Instigator / Pro
12
1473
rating
4
debates
25.0%
won
Topic
#8
Resolved: This House would overturn United States v Darby(1941)
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
9
Better sources
6
6
Better legibility
3
3
Better conduct
0
3
After 3 votes and with 9 points ahead, the winner is...
RationalMadman
Tags
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
- Voting period
- Two weeks
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
21
1709
rating
564
debates
68.17%
won
Description
This debate is intended to examine the landmark ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in United States v Darby 312 US 100(1941).[1-Summary][2-Full Case Brief]
In this case it was decided that a Federally mandated minimum wage was constitutional, and cemented minimum wage laws from there-on to today.
It should be noted that this is an examination of a court ruling, and therefore an acceptance of the validity of the framework set forth by the founding documents of the US. Con has full use and benefit of the principle of stare decisis in legal decision making. Legal arguments take priority, but, the harms and benefits of minimum wage are wholly applicable to argumentation. Basically imagine if both myself and the contender are making a case before SCOTUS today, on this very same ruling. Arguments should thusly be structured accordingly.
It should also be noted that this case established the *Federal* power to mandate minimum wage laws, not states ability to. The states ability to was affirmed in West Coast Hotel Co. v Parrish US 300 US 379(1937)[3].
Thank you for reading and best of luck to whomever accepts this debate!
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Darby_Lumber_Co.
[2]https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/312/100
[3]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Hotel_Co._v._Parrish
Round 1
Pro
#1
To start I would like to thank any who are reading this debate, I hope you enjoy it. Also, thank you as well Rational for accepting this debate. This should be a fun debate and an interesting examination of a decades old Supreme Court ruling in light of what we now have discovered in the present. With that being said, let us begin...
First, I would like to give some observances from researching this case. US v Darby was a pivotal decision in the relationship between Federal and State law. Darby was the start of a 54 year period of time in which no Federal expansions into intrastate commerce were rejected.[1] This is quite a long time for expansions of Federal power to go unchecked. It is my humble estimation that the Court at that time was being reactionary to a time of crisis. They had in previous years and that very same staunchly rejected Federal attempts to expand into intrastate commerce. With rulings such as:
-A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935)[1]
-United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936)[2]
-Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238 (1936)[3]
the court upheld a narrow interpretation of the commerce clause of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the constitution that grants Congress the power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes."[5]. This interpretation strictly limited the scope of the clause to interstate commerce, and not intrastate commerce. These rulings for obvious reasons did not go well with the general public, and that intensified with Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo, 298 U.S. 587 (1936)[6]. It was in this case that the Supreme Court ruled against even a state mandated minimum wage law. This was an extreme error as it set in motion President Roosevelts plan to add more justices to the supreme court. Indeed, the aforementioned case of West Coast Hotel v Parrish was ruled at the height of tensions regarding the supreme court. This case is oft referred to as "The switch in time that saved nine."[7]
This decision was correct in my estimation, but the era of Federal expansionism it saw with the switching of Justice Roberts vote and an ever broadening interpretation of the commerce clause was not. This interpretation i hold, is predicated upon a false interpretation of the clause itself. Thusly we reach the first part of my case, an examination of the commerce clause and the language contained therein.
The Commerce Clause
"to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.
Commerce as we would define it today is the activity of buying and selling, especially on a large scale. This is actually quite close to the specific meaning of commerce as used by the framers of the Constitution. As Professor Randy E Barnett of the University of Chicago wrote in 2001,
"While Justice Thomas has maintained that the original meaning of "commerce" was limited to the "trade and exchange" of goods and transportation for this purpose, some have argued that he is mistaken and that "commerce" originally included any "gainful activity." Having examined every appearance of the word "commerce" in the records of the Constitutional Convention, the ratification debates, and the Federalist Papers, Professor Barnett finds no surviving example of this term being used in this broader sense. In every appearance where the context suggests a specific usage, the narrow meaning is always employed."[8]
"In sum, according to the original meaning of the Commerce Clause, Congress has power to specify rules to govern the manner by which people may exchange or trade goods from one state to another, to remove obstructions to domestic trade erected by states, and to both regulate and restrict the flow of goods to and from other nations (and the Indian tribes) for the purpose of promoting the domestic economy and foreign trade."[8]
Thusly, I contest the validity of Federal regulation when it pertains to wage agreements made within the States.
