#however the state of missouri actively has laws making it legal to discriminate on the basis of gender identity and is introducing more ♥️ | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blackkudos · 7 years ago

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William Lacy Clay, Jr.

William Lacy Clay, Jr. (born July 27, 1956), usually known as Lacy Clay, is the U.S. Representative for Missouri's 1st congressional district, serving since 2001. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

The district is based in the city of St. Louis and includes most of northern St. Louis County (North County), taking in cities such as Maryland Heights, University City, and Florissant.

Early life, education and career

Clay, Jr. was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but his family moved to Washington, D.C. when his father, Bill Clay, was elected to U.S. Congress. His mother was Carol Ann (Johnson).

In his teenage years, Clay Jr. attended public schools in Silver Spring, Maryland and graduated in the Springbrook High School Class of 1974. He then attended the University of Maryland-College Park, from which he earned a degree in political science and certification to be a paralegal. Clay is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.

Missouri Legislature

Clay entered the Missouri House of Representatives in 1983, the same year that he graduated. In 1991, he was elected to the Missouri Senate.

U.S. House of Representatives

In 2000, Clay, Sr. retired after 32 years in the U.S. Congress. Clay, Jr. won a crowded six-way Democratic primary—the real contest in this heavily Democratic district—with 60 percent of the vote, and breezed to election in November. He has been reelected six times with no substantive opposition, never dropping below 70 percent of the vote.

For his first six terms, Clay, Jr. represented the northern two-thirds of St. Louis, while the southern third was located in the 3rd district, represented by fellow Democrat Russ Carnahan. However, Missouri lost a congressional district as a result of the 2010 Census. The final map resulted in the 3rd district being eliminated and the 1st district absorbing all of St. Louis. Clay beat Carnahan in the August 7, 2012 primary, 63% to 34%--all but handing him a seventh term.

Committee assignments

Committee on Financial Services

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit

Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology (Ranking Member)

Subcommittee on Health Care, District of Columbia, Census and the National Archives

Caucus memberships

Congressional Black Caucus

Congressional Progressive Caucus (Vice-Chair)

International Conservation Caucus

Since his first term, Clay has been a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He currently chairs the House Information Policy Subcommittee. He is also a member of the House Financial Services Committee. Ordinarily, House Democrats who serve on the Financial Services Committee would have to give up their other committee assignments. However, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Financial Services Committee Chair Barney Frank of Massachusetts granted him a waiver allowing him to remain on the Oversight Committee.

Clay made headlines in early 2007 when, as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (co-founded by his father), he objected to the possible inclusion of U.S. Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee, a Caucasian who represents the majority-African American district in Memphis and had made a campaign promise to attempt to become the first white member of the CBC. Although it is not part of the CBC's bylaws that members must be black, all members so far have been black. Clay told Cohen "that he could not collaborate with the Congressional Black Caucus for the benefit of his black constituents 'until your skin turns black.'" In response to press inquiries, he said, "Mr. Cohen asked for admission, and he got his answer. He's white and the Caucus is black. It's time to move on. We have racial policies to pursue and we are pursuing them, as Mr. Cohen has learned. It's an unwritten rule. It's understood." In response to the decision, Cohen stated, "It's their caucus and they do things their way. You don't force your way in." Clay issued an official statement from his office in reply to Cohen's complaint: "Quite simply, Rep. Cohen will have to accept what the rest of the country will have to accept — there has been an unofficial Congressional White Caucus for over 200 years, and now it's our turn to say who can join 'the club.' He does not, and cannot, meet the membership criteria, unless he can change his skin color. Primarily, we are concerned with the needs and concerns of the black population, and we will not allow white America to infringe on those objectives." Some have said that since Cohen represents a district with 60 percent of African American voters, that he has a legitimate interest in helping the goals of the CBC, and the decision should not be solely based on skin color.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington issued a report in June 2007 saying that Clay's sister Michelle Clay is a registered lobbyist for the Kansas City airport and previously for the city of St. Louis. They reported that in the 2006 election cycle, Michelle Clay's law office, Clay and Associates, received $51,800 in consulting fees from her brother's campaign funds, along with an additional $9,963 for reimbursements. In the 2004 election cycle, Michelle Clay's firm received $52,514 for consulting, and in 2002 Michelle Clay herself was paid $32,00 for campaign management and legal fees. During the 2004 election, Clay's campaign reimbursed his father more than $6,000 for book purchases.

Political positions

Clay, Jr.'s voting record has been decidedly progressive, like that of his father. He is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, of which his father was a founding member.

During Clay's previous seventeen years in the state legislature, he authored Missouri's Hate Crimes Law which included gender, sexual orientation and sexual identity in the criteria of what constitutes a hate crime.

Clay made it clear that he supports the Employment Non-discrimination Act which would make it illegal to discriminate against employees of any sexual orientation, notably LGBT workers. He also noted that he believes that the 33 states that are allowed to fire employees due to sexual orientation are in the wrong.

Clay has been a consistent critic of the War in Iraq and was among those who voted against the Iraq War Resolution in 2002. Clay's NPAT also displays disagreement with elements of the War on Drugs. He believes that government reform is necessary to make sure every citizen's voice is heard. Clay also continues to fight for programs that will improve that status of the poor, including initiatives to allow lower-class people to purchase homes.

Clay is also active in election reform and believes that any electronic voting system must include a paper trail to verify the results.

Clay added his name as cosponsor to a bill calling for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney, House Resolution 333.

He was one of the 31 members in the U.S. House of Representatives who voted not to count the electoral votes from Ohio in the 2004 presidential election.

Lacy Clay voted against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

Clay is a supporter of the Federal Reserve's program of quantitative easing and claims that it has led to economic recovery since the financial crisis of 2008.

Electoral history

Personal life

Clay married his wife Ivie in 1992, when he was a state senator. He filed for divorce in 2009. Ivie initially found out about the divorce "only through the media." After Clay had the court file sealed, Ivie released the following statement to the media:

I and my children are devastated and embarrassed that my husband let us find out from the children’s friends and the media that he had filed for divorce, and mostly that he still has not contacted our children. I would have wanted to prepare the children. I have been a loving, supportive wife throughout our 17-year marriage. I have raised the children and held down the fort so that my husband could work 4 days a week, first in Jefferson City and now in Washington, DC, travel overseas, and do everything required to fulfill the duties of his elected office – all while working my own full-time job.

Clay responded today, saying:

"This is a time of great sadness for my family and me. My wife and I have been discussing this situation for a number of months and this action should not have come as a surprise to anyone. Of course, my first concern is for our children, whom I love dearly, and for their peace & privacy. I will continue to be a devoted father to them, and I hope that the public will understand that this is a difficult, private family matter that will hopefully be resolved amicable and swiftly by all parties."

The Clays have two children Will and Carol.

http://wikipedia.thetimetube.com/?q=William+Lacy+Clay%2C+Jr.&lang=en

#William Lacy Clay Jr.

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historicimpactonthefamily · 4 years ago

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How Loving V. Virginia Impacted the Family

By Addie Race

When you look at the study of the American family one of the events that had the most impact on every life was the court case Loving v. Virginia.Loving v. Virginia is the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized interracial marriage in the United States. It allows people of different races to legally marry in the eyes of the law which has granted legal protect to interracial couples and families. Although the government has granted legal rights to interracial couples and families, America as whole needs to acknowledge the discrimination these couples and families still face.

