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jandrewrogers 5 hours ago

It is difficult to square the notional unconstitutionality of this with the fact that the exercise of other Constitutional rights have long been conditional on age. This just looks like another example.

What is the consistent principle of law? I am having difficulty finding one that would support this ruling.

Zak 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Laws limiting fundamental constitutional rights are subject to "strict scrutiny", which means they must be justified by a compelling government interest, narrowly tailored, and be the least restrictive means to achieve the interest in question. One might reasonably argue even that standard gives the government too much leeway when it comes to fundamental rights.

Age restrictions narrowly tailored to specific content thought to be harmful to minors have often been tolerated by the courts, but something broad like all book stores, all movie theaters, or all app stores violates all three strict scrutiny tests.

amanaplanacanal 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm interested: the only one that I can think of that has some limitations is the second amendment? Are there others?

As to the first amendment: Although not equal to that of adults, the U.S. Supreme Court has said that "minors are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection." Only in relatively narrow and limited circumstances can the government restrict kids' rights when it comes to protected speech. (Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205 (1975).)

jfengel 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Why is the second amendment excepted? Nothing in the text says anything different from the others with regards to age.

And don't say "because it's insane for kids to buy deadly weapons" because that doesn't seem to figure into any other part of second amendment interpretation.

etchalon 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Because that's the way our courts have ruled on it.

Nothing more complicated than that. The courts are empowered by the Constitution to interpret the Constitution, and their interpretation says kids can have their rights limited.

mothballed 4 hours ago | parent [-]

True, but the executive and legislator are bound to ignore the courts if their interpretation violates the constitution. The judicial branch for instance can't simply declare that "No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law" means that "Clarence Thomas is god emperor of the US and commands all the armed forces."

If they could interpret the constitution and that was that, then the judicial branch would basically have ultimate power and be exempted from the checks the other branches have on them.

monocularvision 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They could still be impeached by the legislative branch.

lovich 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That’s called a constitutional crisis and then gets into bringing guns out to see who’s really in charge.

etchalon 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They very much are not bound to ignore the courts. That's not a thing. That's very explicitly not a thing. Why would you think that's a thing?

mothballed 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That didn't happen until 1968 and by that time the constitution was basically toilet paper. The answer is ever since the progressive (and on some occasions, before that) era the constitution was more of a guideline, occasionally quoted by judges much like you can quote the bible to support pretty much anything if you twist it enough.

lovich 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The Bong hits 4 Jesus case[1] clarified that minors don’t have full first amendment rights since they are compelled to attend school, and government employees can punish them for their speech.

My memory is failing me for the relevant case name but I’m also fairly sure students don’t have full 4th amendment rights, again because they are compelled to attend school and the government employees are allowed to search them at any time

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_v._Frederick

startupsfail 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It used to be worse, back in the days. See that case of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy

GeekyBear 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The government doesn't have a compelling state interest in preventing you from downloading any app (a weather app, for instance) unless you provide your government ID first.

> In U.S. constitutional law, when a law infringes upon a fundamental constitutional right, the court may apply the strict scrutiny standard. Strict scrutiny holds the challenged law as presumptively invalid unless the government can demonstrate that the law or regulation is necessary to achieve a "compelling state interest". The government must also demonstrate that the law is "narrowly tailored" to achieve that compelling purpose, and that it uses the "least restrictive means" to achieve that purpose. Failure to meet this standard will result in striking the law as unconstitutional.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny

WarOnPrivacy 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It is difficult to square the notional unconstitutionality of this with the fact that the exercise of other Constitutional rights have long been conditional on age.

Some of this depends on whether the state has an interest in preventing known, broad harms - say in the case limiting minors ability to consume alcohol.

Conversely, there are no clearly proven, known targeted harms with respect of youth access to app stores (or even social media). What there are, are poorly represented / interpreted studies and a lot of media that is amplifying confused voices concerning these things.

irishcoffee 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It is difficult to square the notional unconstitutionality of this with the fact that the exercise of other Constitutional rights have long been conditional on age. This just looks like another example.

> What is the consistent principle of law? I am having difficulty finding one that would support this ruling.

The Constitution of the US mentions age in a few very specific places, namely the minimum age to run for The House, The Senate, The Presidential seat, and I believe voting age.