As can be seen in US 116, the courts at the time held the interpretation that "commerce" included any "gainful activity.
"interstate commerce should not be made the instrument of competition in the distribution of goods produced under substandard labor conditions, which competition is injurious to the commerce and to the states from and to which the commerce flows."[9]
As such we must come to the realization that this interpretation is applying too broad a scope to the commerce clause as originally intended. Gainful activity as implied is not under the purview of the Federal government to regulate, and wage laws would clearly fall under the purview still of intrastate commerce. As wage agreements are an exchange of labor and time for wage, sometimes to include benefits, but not necessarily, compensation. It must therefore be concluded that wage compensation laws still fall under the purview of the 10th amendment[10].
Furthermore, as Barnett continues in his paper, he cites Justice Clarence Thomas and his interpretation of the commerce clause,
"According to Justice Thomas, "at the time the original Constitution was ratified, 'commerce' consisted of selling, buying, and bartering, as well as transporting for these purposes." He also cited the etymology of the word, which literally means "with merchandise." He then noted that "when Federalists and Anti-Federalists discussed the Commerce Clause during the ratification period, they often used trade (in its selling/bartering sense) and commerce interchangeably." The term "commerce," according to Justice Thomas, "was used in contradistinction to productive activities such as manufacturing and agriculture."...activity. In cases such as United States v E.C. Knight Co, the Court distinguished "commerce" from manufacturing or agriculture, and held that the regulation of either manufacturing or agriculture exceeded the powers of Congress under the clause."[8]
Given this precedent supplied by U.S. v E.C. Knight Co.[12], as a manufacturer of lumber, Darby Lumber Co. would be likewise exempted from federal regulation under the commerce clause. And as the court in Darby asserted itself that any incidental and indirect ramifications of the Fair Labor Standards Act were not of relevance to the clause or the court, so that same rationale should be applied here, that any incidental or indirect advantages gained from differentiation in wages between states, is not of relevance to the clause or the court.
After careful deliberation, I will reserve arguments upon the practical effects of overturning this ruling in the present for the next round, and cede the floor to Rational.
[3]https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/298/238/
Con
#2
I am using British English outside of quotes. I had to cut down this debate due to unwarned character restrictions. Max = 20K
What is US Law and 'Rightful Legislation' in the context of a SCOTUS ruling?
When we discuss a matter like this we can of course begin at a Nihilistic outlook that nothing matters and there's no inherent value in something being legal but what we can't do is leave it at that. We begin there and then analyse the value system and need to enter the stage where we concede basic values and/or fundamental 'pillars' or poles upon which the rest of law is built.
For USA this is not only the Constitution but also legal precedent in laws made matching that of the suggested one. I will now give links to 2 diagrams (can't embed images themselves and display them with the current tech here) which will illustrate the hierarchy in which the Supreme Court is (image 1.1) and then will go into details about just how much the Supreme Court rules over (image 1.2).
Based on these images, we can see that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is essentially the highest authority short of the Constitution that leads the Judicial Branch as opposed to the Legislative Branch or Executive Branch in USA. So what exactly is this 'Judicial Branch' relative to other branches? In the following quote 'our' means American/US.
Please read source (character restrictions)
So what Prop (The side of Proposition) is actually saying is shockingly that the legislation that was clearly approved by the Legislative branch and then enacted into Law instead of just a Bill by the President of the United States (POTUS) is having enough grounds to be overturned by SCOTUS...
How a Bill Becomes a LawCreating laws is the U.S. House of Representatives’ most important job. All laws in the United States begin as bills. Before a bill can become a law, it must be approved by the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and the President.
Yet what exactly is the grounds to overturn this, let alone to conclude that SCOTUS will agree that the grounds is sufficient to enact the overturning of it as a result of this appeal?
To understand why Pro is wrong to conclude this, we do need to appreciate how outrageous the idea of this ever getting put up for appeal is but to then comprehend why the SCOTUS will say 'no, we need to keep that' takes comprehension of the harms that lacking a minimum wage does to a society and just what the law was made to avoid for very morally correct reasons regarding the poor in the US (and perhaps even outside it but that's more of an indirect angle of justifying the law).