The Supreme Court recognized that due to the Fourteenth Amendment, the freedom of who a person wants to marry cannot be restricted by racial discrimination. The freedom a person has to marry, or not, comes from their right as an individual and cannot be violated or restricted by the State. States attempted to argue that laws prohibiting interracial marriage did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment because it applied equally to white violators as well as those of any other race. The Supreme Court disagreed, stating "[t]he Equal Protection Clause requires the consideration of whether the classifications drawn by any statute constitute an arbitrary and invidious discrimination. The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States." Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 11 (1967). This meant that states could no longer prosecute those in interracial relationships and had to allow them to get married legally. After the Loving v. Virginia case was finalized, the Supreme Court then went on to make all anti-miscegenation laws (laws restricting who you can marry based on race) unconstitutional. This led to a drastic increase in interracial marriages, relationships, families, as well as interracial and mixed-race children. Although the government legally recognized interracial couples, this does not mean they were instantly accepted into society.

There is a trend in American society to claim that we are “color-blind” and that race no longer matters. Yet when we look at the statistics for interracial marriages the percentage of interracial marriages continues to stay in the single digits (Risman, 2015). This is due in part to the differing opinions on interracial relationships between racial groups and how accepting or not they are. Sociologist Erica Childs found that when it comes to general attitudes and knowing specific family members in interracial relationships, white and Black families tend to lean in different directions. Black people tend to disapprove of interracial relationships in general but are much more tolerant for family and friends in such relationships. White people on the other hand are generally more accepting of interracial relationships but disapprove when its friends or family. This can drastically affect how interracial families are treated by family and friends and can have a large impact on interracial children’s lives.

Thanks to Loving v. Virginia interracial couples are allowed to get married and are afforded the same legal protections as same race couples. The decision led to an increase in socio-cultural and legal endorsement of interracial relationships which eventually led to what has been named the "biracial baby boom”.However, when couples date or marry interracially they suddenly begin to experience a form of racial hostility called border patrolling (Risman, 2015). By dating interracially couples shift the way they are perceived, and the previously unarticulated boundaries and social norms are exposed. This means that interracial couples are suddenly faced with the reality of what life is like for their partner. This means that a white person dating a Black person may suddenly be faced with the reality of daily racism and microaggressions their partner deals with frequently. This means that couples may not be recognized as a couple based on societal norms, and that interracial families won’t be treated equally. During the 1970s, approximately 1 percent of children were children of an interracial union; by 2000, that number had grown to a little over 5 percent (Herman, 2004). Children of an interracial marriage face discrimination and border patrolling themselves. Mothers of mixed-race children often have to protect them from racial insults and haggle over which racial category they belong in (Brunsma, 2005).

Parents are trying to navigate the complicated, "changing" US racial terrain where multi-raciality is discussed and debated and where race and racism is supposedly diminished. Research conducted by David Brunsma from the University of Missouri, Columbiahas found that racial identity is influenced by a number of factors. One of the most important factors researchers have found is social class. Social class has a huge impact on the self-understandings of mixed race or multiracial individuals, finding that the higher one's social class, the less likely they are to relate to a minority status or identify with the "lower status". However, in the end, race still matters and is the determinate for home goods, services, opportunities and life chances are distributed to members of same society. Having to fight for their children to be able to have the same rights as single race children is draining and puts a strain on everyday activities single race children and parents take for granted. For instance, basic things like school forms and legal paperwork become complicated when children are forced to select a race they come from as the legal wording may not capture how a child identifies or feels.

Many families are moving away from traditional racial categories and are instead opting for more neutral terms in order to spare their children from racial discrimination. A large amount however, will classify their children as white if they have one white parent, as US government is drastically more helpful to white citizens then those of color. Even though the percent of interracial couples is rising, as well as the rate of biracial children, there is still a disparity between acceptance in theory, and acceptance in practice. Although Loving v. Virginia was a huge step forward and allowed interracial couples the same legal rights as single race couples, there is still a long way to go for total social acceptance. America needs to move away from “color blindness” and towards acknowledging the social and economic disparities that impact people of color as well as mixed race, or multiracial, people.

References:

Brunsma, D. (2005). Interracial Families and the Racial Identification of Mixed-Race Children: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. Social Forces, 84(2), 1131-1157. Retrieved February 16, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3598493

Herman, Melissa. 2004. "Forced to Choose: Some Determinants of Racial Identification in Multi-Racial Adolescents." Child Development. 75(3): 730-748.

Risman, Barbara J., and Virginia Rutter. Families as They Really Are. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015.

Student Project: Right to Marry: Loving v. Virginia. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://libraryguides.law.pace.edu/c.php?g=319478&p=2133460

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hoganleslie93 · 4 years ago

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lodelss · 6 years ago

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Dialing 911 Can Get You Evicted The eviction of Beverley Somai for calling the police is part of a disturbing trend

Last year, Beverley Somai learned a brutal truth that too many people across the country face: Calling the police can get you evicted.

In 2017, Ms. Somai and her adult disabled son moved to Bedford, Ohio, to seek housing stability and better educational and employment opportunities. However, a few months after settling in, Ms. Somai discovered that her neighbor played loud music at all hours of the night, making it impossible for her and her son to rest. Even worse, the neighbor began to intimidate Ms. Somai and her son by following them on their errands and lurking outside their home.

She asked for help from her landlord, who told her to call the police. So she did. But then the city of Bedford sent a letter to Ms. Somai’s landlord, citing her calls for help and threatening to impose steep penalties for any future police responses to the property. Because of the letter, her landlord filed an eviction action against Ms. Somai.

Ms. Somai’s experience is far from an anomaly. Bedford’s criminal activity nuisance ordinance imposes civil and criminal penalties against property owners when there are two or more alleged violations of any law, excluding traffic violations, within a one-year period. The city enforces the ordinance based on calls for police assistance — even if the resident is the victim of the crime or needs aid, such as Ms. Somai and her son.

In fact, more than half of Bedford’s nuisance abatement letters were sent in response to domestic violence incidents. In one letter, Bedford informed a landlord that their tenant triggered the nuisance ordinance based on a “911 call from a male stating that his dad was hitting his mom.”

The adoption of nuisance or “crime-free” ordinances reflects a broader trend nationally, with cities coercing landlords to penalize and evict tenants who call the police or who simply live in properties where criminal activities occur. Rather than promoting public safety, research shows that these ordinances discourage residents from reporting crime and create distrust of law enforcement. These ordinances particularly harm communities of color, low-income households, people with disabilities, domestic violence survivors, and other people who are otherwise deemed “undesirable.”

Bedford enacted its nuisance ordinance in direct response to its growing African-American population. During a city council meeting, the mayor explained:

“We believe in neighborhoods[,] not hoods. . . . That is one of the reasons we passed that nuisance law tonight. . . . [I have] made mention of the students walking down the streets and those are predominantly African American kids who bring in that mentality from the inner city . . . We are trying to stop that.”

Other cities likewise have used nuisance ordinances to target people of color. A study based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, showed that properties in predominantly Black neighborhoods faced the greatest likelihood of receiving nuisance property citations. Similarly, an extensive investigation in Peoria, Illinois, revealed that the city concentrated its nuisance ordinance enforcement in predominantly Black neighborhoods and against buildings with predominantly Black tenants. The ACLU challenged a Minnesota city's ordinance that allows law enforcement to tell landlords to evict all members of a household when they simply suspect a resident engaged in even minor criminal activity. City officials enacted that policy as more people of color moved in, stating they wanted to “get rid of” residents who are “undesirable.”

