Technically, the US is still at war with Ausland. Teddy Roosevelt's brief war against them in spring 1903 ended in a ceasefire that was never followed up by any kind of peace treaty. I'm surprised those guys got hired in the first place.

I can take a stab at it.

History. NY was once a hot bed of political cronyism, Tameny Hall and all that, and one way of breaking such political corruption was the ending of the 'spoils system'. So now you don't have political machines handing out jobs to friends.

Second, money. The city probably got tired of paying people with tax money only to watch the sales tax walk away to another municipality(maybe it was done in a real lean time? What's gr say on this?). So they enacted a 'earn it here, spend it here' type ordinance.

Well, you may be freer than Syracuse, but not LA. In LA most of the beat cops live outside the city. They don't like what they see on the job so they make sure their families don't have to put up with it, and so move to suburbs on the LA/OC border. Which presents its own set of problems if you listen to some of the critics of the LAPD.

But doesn't <i>your</i> constitution promise you liberty, too? It should not be city by city or state by state.

Ausland ruled in big ball.

Yeah, but the Toronto Granites smoked them in the 1924 Olympics.

Only because of that chewing tobacco incident.

Well, look, in Ausland they haven't even heard of chewing tobacco. And in North America, as we all know, there's a long tradition of gobbering all over the big ball whenever the umpire isn't looking. That's what the Olympics are all about: culture clash.

I'm not trying to be offensive about it, but aren't you being a bit absolutist about 'freedom'? Are you allowed to buy a machine gun in the 'outlands' of Canada? THere aren't any curbs on freedom(like smoking, or saying nasty things about people with different ethnic origins than you?)? The def'n it appears to me you're using is one a Randian would use(and Lord knows you wouldn't want to do that, so I'm a wee bit confused).

It's a Lockean compromise. No essential liberty, according to US courts, is given up here. Besides, the US works a little more Federalistic than it seems Canada does. It is something decided at lower levels of gov't. People actively choose to do this, and it doesn't bind all communities(see the diff. between Syracuse and LA). There's a different kind of freedom in that all by itself. Like the freedom for Disney Corp to give benefits to 'life partners' but also the freedom for a Novo Nordisk subsidiary I worked for once to not even offer any benefits of any kind.

It's a balance thing. Do people have the right to decide what type of community they want or not? What's the impact on the rights of the individual? Balancing act, Al. Very little room for real absolutes here, y'know?

Besides, I don't have to join a national gun registry if I choose to buy. So we're even. ;)

You fail to address the point. You has countered a discussion about X with points about Y.

I live in Syracuse and this is my understanding of the situation. Fear and economic decline are behind these decisions. For the past three decades Syracuse city residents have fled to the suburbs to live. The people leaving tend to be young families with more resources than those left behind. The result is a city that is older, poorer and facing very difficult decisions. The city has a smaller tax base, poorer people unable to bear increased taxes and more problems to deal with due to poverty and decline.

In 1990, the city held a referendum on the city's residency/employment policy and the clear majority favored linking residency to public employment. One of the complicating problems is that NY State law forbids municipalities from applying such laws to specific job titles: police officers, firefighters and sanitation workers. Because the city's ordinance covered a minority of the city's workers, it was largely ignored by most recent mayoral administrations for enforcement and many past Common Council (city's legislative branch) would grant exemptions for people claiming hardships (or when they couldn't find city residents to fill jobs).

The current administration has decided to enforce the law, the current members of the Common Council haven't granted any hardship exemptions and the state courts ruled that the city was able to enforce its ordinance, even if it did not apply to all city employees.

But that is all background information. Your argument is that the legal ability to proscribe an individual's right to live where they choose via residency requirements signals a distinct difference in the freedoms enjoyed by Canadians v. their American counterparts. You are absolutely correct. Americans are less free if we cannot have a job because of our place of residence. Americans have put up with many abridgements of their rights in the workplace. Americans have a much harder time organizing unions than do Canadians. Our parental leave act is six weeks of UNPAID time and wasn't passed until Clinton's administration. Prior to that many employees were summarily fired for spending time with newborns or providing care for sick relatives.

If Syracuse were to give up the residency requirement, it would need to make up the lost revenue in some way. My preference would be imposing some sort of commuter tax or radically restructuring the city/suburb split of sales tax to make up for the potential loss of property tax revenue from families moving out of the city. I wouldn't have a hard time supporting a hiring preference for city residents or some less coercive method. However, I don't see any of these things coming about, so the status quo will probably continue.