I would like to open with an excerpt from a brilliantly written article by Frances Coppola of Forbes:
The real reason why we need a minimum wage has nothing to do with the welfare of workers or the availability of jobs. Welfare is adequately ensured by in-work benefits, and the State is perfectly happy to create the illusion of employment in order to please voters. No, the minimum wage is necessary to protect taxpayers from the rational desire of firms to get something for nothing.The simple fiscal argument for minimum wage legislation goes like this. Both the UK and the US have systems of in-work benefits that top up wages to a level sufficient to live on. So from firms’ perspective, when there is slack in the labour market (unemployment) they have little incentive to pay wages high enough to live on. And from workers’ perspective, they have little incentive to demand higher wages, especially if the consequence might be unemployment. If there is no minimum wage, therefore, then the co-existence of unemployment with in-work benefits drives down wages to below subsistence level. As the majority of government tax income comes from households, not firms, over time this becomes unsustainable: all unskilled workers become in effect employees of the state, and the higher skilled are forced to subsidise the wages of the unskilled through rising taxes. There would inevitably be calls for in-work benefits to be cut, probably supported by demonization of the poor. Unskilled workers would be subject to the same accusations of “fecklessness” and “scrounging” as the unemployed already receive. So in-work benefits without a legislated minimum wage are fiscally unsustainable and socially divisive when there is persistent unemployment.This simple analysis does of course assume that unemployment is a real threat to a worker’s standard of living. But arguments that the unemployed “choose leisure” imply that unemployment is a choice. If it is, then it cannot really be seen as a realistic threat. If the unemployed can refuse work without cost or sanction, then unemployment benefits themselves act as a minimum wage and there is no need for additional legislation.
What happens, unless your nation is run by ruthlessly Capitalist sociopaths who care nothing for their poor, is that in absence of minimum wage they start having to encourage corporations to give many fringe benefits to employees and need to 'make up for the gap' that could be patched by forcing a minimum wage as suddenly their poor are too poor to afford essentials such as healthcare, even regular supply of food and perhaps their bills of energy etc. Which can lead to them freezing in winter or starving (which makes them too malnourished to do their job well so they get fired and even more poor and a drain on the economy if given unemployment benefits of any kind).
Minimum wages are, as is evident in all nations we'd regard as highly developed in the modern age are present and high. Now let me just display to you how little of a joke it is that there's a link between lacking it and having high poverty (if the government chooses to not subsidise the gap in other ways.
I will be using this source for the following section: https://www.hcamag.com/hr-news/highest-and-lowest-minimum-wages-around-the-world--how-does-australia-stack-up-186915.aspx
Think of countries that are highly developed and lack poverty or abuse of the poor in any sense. Just think of it. Now think of the opposite; nations high in poverty that truly leave their poor to rot in inhuman conditions in slums.
The top 10 nations in highest minimum wage are (first place through to tenth) Australia, Luxembourg, Monaco, France, Belgium, San Marino (this is a tiny nation within the bigger surrounding nation of Italy), New Zealand, Ireland, Netherlands and Canada.
The top 10 lowest minimum wages go to... Are you ready for it? Here we go; Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Malawi, Tanzania, Central African Republic, Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh, Cuba, Sierra Leone and Uganda.
Let's just draw some concrete, verifiable, correlations here between that and what I am proposing is directly attached to it. I would like to note that in this official taking of Human Development Index (HDI). Monaco and San Marino are left out as they are too small perhaps and are mentioned are 'other nations' at the bottom of the list.
So, if we look at the top 10 minimum wage nations we unsurprisingly see that in the top 10 HDI nations, a joint second between Australia and Switzerland is occuring at present and both Netherlands, Ireland and Canada make it into the top 10 witht he other nations of the top 10 who aren't Monaco or San Marino making it into the top 21 (France was 21)
What is HDI? Well here's a nice diagram: http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdi.png Let's read the explanation though.
The HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone. The HDI can also be used to question national policy choices, asking how two countries with the same level of GNI per capita can end up with different human development outcomes. These contrasts can stimulate debate about government policy priorities.The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions.The health dimension is assessed by life expectancy at birth, the education dimension is measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and more and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age. The standard of living dimension is measured by gross national income per capita. The HDI uses the logarithm of income, to reflect the diminishing importance of income with increasing GNI. The scores for the three HDI dimension indices are then aggregated into a composite index using geometric mean. Refer to Technical notes for more details.The HDI simplifies and captures only part of what human development entails. It does not reflect on inequalities, poverty, human security, empowerment, etc. The HDRO offers the other composite indices as broader proxy on some of the key issues of human development, inequality, gender disparity and poverty.
The US even made it to the list ranked joint 10th with Canada but that's what I argue includes the minimum wage laws in the causality of the result. While the amount can be up for debate this comes down to a raw question of values in a society:
Do we care more about ruthlessly neglecting a suffering working class or about superficial unemployment rates being low as companies now can underpay many workers until the government inevitably has to force them to give better fringe benefits and has to subsidise the poor in other ways if it's psychopathic?
In fact, if we really care that little for the poor why not just suggest legalising child labour too? It's not an outrageous step, in nations where there's no forced or fixed minimum wage, they tend to also have no such thing as a minimum quality of working conditions or minimum age to work full-time. It's the identical attitude and I will prove it in detail if Prop challenges me on this but for now what I'll do is provide two links that support the correlation if you read them fully.
What I am going to explain here is that the laws resulting from the case of United States v Darby are not just minimum wage, they are precisely what I just mentioned. They are maximum working weeks, minimum wages and banning of child labour. They stop predation on the poor in all three senses and Prop is making it seem as if this is some trivial matter, Prop would have us open the flood gates that will quite literally make the US a living hell for the poor as is present in many nations lacking all three things (the third being lacking the ban on child labour, not lacking it).
The law was passed with a unanimously supported verdict of affirmation. Let me quote a very reliable source here on both the thigns I just claimed.
Facts of the caseIn 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to regulate many aspects of employment, including minimum wages, maximum weekly hours, and child labor. When a lumber manufacturer, Darby, shipped lumber out of state, he was arrested for violating the FLSA. His charges were dismissed because the federal district court found that FLSA was unconstitutional. The court reasoned that the FSLA’s potential effects on intrastate activities violated the Commerce Clause.The unanimous Court upheld the FLSA. Relying heavily on the Court's decision in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), Justice Stone affirmed the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, which "can neither be enlarged nor diminished by the exercise or non-exercise of state power." The Court held that the purpose of the FLSA was to prevent states from using substandard labor practices to their own economic advantage by interstate commerce. Congress acted with proper authority in outlawing substandard labor conditions since they have a significant impact on interstate commerce.
Do you want to know just what SCOTUS would be enabling to occur in the nation of the US if they were to overturn this (as opposed to amend a specific within it)? Do you actually want child labour and no minimum wage and have people begging their employers to not make inhumanely large working week hours?
Let's just clarify something about the maximum working week; it's the only one of the three that there's actually a fair alternative to in US law due to the ability of consenting it being something the poor would only do if capable. It's called overtime pay for those who don't know.
The federal overtime provisions are contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Unless exempt, employees covered by the Act must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek at a rate not less than time and one-half their regular rates of pay. There is no limit in the Act on the number of hours employees aged 16 and older may work in any workweek. The Act does not require overtime pay for work on Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, or regular days of rest, unless overtime is worked on such days.The Act applies on a workweek basis. An employee's workweek is a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours — seven consecutive 24-hour periods. It need not coincide with the calendar week, but may begin on any day and at any hour of the day. Different workweeks may be established for different employees or groups of employees. Averaging of hours over two or more weeks is not permitted. Normally, overtime pay earned in a particular workweek must be paid on the regular pay day for the pay period in which the wages were earned.
The reason why, unlike child labour and minimum wage, this one has laws enabling it to be pushed past is that the basis for the maximum week is something that is believed to be something no human would ask to work more than unless totally capable and that so few humans would want to work more hours than. This means that while you could argue 'but won't everyone who is poor and desperate work longer then?' you must consider that overtime laws create a disincentive to push workers past the limit and only if the worker really is that good or the employer is really that short of staff they need the employee that bad at that time for emergency replacement would they pay them.
