Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 March 27

= March 27 =

U.S. Federal Law and State-level diplomatic immunity
In Medellín v. Texas the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations is not "self-executing". Congress may have the power to pass laws implementing the obligations of the Convention. But the mere ratification of the Convention does not make it binding on the states. This would seem to throw doubt on the entire Vienna Convention in U.S. law, not just the particular clause in question in that case (consular notification when a foreign citizen is arrested).

My question, given this, is: Which Federal Statute, if any, obliges State (and county/city) level authorities to respect Diplomatic Immunity (a Vienna Convention requirement)? Or is there no such statute?

Second question: If such a Statute exists, under which of the enumerated powers of Congress was it passed? Presumably the Treaty Clause? Or a different power? I presume Congress has power over foreign affairs, but is that "treaty clause", or something else? Eliyohub (talk) 00:03, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I have not read the entire 51 page document, but this may be a place for you to start your research. -- Jayron 32 00:26, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * There are multiple Vienna Conventions: the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (which provides for diplomatic immunity), and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties are among the more notable. While the consular one is not self-executing, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations one almost cetainly is.
 * The backdrop is the Supremacy Clause, which binds state courts to respect treaties made under the authority of the United States: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
 * The U.S. Supreme Court has never directly addressed the issue you raised, but it did address a similar issue in Nielsen v. Johnson, 279 U.S. 47 (1929). That case dealt with the State of Iowa imposing an inheritance tax on a Danish citizen who died in Iowa, leaving his estate to a Danish citizen. An 1826 treaty between the United States and Denmark provided explicitly for tax immunity. The Supreme Court decided that Iowa could not impose the tax because it would violate the treaty: "And as the treaty-making power is independent of and superior to the legislative power of the states, the meaning of treaty provisions so construed is not restricted by any necessity of avoiding possible conflict with state legislation and when so ascertained must prevail over inconsistent state enactments."
 * The diplomatic immunity issue has been directly addressed by lower federal courts. In Brzak v. United Nations (2010), which was of course post-Medellín, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations was self-executing and applied in American courts without implementing legislation. The full text of that decision is here. Likewise, in United States v. Enger (1978), the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey held that the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations was self-executing. Judge Lacey wrote: "Its detailed provisions, and the absence of language requiring implementing legislation, lead me to hold that it is a self-executing treaty. ... Thus, upon entry into force, it at once became operative as domestic law of the United States." The full text of the decision is here. Neutralitytalk 03:47, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

