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.
Becasue they knew exactly what a loser argument it would have been.
False. Matters of record.
I thought you were limiting the discussion to the Commerce Clause. The Commerce Clause has nothing to do with possession -- it's limited to interstate commerce.
Begging the question, arguing a non sequitur and evading the question all at the same time.
How much interstate commerce can Congress prohibit?
You don't know.
Good. Glad we've established that.
One thing worse than a hypocrite -- a condescending hypocrite.
The Necessary and Proper Clause does.
You're sputtering like mad. If there was any basis at all to your "logic", the government would have used it in Lopez. It's not like you have such a brilliant legal mind as to be able to come up with sublime legal reasoning that would never occur to them.
I doubt you could find a single legal authority anywhere that would argue that the fact that an item had once traveled in interstate commerce makes it any more subject to regulation under the commerce clause, than if it had been made from scratch without crossing state lines.
So prior to the passage of the second amendment, it appears to me that there's nothing to suggest that Congress's commerce power (necessary, proper, and all that) over guns was any different than its commerce power over drugs. I was just seeing if you shared that perception.
Helps in determining original meaning, don'cha know.
So the Commerce Clause doesn't allow Congress to prohibit the interstate commerce of guns? Or prohibit the commerce of guns with the Indian tribes? Or prohibit the commerce of guns with foreign nations?
The Commerce Clause allows Congress to regulate the commerce of guns with the Indian tribes; --- or to regulate the commerce of guns with foreign nations, both of which may be in conflict with the United States.
-- Congress does not however have the power to regulate the commerce of guns among the several States, nor to prohibit commerce among them, as the several States are not in conflict with the United States.
It is ludicrous to believe that the government of the United States is empowered by the Constitution to wage a prohibitive commerce 'war' on its own States or its own citizens.
Huh.
How much interstate commerce can Congress prohibit?
And he doesn't care. It's all a smokescreen for legalizing dope,
Not for the purposes of this tread, anyway, because this thread is about Congress's alleged power over possession, not its power over commerce.
It's all a smokescreen for legalizing dope
No quotes to back that up, naturally. But then, it's normal for trolls to hold themselves to a lower standard than they hold everyone else to.
In the case of dope, the possession of illicit fungible items that are part of a major market involving interstate commerce, your pretense notwithstanding.
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