I guess all that's left to do is go through the clauses of the law and elaborate on them and/or justify them. I hope you fully understand the benefits of this law and what it does to protect the poor from abuse based on what I've said so far.
The source I'll use for quoting the law will be: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/312/100/
I will state only the number to save characters (I was over limit)
1
This is stating a fact about another act and what it provides legal precedent to enact protection of the poor for. The issue is that the said Act only applied to those engaged in the production of goods for interstate commerce. This also explicitly states that it considers the Act consistent with the fifth and tenth amendments.
2
This is simply clarifying what exactly the law covers with regards to it being specific to regulating interstate commerce.
3
I interpret this clause as specifying that if Congress sees that a State is wrongly enforcing maximum working hours and/or minimum wage laws, it can forcibly prohibit trade of a good across state borders both to and from said state. I am unsure why this needed to be specified as it seems obvious to me.
4
This justifies why the above regulation is Constitutional and permitted based on what isn't directly prohibited for Congress to do to a State.
5
In short, the competition between States should never ever lead to the States paying their workers so little or making them work so many hours that it's inhumane for the worker to live on the wage or be capable of resting and having a life outside of their job respectively.
6
This interestingly would imply that SCOTUS would be wrong to intrude on the law as it's directly saying 'over which the courts are given no control' so I'm curious how Prop will address this. Perhaps Prop will say the enforcement of the law is in no way at all allowed to be challenged by courts but the law itself is by SCOTUS but then comes the question of 'why would they undo this?' which is what I've actively debated against in this Round.
7
This seems to be stating a fact again that the legislation is not unconstitutional.
8
Here is where limitations are addressed.
Here is Hammer v Dagenhart and what it enacted into law: - https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/247/251/
To cut a long story short, what is being said is that this child labour protection law can't apply to internal state affairs if it's Congress enforcing it and they can't necessarily force a State to (itself) not legalise state affairs but what the clause in US v Darby said that it concedes it can't enforce the child labour, minimum wage or even maximum working hours laws in coal production (even on an interstate level) because of Carter v. Carter Coal Clauses 2 and 3.
So I guess it concedes that in coal manufacturing it can't directly apply Us v Darby until the coal itself is actually mined and considered a trade-worthy commodity.
Anyway, back to the clauses.
9
This follows on from clause 8 and says that as soon as something is produced, then the working condition laws apply.
10
So if an internal State industrial activities in any way are linked to interstate production and trade of said products, then the minimum wage laws etc. all apply to those workplaces.
11
This discusses the power Congress has to step in and influence the state in the name of protecting the poor.
12
So it seems industries themselves can justify embargo on industries they believe to have violated the minimum wage, maximum working week and any other working condition laws (as by the first clause this applies to more working conditions).
13
Defends the other clauses and ability of Congress to enforce the Act itself.
14, 15, 16
This just finished the legislation and was clarifying what was said before and elaborating on what is not violated by enacting this into law.
It should be noted that the reason this helps with the enforcement of child labour laws is that FLSA (mentioned in Clause 1) itself stops that and that's why it wasn't explicitly stated in this Act but it is entirely applicable since it's linking to FLSA from the first clause.
Round 2
Pro
#3
It appears that Con has been banned. As disappointing as that is, I feel it necessary to reserve the final part of my construct. However, I will still summarize a rebuttal of Cons construct/rebuttal.
As established in the full details of the debate, pre-debate, I am not arguing against the states right to establish minimum wage laws as affirmed in West Coast Hotel Co. v Parrish. I am arguing against a Federal minimum wage.
5 states currently do not have minimum wage laws and arguably might otherwise have them if not for the presence of a federal minimum wage.[1] This negates many of the harms Con proposed(but are not necessarily true) in repealing a minimum wage and the consequential harms and thus at least tangentially applicable to the "social welfare" clause as established in Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution:
"and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States."[2]
I was gonna get a little 🔥 spic🔥about the first part of Cons argument that questioned the authority of Judicial Review as established in the Judiciary Act of 1789, particularly Section 13[3], and in precedent via Marbury v Madison[4] but feel such an examination facially unnecessary in summary.