You
When people are referring to YOU, are they talking about your brain or your body? It seems that a person who has lost a part of himself by amputation or surgery is still regarded as a complete person. Maybe only the brain is important? Or maybe they are referring to your consciousness? But what about a person who has had a major brain injury, damages his prefrontal cortex, and completely changes his personality or has no recollections of the past? In this case, is this person the same person as before or a different person even though the body is the same? Or maybe the brain is behaving abnormally and "telling" the consciousness to commit suicide, but when the person holds his breath for a really long time, the brain forces the person to breathe. So, somehow, the brain is resistant to suicide, but "you" (whoever you are) want to commit suicide. Then, who are you if the brain or the organs that make up you are not you? Has anybody observed this before? Is there a word to describe this phenomenon? 50.4.236.254 (talk) 13:06, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Your question addresses two perspectives—that of the self and that of another person. As regards another person, I think another person is unlikely to pay sufficient attention to you to regard your separate components as distinct. But from the perspective of oneself, perception of multiple "persons" is a reasonable possibility. At one moment we may perceive ourselves as occupying a significant position at odds with a significant position occupied at a different time. Bus stop (talk) 13:21, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * 50.4.236.254 -- You seem to be asking your question from a perspective of dualism which others may not share... AnonMoos (talk) 14:20, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * "You" is really nothing more than the grammatical pronoun to be used when speaking to another person about himself or herself. It makes no judgement about that othjer person, but simply identifies him or her as the one being addressed. Discussions about an individuals self-identity are really about the "me" - try Psychology of self as a starting point. Wymspen (talk) 16:05, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Sufferers from schizophrenia may have several personalities which are discrete.  From the point of view of the persona they are assuming the others are "you". 86.169.56.176 (talk) 16:22, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * That's Dissociative identity disorder you're talking about. Not the same condition as schizophrenia, although they're often confused in the public mind.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:56, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * We have an article self which will give you some leads on these questions, and a more detailed one on consciousness. I think these will help you know more about the questions you are interested in. Just on the "you", though. If I say "you" to a person who is in the room, I am saying it to someone who I know is capable of listening. They also have a body but I am addressing myself to the hearing and understanding part (although that is a dualist way of talking). I can also say "you" to someone on the telephone or the Internet, a newborn, a sleeping person, a cat, a car, or a computer. Some of these entities may communicate back. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:59, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Saint Peter & Co.
Hello, as explained on the talk page, I saw the need to make appropriate changes in the introductory section as to the anachronistic use of the title Pope. Consequently, I would like to ask for your advice for how to deal systematically with the respective articles about the successors in the office of Bishop of Rome, since these articles also use the title of Pope as if it were the most natural thing in the world... Hoping for your understanding--Hubon (talk) 15:11, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * In another subject-matter area, what was known at the time as the "AFL-NFL World Championship Game" is now titled Super Bowl I... SFriendly.gif -- AnonMoos (talk) 16:16, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * And the NFL itself was originally called the American Professional Football Association. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:23, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * ???--Hubon (talk) 11:34, 28 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Hubon -- I don't see how Baseball Bugs' comment is too relevant, but mine is -- it's another act of "retroactive institutionalization". If Wikipedia refused to recognize the name "Super Bowl I" and insisted on calling it only the "AFL-NFL World Championship Game of 1967", then we'd be taking a position that today's NFL has no current connection with it or custody over that event to be able to retroactively rename it.  Similarly, if we refused to call St. Peter a pope, then Wikipedia would be taking a strongly-expressed position that the Roman Catholic church has no meaningful connection or continuity with him -- which sounds like a very definite point of view to me... AnonMoos (talk) 14:32, 28 March 2017 (UTC)


 * This is all also explained at the article Pope. Under Roman Catholic doctrine, the Pope is the temporal and spiritual head of the followers of Christ, which derives from St. Peter being tapped as Christ's chosen successor to lead his church after he was gone.  Since a) Peter was, by tradition and scriptural interpretation Christ's successor as leader of Christ's followers and b) The Pope is the title given by the Roman Catholic Church to the leader of Christ's followers, it follows that Peter was the first Pope.  It's a simple syllogism.  Now, that doesn't mean that Peter called himself pope, or indeed anyone did, the formalization of the Bishop of Rome as the head of the Christian church took centuries to occur, and is not recognized by much of Christianity through the various schisms and protestant revolutions and the like.  See History of the papacy, Primacy of Peter, Papal primacy for more background reading.  -- Jayron 32 14:44, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

NOTE: For reasons of transparency, I would kindly ask anyone willing to join in this discussion to do that on Talk:Saint Peter. Thank your for your cooperation.--Hubon (talk) 16:48, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Hall Pass?
I have seen the film "Hall Pass", it is about a pair of marriages that come up with a strange deal: the wife gives the husband a "hall pass", a week where he is allowed to do whatever he wants, even have sex with other women, and it wouldn't count as cheating. Like some sort of vacation from the marriage.

Are there people in the real world doing this king of thing, or was it something completely made-up for the film? Cambalachero (talk) 16:29, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * See open marriage and polyamory. -- Jayron 32 16:34, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Large error in List of US Presidents page
I just looked something up on the List of Presidents of the United States by date and place of birth and the table is WAY out of order.

I'd fix it myself, but I'm at work on a deadline and may not remember to come back to it. I don't know if there's a provision to flag this sort of thing so someone else can fix it -- I get that y'all are volunteers -- but if so, can you let that someone know?

(If it's not clear, for example, Trump is not the 41st President. The order is totally out of whack.)

