Rescind All Laws: A Discussion With MAGA

The other day on the r/trump subreddit, a poster lamented about how few laws have been passed under the Republican dominated government. Naturally many readers chimed in opine that rather than passing law, the Republican government should step instead begin repealing laws.

This is where I stepped in (I am u/NeverInsightful). As anyone who has read a post on my blog knows, I am prone to using too many words, and I did not stem the flow this time either. In the future I’ll have to learn to make my point more succinctly, but at the same time, I strongly believe that political discussion needs to be more than just memes and 250-500 character tweets.

Take aways from the discussion: If a law was enacted during a time when it would have been considered to be “progressive” then the default position is that it must be bad. This position holds even when it’s legislation that benefits them, such as:

• Women being able to qualify for a mortgage without needing their husbands approval (which also had the effect of excluding singe and divorced women as well as widows)
• Being guaranteed entry and treatment at a hospital even if they lack insurance or cash on hand to pay.
• Accurate labelling of the food and and prescription drugs they consume
• Increased pay for overtime work (beyond 40 hours a week)

All of these were earned the comment that I chose “progressive hot points! Very leftist of you!”. The discussion continued — revealing, in my opinion, my “opponents” fundamental misunderstandings of the Constitution, Federal Taxation and property taxes.

What follows is our exchange:

MAGA:
Quite frankly, they should concentrate on repealing a lot of the existing laws. Removing blocks to our freedoms is more important than creating new ones!

Me:
They have to pass something to repeal a law. Which also haven’t happened.

Curious though, which laws would you want to see repealed?

MAGA:
Most of them passed since the ratification of the Constitution. I don’t have time to come up with what all of them are!

Me:
so without being clear, I take that to mean any or all of the following:

• Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 that finally allowed women to obtain mortgages and credit cards without a husband’s signature, which barred single, divorced and widows from accessing these types of loans?
• Americans with Disabilities Act that requires basic accommodations like ramps and elevators so that citizens with disabilities can actually access public buildings??
• Clean Air Act that limits the toxins factories can pump into our lungs—ignoring the lessons of the 1966 NYC smog event that killed at least 168 people and caused respiratory issues for 10% of the city’s population?
• Civil Rights Act that ended legal racial segregation and banned discrimination ?
• GI Bill that provided low-interest mortgages and vocational training to millions of veterans?
• Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act that stopped hospitals from “dumping” patients on the street if they lacked insurance or the ability to pay for life-saving emergency care?
• Social Security Act of 1935 that rescued millions of widows and elderly Americans from literal starvation and remains the primary financial backstop for most retirees today?
• Pure Food and Drug Act that requires companies to actually list their ingredients, so you aren’t unknowingly feeding your family medicine that contain toxins, narcotics or other harmful additives?
• Fair Labor Standards Act that finally ended child labor and established the 40-hour workweek with mandatory overtime pay for extra labor?
• Federal Employers’ Liability Act that ensures families are compensated when a worker is seriously injured or killed on the job due to a company’s negligence?
• Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act that banned lead in household paint—a “common sense” move that prevented irreversible brain damage in millions of American children?

Note that NEARLY ALL of these are advantageous to employers to the determinant of workers and regular people.

MAGA:
Ah, I like how you mostly only chose progressive hot points! Very leftist of you!

Some of those things are good, others not so much.

I was referring more to limits on personal freedom and taxation, but you do you!

Me:
You literally said “Most of them passed since the ratification of the Constitution. I don’t have time to come up with what all of them are!” nothing about personal freedom or taxes.

Perhaps you can be clearer about which laws exactly are limiting your personal freedoms? Or at leasts the law impact if you don’t know it.

Besides that, I really didn’t realize any of the following were progressive hot points:

• Letting single women obtain loans
• Making sure people in wheelchairs can get into government buildings
• Not wanting to see cities enveloped in smog like a few decades ago, or like China was a decade or two ago
• Not turning away uninsured people from hospitals with life threatening injuries because they don’t have insurance
• Wanting to be sure that pharmaceutical companies aren’t sneaking cocaine and heroin in to all of our medicines
• Not wanting 6 year olds to be manual laborers

I didn’t even approach what I thought MIGHT be hot points like racial segregation, climate change, or the affordable care act

Authors Note: The conversion then slid into taxes and the Constitution, revealing that the MAGA commenter didn’t understand the fundamental issues they were arguing for

MAGA:
Many of them absolutely were at the time! Any law requiring income or property tax. Woodrow Wilson signed that progressive nightmare for income tax in 1913. We’ve all been paying for it since. Once I have paid off my property, it should be mine without restrictions. If they want money for fire, police, etc., opt in and pay cash.

Any abridgment of the second amendment. Restrictions on anything from a pocket knife to a fully stocked aircraft carrier should not exist. Period.

I shouldn’t have to give up my liberty for someone else’s security or peace of mind.

Me:
You DO understand that property tax isn’t a federal tax at all, it’s imposed by states and local governments. The idea of property tax in western civilizations goes back 3000 years at least.

In your world how would public schools exist? Rewinding the before and after the Constitution was ratified, states levied taxes on land and buildings to pay for public schools

Beyond that, you’d be using public roadways, public street lights, public sidewalks which, depending where you live, have snow cleared by the local government. Water and sewer services are often paid for by property taxes. Parks.

You want to opt into fire department services? So when a fire breaks out in town, the first thing that the fire department will need to do is determine which property paid for their services and let those one burn to the ground?

And you want to opt in to police protection? On one hand, yes, police could refuse to come to your house if you were having an emergency. But once you leave your house, how are police to determine if you paid for their service or not if they see you being assaulted, mugged or robbed?

Your property taxes even pay for your town assessor and registrar of deeds. Without them, you don’t even have legal recourse if someone else builds on your land, since property lines don’t exist. Unless you’re each going to take up arms against each other.

Now to federal taxes. It’s a constitutional amendment. It was ratified 77-0 in the Senate, 318-14 in the House, and was ratified by 42 of the then 48 states. You’re blaming Wilson for it? And just like the amendment was ratified, the amendment can be repealed by the same exact mechanism. Simply, the majority of people (as expressed by their elected representatives both Federally and in their State) agreed to pay federal taxes. Since they’re so wildly unpopular, it should be simple to round up the votes to repeal, no?

but lets say you succeed in doing what you wanted, repealing all amendments since the ratification of the constitution.

The first Ten Amendments weren’t ratified at that point. Due process, quartering soldiers in your home, right to own guns, freedom of speech, they all came later.

Do we call it quits after the first 10?

So no more 13th amendment? Slavery is back.

No more 19th amendment? Women can no longer vote.

No more 22nd? Now presidents have no term limits.

No more 27th amendment, the very last one added. Now congress can vote themselves unlimited raises and start collecting that money before their constituents have a say on whether they keep their job or not.

Have the energy clarify any of this? Because even with all this back and forth, I’m still not clear what you realistically hope to achieve. Except for keeping your guns.