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To: roamer_1

With respect to INTERSTATE commerce, the SOLE responsibility and authority granted the Central Government, per the words of the Founders, was to ensure a level field on trade between the Several States. For example, Maryland could not put a tariff on goods coming in from Pennsylvania either in transit to Virginia or for sale in Maryland. That sort of thing. They were VERY specific in their writings, because they KNEW that the government could and would try to regulate EVERYTHING under that clause and that was NOT their intent. So sorry, but the modern interpretations of the ICC are TOTALLY and UTTERLY at odds with the Founders’ view.


103 posted on 05/22/2009 6:12:56 PM PDT by dcwusmc (We need to make government so small that it can be drowned in a bathtub.)
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To: dcwusmc
With respect to INTERSTATE commerce, the SOLE responsibility and authority granted the Central Government, per the words of the Founders, was to ensure a level field on trade between the Several States. For example, Maryland could not put a tariff on goods coming in from Pennsylvania either in transit to Virginia or for sale in Maryland. That sort of thing. They were VERY specific in their writings, because they KNEW that the government could and would try to regulate EVERYTHING under that clause and that was NOT their intent. So sorry, but the modern interpretations of the ICC are TOTALLY and UTTERLY at odds with the Founders’ view.

That is a fair reading of the intent of the founders, and one which I agree with, in large part. However, whose authority is to prevail in a condition where one state allows the export of a product that another state bans as contraband? What is to stop California (as an instance), from producing heroine by the truckload and sending it merrily on it's way into many states that do not allow heroine distribution or sales?

The spirit of the ICC is to keep peace between the states severally, to prevent trade wars, where one state might use law to the disadvantage of it's peers. While interstate contraband was not addressed specifically, I would think it falls within that federal sphere.

Bear in mind that I give that authority sparingly, though - I stand closer to the libertarians on this issue than they might think. The realities of interstate highways, railroads, and air flights are what give me pause. These were not foreseen (nor could they be) by our forefathers. That contraband from one state could enter another half a continent away in less than a day makes any authority but federal rather unworkable.

147 posted on 05/23/2009 12:22:04 PM PDT by roamer_1 (It takes a (Kenyan) village to raise an idiot.)
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