Posted on 06/06/2005 4:41:40 AM PDT by gieriscm
What you say would be applicable to the prior SC decision on medical mj.
I don't think you understand the constitutional issues involved in Raich.
Let's start with states' rights. I live in a socially conservative state near Califonia. My fellow citizens and I don't want California's gay marriage or its drug culture overwhelming our state. Any law or court decision that loosens constraints on California in these matters reverberates far beyond its borders (in the case of marijuana, read: commerce clause) and deluges states like mine, compromising our right to govern ourselves as we see fit within our own borders.
That's why we were opposed to the Texas sodomy decision (other Constitutional provisions make that loss a tough one to deal with from our point of view) and why we support this one.
States' rights says little states like mine support decisions, and amendments, and court decisions that preserve our right to govern ourselves.
I would have joined the dissenters in this case if it had pertained to a California-specific issue. But marijuana is not a California-specific ossue. It is even more than a national problem. It is an international problem. As such, any support a powerful state like California gives the pro-marijuana forces necessarily undermines the stability of my own state.
States' rights? You bet!
You're not very conservative, are you?
That rant easily makes my "Top 10 Dumbest Arguments I've Ever Seen On FR" list.
We don't want California-style gay rights or its drug culture in our state.
That's social conservatism.
Your ad hominem argument is very strong though.
You social "conservatives" are as dangerous to the Constitution as domestic liberals who happen to be right about foreign policy.
The potheads certainly aren't.
Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon, which are the three States bordering California, all have medical marijuana programs. Now, you did say "near", but for a "States Rights" guy, you sure are quick to support Federal intervention in the decsions by people in other States.
Any law or court decision that loosens constraints on California in these matters reverberates far beyond its borders (in the case of marijuana, read: commerce clause) and deluges states like mine, compromising our right to govern ourselves as we see fit within our own borders.
And by doing so, you place youself squarely on the side of the New Deal living breathing Constitution, as well as LBJ's Great Society. (mj prohibition also uses the general Welfare Clause).
I would have joined the dissenters in this case if it had pertained to a California-specific issue. But marijuana is not a California-specific issue. It is even more than a national problem.
I thought judges were supposed to rule on the constitutionality of the law, rather than second guess the wisdom of the law, as you seem to be suggesting you would do. Isn't that judicial activism?
Get busy and quit whining.
Wrong. It is people like you who favor a strong federal government who make the overturning of Roe v. Wade much harder than it has to be.
I thought it was a lousy ad hominem. Ad hominems are supposed to attack the person making the argument (usually over something unrelated to or tangential to the issue at hand) rather than the argument itself. This one appears to be flawed, in that it is directed to the argument itself.
If it has some meaning, the nub of that meaning is its breadth of application. That's a question of interpretation which is the province of the Supreme Court.
Because the Supreme Court upheld the federal legislation in this instance I and the citizens of my state still have two walls of defense (state and federal) against a California-style drug culture spilling over its borders and drowning us. That's good. Very good.
Had the Supreme Court concluded otherwise, it would not be so good for my state. What happens in California in such issues has a huge impact on my state. We would have had to shore up our own anti-pot laws as well as we could on our own. We could not have held out indefinitely. Eventually the California-style drug culture would have overwhelmed my small state and we would have lost our right to effectively govern ourslves.
Pro-pot forces might have seen a California-style pro-pot juggernaut as a champion of 10th Amendment states' rights as it crushed surrounding states. I assure you, it would not have been welcomed as a states' rights victory in my socially conservative state.
Now get busy and do the hard, grubby, but necessary work of self-governance. Elect and persuade. Elect and persuade. Next year you have another shot at changing the composition of Congress more to your liking. Get busy!
I know I'll be busy making MY case through MY representatives and senators. I already am.
Yes, and you are on the side of the New Deal viewpoint of the Commerce Clause. You are not on the side of James Madison and original intent.
______________________________
James Madison to Joseph C. Cabell
13 Feb. 1829 Letters 4:14--15
For a like reason, I made no reference to the "power to regulate commerce among the several States." I always foresaw that difficulties might be started in relation to that power which could not be fully explained without recurring to views of it, which, however just, might give birth to specious though unsound objections. 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.
That's pretty much my take on it. Thanks for the ping.
Easy. To the nanny gubmint, it's just one more nail in need of a leviathan-sized hammer. The supports of the WoD fall into some basic categories: timid sheep, moralists, people who hate hippies and like to see them suffer.
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