I don't understand your point.

jandrewrogers 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The interpretation of existing jurisprudence is that age limits on the free exercise of rights is Constitutional in many circumstances regardless of if such limits are not explicitly in the Constitution. This is a simple observation of the current state of reality.

Those age limits are arbitrary and the justification can sometimes be nebulous but they clearly exist in the US.

dragonwriter 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The interpretation of existing jurisprudence is that age limits on the free exercise of rights is Constitutional in many circumstances regardless of if such limits are not explicitly in the Constitution.

This is explicitly the case with voting rights, but other than that? While there a contextual limits where age may be a factor as to whether the context applies (e.g., some of the linitations that are permitted in public schools), I can't think of any explicit Constitutional right where the courts have allowed application of a direct age limit to the right itself. Can you explain specifically what you are referring to here?

mothballed 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> I can't think of any explicit Constitutional right where the courts have allowed application of a direct age limit to the right itself.

Right to keep and bear arms -- federally 21 to buy a handgun and 18 to buy a rifle/shotgun from an FFL. Although sometimes you can touch federal law (NFA) and not have such limit -- a 12 year old could buy a machine gun or grenade for instance privately and still be able to buy a federal tax stamp.

Speech - a little looser but the 1A rights of minors in schools are a little bit less than that of staff. It's been awhile since I looked over the cases but IIRC staff had slightly stronger free speech regarding political speech than students (I'll try to dig up the case later if someone asks for it).

irishcoffee 4 hours ago | parent [-]

There is a difference between what is said in the constitution and what has been declared as a federal law.

For example: meth is very illegal under federal law, and not mentioned in the constitution.

You should stop citing the constitution.

mothballed 4 hours ago | parent [-]

The controlled substance act, as applied, is insanely unconstitutional. That's part of the reason why they needed to pass an amendment to ban liquor.

dragonwriter 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The controlled substance act, as applied, is insanely unconstitutional. That's part of the reason why they needed to pass an amendment to ban liquor.

The Wartime Prohibition Act says you are wrong. The 18th Amendment was certainly necessary to both make the policy irrevocable without another amendment, and to give states independent power notwithstanding usual Constitutional limits on state power to enforce prohibition on top of federal power, it is much more dubious that it was necessary for federal prohibition.

mothballed 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I just want to make clear, you completely ignored that I answered your questions and instead argued against someone else's tangent about meth (which although the government is unconstitutionally regulating as applied, isn't an explicit constitutional right which was what we were discussing) because they desperately needed to side rail the fact I was right by going on a red herring hunt (indeed, one where I was taken to task for apparently mentioning the constitution on a question that involves the constitution).

The wartime prohibition act, to the extent it regulated intrastate trade -- was also beyond the powers restrained by the 10th amendment. The fact a wartime era court lol'ed their way into regulating intrastate commerce is just another example of the federal government happily steamrolling rights (something they are especially good at around wartimes), but they needed the amendment to keep it up in non-wartime.

----- Re: irishman due to throttling ------

>Ignore meth. Do it again with wire fraud.

The question was about age limits on things that there is an explicit constitutional right of. You don't have a right to meth nor wire fraud. Your argument here doesn't make sense, nor is there an age where meth or wire fraud are legal which again was the question.

irishcoffee 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Ignore meth. Do it again with wire fraud.

You’re missing the forest for the trees. It’s ok to be wrong.

Daww, edit:

The seed for this thread was:

> It is difficult to square the notional unconstitutionality of this with the fact that the exercise of other Constitutional rights have long been conditional on age. This just looks like another example. > What is the consistent principle of law? I am having difficulty finding one that would support this ruling.

I pointed out that "unconstitutionality" wasn't accurate, because it isn't. You went on about jurisprudence whathaveyou. You moved the goalposts. I suppose I moved with them to try and make my point.

irishcoffee 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Pedantic, gotcha. Replace meth with wire fraud.

irishcoffee 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The interpretation of existing jurisprudence is that age limits on the free exercise of rights is Constitutional in many circumstances regardless of if such limits are not explicitly in the Constitution. This is a simple observation of the current state of reality.

> Those age limits are arbitrary and the justification can sometimes be nebulous but they clearly exist in the US.

