My brother just posted this article on Facebook, and while I’m sure it’s one of those crazy legal “loopholes” that people who like to think income tax is invalid try to take advantage of…what’s up with it? I can’t immediately find any debunking via Google.
So what’s the sitch? Are we all stooges for getting driver’s licenses?
(Not really sure what forum to put this in; took my best shot, on the hypothesis that anything involving idiots and lawyers has the potential to get Great Debatey.)
“The movement of motor vehicles over highways, being attended by constant and serious dangers to the public and also being abnormally destructive to the highways, is a proper subject of police regulation by the state.”
“And, to this end, it may require the registration of such vehicles and the licensing of their drivers, charging therefor reasonable fees graduated according to the horsepower of the engines – a practical measure of size, speed, and difficulty of control. This is but an exercise of the police power uniformly recognized as belonging to the states and essential to the preservation of the health, safety, and comfort of their citizens, and it does not constitute a direct and material burden on interstate commerce.”
It’s basically another version of Freemen on the Land, and total gibberish. You can do a search on ‘debunking freeman on the land’ for a ton of good debunking sites, and I think that Cecil actually did an article on this debunking it to, but I might be mis-remembering that. Here is the RationalWiki on it, FWIW, and it’s got some stuff on folks who failed to try and do this. The interesting thing is this isn’t as big in the US as it is in some other countries.
Driving is a “right”… of the licensed driver as long as s/he hews to the Law. Something being a “right” does not mean it’s absolutely unregulatable. The Bill of Rights phrases rights protection in terms of “shall make no law… abridging” or …“shall not be infringed” i.e. the mere acknowledgement that a right exists does not make it exempt from all regulation, you have to explicitly say it is. And driving isn’t. By their reading, then even the traffic laws would have to be thrown away because they hinder your right to turn left where and when you want to turn left, and determine the speed at which you do so…
Maybe it should be tossed back over to GD. Like I said, this opinion was 100 years ago. Horses and carriages were normal and cars were “abnormally destructive” to highways.
In these intervening 100 years, cars are the new norm and “should” (GD topic) be reviewed under the older right to travel argument.
But the GQ answer is solid gold. The state may regulate cars. Since they could not regulate regular citizen travel 100 years ago, can the states regulate “regular” citizen travel today?
It’s one I don’t have a particular opinion on, but it’s a damn good argument for those in rural states like mine who are constantly told that their drivers license is merely a privilege when they have no alternative means of travel.
A few decades back I would see something similar pop up in motorcycle magazines.
It used the “Titles of Nobility” stuff.
Simply put, the Constitution prohibits taking a right away from the general citizenry and then returning it in exchange for a fee. People felt that, since traveling on the highways was a right, it should be illegal to charge money for a driver’s license.
A right to travel might exist (hey, the 9th Amendment must mean something) but it’s not an explicit right. So before you can argue that your right to travel protects your right to drive, you’ve going to have to establish you have a right to travel.
I heavily doubt this is the case; it certainly isn’t in the plain text of the Constitution, and I doubt any courts have found it to be true. After all, people have a right to parade and gather to rally, but they may have to pay a fee to get a license to do so in some jurisdictions; as long as the licenses are granted regardless of the content of the parade or rally (that is, no discrimination based on the message) that is perfectly legal.
I did a little digging to see if this position has any merits at all, and the answer is “sort of”.
The Constitution prohibits both the Federal Government and the States from issuing “Titles of Nobility”, but never defines what those are.
And an article at Encyclopdia.com says " A title of nobility grants special privileges to an individual at the expense of the rest of the people."
Then it goes on to note that no case involving a title of nobility has reached the Supreme Court, and lower courts have generally avoided ruling on arguments that the privileges that come with certain Federal Offices constitute a Title of Nobility.
"This position is supported by an 1871 U.S. Attorney General ruling (13 Ops. Atty. Gen. 538) that a commission making someone a diplomatically accredited representative of a foreign government, with the special immunities diplomats enjoy, would constitute a title of nobility. "
So I guess the real argument these people were making was that any time the government takes a right away from the general populace and returns it only to certain people, that is creating a “Title of Nobility”. So “Licensed Driver” is such a title.
I think that interpreting the meaning that broadly makes it impossible for the government to do its job, and that means that can’t be what the Founders meant.
On the other hand, it does make me wonder if some of the privilege granted by law to specific groups might be over the line.
Further, I don’t believe that the founding generation would have found it appropriate to require a license to ride a horse or drive a carriage on the public roads.
