**SD Legislature apparently unable to see that morality is not necessarily legality and vice versa

A day or two ago, a discussion in the Mt. Blogmore blog drifted into the area of the separation between morality and legality..or at least the lack of a necessary one-to-one correspondence. At the time I read that, I thought about some of the set theory stuff I had tried to teach in a geometry class years ago. Venn diagrams can be helpful. I just don't have a drawing program that does that neatly and was busy scribbling the train cartoon and related posts on the SD Rapist Rights Bill. Over 1000 hits came in here on those posts overnight. Kind of a record for Dakota Today. That meant I added FireDogLake Blog to the "Thanks for the Hits" list to left and also led me there to this link where the information below was found. The Maha Blog

The realm of morality, however, is separate from the realm of legality. There are all manner of things that we might consider immoral that are not, in fact, illegal; adultery is a good example. Such acts may have harmful personal consequences, but regulating them isn’t necessary to civilization. And I don’t see what’s immoral about, say, misjudging how many coins you should put in the parking meter. That’s why I tend to see the legal versus moral question on a Venn diagram.
The diagram here isn’t entirely accurate since the blue area should be bigger — law and morality intersect more often than they don’t. I’m just saying that answering the moral question of abortion (assuming we ever will) does not tell us whether an act should be legal or not. In fact, since abortion is legal (with varying restrictions) in most democratic nations today with no discernible damage to civilization itself, I’d say the abortion question falls outside the blue area of the diagram.

There is a relatively long discussion at the the MahaBlog with a number of perspectives on when life begins that relate to the information above and the Venn diagrams. Worth reading the whole post there. Unlike my posts drafted with a sledgehammer, Maha blog uses a fine featherpen.

Note the comments added to the posts below. They mostly resulted from the link at FireDogLake Blog. Note the perspective of outofstate and former SD residents that turn up here and in comments at Firedog Lake. One comment mentions checking the SD Constitution and notes that it indicates the US Constitution's relative supremacy and then asks how SD legislators can pass legislation they know is currently unconstitutional and do that without violatiing their oaths to support the US Constitution....which I assume many of them conclude with "so help me God".

***Stay tuned..it ain't over until the skinny lady and the fat men sing---Doug Wiken

Comments

[RossK]

Mr. Wiken--

This is coming to you from Canuckistan (so be sure to mind the NSA sweepers!).

Just thought, in case you haven't already heard it, that you might be interested in ~ 8 minutes that a fellow South Dakotaoan, Dr. Allen Unruh, spent talking to CBC's 'As It Happens' a couple of days ago.

It's can be found at the front end of Part 2, at the following URL.

http://tinyurl.com/pgto2

.

[Valley Girl]

Thanks for your blog. I hope you've had a chance to go over to FDL and check out Jane's article that referenced you. And, if you look at some of her other posts, you'll see why your words hit home. http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_19_firedoglake_archive.html#114084259899240041

[pbswatcher]

I would argue that laws necessary for the maintenance of society are very nearly a subset of the morality circle. They are typically codifications and agreements about morality. The old saw that "you can't legislate morality" is untrue. We legislate precious little else. Even dry stuff like tax law is based on arguments of fairness etc., which are of course moral concepts. What is really meant is that you can't legislate morality that a significant portion of the population disagrees with. By the way, I am, as you surmised in the earlier cartoon post, a proud wingnut loon.

[Stephen Neitzke]

Thanks for boosting Venn Diagrams. Our society gets too little exposure, I think, to the component parts of critical thinking.

I still have, and frequently refer to, the "cook-book logic" text that was used by my first philosophy professor. Although seemingly minor relative to the sentential and predicate calculus formal logic systems pushed onto me later at university, sharing and teaching the critical thinking components of the lesser logical systems is certainly easier going and gets positive results.

The specific Venn Diagram you use here, legaility and morality, is certainly good groundwork for the anti-abortion legislation now laying on the Governor's desk. There are subsets of powerful arguments within each separate set, and there are subsets of powerful arguments shared between them.

I began posting an essay to various online and print media yesterday, emphasizing the legality set and subsets of what was done by the SD legislature. I'm convinced that we the sovereign people must attend to those elements first.

I'm appending the entire essay here. I trust your editing, and, of course, have more need to get the warnings out than to have them published.

*************************

"SD Anti-Abortion Legislation &
Consequences"

The moment that the governor of South Dakota signs the anti-abortion legislation just passed by the legislature, he will create a conspiracy that violates citizen rights. That is, he will become a constitutional criminal and perpetrator of a federal felony along with every legislator who voted for the unconstitutional and illegal anti-abortion legislation.

There is a 1945 federal statute that makes it a crime for two or more persons to conspire aganst citizen rights as defined in the Constitution and laws. It is 18 USC 241. It says, in part, "If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, ... They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; ..."