These ordinances also disproportionately harm domestic violence victims, who generally experience abuse in their homes. An ACLU study of New York State nuisance ordinances found that domestic violence accounted for the largest category of nuisance ordinance enforcement in two cities, and nearly a third of all nuisance citations issued in Milwaukee arose from domestic violence incidents. Such enforcement has devastating consequences for domestic violence survivors, as property owners commonly respond to cities’ nuisance warnings or citations by evicting the victims and their children.

Today, the ACLU is joining the ACLU of Ohio and The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland to challenge Bedford’s ordinance on behalf of Ms. Somai and the Fair Housing Center for Rights & Research (“Fair Housing Center”). The Fair Housing Center assists people in accessing housing and combats housing discrimination in Northeast Ohio. For years, the Fair Housing Center has warned Bedford about how nuisance ordinances may violate fair housing laws and has advocated for the repeal of such ordinances. It also has documented how nuisance ordinances, like Bedford’s, disproportionately impact domestic violence survivors — the vast majority of whom are women — and thereby discriminate on the basis of sex. Yet, Bedford kept the ordinance on the books, and over time, made it broader and more punitive.

Our case argues that Bedford’s ordinance violates the First Amendment right to petition the government as well as due process and anti-discrimination protections. It builds on litigation we have brought against discriminatory nuisance ordinances in Arizona, Missouri, and Pennsylvania as part of our “Not A Nuisance” campaign.

But it shouldn’t take a lawsuit for communities to realize these ordinances are unlawful and inhumane. Cities can and have repealed these laws. Numerous states — including Iowa, California, Indiana, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Minnesota — have passed state laws preempting harmful nuisance ordinances. Other states, including New York, are considering legislation right now. And the U.S. Senate can address this problem by passing the housing protections of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019, which prohibit governments from penalizing crime victims who request law enforcement or emergency assistance.

No one should be silenced from calling 911 out of fear that they may jeopardize their housing.

Published April 18, 2019 at 08:00PM via ACLU http://bit.ly/2Gl87T3

#IFTTT #Blogger

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sidelpunchna-blog · 6 years ago

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Dating age laws in new jersey

New Jersey Age of Consent Lawyers Children who have not yet reached their twelfth birthday are deemed unable to consent to a sexual act under any circumstances. Any juvenile offender 14 years old or older has the case automatically transferred to the regular criminal docket of the Superior Court by operation of law, and thus stands before the court to be tried as an adult. If an adult has a previous conviction for a felony violation of this section, any subsequent felony conviction for a violation under this section, is a Class 2 felony. In the remaining 39 states, other factors come into play: age differentials, minimum age of the victim, and minimum age of the defendant. Sexual intercourse of a major and a minor under 14 is a rape. What makes the act illegal is when one sex partner is legally not of age to consent to having sex with an older partner.

New Jersey Age Discrimination Law: What Makes a Successful Claim? Maryland Code, Criminal Law § 3-304. Anyone who is 16 and over may not have sexual relations with anyone under 16. Within the United States, United States servicemembers are further subject to the local state law both when off-post. A guilty verdict would result in conviction of a Class B felony , with a of 9 months and maximum 20 years imprisonment. By June 1979 there were reports had refused to sign the bill into law. For repeat offenders, the minimum 10 years and the maximum is.

dating laws in new jersey For instance, if you were hired in your early 60s and terminated in your mid-60s, your thin track record makes it difficult to argue you were fired due to your age. Sexual intercourse with a child younger than 13 carries the highest penalties, it is a Class B felony. In most states there is not a single age in which a person may consent, but rather consent varies depending upon the minimum age of the younger party, the minimum age of the older party, or the differences in age. Under the same provisions, it is also illegal for any person aged 16 or older to aid, encourage, induce or causes minors under 13 to engage in any sexual activity with anyone else, or minors aged 13—15 to engage in sexual activity with people older than them by three years or more. Please share it with anyone who may benefit from reading it. Let me know if this is not the case in the comment section below.

Can someone explain to me age of consent laws in nj? : newjersey In October of that year the Supreme Court denied the petition. State law specifies by not saying anything that minors between 13 and 15 years old may, in general, engage in a consensual sexual relationship with someone up to four years older. . They have great authority over days and hours of alcohol sales. The distinction among those crimes has led some to the false conclusion that Missouri has a close-in-age exception. It carries a minimum sentence of 5 years and a max of 20 years in prison for a first-time offender, as well as mandatory counseling and sex offender sentencing guidelines.

New Jersey Alcohol Laws: Do You Know Them? Sexual intercourse with a minor aged 14—15 by an actor 18 or older is third degree sexual assault, sexual intercourse with a minor under the age of 14 by an actor of any age is child molestation. Sexual Abuse of a Minor in the Second Degree. Historically Pennsylvania prosecutors were only allowed to issue misdemeanor charges such as corruption of minors against teachers and coaches who had sex with 16 and 17-year-old students. Teenagers aged 13, 14 and 15 may or may not be able to legally engage in sexual activity with partners who are less than 4 years older. Some offer very little discretion in their statutory rape legislation, simply defining the age of consent as the primary component of prosecution. By law, the exception permits a person 23 years of age or younger to engage in legal sexual activity with a minor aged 16 or 17.

New Jersey Age of Consent Lawyers Limon 2004 prompted many states to include homosexual sex in their existing statutory rape legislation. These provisions are to protect naive kids from predatory teachers or police officers who could threaten to put the kid in jail or not allow them to graduate with their friends if they deny the advances of the person with some type of control over them. § 2260 makes it a federal crime to possess or create sexually explicit images of any person under 18 years of age; this creates a federal age of consent of 18 for pornography. Previously the Connecticut age gap was two years, not three. Open Container Law New Jersey alcohol laws prohibit open containers in the passenger compartment of a vehicle.

New Jersey Age Discrimination Law: What Makes a Successful Claim? This law does not discriminate by the gender of the victim nor actor, and notably provides no exceptions based on the parties being close-in-age. Rape is an act of sexual penetration accomplished with any person under any of the following circumstances:. So thus, the age of consent of 16 cannot be used. A felony conviction is punished by imprisonment in a county jail for two, three or four years, or in the state prison, depending on the person's criminal history. Penalties: Under Age 21 Persons under 21 driving with any detectable alcohol in their systems violate the zero tolerance law. Depending on the jurisdiction, the legal age of consent ranges from age 16 to age 18.

Dumb Laws in New Jersey. Crazy New Jersey Laws. We have weird laws, strange laws, and just plain crazy laws! In 2012 , a Republican member of the , sponsored a bill that criminalizes sexual relations between K-12 teachers and students, including students over 18, as well as sexual text messages and other communications aimed at seducing a student. The age of consent rises to 18 when the older partner — being age 18 or older — is the parent, stepparent, adopted parent, or legal guardian of the younger person, or when the older partner has or occupies a position of authority over the younger person. There is however a close-in-age exemption, which allows those aged 14 and 15 to consent to sex with those less than five years older. Someone under that age may be adjudicated a juvenile delinquent, but may not commit these crimes. Due to the classification of airsoft guns as a firearm, all the laws that govern the use of firearms in the state of New Jersey control the use of Airsoft Guns.