So since an automobile is the modern equivalent, and in certain rural areas of the country is an almost necessity to get to work, the grocery store, etc., if we aren’t going to go all freedom-y and state that there can be no license requirement at all, I think it needs to be treated with more respect and recognized for the necessity it is instead of dismissing it as a mere privilege.
I would tend to disagree. Usually when courts have ruled on the issue of a right to travel, they’ve done so only on one specific aspect of that: the right to travel from one state to another. As far as I know, there hasn’t been any rulings establishing a general right to travel.
Even if it is to be considered a right there are limits to our rights. Free speech is a right but you can’t make threats or incite a riot. Why can’t there be limits to driving? Such as the state making sure each driver understands the laws and has a basic understanding of how to operate a vehicle.
I would tend to disagree with your disagreement. If you are talking about intrastate travel, like going to town to go to the feed store or a farmer selling his goods at market, I would suggest that such travel on publicly maintained highways has historically been so common, and so not subject to any kind of dispute as to make the existence of the right almost without question. It would be hard to imagine a totalitarian state so vast that it restricted people to only their own private property and private property of others with permission.
Even if we go with your argument regarding interstate travel, how do people get from one state to the next? On public highways. If driving is merely a privilege that can be taken away with less that due process, how are people supposed to get to a different state? Yes, there are airplanes and buses, but how do I get to the airport or the bus station? Do I have a fundamental right to fly on an airplane or ride a bus?
Also, can you imagine the absurdity if we made the distinction where interstate travel was a right, but intrastate was not? If I can show a hotel receipt from a neighboring state, should I be subject to fewer travel restrictions than if my hotel receipt was from my home state, but a further distance away? Can I be subject to these fewer restrictions by driving across the state line, hanging a U turn and going about my business?
The existence of a right assumes the underlying steps necessary to exercise that right. It would be like saying that a woman has a right to an abortion but she has no right to walk through the front door of the clinic. So when Missabama passes a law forbidding women from walking through the front door of an abortion clinic, but otherwise keeping abortion legal, it would seem to be okay under your line of thought.
Also, in any case a “necessity” does not per se create a right to satisfy it in one or any particular way. Even “rights” themselves may be regulated in time, place and manner of exercise as long** as it is not made unduly burdensome to the point of effectively impeding its exercise**. e.g. you may establish a system to issue carry permits for handguns, you may not use it to effectively ban their ownership, sez SCOTUS.
The standard driving license requirements are not an undue burden. Identify yourself and show an examiner that you know the basics of driving that class of vehicle safely and are able to do so (with special adaptations if necessary).
Within a generation, robotic cars may do away with the “need” of individuals to drive, but that will only make it more justifiable to require licensing and training for those wishing to still do the far more risky practice of “manual” driving on the public road.
Simply walking, riding a horse or on animal-pulled carriage involves lesser risk of impact to the rest of the public than mechanized transport. Horses and carriages do not cruise at 50+mph
On the philosophical side of the argument…
If a right of free movement were to be seen as a part of the right of liberty, that may not be deprived without a due process – wellnowhere does it say that the only such process has to be a *punitive *process for individual cause. It can be *regulated *by a general-application administrative process to ensure public safety or order. That can be the building of a fence, a front desk clerk with a metal detector… or a driving license.
I would not have a problem with that if that was the extent and purpose of the licensure requirement. If that is the purpose, the current laws do a poor job of it. Why can my (hypothetical) 95 year old grandmother still drive on the basis of a test on the law that she took in the 1930s on a Model A Ford?
Since as I said, cars are common, we may not need such tests. Again, in the 1800s, we didn’t see the need to ensure that riders knew how to control a horse or that carriages complied with customs of the road. I think that most of the populace can figure out the rules of the road on their own; or at least this knowledge isn’t sufficiently bolstered by the current testing regime.
My main concerns isn’t with ensuring that drivers know the law, but the relative ease with with licenses are suspended for unpaid fines or other violations. This is a massive restriction on one’s freedom of movement. I think that there should be tougher safeguards, more due process, and a recognition of driving as a right only to be taken away in a criminal context instead of answering complaints of those effectively trapped in their homes with a hand-waiving “Driving is a privilege, not a right” answer.
Many of my clients come to me with the story: Yes, I fucked up, but I need to work. I need to eat. My kids need to get to soccer practice. What am I supposed to do but drive illegally? Then they drive illegally, get more fines that they can’t pay and a longer suspension. Eventually these come with mandatory jail sentences leading to loss of jobs and an inability to get future jobs.
The sad part is that the punishment of taking away a license mostly falls on well meaning family members who have to tote the scofflaw around or bring him groceries. Why should the state punish Johnny’s dad by making him drive him around when Johnny was the guy who screwed up?
