Posted on 12/18/2014 2:20:21 PM PST by balch3
How can a people once so free, so willingly allow that freedom to be flushed away piece by piece?
Then:
“Give me liberty, or give me death!”
Now:
“You can have all of my liberties. We need checkpoints, I tell you! Just make sure that those druggies cannot get high! That’s not possible? Well just make sure it’s bloody inconvenient for them to get high! Remember, drugs are bad for them, so this is for their own good; and by the way I need permission to terminate them with extreme prejudice if they annoy me!
Liberties be damned!
Now let’s go stop those liberals from growing government!”
What gripes me the most about Wickard v. Filburn is that at it’s core, it’s basically a government declaration that it’s wrong for a person to try to be self-sufficient.
First Databank, Inc. (FDB), a subsidiary of Hearst Corporation, is the top publisher of pharmaceutical information that is used within healthcare information systems serving hospitals, physician practices, other providers, payers, retail pharmacies, state health programs and others for the purpose of medication decision support and negotiating reimbursement rates paid to pharmacies and other providers.[1]
Kinda makes a feller wonder just how deep ol' Randy's inky tentacles stretched into the "legal" drug bidness, don't it.
Yes.
It was a horrible decision.
It never should have even been allowed to be considered from the gov’t point of view.
That opened the door to courts actually considering “the butterfly effect”, meaning that any possible action by anyone should be regulate-able by the government.
The court should have demanded proof of demonstrable actual injury to whom in particular, and to what specific degree. End of case. Which chicken feed provider could actually document an injury? Had he stopped buying feed from someone after years of support? Hardly likely.
Even less likely that it would be a feed provider in another state, given that there were local providers all around him.
QED
So where are all the articles regarding the dangers of alcohol and smoking which have caused a great deal more harm (except for the consequences of excessive criminalization) than has marijuana.
In addition, has anyone looked at a large Colorado map and counted how many secondary, tertiary and dirt roads there are that cross the state line into other states? I was talking to an old guy who when young was living in Iowa where liquor by the drink was illegal in those days. He and others used to make the back road run up to Albert Lee (Minnesota?) to bring back large quantities of booze. All booze in Iowa was supposed to be bought in the state liquor store which collected the taxes. He said he and others were never/rarely caught.
There is the saying. Show a carpenter a problem and he reaches for a hammer. Since most legislators are lawyers, there immediate reaction to any civic problem is to create a new law. We now need to have lawyers/candidates who pledge to examine and eliminate a certain number of laws every year they are in office.
After tremendous snowfalls in the mid-Atlantic a few years ago, lawmakers in one jurisdiction were proposing draconian snow shoveling laws with major fines. Fortunately, other folks and especially the elderly said this would really hurt a lot of people who could not do the shoveling themselves nor find someone after a major storm to do the work within the time limit before fines kicked in. The idea was dropped in favor of having civic leaders leading the call for the able bodied to come out and help get the sidewalks cleared and check on their older neighbors.
Hi Marie: I am sorry to hear about your severe pain and medical issues. Have you Googled “Non-narcotic and natural means of pain relief”? If you have not tried supplements targeting specific problems, you should look into it. Therapeutic nutrition can really help strengthen bones and the immune system. If you would like to tell me more about your condition and get some ideas from me, please feel free to private message me. Forty-five years ago I was the victim of a violent crime. I had insomnia for a year and my health took a nosedive. My mother gave me some nutrition books by Adelle Davis. I read them and applied what I thought would help. The results were significant. I needed two hours less sleep a night, so spent 1 1/2 hours every night for 2 years reading everything I could find on therapeutic nutrition. Then for 10 years I counseled people who were not being helped by conventional medicine with a lot of good results.
I was not talking about the Feds, I was talking about the State.
Have you never heard of drug addiction?
“You cannot have it both ways. If the Commerce Clause applies to intrastate marijuana regulation, it applies to all other regulations of intrastate commerce.”