Age Of Consent However, a person may not be convicted of a violation of the provisions of this subsection if the person is eighteen years of age or less when the person engages in consensual lewd or lascivious conduct with another person who is at least fourteen years of age. Thus, while some conduct covered by the statute is highly culpable, these penalties apply even when consensual sex between someone under the age of eighteen and someone over the age of eighteen is entirely legal under state law, the non-commercial possession of an explicit picture or video clip of the person under the age of eighteen such as a cell phone photograph of a naked sexual partner, under the age of eighteen, of the person taking the photo may still constitute a serious federal child pornography felony. This combined state of affairs means that many older workers need to keep working and drawing a salary, for much longer than they anticipated. This applies in most relationships. You have Verifiable Proof that Your Employer Made Ageist Comments.

#New #Jersey #Age #of #Consent #Lawyers

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nancydhooper · 6 years ago

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Dialing 911 Can Get You Evicted

The eviction of Beverley Somai for calling the police is part of a disturbing trend

Last year, Beverley Somai learned a brutal truth that too many people across the country face: Calling the police can get you evicted.

Bedford enacted its nuisance ordinance in direct response to its growing African-American population. During a city council meeting, the mayor explained:

No one should be silenced from calling 911 out of fear that they may jeopardize their housing.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/violence-against-women/dialing-911-can-get-you-evicted via http://www.rssmix.com/

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how2to18 · 6 years ago

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THIS IS THE 22nd in a series of dialogues with artists, writers, and critical thinkers on the question of violence. This conversation is with Gil Anidjar, who teaches at Columbia University. His most recent book in English is Blood: A Critique of Christianity, published in 2014.

BRAD EVANS: We cannot think about violence without some relationship to destruction. Whether we are talking about the destruction of bodies, lives, cities, or potentially the entire planet, to maim or to kill something implies a certain devastation and negation. And yet, as you have argued, the concept of destruction itself is under-theorized. What do you understand by the concept, especially in terms of violence and its affects?

GIL ANIDJAR: Following the conversation we had for the “disposable life” project, I began to work on weapons, and more broadly, on means of destruction, a topic that seems to have interested primarily military historians and students of science and technology, rather than philosophers debating power or violence. Beyond the question of means, however, and specifically with regard to destruction, I found myself predictably looking for a vocabulary. [1] In the nuclear age (the phrase seems as quaint as it remains accurate), which is also the age of drones, of global immiseration, and of environmental devastation, it would be banal to assert that the word “violence” has lost its capacity to describe and its power to affect us. Its numerous qualifiers notwithstanding (ethnic and religious violence have long been at the top of the list, along with political violence, with sexual violence perhaps rising in the current consciousness), we seem to have endowed every aspect of existence with a measure of violence, at the same time as we continue to dream (awake, as Steven Pinker seems to) a world with less, or even without, violence. A more positive way of saying this is simply that the word “violence” (just like the word “war” — on cancer, drugs, poverty, or terror) is made to bear too much of a burden, made to account for too much. I am still uncertain of the value of what I seek, but I do wonder whether we might gain a different measure of understanding were we to disentangle violence from destruction.

One consequence, it seems to me, would be to recognize that, just as worlds may end with a whimper, destruction can occur with no violence to speak of. Consider plastic (it might once have seemed trivial to juxtapose it to war) and what it is doing to oceans and to life as a whole. Or think of the effects of corn syrup on human health, think of antibiotics or of radioactivity, of animal extinction. Much is being destroyed with no violence at all, far away from any field of open conflict, and short of immediate lethality too (but we know very well that death is not always the worst that can happen, that much can occur that brings life to unthinkable thresholds of unbearability, with torture techniques or entire camps, for instance, or else a “health system” seemingly designed to keep death somehow at bay, and letting in much worse). Granted, it remains possible to identify a certain kind of violence in these, in survival itself, in the privatization of water or of schooling, which makes both inaccessible. One might also argue that violence is always destructive. But even then, it would mean thinking violence under a different, perhaps a larger, more differentiated heading. It would require that we suspend, if only for analytic purposes, the question of violence and turn our attention to destruction. It would mean altering the map of our concerns and render thinkable a different range of things in their vanishing, however extended, complete, or final.

A second aspect of my sense of an impoverished vocabulary has to do with the manifest expanse of our lexicon of action and of production, of making and of doing, of work and agency, construction and performance. The no doubt necessary hegemony of activity and activism (barely countered by a few thinkers of passivity, and fluctuating victimologies) has left us with little resources to think destruction outside of dialectics (the proverbial omelette), or as anything else than a kind of waste or “collateral damage.” Destruction, although it is clearly ubiquitous, and increasingly visible around us, has no analytics, no typology, no dedicated perspective — assuming such is even possible. Even violence, unleashed in and by collectives and, of course, by states, can often be discussed with no considerations of the means by which it is exercised (even Clausewitz could not be bothered to think about weapons in any serious manner). Everything is as if politics (what Hannah Arendt insisted on calling “world-making”) is only destructive, world-destroying, by a kind of unfortunate necessity, by accident, perversity, or evil. The misuse, perhaps, of a technology that could go both ways, always both ways. Law, to take, perhaps, a different example, has destroyed countless lives (from property to slavery and genocide) but it is doggedly conceived as “constructive,” a realm of deeds, actions, and decisions. “Just do it” is a ruling motto as we strive to be, or imagine ourselves, make ourselves (great again) into some version of homo faber or homo laborans. Never homo vastans. Like Aristotle, we appear to think that becoming-nothing is merely the reverse, if not a mere side effect, of becoming, of coming to be. [2]

Destruction is, as I said, everywhere. And it is many. We are surrounded by it and it is all over the news, all over history. Think of the old and not so old gods of destruction, of biblical or medieval plagues (one could go, literally, kabbalistic on the beginning and the end of the world); think of “creative destruction” (Marx, Schumpeter) or think, again, of the ongoing destruction of the environment. We know that destruction is upon us, and we can recognize it in everything we see, watch, and read (the spectacular destruction that takes place in film and popular culture would deserve a discussion of its own). We are, you could say, witnesses to it, albeit hardly passive witnesses. Few, at any rate, have seriously pondered destruction in a sustained manner.

Learning from Avital Ronell, I have tried to argue that Heidegger is among a handful who did pursue a thinking of destruction. Heidegger did not advocate for destruction — he was no Nietzsche — but he proposed a typology of destruction (incidentally, a highly troubling one, as troubling as other and very much related issues that have attracted much more attention), where he discriminates between destruction, extermination, and devastation. [3] Anticipating Foucault, who distinguished oppressive and coercive power from productive and enabling power, Walter Benjamin had earlier identified three modalities of power: constructive, preserving, and destructive. It is, I think, crucial that Benjamin placed that last one in radical discontinuity with the previous two and called it “divine.” [4]

Simona Forti intrigues me, therefore, when she argues in New Demons that, under the “Dostoevsky paradigm,” power is dominantly thought of as primarily destructive. On the one hand, I completely agree. On the other hand, I keep encountering, and puzzling over, iterations of the Foucauldian doxa I just mentioned (one might call it a Vichian doxa, after Giambattista Vico and his “verum factum” principle). Georges Bataille could have put it even more paradoxically than he did in The Accursed Share, when he wrote that “[w]e can ignore or forget the fact that the ground we live on is little other than a field of multiple destructions. Our ignorance only has this incontestable effect: it causes us to undergo what we could bring about in our own way, if we understood.” But “we” (whoever this we might be) are bringing it about, and Bataille’s prophetic tone is sadly warranted as this ignorance “consigns men and their work to catastrophic destructions.”

