Posted on 04/05/2012 11:47:27 AM PDT by reaganaut1
As reported in a Wall Street Journal column:
He spoke slowly, with long pauses, giving the sense that he was speaking with great thought and precision: "Well, first of all, let me be very specific. Um [pause], we have not seen a court overturn [pause] a [pause] law that was passed [pause] by Congress on [pause] a [pause] economic issue, like health care, that I think most people would clearly consider commerce. A law like that has not been overturned [pause] at least since Lochner, right? So we're going back to the '30s, pre-New Deal."
Lochner v. New York is one of the most important cases in Constitutional Law. How could someone who was supposed to be a professor of Constitutional Law at a top-14 law school not know that Lochner v. New York was about the Supreme Court overturning a New York STATE statute and not a federal statute? And then he was thirty years off because Lochner was decided in 1905.
I used to think Obama earned his magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, but now I have to wonder.
Once again, Obama should have said what I wrote a few days ago:
The Supreme Court hasn’t found a major piece of economic legislation unconstitutional for violating the enumerated powers of Congress since the 1930s.
My statement is true, what Obama keeps saying shows a lack of understanding of Constitutional Law.
I saw a Harvard Law grad last week say that Constitutional Law classes did not use the Constitution, but rather they only studied case Law.
Obama swore an oath before God and tens of millions of witnesses to "preserve, protect, and defend" the Constitution, but he violated that oath in the most blatant manner when he deliberately and with malicious aforethought made a "recess" appointment (Richard Cordray) when the Senate was not in recess. He violated his oath of office. I remember back to Nixon and Watergate. That was one of the bases for the articles of impeachment that were being drawn up before Nixon resigned.
Does anyone remember when Bill Clinton was fitted with hearing aids before a debate? I never saw him wear them again, but I saw many pictures of a bulge under GW’s coat.
Did this student produce a transcript showing the instructor and grade, or is it just a claim like ZERO’s.
Probably so, but not the one who wrote “his” exams.
“we have not seen a court overturn [pause] a [pause] law that was passed [pause] by Congress on [pause] a [pause] economic issue, like health care, that I think most people would clearly consider commerce”
Well, no, it’s not commerce. That’s why Obamacare is unconstitutional. Granted, neither was the subject of Wickard v. Filburn commerce. But that’s another argument.
“He views our rights as ‘negative rights’ which tells the government precisely what it cannot do.
He wants a set of ‘positive rights’ declared which would tell us all the neat things the Federal government can and should od for the rest of us ‘masses.’”
I don’t know why the quotation marks. That is proper terminology. A little scientistic, but it’s the right idea. I, for one, view negative rights positively but still call them “negative,” because they are.
In fact, he craves a command economy and his ideology is much more consistant with Mrxism than it is with Constitutional Republicanism.
Those ideals represent the anti-thesis of what this nation was founded upon and was supposed to be about...individual liberty, based on fundamental moral principle, with unalienable rights that are not subject to the whim of a ruler.
Obama wants very badly to shift from governance to rule.
The “student” was my contracts professor in law school. He had Obama as an instructor at UC and doesn’t think too highly of him.
“A law like that has not been overturned [pause] at least since Lochner, right? So we’re going back to the ‘30s, pre-New Deal.”
You know, I kinda sorta sympathize with Obama here. He’s thinking like a politician, which is only natural. Progressivism won the war that raged from the 1890s, through the infamous Lochner, to the laissez-faire Waterloo that was the latter New Deal court. Lochner is a punchline, nowadays, both in conservative and liberal circles. Old-time economic rights are long gone. The “switch in time that saved nine” sealed the New Deal’s practical political victory and progressivism’s philosophical victory over the Constitution as it used to be known. So what’s the court doing, threatening to stand in the way of inevitable universal heathcare? It’s so 70 years ago.
Ah, but Wickard v. Filburn only seemed to open the door to regulation of everything under the sun. Or, rather, it did open regulation of everything under the sun, but that still doesn’t mean there are no limits. Because some things aren’t under the sun, including what Obama wants to regulate. I’m not sure what Obamacare regulates, actually. Mere existence, apparently, or according to their SCOTUS arguments, eventual commerce. Whatever they think it is, it’s not something that actually exists. As wrong as is the Wickard decision, at least it was regulating something, if not interstate commerce.
Obamacare regulates the wind. It is so painfully obvious to people not using it as an means to the end of socialism that generations of Wickard precedent can’t obscure it. You cannot bring commerce into existence in order to regulate it. Not Wickard, nor anything following it, says you may.
It’s the legislation, not a possible SCOTUS decision, which is unprecedented. The administration overshot Wickard, thinking (or failing to consider) it’d be okay because progressivism’s victory was complete. It was only nearly so, not totally complete. A little, teeny, eensy bit of liberty remains, hopefully.
Though, again, I wanna sympathize with Obama on this one. We are used to lamenting the progressive betrayal. Who in his circle, think about it, ever criticized Wickard? Who in his circle bothers coming up with microscopic pockets of liberty that can’t be touched by the commerce clause? It would be as if to expect us to have studied the intricacies of what classes and/or subtle shades of skin color are allowed to benefit from land redistribution after liberation theology takes hold in sub-saharan Africa. It’s just not something we’re into.
“I recall saying a prayer of thanks to the Lord for some of the many talents he bestowed on me and prayed to help some others get through this class”
Some of your classmates might have had phobias, I don’t know. But even those can be overcome with a little work. Methinks it’s not that you’re blessed, but that others were lazy. Most anyone can give a five minute speech extemporaneously.
“The idea is that most people have never heard them referred to in such a fashion”
Yeah, but I don’t remember him talking about negative rights in any state of the union address. The audio I remember hearing was from some obscure radio show before his run. Language is used to mislead, and can do so even when it’s technically accurate. Cf. the Martin/Zimmerman debacle and the buzzterm “gated community.” But I’m not of the opinion that the burden is on those calling out the correct usage of jargon. Even if it’s a little misleading to the ignorant, it has to get to the point where it’s clearly become propaganda. It has to have been repeated for a while, at least.
“and his preference for ‘positive rights,’ meaning for the government to have a list of all sorts of things that the govewrnmmnt ‘by right’ must do for us, makes clear what his leanings are.”
I don’t think he wants a list; that’d be limiting. He wants the government to be able to do what it feels it has a right to do, whenever it gets the notion.
“In fact, he craves a command economy and his ideology is much more consistant with Mrxism than it is with Constitutional Republicanism.”
Socialism is bigger than Marxism, and I don’t like pinning Obama down to that particular variety. But yes, that is without the implied violence. Or is the violence implied? I forget how detailed Marx gets.
Uh oh! Looks like someone is headed for reeducation! (At least I won't be all alone!)
It just astounds me that anybody would fall for this flim flammery. I know the poll numbers keep showing a decline, but Barry's approval numbers should be something a four! I use to think 1984 was highly unlikely, but now I keep seeing and hearing things that sound like they came right from the book!
Check out my blog for more Obama outrages: The Obama Clarifier http://obamaclarifier.blogspot.com/
I think the crowd was trying to help him finish his thoughts. That can be tough when there is no coherent logic to follow in anticipation of a reasonable conclusion. But they were trying anyway as they sat in painful anticipation. The agony of sitting through a speech like that must be experienced to fully appreciate it.
“And how did Zero feel about nine unelected justices overturning all kinds of democratically passed segregation laws?”
Of course, he supported THOSE decisions.
Yes, there is the Breitbart video for one, and I have seen a photo or two of him with others from that time at Harvard. That’s not to say he “earned” the right to be there, or to graduate, or that he is hiding MANY important facts and details.
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