Thank you again for reading.
Con
#4
Note: The maximum character count has just been altered to 30k but I’m not complaining as it was an evil for both debaters in Round 1.
Further Note: Because on this website, Pro/Con are not yet alterable factors between Instigator and Contender, it is possible that 'Con' is the side in support of the resolution in some debates I do not feel it is then accurate to use Pro and Con sides. The Contending side is not necessarily against the resolution even though in this debate it is. I prefer to use Prop and Opp and will explain that in my first paragraph. This is not poor grammar and this is not confusing; this is correct terminology that I use on Debate Island and even planning out real life debates.
To comprehend what has happened here it is very important to understand the role of Proposition (Prop) in a debate as opposed to the role of Opposition (Opp). Prop exists fundamentally to come up with ideas and push them forth as combined basis to end up concluding that the resolution is true. On the other hand, Opp exists to do one of two things, one is to accept some pillars as true and some as false (or all as false) and explain how to reach the very opposite, or a very different, result regarding the resolution that Prop did but it goes further than that as the secondary role of Opp is to say that the resolution itself is flawed at times.
I have thus far served as an inverse Prop to my side’s stance regarding the resolution but it’s time to become more destructive than constructive and this is not bad conduct or poor debating, this is the fundamental role of the side of Opposition in a debate and in this debate it’s even fairer as Prop get the first word each round and as is evident is intentionally hiding information for later.
To justify this accusation, In Round 1, Prop states:
After careful deliberation, I will reserve arguments upon the practical effects of overturning this ruling in the present for the next round.
What is most shocking is not that Prop did this as I am entitled to bring new point in Round 2 to combat his new points but that in Round 2, Prop furthermore states:
I was gonna get a little 🔥 spic[sic]🔥about the first part of Cons argument that questioned the authority of Judicial Review as established in the Judiciary Act of 1789, particularly Section 13[3], and in precedent via Marbury v Madison[4] but feel such an examination facially unnecessary in summary.
This debate has become (from Prop's side) a nonsensical barrage of accusation towards the very legal system and authority of the entire Legislative Branch of justice as well as Executive.
What I find most interesting is that in the comments section as well as Round 1, Prop specified that this was a debate about what SCOTUS would/will do and not what ideally should be done. Then Prop completely backtracks on this and starts speaking of how it's wrong on some deep level to enforce a federal-extent of minimum wage and maximum working week on interstate commerce.
I find this amusing because Prop is contradicting the very basis for their angle but I agree that this actually is a debate about what SCOTUS should do and not about what SCOTUS is likely to do. So I will let Prop alter the debate how they've altered it because I am now going to prove that both SCOTUS should and ultimately will not do what the resolution would have him/her do in the current state of American politics as well as in the foreseeable future.
The Amendments that Prop is saying are somehow being touched on or violated are the fifth and tenth.
I shall go ahead and quote these Amendments.
Fifth Amendment
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
This is actually something the entire Law is based upon, not something it violates.
Let's look at the tenth Amendement (the one Prop says is being directly violated by the legislation):
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
But you will find that there was a unanimous agreement in the voting on the legislation and that in Clause 1 (oh yes, the first Clause) it is mentioned that by voting for the legislation, one is agreeing it doesn't violate the Tenth Amendment. The fact is also that while the Judicial Branch of US Law is held beneath the Constitution in hierarchy, one must also understand that the Constitution itself admits it may well be flawed in specifics and it makes sense it admits this as while the Founding Fathers are considered to have had the right intentions, they didn't have superhuman foresight and couldn't know how matters like minimum wage and maximum working week would play into the law and just how brutal it is to the poor to not force states to not compete by having an unbearably low wage or high working week (and definitely not to compete by having children working in the industry).
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
So, I would go so far as to argue that if it is found (which it has not and will not be found) that the Tenth Amendment does somehow ban the ability of the Federal Government to force states to not compete by abusing the poor with inhumane wages or working weeks among other working conditions, then it is actually the Tenth Amendment that should be seen to be fixed and not this law that should be overturned and open the flood gates to enabling poverty and abuse of employees.