A public referendum on residency requirements isn't legally or morally binding, but it is illustrative of the opinion of city residents. We are frustrated that people cash their city taxpayer-funded paychecks and spend them out in the suburbs. We are frightened that the city as an entity may fall into the category of "failed states"' places like Buffalo where the state has to micro-manage the city's finances via a control board. We are more than a little suspicious that the motivation for many of the moves out of the city is racial intolerance. These fears are real and force us to support legislation that impinges on the freedoms of others.

municipalities from applying these types of laws to specific job titles--police officers, fire fighters and sanitation workers. In addition, state law allows local school boards to decide whether to apply residency laws to teachers and other school district employees (Syracuse district chose not to apply residency requirements.)

So votes that a federally sanctioned authority calls Constitutional aren't legally or morally binding when one doesn't agree with them? Is that how it works? Results we don't like aren't morally or legally acceptable and binding? Great, so when the gov't tells me I have to take their health care, and pay for others to do the same, I'll simply say it isn't legally or morally binding because I don't agree with it whether or not SCOTUS says it passes CON muster.

That's not how it works. The arbiter of the legality of said ordinance has spoken. Those trained to decide such things has given it the okay to proceed.

And Unions are hard to start? I'm so tired of that trope. How many anti-Union busting laws are there in the US? How many times have I put up with really rough tactics from organizers and nothing from management? Give me a cussed break. I watched a Union form in LA overnight, despite some really heavy handed by the management(Korean chain employing largely illegal immigrants) and the gov't come down hard on the management. What a stinkin bit of talking point this is. Now I am angry. What crap. You going to pay for the window of my mother's car and a few of my car's tires over the years broken and slashed by union organizers pissed that I wouldn't sign a union card under duress? What total crap. Sorry, don't mean to be rude, but that's such utter, utter crap.

I live in a union town(Lafayette, IN). And the difficulty line is pure trash. In places where the Unions actually are offering a better deal to the worker they're flourishing, like here in Lafayette, but in places where they're actually screwing the worker, like Oregon, they're dying(of their own causation, by not listening to the members and heavy handed tactics to stiffle dissent).

Unions serve a purpose, and they are at times necessary, but this worship of them(and the laws about them abridging one's right to work where one wants? Oh, Al, you better denounce unions because they take away a man's freedom to work where he wants unless he chooses to join the union and pay them) always baffles me. They aren't evil, but neither are they Jesus.

But unions are constitutional and not the state.

To ry:

My arguments are not crap and I do take offense. If you would read entire sentences, you would see that I said that unions are harder to organize in the US than in Canada--where the difference is signing a union card v. signing cards and then going through a month long election where companies can intimidate and fire workers with little or no repercussions (a potential violation of NLRB law levied four years later with a small fine.)

However, the issue was not unionism, which apparently is a hot button issue for you--mention unions and you start frothing at the mouth and yelling about my crap arguments. The issue is the relative freedoms enjoyed by Americans v. Canadians. In Canada, the courts have obviously carved out more rights for individuals within the workplace. In America, where courts are more responsive to the needs of employers than their employees, unions are the only mechanism for representing the democratic rights of employees inside the workplace.

Secondly, In Syracuse, city resolutions ARE NOT LEGALLY BINDING LAW. They are merely expressions of a population's attitude. They are not legislation passed by the Common Council. THEY ARE NOT LAW.

Even if they are not legislation, acting upon them (if this was Canada) would attract consitutional consideration as the protection of our rights apply to both the written and actual regulation of any level of government.

Where in the US Con is there a mention of unions, Al? They are constitutional in that SCOTUS has decreed that unions effectively fall under the right to assembly. But they also come with a cost in freedom---the right for an individual to work in a shop without joining a union(very similar to not being able to work for a city where a requirement to live w/in city boundaries). Both come with real costs in money and freedom.

(Al, did you delete one of my replies from last night? I did a long one in reply to your saying I didn't answer the question, one in which themes I'm using above play off of. It's cool if you did, your blog and your rules 'n such. If you did, well, then I won't spend the time rewriting it all. If you didn't, well, then I'll have to so half of what I'm saying will make sense, as it didn't make sense in my 'mad chemist' piece on the 'oh so difficult process of starting a union in the US'.)