When we encounter forms of destruction in our media-saturated age, often the focus is concentrated upon exceptional events that have a distinct temporality and spatial reckoning. Such destruction often centers on the spectacular eruption and apocalyptic narratives of ruination. What happens to our understanding of violence if the speed and intensities for worldly destruction are slowed down and re-concentrated?

It would be excessive to propose that there is always something manifest or spectacular in every instance of violence. Violence can be hidden, covert, and most importantly, denied. If I insist on the need to disentangle violence and destruction, it is because the temporality of destruction is not only distinct from the temporality of construction (the atomic bomb vaporized people and buildings in an instant, at a speed which no construction site could ever match, let alone repair or redeem). Destruction may also be distinct from the realm of action (at least any legal model of action), or again, from any recognizable violence (Atomic Homefront, the HBO documentary, exposes the radioactivity still found in St. Louis, Missouri, the effects of the uranium imported from the Belgian-colonized Congo during World War II for the making of the bomb). The role of the bulldozer (a word with roots in the violence inflicted on blacks in America) in what we still call the reshaping of the American landscape is as evident — and as invisible in its destructiveness — as the effect it continues to have on Palestinians. In this country, nonwhite and poor minorities have been repeatedly displaced, their dwellings destroyed by this “constructive” technology.

But how do we even measure the destructiveness of BPA, of insecticides, and of the endless array of chemicals that are now an “active” part of our environment? What do we make of surveillance as a destructive weapon? [5] Ivan Illich spoke of the siren of an ambulance as destroying the most basic of solidarities. In a proximate register, what might we recognize as “economic weapons”? What national and international laws? What policies? And what exactly is the nature of our current regime of consumption (a word which the dictionary still lists first as a synonym for destruction)? What “destructive drives” (to invoke psychoanalyst André Green) have ruled and governed us? And if they have, should we not think of regimes and of conditions, of modes and means of destruction? In addition to documenting instances of violent destruction, or counter them with more destruction, should we not try to formulate an account of destruction? An account of ourselves as and among vectors of destruction?

I sense your work has been notably indebted to many scholars within the so-called continental tradition, notably Jacques Derrida. I have always been struck by his often forgotten work on ruins and how this allows us to rethink the violence of time. How do you understand ruination and are we not already walking among the ruins of the present?

Derrida has been a constant inspiration, yes. I had not realized the extent to which destruction is inscribed throughout his work. [6] From the first book to the last, for instance, Derrida returned to Husserl’s Ideas, and to a paragraph in it (§ 49) that formulates the phenomenological approach as a kind of apocalyptic exercise, in which consciousness operates as a remnant of the annihilation of the world (Weltvernichtung). But destruction, the destruction of the book and the famous destruction by fire of The Postcard’s correspondence, Freud’s death drive and the Holocaust, and yes, you are right, traces and ruins, are found all over his work. [7] Derrida early on made clear that deconstruction stood in a difficult proximity to Heidegger’s Destruktion and to Husserl’s Abbau (these two concepts were cited again and again in Derrida’s early work). The oft-repeated claim that none of these terms have anything to do with destruction (every word purified to some catachrestic core) opens a space of interrogation, the rudiments of an analytics. The necessary possibility of death that is the condition of possibility of writing, of the mark, in general, implies a sustained reflection on the question of destruction, on technology as a means of destruction, and it is one that Derrida sustained in his writings on Heidegger and Freud, Benjamin and Celan, and more. The seminars on the death penalty are meticulous in their attentiveness to the means of execution. But I have barely scratched the surface in what I have written about destruction in Derrida and elsewhere.

If Nietzsche was true in his claim about nihilism as being the devastating motor of modern history, then we might see the capacity for destruction as something intimately woven into the fabric of those societies that claim to eradicate its presence. How does the destructive impulse lead into self-destruction and the self-authoring of a certain will to extinction?

I hesitate to equate destruction with nihilism (and vice versa), or even to historicize destruction. Since Vico, history is, after all, the history of making and of production, which may have to be recognized, albeit too easily, as ultimate markers of nihilism. On the other hand, I am certainly struck by the fact that modern weapons have all originated in the West (which would finally come to existence, perhaps, as a series of exercises in “destructive creation”), but I am trying not to draw familiar conclusions, unavoidable as they might be. Nor would I presume to offer an account that ties destruction in a determined manner to the desire to eradicate it, to destroy it. We do know (from Derrida, among others) the violence involved in the effort to eradicate violence. And I very much agree with you that, as we think about destruction — with and without psychoanalysis — we must attend to self-destruction. I already mentioned André Green, but after Sabina Spielrein, after Freud and Melanie Klein, and also away from them, it was Donald Winnicott who famously established destruction a necessary condition for learning to cope with and make “use” of reality, an essential moment in the relation of parent and child (the fear and willingness to be destroyed), though I imagine the psychoanalysts, like the Heideggerians, will rightly say that destruction does not mean destruction here either. Catachresis returns. And yet …

Derrida’s elaborations on the auto-immune, whereby a protective mechanism functions as a vector of destruction away from production as its binary opposite, provide another opening. There is crucial guidance here (closing all borders to everything “foreign” would not be a good plan, would it? Then again, there is cause to wonder, in this context, about the meaning and consequences of the claim, or the desire, for autonomy and independence). Let me refer to the nuclear, again. Joseph Masco has brilliantly described in Nuclear Borderlands how the USA is a country that has bombed itself — and poisoned itself — to an extraordinary extent, and always in the name of self-defense and self-preservation, protection and security. Every nuclear “test” (which is to say, the actual, devastating explosion of a nuclear device above or under ground) has raised the level of radioactive contamination and caused untold damage to the country, to the planet, and to life as a whole. Is this protection or destruction? Does it matter, in this context, that the word “fence” (think: the art of fencing) bears the meaning of both offense and defense? That each of these terms is, to some extent, pleonastic? The best defense is offense, we often say. But are we so certain of the difference? Erecting a wall — forgive me, a security fence — is hardly a friendly gesture, nor is it merely protective, if at all. And what to make of the fact that the Israeli nuclear option (which does not officially exist, but is well documented) was named “the Samson option”? Is this not — in the 1950s — the introduction of suicide bombing in the political imaginary of the region? A collective program of suicide bombing? But “the suicide state” takes many forms. [8] Hannah Arendt understood the launching of Sputnik as strictly parallel to the development of the atomic bomb: the “making” expendable of the planet. The path to its destruction.

I’d like to conclude by turning to a quote from Michel Foucault’s Society Must Be Defended lectures in which he argues, “We are always writing the history of the same war, even when we are writing the history of peace and its institution.” We know that war is often carried out in the name of the human. And that in the name of civilization and global security, we are able to bring our very existence and survival into question. But how might we rethink the violence and destructive impulses of the human in more intimate ways? Might a return once again to the concept of blood (which you wrote about extensively) allow us to open a better ethical discussion into the wounds of the earth?