Not sure where you are heading with your argument. “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States”. What pray tell does “among the several states” mean based on your “interpretation”? Are you saying that Congress doesn’t have the power to regulate drugs passing between states or through states, regardless of origin?
“Eliminating 95% of the illegal distribution without legalization is a utopian pipe-dream; even the world’s police states have drug problems. The way we eliminated the illegal distribution of alcohol was to end Prohibition.”
Oh, I see. So let’s make everything legal to avoid having to enforce the laws.
No, prohibition was ended because government attempted to make drinking, an American pastime, illegal. I don’t recall the framing fathers ever heading over to their favorite pub to smoke a joint and get high.
The commerce clause is designed to encourage trade and protect neighboring states.
What you are saying is Mary is not involved in interstate commerce, and that she doesn’t affect her state. That’s a lie. Mary IS involved in interstate commerce. It starts with one Mary, then two. And so forth. When does it end? What’s the cutoff? 1000 Marys’? 20,000? 2,000,000 Marys’?
While I’ll heartily agree the feds often overreach (federal land grabs, EPA, welfare programs, etc.), I don’t agree that the feds are overreaching in their attempts to keep the laws of commerce fair, regulated, and equal amongst the few states. War or no war against drugs, there’s a very good reason why they were made illegal in the first place. Those reasons haven’t changed, regardless of what potheads or libertarians say. We’ve all heard this same story before. “States can take care of themselves.” Really? Like California? How about New York? What about New Mexico? Contrary to the libertarian snot rag that keeps getting passed around, these states DO impact their neighbors with poor commerce legislation. What’s their recourse other than having to constantly plead with the courts to keep their neighbors in check?
Not sure where you are heading with your argument.
Did you not see the fallout from Raich that I cited in the Stewart case? Because of the SCOTUS ruling on intrastate marijuana regulation, the Ninth Circuit had to reverse itself and extend the reach of the Commerce Clause to apply to intrastate gun manufacture.
What pray tell does “among the several states” mean based on your “interpretation”? Are you saying that Congress doesn’t have the power to regulate drugs passing between states or through states, regardless of origin?
I'm saying Congress has power to regulate interstate commerce as it was originally understood. If you are interested in further education on the subject, read Gibbons v Ogden, 1824. Here is an excerpt from the decision concerning state inspection laws =>
That inspection laws may have a remote and considerable influence on commerce, will not be denied; but that a power to regulate commerce is the source from which the right to pass them is derived, cannot be admitted. The object of inspection laws, is to improve the quality of articles produced by the labour of a country; to fit them for exportation; or, it may be, for domestic use. They act upon the subject before it becomes an article of foreign commerce, or of commerce among the States, and prepare it for that purpose.
They form a portion of that immense mass of legislation, which embraces everything within the territory of a State, not surrendered to the general government: all which can be most advantageously exercised by the States themselves.
Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description, as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass.
No direct general power over these objects is granted to Congress; and, consequently, they remain subject to State legislation.
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_3_commerces16.html
Oh, I see. So let’s make everything legal to avoid having to enforce the laws.
No, let's make non-rights-violating acts legal to not only avoid the direct costs of enforcing laws against them, but to avoid enriching criminals and spitting on the principle of limited government.
No, prohibition was ended because government attempted to make drinking, an American pastime, illegal.
44% of Americans have used pot - sounds like an American pastime to me.
I'm sorry, but there was no commerce there. Zero. Nada. Nothing left the property. Nothing was sold to anyone. So it doesn't matter if there were 200,000,000 Marys unless they decided to start selling something. If they, at the very least, let something cross a property line, but preferably a state line, then MAYBE there could be some definition of commerce being fulfilled.
For example, there are over 400,000,000 people exhaling CO2 at this moment. CO2 is sold across state lines. Ergo, the commerce clause gives the Federal Government standing to take whatever steps they deem necessary to "regulate that commerce"?
There is no end to it by that definition.
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