I find the argument that starting unions put forth to be silly. Doing any of those things is a clear NLRB violation and an employer doing such is giong to find themselves hit with major fines and the like, contrary to the claim that nothing is done. There's LAWS against such things, laws that favor union over management. The issue is that unionists can't stand that many of us don't want to be union and that people change their minds when you aren't standing over them intimidating them. I've been on the recieving end of that, and watch it happen here in IN as well. Unionists can't stand that people don't believe their claims(having seen what unions did to the Big Three and overall employment, not to mention that management went with robots instead in many instances becuase, well, uninos did their best to make labor so expensive it was cheaper to go with an unproven technology thereby costing members their jobs---if you were looking out for my best interests I'd call that a f'd up job of doing it), resent the union dues sent to politicians they don't support without recourse(and all efforts made to do this are either squashed by heavies or decried as legal moves at union busting), corruption, and absolutely cannot stand that people like me don't want to join(but want to work---whatever happened to the individuals right to work? That's not something to be pissed about at all is it? Join the union or starve, fucker. Naw, that ain't a bad thing at all, is it?).

Unions always go out of their way to make inflated claims of management 'intimidation'. Cite a recent(within the last 15 years) case of outright intimidation and firings? Would've been MAJOR news had it happened. (As in the LA story of the Korean chain not paying overtime to its workers or giving sick time, the union forming, the guy firing workers, but the gov't coming in and kicking the owners rhetorical @55 and making him rehire his fired workers. Yeah, so hard to start a union in the US. I mean, they let management do *anything*. And they did this within *months*, not years.)

I don't by the sob story nor the song and dance. Unions have a place and they have done much good over the 100 years they've been in existance in the US. But they are also flawed human constructs that often over-reach and trample the rights of others, an ideological thing that has produced Jacobin-like fanatics.

Unions aren't a hot button issue with me, the sob story and song and dance is, people who go on claiming their the heir to Jimmy Hoffa and the Pinkertons have a foot on their necks(when neither is true) absolutely piss me off, just as anyone not being honest pisses me off. Unions have done evil in this world, and I've seen it up close(hey, shoving around a 50 year old woman because she refuses to sign a card sounds pretty gawd damn evil to me, wouldn't you agree?). Not to mention the abridgement of my freedom to assemble(choosing where to work) and the right to make my own contracts(where's the complaint of lost freedom there, Al? Or is it cool to crush the rights of an individual for the sake of the many? I'd like to hear how, given the claim that Canada is way more union friendly, how that doesn't make Canada less free as it abridges the rights of property owners and individuals to decide where to work unhindered? That would be something to hear(not being facetious or jackass about it. Just like to hear the argument in favor of why Canada is more free because it favors unions at the expense of individual freedom. I don't think it can be done without some from of Lockean compromise.).

Some of what I would've made more sense had the proceeding post not disappeared. It explained the relationship between unions and relative level of freedom between US and Canada to some degree. Wouldn't take the venom out of what I said about unions, but it would provide a context for it.

I didn't mention unions, ry. I am not following the tangent. I meant resolutions of Syracuse council.<p>No delete - lemme check the spam filter for the flotsom and jetsom of thought.

Ry, you were doing better when the admin had auto-hid your comment.<p>Liberty only exists in the particular as recognized as inherent from the beginning of time when the context allows for a court to reject the word or deed of the state. No judge with enforcement powers, no liberty....and no specific case, no liberty to be found. Don't wallow in the Lockean generality stuff. Sooner or later the rubber must hit the road. Unions are less than a tangent in this discussion as are other liberties. Only ask yourself why it is the Canada recognizes this liberty and the Syracuse administration apparently does not...is it that there a case that they have in hand or one against them they have missed or are wilfully disregarding? Or is it that no one has argued the case before?

sean: things are greatly different in Syracuse than your locale. We refer to all the towns and villages that lie within our common county, yet outside the city's limits, as "the suburbs". The towns and villages all have their own municipal governments, the city has its government and the all encompassing county has its government. It is a real problem and the ensuing turf battles cost taxpayers in many ways: several different tax collectors and no way to benefit from consolidating services and cutting costs.

There are also many places to buy and spend outside the city proper. The main concern isn't sales tax revenue, but a reduction in the property tax base: a city that is becoming increasingly poorer and facing more problems now has fewer families to contribute property and school taxes. The result is a city that raises less and less of its own revenues, relying heavily on state subsidies.

