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There are significant concerns with such a flippant reading. The Constitution goes on to explicitly grant particular ways that such a thing can be done. One must read those clauses out of the Constitution in order to take such a broad reading here. A couple examples just to give you a sense of some of the gymnastics that are required. It's pretty clearly motivated reasoning, saying, "I really think we should have an Air Force; how do I torture the Constitution (and my own interpretive system) in order to get the result I want?"
I thought that was actually the crony capitalism business. Crony capitalists want growth of the administrative state and presidential power... so long as they feel they have a decent handle on their ability to steer it to their benefit.
This seems counter to the actual world in which non-states are efficiently managing extremely capital-intensive technologies.
I think this is confusing what it means to be a Classical Liberal.
I don't consider this gymnastics. It's like saying that freedom of the press applies to television. The founders didn't have television and the Constitution doesn't say anything about television. But you can guess that if someone had magically told them about television, they, or at least a substantial portion of them, would have said that television counts. So you read "press" as including television. Likewise, you should read "army" or "navy" as including the Air Force.
It's true that the Air Force can do things that the army and navy don't, but it's also true that television can do things that printed newspapers can't. That's not really a reason to say that television doesn't have freedom of the press. Also, the exact terminology is irrelevant; if we had by happenstance of language called the Air Force the Flying Navy, that wouldn't change anything.
(Notice that "if they had heard of it, would they count it?" is not the same as "they hadn't heard of it".)
There is significant interpretive difference between individual rights recognized in the Bill of Rights, due to the background of natural/retained rights tradition, as compared to enumerated, limited powers of government. In fact, much jurisprudence actually roots rights WRT television in the free speech clause. Whether or not that is accurate, and whether there should be more of a revival of the free press clause, is above my pay grade (though I have thoughts). But the entire interpretive framework is significantly different from the first step.
The founders did seem to think that there was a meaningful difference between Armies and Navies, naming them separately rather than some unified term and including entirely separate clauses addressing particulars of each. I also agree that if we called the Navy the Floating Army, it probably wouldn't turn the Navy into an Army for purposes of the Constitution. So, I guess my first question is... is the Air Force a Flying Army or a Flying Navy? Because I'm not sure which Constitutional clauses apply to it.
Sure, but that seems to substantially agrere with the person who was using "gymnastics".
If you aren't sure which one it comes under, that's different from not thinking it counts at all. It seems unlikely that the founders would think the Constitution doesn't allow for an air force at all just because you're not sure exactly which thing it's most similar to.
I like how you fail to quote the remainder of that paragraph. The criticism of such a position. But I would go further. The clauses which distinguish between Armies and Navies aren't really providing separate "powers"; that bit was mostly done already. There's some notion of "powers" here, but it's more that they're outlining substantially different modes of operation within the government, speaking even of constraints.
I mean, you're the one saying that it counts under one of them. Which one? Why? Do you think it's both somehow? How?
Not "just because". Primarily, it doesn't allow for it, because it's just not in there! It's nowhere to be found! Instead, you're trying to say, "Well... I think it's kinda like these other things... but I can figure out which one or how, what rules will apply, etc., because, well, it's not in there anywhere." The straining gets more obvious every time you try to patch the hole without actually amending the Constitution and patching the hole. Wouldn't it be vastly mentally easier to just amend the Constitution and patch the hole rather than try to continue juggling such epicycles in your head? A proposed amendment could even use more generic language that actually enables future military forces of
It's not in there in the same way that radio, television, and the Internet are not in freedom of speech or the press. Do we really need to have a new amendment just to keep the government from censoring the radio? The founders thought that the categories they were using were exhaustive, even if the future proved that to be wrong.
How would that work? Remember, your idea doesn't go by wording--if the air force were called a Flying Navy that wouldn't make a difference. So no matter how generic the law made the category, you could always claim "this new thing isn't enough like the category they described, so it isn't included". Suppose the Constitution said that freedom of speech applies to all communications media. When radio was invented, you could still say that the Constitution doesn't apply to radio. Sure, the words "communications medium" now include radio, but we're not going by words, we're going by meaning, and the Founders clearly didn't mean to include radio.
Now please answer the actual question? We have specific rules (that are different) for Armies and Navies. Which set of rules applies to the Air Force?
Hold up. The words you choose for your Constitution do matter.
This is an after-the-fact naming convention, trying to shoehorn something into the Constitution that isn't there. You can just use different, possibly more general, wording in your Constitution. How general you actually choose to be is a difficult question, but you can obviously do it.
You figure it out, by deciding which one it's more similar to based on the Founders' intentions. Obviously this process has some uncertainty, and it leaves room for decisions that may ultimately be arbitrary. But it doesn't leave unlimited room; you can't just say "it doesn't mention the air force so we can't have one at all", just like you can't say "television doesn't involve any printing presses. It obviously doesn't count as the press."
By this reasoning if by some quirk of English we had actually called the Air Force the Flying Navy and not just made it up, the Constitution would allow an air force after all. This can't be right either.
And you haven't really addressed freedom of the speech/the press, and I think that's a much bigger problem for your idea than the Air Force is. Do you seriously think that the government should be free to censor radio and television all they want until we pass a Constitutional amendment that covers them?
I kinda did (it's not authorized, and we should specifically authorize it and determine what rules to use). But you don't like the conclusion.
Good news! You'll notice that I am not just saying that. I've said more things.
Nope. Please try reading my argument again. This is not what I've claimed. I explicitly agreed above that what we call it after-the-fact seems irrelevant.
I wrote:
You don't seem to have engaged with it.
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