Keep looking ....
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.
That's my point. I wasn't drunk. I was at .08, and was TOLD I was drunk because of that arbitrary number. Two years ago when the number was .1, they told me I wasn't drunk at .08.
Now, if you're advocating that a person who possesses some pot be allowed to argue that he had no intent on crossing state lines, then why can't I argue my DWI? Why can't I prove that I am capable of driving safely at .08?
I am governed by the Constitution, not by "just about all lawyers."
most like it
"Most" of what group? The entire voting-age population? Prove it.
Post 370.
We have accepted that Scalia's position is not consistent with Madison's. They can't both hold the originalist position. Again I ask, whose position is consistent with a Federal government of limited and defined powers, Scalia or Madison?
Lets say in the early days of America, the Founders were faced with a national drug abuse problem. Remember, human beings are prone to habitual behavioral patterns, with drugs being a totally destructive habit. What would the Founders have done to address this issue?
I think they would have left it up to each State. If I'm not mistaken, alcoholism was at least as widespread in the Founders' time as it is currently. (And alcohol use and abuse has always dwarfed the use/abuse of cocaine and opiates.)
Various State and local governments dealt with the problem in different ways, but it was not until the Progressive Era that a push for national prohibition on alcohol gained steam.
As to narcotics, the post Civil War era saw a big rise in addiction secondary to addicted soldiers and veterans. Yet, from 1880 to 1900 the rate of addiction fell significantly, while still remaining legal. From the USDOJ:
_______________________________
"In 1880, many drugs, including opium and cocaine, were legal — and, like some drugs today, seen as benign medicine not requiring a doctor's care and oversight. Addiction skyrocketed. There were over 400,000 opium addicts in the U.S [50,000,000 census in 1880 =0.8% addiction rate- ken h]. That is twice as many per capita as there are today."
"By 1900, about one American in 200 [=0.5%] was either a cocaine or opium addict." [end excerpt]
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/demand/speakout/06so.htm
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My calculations show that opiate addiction dropped from 0.8% in 1880 to at least 0.5% in 1900; at least a 37.5% reduction. If you toss out cocaine addicts included in the 1900 figure, the drop would be even greater.
At the end of the 20th Century:
"There were an estimated 980,000 hardcore heroin addicts in the United States in 1999, 50 percent more than the estimated 630,000 hardcore addicts in 1992."
--www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs07/794/heroin.htm
"The demand for both powdered and crack cocaine in the United States is high. Among those using cocaine in the United States during 2000, 3.6 million were hardcore users who spent more than $36 billion on the drug in that year."
--http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs07/794/cocaine.htm
Using year 2000 figures from the USDOJ, and a population of 285,000,000, the rate of addiction to either cocaine or heroin is about 1.5%, or triple the rate in 1900.
Oh, they may indeed be "few and defined", but I don't see how it makes each one restrictive. "To regulate commerce" is very expansive. "Regulate" has been expanded, "commerce" has been expanded -- hell, the definition to include navigation as commerce was added when the ink was still wet on the constitution.
Those are the only cases that don't meet the "necessary and proper" test?! A "reasonable effect" makes regulation "necessary"?!? You stand words on their head to justify big federal government.
What, back in 1937? What in the world does that have to do with today's laws?
I didn't say you would like it.
Ooh, ooh! I know! Call on me! I know!
Paging RP. Of course, SCOTUS interred the direct versus indirect arid distinction ages ago. To draw such a distinction creates an unworkable test, that would collapse under its own weight.
The poster didn't say no commerce clause authority, did he? He said they had no such authority.
I said they did.
It's a picure of some the cache of drugs found at the site of the mass murder by Jims Jones, the druggie.
Make ya proud?
Keep looking ....
Not until you make your case with the language thereof.
You could argue that they might have been killed by meteors too. But they were forcibly poisoned by a deranged drug abuser.
That's my point. I wasn't drunk. I was at .08, and was TOLD I was drunk because of that arbitrary number.
OK, either you drove at .08 or above, or you didn't. Better?
Now, if you're advocating that a person who possesses some pot be allowed to argue that he had no intent on crossing state lines, then why can't I argue my DWI?
What's he being prosecuted for? Intent to cross state lines with his pot? Then, I'd think that should be a pretty sound defense, on the face of it. When it comes to DWI, either you're in violation, or you're not. How are you drawing "intent" into that equation?
The whole idea of the phrase "few and defined" is to suggest restriction. We're once again at the point where I have to explain to you things that should be obvious to any native speaker of English.
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