Spoken like a lawyer, Al. So liberty didn't exist until a jurist was there to define it? That seems a bit arrogant. Either it exists or it doesn't regardless of what a jurist has written about it. I don't buy that liberty is a man made artifact. This seems wholly wrong from start to finish from my pov. Honestly, freedoms only exist because jurists have defined them for us? Wow, will you cut my steak for me too?(Or was that meant to be taken a different way? It still seems awefully self congratulatory for jurists though. 'Freedoms exist only because we have defined them for you poor yokels,' really is how that reads to me. Like freedoms couldn't exist otherwise. There are other ways to recognize freedoms other than thru judicial 'discovery'.)

The union tangent was to show that, yes, everyone does this. It makes nobody lesser free than anyone else because you all force individuals to cough up liberty at some point to have a functioning society, by attempting to be 'fair' you hack up one man's freedom for another.

Dude, as Locke is just about the absolute foundation for modern republics you can't just 'toss it aside' on a whim. I think you need a better case than 'wallowing in Lockean generalities'. (Particularly when I tried a specific, unions, which you have tried to pooh-pooh as less than a tangent, as an example of the 'Lockean generalities implicitness in all trampling of freedom not taken by a dictator.)

Answering your specific question is simple: You aren't more free at all, you just chop up freedom, using the same knife, a little differently. Looking at it from a purely juristy POV is a great fault here, I'd say. It attempts to force everything thru the straw of judicialism. Way narrow approach to the issue of governance, might as well be syndicalism if that's how it's going to be played.

This 'right' was not deemed one by the authority over which jurifying(trying to lighten up the mood a bit) about freedom was given. "the state courts ruled that the city was able to enforce its ordinance," which is a direct quote from our Syracusan. Meaning that a group of jurists looked at it and found no such 'freedom' to exist in the absolute form you are implying exists(since it was defined so by Canadian jurists as such apparently.). When they weighed it they gave preference to the owner of the property(the city) over the one who tried to stake a claim upon it(the employee). Wow, what a travesty of justice to recognize someone other than the second party's rights. Get the pitchforks and torches, boys. Do you deny that the city gov't, enforcing the will of the people, has the right to choose how its money(its property) will be spent? Two 'goods' to be served here, but apparently you only recognize the validity of one.

Canada sees it differently. Fine, bully for Canada. Big farkin' whoop. You also, using the same knife to kill liberty, doing things that most Americans(well, those in fly-over country) would never tolerate, in the name of serving your fellow man by taking his property---necessarily. That does not make us more free. The whole prick waving contest of 'who is more free' is boring and stupid.

nor do I think I was that bad in the following postings. Just 'cause I gored your ox doesn't mean I'm wrong. Freedoms get surrendered or busted all the time. Canada picks different ones to enshrine as Holy. Bigum Dealum. Unions are an explicit compromise of freedom(one's right to make one's own deal with the owner of the means of production, it is his property after all). But one we all accept as necessary for the betterment of us all. If you can't see that, well, I'm tossing down the 'you're playing obtuse' card(it says I can do that in the Magic the Gathering rule book).

That is the way it works, ry. It is called the common law and without it - zippo. It also means you are stuck with the arguments made and accepted within that system. No one recognized the Godbout right until it was proven in court and made enforceable by the court. Liberty in this context may just take a bit longer being proven to a US court. And Locke never gave anyone a right. He was just fantasizing until a court made it so.

That is such BS, Al. ONly a lawyer would believe that no rights, no freedoms existed until a court made it so. Common law or no. So the Magna Frickin' Carta, absent because it predated the English common law system, didn't ensure freedoms that didn't exist because there were no lawyers to define them? Me thinks lawyers are stuck in their own little world, with little rubber meeting the road.

How about Hammurabi's Code? Low population density in his day, but did his law exist in the empty deserts just as much as it did in the cities? You bet it did. Or the laws of Alexander? No judges. Just lots of swords and a
monarchs wishes(which, did hand down to us freedoms no judge has ever ruled on(afaik) like like cultural sovreignity and self determination).

What arrogance. It isn't real until a judge signs off on it? Someone needs a hubris check-up. No judge signed off on the American Civil War, but the rights and the freedoms that it ensured existed just the same. Judges screwed up with Dredd Scott too you know. It may not be recognized by the system until a judge has had to write on it, but it did exist long before a judge has even seen it. No judge has ever decreed that the UN charter mattered for spit(afaik) and yet we hold that it defines intrinsic human rights! Are they dreaming too, until some judge somewhere(in The Hague maybe), renders a judgement on it? The rights and freedoms claimed by the Colonists didn't exist until SCOTUS existed to verify they did? What kind of lawyer catnip are you sniffing, my good man?