I mean, kind of, I guess?

States make their own age-related rules. The states are part of the US. So technically sure, you're right. In practice, you're very wrong.

dmurray 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> States make their own age-related rules. The states are part of the US. So technically sure, you're right. In practice, you're very wrong

This is wrong. It's particularly wrong in the way that you draw a distinction between theory and practice. It's so wrong that it's backwards.

In theory, the states set age related rules. In practice, they must set them to what the federal government tells them to. This was established in the specific case in 1984 [0] when Congress realised that it could withhold funding to states based on how quickly they agreed with it, and in the general case in 1861 [1] when the United States initiated a war that would go on to kill 1.6 million people after some states asked it only to exercise the powers derogated to it in its constitution.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

irishcoffee 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Have you looked at age-of-consent rules across the various states? Boating license age requirements? How have those two completely unrelated things have-or-not changed over the past 100 years across all 50 states? Age for kids to sit in the front seat of a car? Learn to drive a car? Get a work permit?

States have age-related laws at an insane level. I don't know what you're on about.

shkkmo 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Perhaps if you had examples or decisions to explain what you're talkinh about, you would make your point better?

As is, you are being politely called out as incorrect because you are asserting someone people don't believe and not providing any argument, evidence or justification.

jibal 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> the fact that the exercise of other Constitutional rights have long been conditional on age

Which of those are in regard to the 1st Amendment?

> This just looks like another example.

No, it doesn't.

> What is the consistent principle of law?

The 1st Amendment.

> I am having difficulty finding one that would support this ruling.

The judge stated it clearly. And if there's an inconsistency then it's other rulings that violate the 1st Amendment that aren't supported, not this one.

kagrenac 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Correct. If a right "shall not be infringed", then it shall not be infringed. Period. End of discussion. That right is inviolate. Any obstruction to its exercise is plainly anti-American.

wyldfire 5 hours ago | parent [-]

If someone set a bomb using a speech recognition algorithm looking for specific elements of political speech, and I knowingly detonated it with that kind of political speech, would the act of my political speech be protected speech?

Is the act of shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater protected speech?

Surely there should be some limits on what constitutes protected speech.

jibal 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Note that I didn't say anything about the 1st Amendment having no limits, nor does the Constitution say that--someone else said that I was "Correct" but put words in my mouth.

As for that "shall not be infringed" wording that is in the Constitution, there's a whole lot of sophistic, intellectually dishonest ideological rhetoric around it. The historical record shows clearly the Founders did not mean by their language what many people today insist that it means--for instance, they passed a number of gun laws restricting their use, and the original draft of the 2A contained a conscientious objector clause because, as the opening phrase indicates, "keep and bear arms" at that time referred to military use (and "arms" included armor and other tools of war; it was not a synonym for "firearms"). And some of the modern claims are absurd lies, such as that the 2A was intended to give citizens the means to overthrow the government, or that "well-regulated" doesn't mean what it does and did mean. George Washington was dismayed by the Articles of Confederation not giving him the power to put down Shay's Rebellion ("Let us have a government by which our lives, liberties, and properties will be secured"), and one of his first acts after the Constitution was ratified was to use the militia to put down the Whiskeytown rebellion.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/26/conservati...

catlikesshrimp 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"Is the act of shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater protected speech?"

Strawman. That is not speech in the same way that yelling or crying is not free speech.

The first one is the same strawman. Making the word milk a trigger mustn't milk illegal.

jibal 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It's certainly not a strawman when it's an oft repeated argument going back to Oliver Wendell Holmes' dictum in Schenck v. United States (and even further, as Holmes didn't invent this argument). The argument doesn't change if it's "There's a fire! Run, everyone!" -- and saying "that isn't speech, it's an emotional trigger" would be an intellectually dishonest evasion--lots of actual true blue speech triggers emotions.

P.S. I won't engage further with people clearly not arguing in good faith.

catlikesshrimp 3 hours ago | parent [-]

There it is. Actual true blue speech triggers emotions.

Speech communicates ideas. It is mostly opinions. If you state something as fact, when it isn't, it is libel. As such, saying "there is a fire" in the theater is not speech, it is an exclamation.

If you aren't for free speech, then yes, yawning is speech.

5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]
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