Womens rights to have abortions under Roe v. Wade are established rights tied to our 14th Amendment liberties. Violating those established rights creates a clear legal priority that cannot be brushed aside by any moral "values".

For the short text of 18 USC 241, see the Cornell Law site at

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/ uscode18/ usc_sec_18_00000 241----000- .html

The SD legislature's rights violations do not end there.

Contained within the illegal anti-abortion legislation is a provision prohibiting the people from filing a petition for a referendum to veto the legislation. Every SD legislator who voted to bar the citizens of SD from a referendum on the illegal anti-rights legislation has violated the same law -- 18 USC 241 -- for a second count. That creates the possibility of 20 years in prison for every one of them.

Prohibiting the referendum violates the SD constitution's provisons defining referendum petitons and actions, which is part of South Dakota's republican form of government, as promised to the state and its citizens in the US national Constitution.

For those two violations of 18 USC 241, the governor -- if he signs -- and every SD legislator who voted for that illegal legislation can and should be criminally prosecuted in both state and federal court, regardless of the fact that he/she is an elected official.

The prosecutions could and should begin immediately. If they do not, then the SD constitutional criminals are being unconstituionall y protected from being held accountable for their crimes. That would be a violation of the rule of law, as well as obstruction of justice.

If the prosecutions do not begin immediately, then all SD citizens will simply give up their rights to protect their rights from governmental arrogance and criminality. They will insult every American patriot who ever fought for the getting and holding of the rule of law and citizen rights -- from the War of Independence down to today. They will reject the founding principles of the Declaration of Independence, which first became law in South Dakota's 1898 adoption of the initiative and referendum petition processes.

Getting, holding, and improving citizen rights was the reason for the existence of the United States. We've allowed money-power to drive us a long way off from our rights. It has to end soon.

Then there is federal statute 42 USC 1983 -- civil action for deprivation of rights. The statute applies specifically to state government officials and employees. The governor and every SD legislator who voted that illegal anti-abortion legislation can be sued in federal court for his simply signing the legislation.

The class-aciton lawsuits against all of the SD constitutional criminals should begin immediately. Damages should be astronomical.

For the short text of 18 USC 1983, see the Cornell Law site at

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/ uscode42/ usc_sec_42_00001 983----000- .html

The use of unconstitutonal statute law to overturn citizen rights has been going on for several decades -- in state legislatures and in Congress. The incidence rate of such governmental arrogance and criminality has been steadily increasing across the nation.

The illegal anti-abortion legislation in South Dakota is perhaps the most flagrant rights violation in the history of state legislatures.

It is way past time for Americans to stop that unconstitutional and illegal tactic, which is always done for the benefit of money-power and at the expense of ordinary people. The divisive abortion issue, of course, regardless of its moral conflict and woral warriors, benefits money-power by keeping the people divided against themselves. Where there is no significant unity among the sovereign people, money-power is free to work its many corruptions.

In South Dakota, where the people can already speak for themselves through I&R petition processes, there is simply no reason to retain the mega-corrupt, partisan, bicameral legislature. Retaining the Senate is enough. The people can be a 2nd legislative house as needed.

Nebraska has been successfully using a NONPARTISAN UNICAMERAL since 1937. That's 69 years.

For historical details of the 1934 citizen-proposed law that reduced their partisan bicameral to a nonpartisan unicameral in 1937 -- and kept it safe from gerrymandering -- see the Nebraska Legislature's own site at

http://www.unicam.state.ne.us/learning/ history.htm

The people of South Dakota need to use the illegal anti-abortion legislation -- this instance of massive, unconstitutional violation of rights, freedoms, and 14th Amendment liberties -- as reason enough for reducing their corrupt bicameral to a nonpartisan unicameral. One or two constitutional amendment initiatives is all that it will take.

If SD judges reject the constitutional amendment initiatives seeking to establish a nonparitisan unicameral legislature -- before the initiative is voted on by the sovereign people -- then they are unconstitutionally performing "binding judicial review" on proposed law. No US constitution defines the judicial power to include binding judicial review of proposed law. Imagine a judge telling the legislature that neither house can vote on a particular bill.

Such an action aganst citizen-porposed law would violate the state constitution, 18 USC 241, and 42 USC 1983. Any judge involved in such an unconstitutonal action rightfully belongs in federal prison.

I mention the possibility of binding judicial review squashing the move to a nonpartisan unicameral because state-level judges in all the I&R states have been doing such things to citizen-proposed law for a hundred years.

Binding judicial review of citizen-proposed law -- too often used to delay, alter, or reject the proposed law -- has been a major line of defense for money-power. It has frequently stopped uppity state citizens from contributing to the dialoge for sane and responsible national policy that is offensive to money-power and its massive corruptions.

Time for we the sovereign people to stand up for our rights, before we lose them all. We have the power. We are the sovereign here.

Stephen Neitzke,
Founder, Direct Democracy League