Thanks, -John — Preceding unsigned comment added by TreatyOak (talk • contribs) 18:40, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The ranking you are seeing is that of date of birth. So Trump was born before Clinton, GW Bush and Obama. The order is correct. And there are 44 people listed because of that guy who got elected twice. It's a strange way to list things, but that's Wikipedia for you. The normal list is at List of Presidents of the United States. -- zzuuzz (talk) 18:53, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * As a side note, it isn't Wikipedia. The official convention for numbering Presidents was established LONG before Wikipedia ever existed.  Wikipedia had nothing to do with it.  See Here where it notes that the convention had existed at least as far back as Harry S Truman who complained about the convention, which only proves that the convention was well established as far back as 60 years before Wikipedia even existed.  So no, Wikipedia has nothing to do with it; as you should be aware, Wikipedia does not create information, it reports it, and the information that Cleveland gets counted twice has existed for a LONG damn time, and is well established by reliable sources.  Wikipedia sure as hell isn't going to change that.  -- Jayron 32 19:14, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Looking at the subject on newspapers.com (a pay site), I randomly selected "30th president" to see what would come up, and the first item the search engine found was from March 1929, a debate over whether Hoover was the 30th or 31st. It seems that it was not standardized at that time, but it was certainly on the radar. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:30, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I was referring to ranking presidents by date of birth, which is a very Wikipedia thing, causing reactions such as this one. Are there any reliable sources which place Trump at number 41? They don't seem thick on the ground. -- zzuuzz (talk) 19:32, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Column 1 clearly says "birth order", but it could be confusing. Maybe there should be a separate column that gives the "official" president chronological number. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:37, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The birthdate of every President is clearly cited to reliable sources. -- Jayron 32 19:39, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's in question. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:42, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing how a column clearly headed "Birth order", in a table that is headed List of Presidents of the United States by date and place of birth could be interpreted as anything but the order in which the presidents were born. Now, clearly, the OP has misinterpreted it; but one misinterpretation does not constitute a badly labelled table.


 * That said, I think the title of the article is misleading. The primary order is order of birth.  All the other columns - including place of birth - are sortable; but the title says nothing about state of birth, president's name, or term of office in the title, yet they're all readily available too.  I'm considering moving it to List of Presidents of the United States by date of birth--   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:00, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * That table is sortable in various ways, but its title indicates that it's correct. If you want just a straight list of our 45 presidents, see List of Presidents of the United States. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:02, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Wow, almost 22 years between Carter and Trump: the biggest gap yet, and unlikely to be filled in future. I wonder whether any prominent candidates were born between 1924 and 1946. —Tamfang (talk) 20:46, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Eldridge Cleaver was born in 1935, John G. Schmitz was born in 1930, Roger MacBride was born in 1929, Peter Camejo was born in 1939, Ed Clark was born in 1930, Walter Mondale was born in 1928, David Bergland was born in 1935, Michael Dukakis was born in 1933, Ron Paul was born in 1935, Ross Perot was born in 1930, Andre Marrou was born in 1938, Ralph Nader was born in 1934, Harry Browne was born in 1933, Howard Phillips was born in 1941, Pat Buchanan was born in 1938, John Kerry was born in 1943, John McCain was born in 1936, and Virgil Goode was born in 1946. These were the most prominent candidates I could find, though I may have overlooked someone. Dimadick (talk) 12:21, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Bernie Sanders was born in 1941. Howe and Strauss have written many times about how the Silent Generation has never produced a president. Cilantrohead (talk) 07:42, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Martin Van Buren was the first to have been an American citizen by birth. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:28, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Angata
When did Angata die? Additional sources needed to pinpoint for precise death date. This states: "The only two occasions on which Katherine was part of a large social gathering were funerals: one for a friend's child and, on January 29, 1915, the other for Angata. Angata's funeral service took place in the village church." while Katherine Routledge claims she died six months after their meeting something (not specifically dated either) in 1914. Now I just need some help to know if the death occurred in December or January? I mean I can guess but I need help finding a exact source with a date or a month. Thanks.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 19:22, 27 March 2017 (UTC)