov of Texas. Issues2000 lists no comment that I could find regarding Bush advocating mandatory school attendance for children under the age of 16. Cite?
Brutus, for the purposes of this discussion, I’m including attending homeschool as attending school. Bush’s Department of Education has done nothing to overturn truancy laws, which is obviously blatant social engineering.
I would like to thank Sam Stone for bringing this matter to my attention. I think as a policy recommendation it thoroughly sucks. If President Kerry is stupid enough to bring this up and push it during his first administration, I’ll be very much on the lookout for alternative Democratic challengers, and will also listen closely to any candidates seeking the Republican nomination.
Same here. There must be a blue moon tonight - I agree with Sam Stone and disagree with Kerry.
Not because I have any problem with “social engineering” or infringing on states’ rights, but because I believe (1) dropping out of school can be a rational choice and shouldn’t be discouraged with legal penalties, and (2) driving is too important in this country to be restricted by unrelated things like paying child support, staying in school, or anything else that doesn’t affect one’s ability to safely drive a car.
The fact that this proposal would only affect minors doesn’t make it any better in my view. Unlike many people, I care about their rights too.