So, not only does Prop have to explain why exactly it is that the first clause of the law is incorrect in pushing agreement with the Fifth and Tenth Amendment but Prop furthermore must explain why, if it is found that the Tenth Amendment is written in such a manner that the law can't protect employees in the way it does that it is not the Tenth Amendment which itself should be put up for alteration.
What I notice in Prop's entire case is no alternative to the law. Prop remains blissfully ignorant of (or if not is intentionally deceiving the reader away from) the fact that if even one State is allowed to have lower wages or higher working week than the rest this would mean all other states would not be as efficient or able to compete with that State in insterstate commerce. So, while a state alone can legally (as Prop points out) have no minimum wage itself, one can argue that since this is only used for instra-state commerce, that State is fine as people can just move out of it and don't even need a passport to do so in order to go to a better legislated state for the poor. It should be noted I am against the States that have no minimum wage or maximum working week but that I respect that the Tenth Amendment protects their ability to have such due to it being a State affair. What happens with interstate commerce, however, is that it becomes an immediately unfair competition between the states if even one of them is able to work people for longer hours at lower wages than the rest and this incentivises all other states to join in and abuse their poor employees in the same way if they want to not be pushed into bankruptcy. While on a worldwide-level it hasn't yet been stopped to abuse the poor in this way too much by the UN, the exposure of Nike sweatshops [http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-nike-fixed-its-sweatshop-image-2015-6] among many other events are hopefully pushing the world to stop this inhumane competing.
The Federal Government is responsible for the people of USA. If the US is having state-only issues, the Tenth Amendment prevents the Federal Government from strongarming the State into giving in and instead other States would need to petition to deal with the State's inhuman laws in another way perhaps by embargoing the interstate commerce (even though this would be an instra-state commerce working condition matter, this would help make the State give in). What is apparent however, is it is withing Federal Power to make laws regarding interstate commerce. There's absolutely no reason to allow States to become so inhumane in their conditions. The reason that I state in Round 1 that minimum wage is needed is that the alternative will involve the Federal Government needing to subsidise the poor in states without it if their wages are so low they can barely survive on them or their working weeks are so long they can barely stay awake to work the next day and end up jobless and left to rot.
I conclude that Prop has not successfully provided any humane alternative to minimum wage or maximum working weeks and also is incorrect to be only focusing on minimum wage as maximum working weeks are covered in the legislation as well. It is actually a means to apply the entirety of FLSA (which includes child labour laws in it) to interstate commerce.
Round 3
Con
#6
To many my ban and unban will be luck. To those who know, there is strategy behind my insanity.
Prop concedes in entirety in the comments section and proves it by forfeiting Round 3.
W is yours for this debate, getting the W isnt of particular importance to me so its no skin off me bones
After consideration, with that being said, have the W 👏. I'll just leave this debate to being done with Virtuoso as arguing the same topic twice simultaneously is just something that will melt my brain tbh and I consequentially won't be giving my full effort.
- Prop
W = win.
I have said all that needs to be said and Prop has themselves said what I said has been true and is worthy of their forfeit. End of discussion, I win thank you.
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
Rational Madman is the most correct of the two.
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
Pro has forfeited.
![[Image 1.1]](https://www.lib.purdue.edu/uco/images/chart1.jpg){kind=link}
![[Image 1.2]](https://athenatech.us/images/2018/07/federal-court-system-diagram-new-outline-the-dual-court-system-of-the-united-states-term-paper-of-federal-court-system-diagram.gif){kind=link}
Are you going to be arguing the constitutionality of a Federal minimum wage?
Also you have seen me on DI and DDO very recently what do you mean long time no see?
Amending the '25 cents' would not be overturning it etc. I will be taking a left wing stance on it. I probably know less law than you but more philosophy and raw 'basis of what makes a society good and just' type arguments as well as economic studies into nations lacking minimum wage and poverty etc. I look forward to the debate.
Its gonna be a day or so, I posted it pre compiling the case itself. Have the general scope of what I'll construct, just need to sit down and write it out. And legal arguments take a lil bit to compile xD
Oh shit, what's up rational?! Long time no see