Posted on 11/03/2005 2:24:08 PM PST by inquest
There's a new poll up on the side. Do you think the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution authorizes federal laws against narcotics and firearms? Now lest everyone forget, this isn't asking whether you personally agree with such laws. It's about whether your honest reading of the Constitution can justify them.
While you're thinking it over, it might help to reflect on what James Madison had to say about federal power over interstate commerce:
Being in the same terms with the power over foreign commerce, the same extent, if taken literally, would belong to it. Yet it is very certain that it grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged.I'll be looking forward to your comments.
I think if they had intended for the federal commerce power to be used for "the positive purposes of the general government" it would have simply been a matter of including the remedy of injustice among the states as one of those purposes. There would have been no need to consider them separately at all.
No, not if the 2nd amendment were interpreted to mean that the citizens themselves may be armed.
"Either way, you said earlier that its original intent was for people to be able to own muskets."
Again no. I said I think the original intent was for people to be able to own muskets. And if that was indeed the original intent, then what?
Care to support your contention (with a cite) that the original intent of the 2nd amendment "was for the federal government not to have a monopoly on the ability to use force internally"? Are you saying that guns can't be used for hunting or self-defense?
Why not? Everything there is out-of-context and worthless anyways. Story of your life.
I'll concede that you found a web site that said that "rather than" means "and not" in a biblical translation of some Proverb, yes.
Again, I have no idea how that applies to Madison's letter. Are you saying that we can substitute "and not" for "rather than" in Madison's letter? Let's get that cleared up first.
The question was whether you think the federal goverment has over reached it's authority regardless of your opinion of what it's used that authority for.
I believe you just accused the vast majority of the forum of either being unable to make that distinction, or not understanding the issues involved.
Why should I? That was never the intent. Under that version, the USSC never could have overturned Lopez and Morrison, now could they?
How about: "Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce among the several states, and shall have the power to make all laws necessary and proper to effect such regulation."
Golly. So radical, huh?
Come on. The whole issue surrounding the second amendment was a grave fear of standing armies, which represented the ability of government to use force without restraint. If you want a "cite", a whole treasure trove can be found here (though some are more recent quotes, the vast majority are from the ratification period). One of my own favorites is from Patrick Henry:
Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defence? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defence be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?Now I'm sure your next move will be to start playing word games on the meaning of "if". Knock yourself out.
In other words, to make sure that all regulations that it chooses to make will be effective? That's not what the Constitution says.
Because you're looking for something in the Constitution that gives Congress the authority over airspace and airwaves, and I said that wording wasn't there, so I guess that means Congress can't do it, huh?
Never mind that Chief Justice (and Founding Father) John Marshall ruled in Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1 (1824) that navigation in coastal waters was commerce and could be regulated by Congress. I'm sure he meant to restrict his ruling to water navigation ... not air, or rail, or road, or internet.
THAT'S the reason for the "Hoo boy". .
Now I didn't think that you'd be so hypocritical as to apply this only to federal law. I thought the concept of due process applies to both federal and state laws.
You both don't fail to disappoint when it comes to legal analysis.
What I said was pretty obvious. Creating a question whereby drugs and firearms are lumped together, as they were, leaves little room for making the case for critical distinction between two vastly different issues. Thus leaving only one way out, taking a pass. For those that did answer "No", I offered two possible realities. One, these people are libertarian minded on the issue of drugs or two, they did not understand the issue involving the commerce clause. The latter possibility sounds more reasonable and giving the benefit of the doubt in this case is also reasonable.
First, it was the U.S. Supreme Court that decided, not Congress.
Second, it was anything moving in commerce between the States – or anything that had a substantial effect on Congress' interstate regulatory efforts.
"it involved a farmer who grew a small crop"
That farmer, and millions more like him, would have a substantial effect on the wheat that Congress was regulating if they were allowed to grow more than their allotted share.
Are you saying that he and the other farmers should be allowed to get the federally subsidized price for their wheat (which was 3X world market price) and still be allowed to grow all they wanted, thereby undermining the program?
Let's clear this up. Are you saying they got the quotes wrong? If not, then be honest and concede that the biblical translations (and not just a web site) say that "rather than" means "and not".
Again, I have no idea how that applies to Madison's letter.
Does "rather than" have a different meaning in the Bible than it does in secular writings?
Are you saying that we can substitute "and not" for "rather than" in Madison's letter?
Yes. You could also substitute "instead of". The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition on "rather than"--
CONJUNCTION: And not
PREPOSITION: Instead of
More like pro-drug cranks discussing how they could rationalize voiding the elective process.
"The elective franchise, if guarded as the ark of our safety, will peaceably dissipate all combinations to subvert a Constitution, dictated by the wisdom, and resting on the will of the people." --Thomas Jefferson
The parts that you like.
No, it's a fairly old principle, which is that the federal government shouldn't exceed the powers assigned to it. There's another relatively old principle which is that if you're going to convict someone for intent to do such-and-such a thing, you should have to prove to the jury that his actions actually did betray such an intent. The newer principle that the government seems to be operating on is that it can just assume that intent exists from just a few arbitrary facts.
My giggling is becoming hard to control: the pro-Marijuana side
It's just me talking here, I don't speak for any collective group. Apparently you're projecting collectivism. I'm pro-honesty.
Marijuana is harmful but on the scale of harmful things it's relatively low on the list. It's stupid to smoke it. Even stupider to make a war on an inanimate object and lose. The WOsomeD is a war on people.
Taking this to a wider perspective. A conversation I had with a public defender the other day on FP.
And plea bargains are an absolute necessity when you have as many criminal cases filed as you do in this country.
Not only has the justice system failed, so has the legislative. Legislators, the media and educators tell us that if not for each years new laws people and society would run head long into destruction. Clinton's two terms created 3,000 new laws and regulations each year. Question, how is it that the people and society didn't self-destruct prior to the 1990's? Not to mention how it is that people and society are not now self-destructing without the new laws and regulations to come over the next five, ten, fifteen years. Apparently the above mentioned parasitical elites would have us believe that people and society are constantly on the tipping point of self destruction. In reality people and society increasingly prosper, moving away from destruction.
To try the other nintey something percent, we'd need a good forty times as many courtrooms, judges, bailiffs, prosecutors, public defenders, jurors, clerks, court reporters, and on and on and on. We'd go bankrupt.
Virtually every person breaks the law a few times each year. If every lawbreaker could be apprehended next week, society would run headlong into destruction. Yet with all those lawbreakers running lose society is not in danger of self-destruction. The fact is, the number of violent crimes, crimes where a person initiates force, threat of force or fraud against a person or business is a small fraction of the laws broken. For example, over half the convictions last year were for non-violent drug offenses.
If the legislature did it's constitutional job the justice system already has enough people to handle the violent-criminal load. See my tag line Nothing personal. Honesty rules. It shines a spotlight on errors.
* * *
"No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." -- Thomas Jefferson
If a person thinks they have been harmed by a person's act of possessing drugs they can take the person to court before an impartial jury and try to convince the jurors that they were harmed and to what extent so that they may gain restitution for their pain and suffering.
Drug warriors and gun-control nazis enlist and advocate government agents to initiate harm and suffering on people that are minding their own business and have harmed no one except perhaps themselves.
Lastly, it's obvious that Anslinger hypocrisy on the commerce clause.
You're anti-honesty.
The lumping of them together was done when the the commerce clause was expanded to include the regulation of them as "commerce". The question was asked in the context in which the clause has been applied.
No doubt they would have if that was their intent.
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