November 22, 2012

"Why should the President direct the people to do what, perhaps, they have no mind to do?"

"If a day of thanksgiving must take place... let it be done by the authority of the several States."

9 comments:

edutcher said...

Federalism. The big difference between Abe and George.

PS Good morning, Madame, and a Happy Thanksgiving to all at MeadeHouse and all the Althousians.

Ron said...

But...but...no one is a bigger Jive Turkey than the Federal Government!

Suckas!

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

It is a stain on his legacy that the Father of Our Country could not foresee the sort of national unity that can come only from a giant inflatable Underdog being marched through the streets of New York.

Wince said...

Drudge headline highlights the long simmering dissent and the "random" acts of violence:

"Neighborhood On Alert As Aggressive Wild Turkeys Attacking Residents, Vehicles..."

Unknown said...

They need more wildcats to control those turkeys. I saw a bobcat last year I would bet was as large as a rotweiller. They were around but never seen and not very large until the turkey population came back.

Mitch H. said...

None of my friends believe me when I tell them Thanksgiving is a religious holiday. And not just a "I don't think that's true" milquetoast denial, but full-throated roaring "you don't know what the hell you're talking about you idiot" refusals.

Smilin' Jack said...

Yeah, the president shouldn't be telling us what to do. That's the governor's job.

jimspice said...

I think this pretty well nails it: a law blog that gets practically no responses to a fairly straight-forward legal question. These comments should be EXPLODING with Fed v. State arguments.

Mitch H. said...

Is this explicitly a law blog? I'd guess that less than a fourth of the posts are explicitly about points of law.

I'm not a lawyer, but I can engage this on the historical angle. It's always been kind of interesting that, although nobody's ever established to my satisfaction whether Washington was a Deist or just a very guarded Anglican, he's the one who started this tradition of public, non-denominational , but very explicit God-bothering in official executive communication.

Tucker was a chucklehead, though, given the text of the resolution. A recommendation isn't a requirement on the plain meaning of the text. Of course, from the view-point of brevity, any congressional resolution without a binding element is so much hot air, and a questionable waste of legislative time and energy. How many hundreds of such pointless, fundamentally meaningless constituent-flattering resolutions clutter up each session of Congress these days?