I admit to having long been intrigued by historicism, and by Foucault’s version of it in particular. History — whatever that word designates today — is certainly something to learn from. But there are other concerns, other ways of knowing that seem to me equally important to consider and deploy. And Foucault himself, protean as he was in the objects he studied and the way he studied them, could certainly not be content with war and peace. At this late hour, it is ever so daunting a challenge to know what it is that we are studying, what it is that we should be attentive to, and whether we are truly capable of learning. We know many of the ways and means through which the planet has reached its present stage. Do we still want to call it progress? Talal Asad has pointed out a peculiar “style” of the West. Asad recalls that, for the longest time, the accomplishments of progress were claimed — are still claimed — by one particular segment of “humanity.” This segment saw itself, still sees itself, as more advanced, more discerning, than what it called the “lower races.” Now that the planet may be past the point of no return, it would be all of us, all of us humans, who, finally equal (in responsibility if not in privileges), are supposed to assume responsibility for what “we” have done. I find this puzzling too.

The spread of blood as the element of Christianity was for me an attempt to contend with political transformations that occurred and implicated the state, the making of race and of nations, science and political economy. I am now curious about destruction, but again, primarily as a collective problem, indeed, as a political vector or dimension. I do not mean to sound heretical, but I am less sanguine about locating or studying destruction in terms of subjectivity or subjectivation. I do not think the question is whether guns or people kill people. Ethics cannot replace politics, for it takes more than individual men to mass produce and market guns, to create a culture of impunity, where one can demean and assault women — or kill black men; more than a village to invent and spread race as a mode of governance, extract oil and palm oil too, make corporate law, deregulate banks and cage children at a border, or drown thousands into the sea at another; more to create Sarin or napalm, build ICBMs or fleets of drones, and declare the war on terror, transform every airport in the world as well as the way we “communicate” with each other in an age of echo chambers. If destruction takes us away from the formation of subjects and from social construction, what remains with and after destruction? What is war? What is peace? What is destruction? What destructions are there?

Brad Evans is a political philosopher, critical theorist, and writer, who specializes on the problem of violence. He is the founder/director of the Histories of Violence project, which has a global user base covering 143 countries.

[1] Anidjar, “The Dignity of Weapons,” Law, Culture, and the Humanities (2015) 1-11; Anidjar, “Means of Destruction” in #Political, Jelisaveta Blagojević, Mirjana Stošić Orli Fridman, eds. (Belgrade: FMK, 2017) 405–412.

[2] https://ift.tt/2zGUSue

[3] Anidjar, Qu’appelle-t-on destruction? Heidegger, Derrida (Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2017)

[4] https://ift.tt/2zGUSue

[5] Anidjar, “Oversight,” Ethnic and Racial Studies (2017) DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2017.1346268

[6] Anidjar, “Weapons (Inscription, Destruction, Deconstruction),” Political Theology (2017) DOI:10.1080/1462317X.2017.1396393

[7] Anidjar, “Ashes to Ashes: Derrida’s Holocaust” in Desire in Ashes: Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, Simon Morgan Wortham and Chiara Alfano, eds. (London: Bloomsbury, 2016) 19–41.

[8] Anidjar, “The Suicide State,” Boundary 2 44: 4 (November 2017) 57–75.

The post Histories of Violence: Anatomy of Destruction appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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hellosaltysaladcollectionstuff · 6 years ago

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[2] https://ift.tt/2zGUSue

[3] Anidjar, Qu’appelle-t-on destruction? Heidegger, Derrida (Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2017)

[4] https://ift.tt/2zGUSue

[5] Anidjar, “Oversight,” Ethnic and Racial Studies (2017) DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2017.1346268

[6] Anidjar, “Weapons (Inscription, Destruction, Deconstruction),” Political Theology (2017) DOI:10.1080/1462317X.2017.1396393

[8] Anidjar, “The Suicide State,” Boundary 2 44: 4 (November 2017) 57–75.

The post Histories of Violence: Anatomy of Destruction appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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benrleeusa · 7 years ago

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[David Post] Supreme Court Takes Up Internet Sales Tax Conundrum

Last week, the Court granted cert in South Dakota v. Wayfair, a case that challenges the current legal status quo regarding online retailers' obligations to collect state sales tax. It is, I think, one of those unusual cases that is both fascinating, and rather profound, from a constitutional law standpoint, and simultaneously of truly prodigious practical, economic significance.

Here's the basic lay of the land. Early in the Internet Era (1992), the Supreme Court held, in Quill v. North Dakota, that a State may not require out-of-state sellers of goods or services to collect that State's sales/use tax*, unless the out-of-state seller has some "physical presence" in the State - a retail outlet, warehouse, office, or the like. So when an individual from, say, Illinois purchases goods from a seller located in Missouri - via an order placed over the telephone, or on the Net - Illinois may not require the seller to collect (and remit to Illinois) the sales tax that Illinois imposes on in-state transactions.

*Note that Illinois may - and actually does - impose a tax on Illinois taxpayers (e.g., on the purchaser, in my example) when those taxpayers make a purchase from an out-of-state seller. This tax is known as a "use tax" - based on the notion that it is not taxing the out-of-state "sale" but the buyer's "use" of the goods within Illinois - but it is generally set at a rate equal to the "sales tax" rate for in-state sales, and it functions as a sales tax equivalent.

Nothing in Quill interferes with the state's ability to impose those use taxes on its taxpayers, and most States continue to do so. But it does prohibit States from doing, in the context of "use tax" collection, what it does for "sales tax" collection, viz., requiring the sellers to collect the tax that is owed by the buyer and to remit the proceeds to Illinois - unless the seller maintains some "physical presence" in Illinois.

Quill is why most online retailers will, at checkout, say something like "Sales tax will be aded for sales to PA, NY, and IN" - places where, presumably, the seller does have a physical presence - "but not elsewhere."

The Quill Court rested its finding that taxing out-of-state sales is unconstitutional on the so-called "negative" or "dormant" Commerce Clause.

Now, the dormant Commerce Clause is one of those legal doctrines that most lawyers, I bet, still recall from Con Law I - and not at all fondly, finding it either entirely contrary to common sense and/or downright incomprehensible. For me, though, it was love at first sight (h/t to my Con Law I prof, Louis Michael Seidman, who gave us a really superlative introduction to the doctrines many delights), and, love being blind, I've always managed to overlook and forgive the doctine's many flaws.

It's a truly stunning act of judicial creativity, crafted over several centuries of work. Here's the gist of it. In the Commerce Clause (Article I sec. 8), the Constitution gives Congress the power to "regulate Commerce ... among the several States." The Court has, beginning in the early 19th century, found in this affirmative grant a power a corresponding negative, a prohibition on the exercise State power. Congress' power, in effect, is converted into an exclusive power to "regulate interstate commerce," and States may not exercise that power or interfere with Congress' excercise of it by "imposing excessive burdens on interstate commerce without congressional approval."

The Court has identified two primary categories of State actions that unconstitutionall burdens interstate economic activity. First, States may not impose regulations that discriminate against out-of-State entities for the benefit of in-state entities - always a temptation for State law-makers. And second, they may not impose regulations that, while non-discriminatory, "unduly burden" interstate commerce by "subjecting it to haphazard, uncoordinated, and possibly inconsistent regulation" by States, a "welter of inconsistent and burdensome taxation and regulatory requirements" in areas of commerce that "by their nature demand cohesive national treatment"

It was this latter problem - the potential welter of burdensome taxes and regulations - that, in the Quill Court's view, doomed North Dakota's (and, by extension, any other State's) efforts to impose its tax across State lines:

North Dakota's use tax illustrates well how a state tax might unduly burden interstate commerce. North Dakota law imposes a collection duty on every vendor who advertises in the State three times in a single year. Thus, ... a publisher who included a subscription card in three issues of its magazine, a vendor whose radio advertisements were heard in North Dakota on three occasions, and a corporation whose telephone sales force made three calls into the State, all would be subject to the collection duty. What is more significant, similar obligations might be imposed by the Nation's 6,000-plus taxing jurisdictions... [The] many variations in rates of tax, in allowable exemptions, and in administrative and record-keeping requirements could entangle a mail-order house in a virtual welter of complicated obligations.