That is sooo out there. That's about as bad as anything you've *ever* accused libertarians of. What a whacky-@55 world view is that? (What? 10 minute game misconduct and no stale cheetos?! @#$%^&*!!!!!!!!!)

I think you have to go learn more about what a court does and what a philosopher does. The rights all exist but without their enforceability are meaningless. Plus claims to rights are only found out to be false or true once proven.

Sorry for showing up late to the party, but...

I'm going to take a different take than the one ry did (although I think he did mention it in passing): Taking one freedom that people is Syracuse don't have and Canadians do and declaring from that that Canadians are 'more free' is cherry-picking your data.

No where did I see any discussion of what liberties/rights people in Syracuse have that Canadians don't. To fairly declare a winner, both sides of the swap-set need to be weighed out, but none of that has happened. Without it, this is no more than a one-rat test.

As was mentioned earlier, Canadians do not have the "Liberty" to own a snub nosed revolver. So, if Canada supposedly protects Liberty better than Syracuse, why not this Liberty? Can I then declare Syracuse 'more free'? No, again, it's a one-rat test. It's not the full picture.

On tangents:

There is a difference between what rights you have and what rights are enforced. They are not at all the same thing. And just because those rights are not enforced does not mean you don't have them, only that you cannot exercise them without gov't retribution. There may be no practical difference, but the distinction is an important one to understanding the philosophical underpinning of most Americans. The cliche is that the U.S. Constitution does not *grant* rights, it protects those rights which already exist.

However, it isn't the courts that enforce those rights. The courts merely judge whether the legislation in question violates superior legislation or not (not always the Constitution). It is the Executive who enforces that decision. Such can be seen when the Supreme Court found *for* the Cherokee Indians, yet Andrew Jackson forced them off their land anyway, reportedly saying "[The Court] has made it's decision, now let them enforce it."

Ultimately, in a democratic system, it is society that determines what rights are enforced by giving their assent to the elected leadership. If society does not agree with the way rights are enforced, society changes the people in it. Or if all else fails, changes the gov't itself, provided weapons haven't already been confiscated (Unless things change dramatically, I give Canada another generation or two on that).

<i>...declaring from that that Canadians are 'more free' is cherry-picking your data...</i>

Please read the title to the post. The interesting thing is that this particular liberty has not been identified in the US yet. A general repetative kick-at-the-can over and over that some abstract thing is better where one has always said it is better is merely persoanal oath bolstering and tedious beyond all understanding. Rights only exist in the particular.

As for the role of the executive, you have merely pointing out again the importance of the respect for the courts in recognizing and enforcing rights. Only the courts stand between majoritarian or executive tyranny.

<i>Canada Particularly More Free Than Syracuse Today</i>

Well, maybe this is a 'seperated by a common language' thing, but 'Particulary More Free' does not read to me as "In this one limited manner" but as "Stands out".

<i>Only the courts stand between majoritarian or executive tyranny</i>

Again, no. The courts can declare anything they want to, but if the Executive and Legislative ignore them, there's not a heck of a lot the courts can do about it. What stands between a legislative or executive (or judicial, for that matter) tyranny is a well-armed population who won't stand for it.

<i>A general repetative kick-at-the-can over and over that some abstract thing is better where one has always said it is better is merely persoanal oath bolstering and tedious beyond all understanding.</i>

Huh? I'm not sure what exactly you are referring to here. You've palmed too many cards for me.

What 'abstract thing'? What this is being claim as "better where one has always said it is better". What ever it is, it seems more tautology than oath bolstering, whatever that's supposed to mean.

As far as I know, all I've said that this could be in reference to essentially boils down to: Underpinnings matter and are useful for understanding someone elses' frame of reference in a discussion.

How is that "Tedious beyond all understanding"?

Libery only exists and is enjoyed in the particular. Courts recognize and enforce the particular enjoyments. Have a good look at the constitutional discussion about the present reality of a well-armed population. Again, look to the particular reality. It may be difficult to deal with the role of the Courts given the rabble rousing against them that is so popular with pop consertative circles but sooner or later reality should set in. In fact, lack of respect for the courts as an equal arm of government has done more for the evaporation of liberties as anything.

<i>Libery only exists and is enjoyed in the particular.</i>

I'll concede to enjoyed, but not to existance. Again, while there is no practical difference, there is a philisophical one. And that philisophical difference is not trivial.

