Minors Tried as Adults

The various governments within the United States have a very unclear view of when a person is an adult. The right to vote, sign contracts, and enlist in the military (or be drafted in to the military) are all granted at the age of eighteen. The age at which one can get a driver’s license varies state by state but generally hovers around sixteen, with various additional restrictions in place at first. However, the age to rent a car is as low as twenty one and as high as twenty five.

The age of consent also varies by state between sixteen and eighteen. The age of marriage is more consistent being eighteen in most states, nineteen in Nebraska, and twenty one in Mississippi, but with earlier marriages being available in most states given special situations. The age to purchase tobacco varies between eighteen and twenty one, while the age to purchase alcohol is consistently twenty one.

Then there are times when legal adults are included in statistics that appear to be about minors when they should not be. A nineteen year old woman, married and a high school graduate, would be included in statistics about teenage pregnancy. A nineteen year old man involved in a gang fight and killed by a firearm will be included in statistics about teens being killed by firearms.

Then there is the age of majority at which a person can be tried as an adult in a court of law. This is where the inconsistency becomes severely detrimental. Although the laws about the age of majority are inconsistent to the point where it is nearly impossible to say when someone is actually fully an adult with all the rights and privileges therein, there are laws that say minors should be tried in juvenile court and adults should be tried in criminal court. These laws restrict the activities of government, and so it should never be the government that decides when these laws should be waived.

A canny defense lawyer should, upon hearing that the prosecutor wants to try a minor as an adult, request that if the defendant is found not guilty then the defendant should get all the other rights and privileges of being an adult. The alternative is that the individual is made to bear the responsibilities but not the rights, when the theory of separating minors from adults is that minors lack the rights but gain the benefits of the responsibilities, while adults bear the responsibilities but also have the rights.

In a more ideal world, it would be easy to determine when an individual is an adult and can therefore bear the rights and responsibilities thereof. The government cannot operate on that standard, though, and a distinct and objective standard, such as age, must be a substitute. Once the government sets such a standard, the government must never violate said standard. If the standard itself is wrong, then it should be changed. The one agency that must never be allowed to pick and choose the rules it operates under is government itself.

A Union Argument

Although it is abundantly clear that libertarians are not anti-union, and actually have no problem with unions in general, there still exists the belief that libertarians are against unions. It is because libertarians do not support special favors for unions that libertarians are accused of being anti-union. In order to prove this point, a peculiar argument is made.

In the past, there have been incidents of violence by the employers against striking union members. As a result Union leadership has sought special protection by the government against businesses that would commit such acts of violence. Libertarians oppose any special legislation for or against unions, so therefore libertarians oppose this special legislation as well, so therefore libertarians support when businessmen inflict violence against union members.

There are problems with that argument. The first of them is that union members have been known to use violence against scabs. While that is not an argument for or against special legislation, when an argument used in favor of a proposition can also be used against it that is a pretty good sign that the argument is not very sound.

The major flaw is that libertarians are against the violent crime of battery. If violence is used by employers against union members, that means violence is being used against individuals. Any libertarian that recognizes a purpose for government would insist that government use its power to defend the rights of individuals, especially the right to life and the sanctity of the body of the individual.

In such a minarchist system, a businessman who hires people to assault union workers, and any thugs who are employed by that businessman for that purpose, are all criminals. The government should therefore enforce the laws that already exist, and laws already exist to protect striking union members from being assaulted by the hired thugs.

If the laws are not being enforced in the first place, there seems a strange futility in calling for more laws to do what existing laws already cover. That is why it also seems strange that libertarians, who do not believe in assaulting union workers when they go on strike, are considered to be anti-union.

Tenth Amendment Resolutions

Many states are passing state sovereignty resolutions. Some, usually considered more "blue", are passing resolutions legalizing marijuana, usually for medicinal purposes but sometimes going as far as outright legalization. Others, usually considered more "red", are passing resolutions exempting citizens of that state from the insurance mandate included in the health care "reform" recently passed.

The problem is that at this point these resolutions are symbolic. While these resolutions will be challenged in federal courts (at which point the federal government will likely rule in its own favor) these resolutions lack any enforcement mechanism. The only resolutions that have any actual impact are the ones that prohibit a state from participating in REAL ID or PASS ID on the grounds that the state simply refuses to spend the money to comply with federal standards.

What, in any of these resolutions, will stop the DEA for the ATF from enforcing federal law on the citizens of states allegedly protected by these tenth amendment resolutions? Based on the continuing arrests of medicinal marijuana patients in California, apparently nothing. These resolutions lack an enforcement mechanism.

A better resolution would not only nullify the federal law in question - it would mandate that the state and local police not cooperate under any circumstances with the federal agency corresponding to the law in question, up to including punishments for police that do so. An even better resolution would mandate that the police arrest and the district attorneys file charges against federal agents for violating the rights of citizens of the state, and forbid transfer of these federal agents into federal custody.

It is absolutely certain that the federal government will attempt to challenge these laws. The question is how effective that would be. Any state legislature that has the courage to pass a nullification resolution with an enforcement mechanism would also have the courage to refuse to hand over any federal DEA or ATF agents. To get these agents would require an armed assault on the state prison system. To arrest politicians who stand up to the federal government would also require an armed assault. Will the federal government go that far?

This is not without precedent though. The State of Massachusetts nullified the Fugitive Slave Act before the civil war. The Fugitive Slave Act said that anyone who kidnaps a runaway slave is protected from prosecution but anyone who protects a runaway slave would be tried for violating the act. The nullification act passed by Massachusetts reversed the Fugitive Slave Act so that anyone who kidnapped a runaway slave would be tried and anyone who protected a runaway slave would be protected.

It is impossible, absent calling out the military, for the federal government to enforce laws that the state absolutely refuses to enforce. That's why nullification works, and why a nullification act with an enforcement mechanism is necessary.