Many people have complained about the Quill rule, vociferously, over the years, and the South Dakota statute now at issue in the Wayfair case - which provides that "sellers of tangible personal property in South Dakota without a physical presence in the state . . . shall remit sales tax according to the same procedures as sellers with a physical presence" - was clearly designed to give the Court an opportunity to reconsider and overrule it, which opportunity the Court, in its cert grant, has now apparently seized.

Complaints about the Quill certainly have considerable force. Quill allows an online retailer, operating out of her garage in State X, to sell goods to buyers in all other States without charging any sales or use tax, which puts local brick-and-mortar stores in X, who have to charge X's tax to all buyers, at a serious competitive disadvantage. This, many people persuasively contend, is both economically inefficient and has helped to destroy (or at least weaken substantially) those traditional brick-and-mortar retail outlets, with dire consequences for both the health of local retailing and for the state of America's cities and towns. A number of serious heavyweights have weighed in on the question via amicus briefs supporting South Dakota in the Wayfair case - from the National Federation of Retail Businesses to the American Booksellers Association to the American Farm Bureau to the National Governors' Association to the Attorneys General of 34 States.

But I think Quill got it right. The risk of strangling Internet commerce in a morass of complex and inconsistent obligations - 6,000 plus taxing jurisdictions! - makes this precisely the sort of question that demands "cohesive national treatment" of the kind that only Congress can provide.

Of all the amicus briefs (available at Scotusblog), I found one submitted by Chris Cox, the former Republican Representative in Congress from California (and co-author, with then-Rep Ron Wyden (D-OR), of the "Internet Tax Freedom Act" of 1998.- to be the most persuasive of all. He put the central issue this way:

A woman opens a small business out of her apartment in Idaho, selling iPhone cases principally over the internet ... via her own web storefront. Her customers are mostly in the United States and Canada. In a typical week she fills orders primarily to New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Colorado, and California, with gross annual sales of $273,000. She rarely sells to customers in South Dakota—maybe four iPhone cases in an entire week. ...

Because she lives and works in Idaho, she is registered with the Idaho State Tax Commission, the Idaho Department of Labor, and the Idaho Industrial Commission. She has paid the Idaho State Tax Commission for a seller's permit, and regularly files Idaho sales tax returns. Compliance with Idaho's rules requires her, like other businesses in Idaho, to be familiar with the State's varying tax rates and definitions of what is taxable, its audit and recordkeeping requirements, and its filing requirements (in her case, the requirement to file monthly sales tax reports).

South Dakota's law, however, does not merely require her to collect South Dakota's sales tax; it subjects her to the full range of South Dakota's tax and regulatory jurisdiction, including the panoply of South Dakota's licensing, recordkeeping, and registration requirements, and would, among other things, make her subject to periodic audit by the South Dakota Department of Revenue - which, in many States, requires an in-person appearance before the Revenue Board.

And of course if the Court discards the Quill rule and upholds South Dakota's law, we can expect other jurisdictions to follow suit.

South Dakota approvingly reports that "many other States have enacted provisions materially identical to South Dakota's," meaning that if this Court upholds the contested law in this case, even the smallest Internet sellers will quickly be subject to nationwide compliance burdens and the competing rules, filing requirements and audit demands of [thousands of] taxing jurisdictions.

This is precisely the sort of regulatory morass the dormant Commerce Clause was designed to prevent. It is yet another illustration of the central problem we face in applying legal rules to Internet communication. As Cox puts it, "the Internet's decentralized, packet-switched architecture," through which every individual website is "immediately and uninterruptedly exposed to billions of Internet users in every U.S. jurisdiction and around the planet," makes Internet commerce "uniquely vulnerable to tax and regulatory burdens in thousands of jurisdictions." Internet content is available to everyone, everywhere, simultaneously; that, however, cannot mean that it is thereby subject to the obligations imposed by all legal regimes, everywhere, simultaneously, because such a scheme is unworkable and incoherent.

Notice, too, that while South Dakota and its supporters argue that the Quill rule discriminates in favor of online retailers at the expense of local brick-and-mortar stores, abrogating the rule will have substantial discriminatory consequences in the opposite direction.

Consider again that Idaho seller of iphone cases. The moment she opens up her Internet storefront, she is subjecting herself to this burden of complying not only with Idaho's regulatory and tax authorities, but with the regulatory and tax authorities in whatever jurisdictions her electrons may enter, i.e., all of them. But her brick-and-mortar counterpart, who sells iphone cases over the counter in Idaho to customers in-store, has no such burden; even if he sells to Floridians or Californians passing through Idaho, his store only has to comply with Idaho's regulatory and tax apparatus. In Cox's words, "forcing one small business, with one location, to bear this burden is discriminatory when a large in-state retailer has no such burden."

There is a solution to this problem - and it is a fairly simple one at that. The dormant Commerce Clause disables States from acting because Congress has the responsibilty for solving problems like this. If the current status quo unfairly discriminates against brick-and-mortar retailers, a federal statute could require all retailers - online and off - to take X% of all sales and to remit that to a fund, administered by the federal government, from which payments will be made to the States based on their particular rates and the location of the transaction. Figuring out what X should be - presumably, some kind of weighted average of all current State sales taxes - and how the payment allocation formula will operate, are not trivial questions. But they're hardly intractable. It would operate, as far as consumers are concerned, as a national sales tax, though it would in reality be just a collection mechanism for State taxes.

It would require, yes, a functional Congress, and that's not what we seem to have these days. But it - or something like it, administered and authorized at the national level by our national institutions - is clearly the right answer to the problem, and if Congress weren't so, um, pre-occupied with other issues there might be a path forward to actually addressing this problem in a sensible and coherent manner. No, I'm not holding my breath - just hoping that the Court doesn't unleash the taxing hounds to go out and tear up the Net.

0 notes

ralphmorgan-blog1 · 8 years ago

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Get ready for a more militant and ‘woke’ NAACP

(CNN) The NAACP has described itself as the "oldest and boldest" civil rights group in America, but it may soon tack on another word to its billing: "woke."

The slang term, used to describe an unaware person who has become socially conscious, is how one national NAACP leader described the group's recent metamorphosis. Others talked with unabashed excitement about the civil rights movement becoming "more militant" and "back to the streets."

In-your-face rhetoric is not usually associated with the venerable NAACP. The 108-year-old organization has been like the Cadillac of civil rights groups -- its name still has cachet, but people prefer newer models of activism. It's been overshadowed by Black Lives Matter and accused of being obsolete.

But something changed when a local NAACP official recently found a way to catapult the group back into the national spotlight. He issued a travel advisory for the state of Missouri, urging "extreme CAUTION" for any person of color traveling there. The advisory evoked the Green Book, a pamphlet that guided black motorists across the treacherous terrain of Jim Crow's America. Reporters started asking if Missouri is the new Mississippi. And NAACP leaders seemed delighted.

Learn more about the storied history of the Green Book

"We were built for this moment," says John Gaskin, a spokesman for the group's St. Louis branch. "Cadillacs are built for the highways."