As stated, I agree liberties are enjoyed in the particular. The misunderstanding was in reading 'particular' to modify the city and not the liberty to live outside of the city limits of your gov't employer. I would agree that for this one particular liberty, Canada is more free. Elected leaders should live in the place that they govern, it's employees should not have to. To me, this is a 9th amendment violation.

Again, I thought particular modified the city of Syracuse. In that case, the particular city of Syracuse is not less free than Canada, for the reason that there are other factors not discussed.

But again, I have to say it, courts (at least in the U.S.) do not enforce anything. They do not have that power. In fact, I would say they don't even recognize rights. There job is to ascertain whether contested legislation fits within the framework of superior legislation (most often the Constitution). When it does, the courts do nothing. When it doesn't, the law is removed from the books.

Maybe that's more of a nuanced position that us conservo-libertarians are supposed to take, but there it is.

Secondly, the problem you ascribe to a lack of respect for the courts as a equal branch is likewise misplaced. The problem conservatives have had with the courts are not that the court is equal, but that it has overstepped it's role. The three brances are an equal check on the other two, but, that does not mean that all three branches do the same thing. The executive does not create law, nor judge it. The legislative does not enforce law nor judge it, the judicial does not create law, nor enforce it. (That is why I keep saying courts do not enforce rights)

It is when the court start creating laws that conservatives get their panties in a bunch. It's not because the courts aren't equal, it's because it's not their role.

<i>...a nuanced position that us conservo-libertarians are supposed to take, but there it is.</i>

Actually, without getting personal as you did not create this concept, it is hardly more nuanced as it fails to graps reality preferring reliance on a mythical generality. US Supreme Court rulings on all manner of topics by all sorts of judges property interpret and elaborate the law and the consitution because that is exactly their job. It doesn't matter that some pop neocons have decided it is their place to interpret differently - that is the throuble with pop. Lawrence Tribe points out quite plainly how the justices who are the most fervent denies of the role of the court undertake the exact same format of analysis when it suits them.<p>If further claims to nuance are to be foisted perhaps it might be with supporting linkage to caselaw (and not other pop neocons) as otherwise you are moving towards jingoism.

Interesting topic, linking from The Castle.

This liberty is not recoginzed in some parts of the US, but like pointed out, it is recognized in many states. Delaware, I believe, used to have a similar policy until a referendum allowed police officers to live outside of the city in which they worked, mostly due to housing issues.

Not sure if this can be unconsitutional, given the US consitution, but alan is right: After Marbury v. Madison it is the courts role. However, some popneocons state that putting other nations or international law into the interpretations of US law with regards to the Consitution is poor judgement

I can call The Federalist Papers to my assistance, too. And from a Kingsman as well.

I'd say that the title of the post is still an erroneous statement, even being very observant of the 'particulars'. Even if the post could be rewritten "Canadians freer than Syracuse workers to live outside city limits" and you want to confine the argument to that I think you are still straining at gnats.
One of the reasons municipalities have the residency restriction is to provide a fast response to an emergency. Police, fire and EMS workers need to be in close proximity to their work places to ensure that in case an emergency requires their assistance lives can be saved that would otherwise be lost.
Your post could also be reworded as: "Canadians freer to let people they supposedly protect die."
I'm not arguing that your post title should be reworded, merely that it would still be within the meaning you are ascribing to it.
There are no absolute rights. Every right has to be balanced against how it impacts the rights of others. I have the right of free speech but I cannot cry Fire! in a crowded theater and I cannot say untrue things about you that would besmirch your reputation.
I worry more about those types of rights than ones that say I can live outside of the metropolitan area that I serve.

Puns can't be erroneous, just confusing. <p>You are missing the only point - but as you are commenting on a blog that is to be expected. The only point is the content of the liberty right and the effective particular freedoms we enjoy from the control of the state.

The reference to "nuance" was an (obviously failed) attempt at self-deprecating humo(u)r.

However, I never said that it wasn't the courts job to elaborate law (when it is unclear, obscure, conflicting). But clarification is not creation nor enforcement.

If you insist on burning strawmen, I'll go find better things to do.

No, that is fine - do not run. I missed the nuanced humour! No problem.

Creation is a creation itself. Look at your constitution and the use of the word liberty. It needs connecting to things if it has to have any meaning. That isn't judicial activism, just implicit in the writing.

I can't take a Hand Gun in to the State of New York from another state.

Example. I move from georgia, to new York. i would be required to sell all of my hand guns or leave them in someones safe keeping.

Thats not freedom.