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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   27383 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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Saying something about the military implicitly distingushes between military things and non-military things.

But what are the actual clauses with actual words that go on to make further distinctions between things? Without that, your hypothetical isn't analogous.

I don't know. You could make arguments for either one.

Then at least try. Because right now, you're not even trying, and it's becoming ever clearer that it's because you can't. Because the Air Force just isn't authorized. It doesn't fit.

Don't worry, though. There's an easy fix. It's why we have Article V. Literally everybody really wants to have a legal Air Force. You want it so bad that you're tying yourself in knots trying to imagine that you already have it, when you clearly can't even come up with a half-hearted argument for it. Nobody is going to get in the way of passing an amendment to finally make it constitutional.

Then at least try.

If I try, you'll argue whatever example I give, even though whether I am right or wrong about the examples is irrelevant.

But sure.

If the government can fund an army and a navy, then when the Air Force is invented, we decide whether it's more like an army or navy for the purposes of being able to fund it. Fortunately, the government is permitted to fund both, so this is easy: the government can fund one.

The army is funded in 2 year intervals and the navy isn't. We say "well, the navy has ships that require maintenance and shouldn't be destroyed after a 2 year period just because we're at peace. The air force has planes that are also expensive and require maintenance, so it is more like a navy than an army in this regard and does not need to be funded in 2 year intervals".

On the other hand, the President is described as the commander in chief of the army and the navy. When you try to decide whether the air force is more like an army or navy there, you notice that the army and navy are treated the same way--he's commander in chief of both of them--so regardless of which one an air force is more like, the president is commander in chief of it.

If the government can fund an army and a navy, then when the Air Force is invented, we decide whether it's more like an army or navy for the purposes of being able to fund it. Fortunately, the government is permitted to fund both, so this is easy: the government can fund one.

It is not a question of "being able to fund it". It's a question of whether it's authorized in the first place. So, is it an Army or a Navy?

Same answer. We decide whether it's more like the army or navy for the purpose of being authorized. As both of them are authorized, the answer is easy: it's authorized either way.

You're not giving me an answer. Is it an Army or a Navy? Saying "we decide" isn't an answer. What is your hypothetical decision? What are the reasons?

I gave you several decisions. "Funding", "authorized" and "the president counts as commander in chief" applies to both the army and navy, so we don't need to decide. "Has a 2 year funding limit" doesn't apply to the navy; it reasonably is because the navy has equipment that needs to be maintained, which would also apply to the Air Force.

At any rate, it doesn't matter. I agree that it's not possible to give a logically tight reason that explains whether the Air Force counts as an army or navy in every single situation. But I wouldn't call this a problem. The fact that you can argue whether it counts as an army or navy, and that there's sometimes no definite answer, doesn't mean that the Constitution allows you to do anything whatsoever with it. "Has to be treated like the army or navy" is still a serious restriction on what it's permitted to be.

we don't need to decide

We do need to decide. The Constitution authorizes Armies and Navies. I don't see any Constitutional provision that authorizes entities that are in some quantum superposition, such that we only see some probabilistic sense of what it is each time we poke at some little aspect of it. I'm kind of liking the hypothetical I just came up with over here. There, I focused on the bureaucratic history, because that's what the other commenter thought it was. Here, I'll focus on the quantum superposition nature.

Let's say they just stand up a Price Force; no bureaucratic history needed; it's from whole cloth. One might ask whether it's authorized by the Constitution. "Wait! Is that an Army, which is Constitutionally authorized... or a Navy, which is constitutionally authorized... or something else, which might not be Constitutionally authorized?" I would probably not buy claims that it doesn't matter, that you don't need to decide, that it's some magical quantum superposition just because we say so. That we can obviously fund it, that it's obviously authorized, and that the President obviously counts as the Commander in Chief of the Price Force, since those all apply to both the Army and the Navy. That perhaps the only consideration is whether or not the Price Force has equipment that needs to be maintained. So, uh, I guess if the Price Force decides they need big supercomputers that need maintained, then they're a "Navy" and a "naval Force" and don't have a 2 year funding limit (and otherwise have to abide by the various Navy clauses instead of the Army clauses)... but if they don't (or we decide to not talk about them), then they're an "Army" and a "land Force"?

But wait! Doesn't the Army have big supercomputers!? Don't they, uh, have equipment that needs to be maintained? Has the Army been a "Navy" and a "naval Force" all along? Did we just not notice? We just didn't poke the quantum superposition right or at the right time or something? Or is it that if we just don't talk about the equipment that the Army needs to maintain hard enough, it can stay an "Army" and a "land Force"?

If the history of the Price Force is unrelated to the army and navy, and the functions it performs are unrelated to the army and navy, then it wouldn't count. Sure, the government could disingenuously claim it's similar when it isn't. There's no way to stop that.

That perhaps the only consideration is whether or not the Price Force has equipment that needs to be maintained.

That example was once we've decided it's an army or navy, we need to figure out which one it's more like. You don't do this from scratch.

Also, I'll bring up freedom of the press again. You've said that you didn't think freedom of the press should be treated this way--radio and TV count as the press (and speech) even though the founders didn't include them. So how do you solve the same problem that you have here, for freedom of the press? If the US government tomorrow declared there to be a Price Press which involved the government paying money to subsidize one political party, would this practice be immune to being shut down for any reason since that violates freedom of the press?

If the government declared Marxism to be a religion, would it fall under freedom of religion?

If the history of the Price Force is unrelated to the army and navy

Ok, then I'll just repeat what I wrote in the original comment proposing it:

Say, the Army probably has some folks who work on the economics of a place. Like, say you're occupying Iraq; they want to understand the economic situation and implement policies for various reasons. Let's just grow that. Maybe stand it up as its own Force. Maybe call it the Price Force, with the mission to control prices globally. Of course, this may have some incidental domestic component to the mission, as these things are all linked. Is the Price Force an "Army" and a "land Force"? Is it properly authorized by the Constitution, since it grew up inside of the Army historically? What if we instead happened to grow the Price Force out of a group of economists at the Navy, since it seemed like those guys were actually better at it than the Army guys at whatever point in time? Is the Price Force then a "Navy" and a "naval Force"?

Perhaps it does not matter which one its history grew up in, and all this establishes is that the Price Force is an ArmyOrNavy. Do we then move on to asking about its supercomputers to try to figure out which one it is?

That example was once we've decided it's an army or navy, we need to figure out which one it's more like. You don't do this from scratch.

? Once we decide that it's some quantum superposition? Are you referring to the "ArmyOrNavy Clause"? Where is that in the Constitution?

Price Press

There is no Constitutional grant of any such authority anywhere. We have specific Constitutional grants of authority. There is no freewheeling grant of authority to establish a Price Press; there is no freewheeling grant of authority to establish a Price Force1; there is no freewheeling grant of authority to establish an Air Force; there is no freewheeling grant of authority to establish a quantum superposition ArmyOrNavy. There is a specific Constitutional grant of authority concerning Armies, specifically and individually. There is a specific Constitutional grant of authority concerning a Navy, specifically and individually.

1 - At least AFAICT. I believe I still remain ignorant as to whether you think the establishment of a Price Force is authorized by your reasoning. I still remain ignorant as to what we do, on your view, about its supercomputers or lack thereof. I still remain ignorant as to what we do, on your view, as to the current Army's supercomputers/other equipment that must be maintained. I guess our first step was to determine that the US Army is an ArmyOrNavy quantum superposition. And then step two is to look at its supercomputers/other equipment that must be maintained and conclude that it's a Constitutional Navy?

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