Yet the story behind the story -- why the NAACP came up with the advisory and what it says about a potentially seismic shift in the group's philosophy -- is as interesting as the advisory itself.

Over the top or on the mark?

Start with a basic question: Is the advisory really necessary, or is it a bit over the top?

Consider the history. This is the first time the NAACP has issued a travel advisory.

It was founded during a period of widespread lynching in the United States and didn't issue one then.

It didn't issue one after four black girls were killed in a church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.

It didn't issue one when Medgar Evers, one of its most prominent leaders, was shot to death in front of his Mississippi home that same year.

It didn't issue one when riots erupted across America after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. five years later.

Why now?

Nimrod "Rod" Chapel Jr., president of the NAACP's Missouri State Conference, says he decided to issue the advisory after the state's Legislature passed a law in June making it more difficult to sue for housing or job discrimination. The full NAACP subsequently adopted his advisory at its national convention.

Chapel says the Missouri law "is worse than Jim Crow in some ways." As justification for the advisory, he also cited a report that said black motorists are 75% more likely to be stopped by officers in Missouri than white drivers.

"I don't think we could have responsibly done anything less," Chapel says. "We have a society in Missouri that has turned its back on morality. You cannot legalize discrimination and harassment, and they've done that by giving immunity to people who do it."

Then there's Missouri's peculiar history. It's where race riots erupted in 2014 in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson after a white police officer shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black youth, to death.

None of that, though, is enough to merit the group's first travel advisory, one critic says.

Rick Moran, an editor with American Thinker, condemned the travel advisory in a recent column. He says it was much more dangerous driving while black in Jim Crow Mississippi than contemporary Missouri.

"The whole thing is nonsense," Moran says. "It's a fundraising gimmick. It just seems like that's something you do when you're sitting around the table and someone says, 'Gee, we're kind of low on fundraising, what can we do to goose that number?' "

Gaskin, of the St. Louis NAACP, acknowledged that the type of racism in contemporary Missouri is not as lethal as other eras in American history. He cited the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers ambushed on a rural Mississippi road, which was depicted in the movie "Mississippi Burning."

But that doesn't mean the travel advisory isn't merited, he says.

"Racism here in Missouri is hidden, and that can be the most devastating racism," Gaskin says. "We're not talking 'Mississippi Burning' racism. We're talking about the sort of racism of being pulled over and asked additional questions that you might not be asked in Illinois. Folks on your street might not be so welcoming."

The advisory may have done its job. It focused national attention on the state of Missouri and brought publicity to the NAACP, which only last month had been publicly blasted by a powerful group of black ministers for verging on irrelevance.

"The work of the NAACP is more important than ever before," Gaskin says. "If it wasn't relevant, this wouldn't be the leading story of the last couple of days. That's why this made the headlines -- because this is the NAACP."

And at least one historian who is an authority on driving while black during those "Mississippi Burning" days wasn't offended by the travel advisory.

Calvin Ramsey wrote the play "The Green Book," which traces the rise of the unofficial travel advisory that many blacks and Jews used during the Jim Crow era. He says he wasn't surprised by the NAACP's actions.

Calvin Ramsey explains how travel has changed since Jim Crow era

"I guess they'd rather be over the top than under the radar," Ramsey says. "There's a lot of raw nerves since [President Donald Trump's] election. I thought that we had passed this in a lot of ways, but I was never totally convinced that we passed this completely."

The notoriety the NAACP's advisory attracted is a sign of progress, he says.

"We didn't have a CNN before and people were out there on their own," he says. "A lot of things happened that were never reported. The Green Book was our AAA guide because we couldn't belong to AAA. It was a lifesaver."

Glimpses of a new NAACP

The travel advisory also may hint at the NAACP's new direction.

The group has gone through a rough patch. In May, it announced it would not renew the contract of its then-president, Cornell William Brooks. Its leaders called the decision part of a "transformational, systemwide refresh and strategic re-envisioning."

In June, the group held its annual national convention, where leaders talked openly about trying to remain relevant. One writer, Michael A. Fletcher of ESPN, while covering the convention said the group's traditional approach of working within legal and legislative channels for social change can now seem "ponderous or even irrelevant" because of the "raucous" demonstrations of groups like Black Lives Matter.

And just weeks before the convention, a group of black ministers released a blistering open letter demanding that the NAACP change.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church's Council of Bishops called on NAACP leaders to "restructure the organization" to avoid irrelevancy. The A.M.E. Church is a pillar in the black community and has provided many of the NAACP's best-known leaders.

"Longevity alone is not proof of relevance," the statement read. "For the reality is that today the NAACP is smaller and less influential than it has ever been in its history."

How would a new NAACP look if it answered the challenge by the A.M.E. Church?

It may look a little more like Black Livers Matter.

Traditional civil rights group have been wary and critical of Black Lives Matter activists. The movement, which gives prominent places of power to women and members of the LGBT community, is run very differently than many civil rights groups. Traditional civil rights groups evolved out of the black church, which tended to be led by autocratic men who condemned gays and lesbians and didn't see women as equals. Even today, some black churches still won't allow women to preach and few officially affirm gay and lesbians.

Some of that wariness also may be rooted in generational differences. There have often been clashes between older civil rights leaders and the young folks they condemned for moving too fast and being too aggressive. Andrew Young, a close aide to King, once apologized after calling Black Lives Matter activists "unlovable little brats."

Now, however, at least some NAACP leaders are talking about Black Lives Matter activists as potential allies, not rivals.

Chapel, the Missouri NAACP official who issued the travel advisory, says he admires Black Lives Matter.

"Some may say there goes a bunch of crazy kids," he says. "These are young folks who were concerned about their community, and they did something about it. That's called activism. In the NAACP, there's room for everybody, whether it's Black Lives Matter or other people of conscience."

Anthony Davis, national coordinator for the college and youth division of the NAACP, is a fan as well.

"I love it," he says. "As a result of the Black Lives Matter movement, the social justice and civil rights movement has been able to become more militant. It's OK to be back in the streets. We would love to partner and work with Black Lives Matter because we appreciate them for what they do."

Davis says the NAACP is already adjusting its outreach to younger people. He says it's creating more engaging platforms on social media to attract youth and touring with hip-hop stars to register voters for the 2018 midterms.

"Over the last year, we've done a good job branding ourselves as not only this historic civil rights group, but the youth and college division is more hip and, I hate to use this term, but, 'woke,' " Davis says.

Becoming more like Black Lives Matter, though, might not be good for the NAACP, one sociologist says. He says the group lacks structure and long-term vision. The Black Lives Matter movement has also been weakened by infighting.

Learn about divisions within the Black Lives Matter Movement

"The NAACP has lasted a long time for a reason," says Shayne Lee, a sociologist with the University of Houston. "There's a risk when you copy the latest flavor. You risk losing your core constituency."

The Missouri travel advisory may mark a new direction for the NAACP, but the kind of leader the group chooses next may serve as the ultimate proof of a new "woke" NAACP.

Gaskin, the St. Louis NAACP leader, sounds confident.

Some in the black community, he says, were asleep during the last eight years while Barack Obama was President. Now they're in the Trump era, and they're taking a second look at the NAACP.

"At that time, they didn't think they needed us," he says. "You don't miss water until your well dries."

The next few months and years will show if the group can not only be "bold," "old" and "woke,'' but do something else:

Adapt.