Posted on 04/04/2010 6:51:11 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
The 9th Amendment is quite relevant here as well, isn't it?
WOAH...just as I am typing this, Shannon Breen (sp?) on FOX News is mentioning an upcoming story on legalizing po in CA! CHECK IT OUT!!!!!!
Clarence Thomas' concurrance in US v. Morrison
"The majority opinion correctly applies our decision in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), and I join it in full. I write separately only to express my view that the very notion of a "substantial effects" test under the Commerce Clause is inconsistent with the original understanding of Congress' powers and with this Court's early Commerce Clause cases. By continuing to apply this rootless and malleable standard, however circumscribed, the Court has encouraged the Federal Government to persist in its view that the Commerce Clause has virtually no limits. Until this Court replaces its existing Commerce Clause jurisprudence with a standard more consistent with the original understanding, we will continue to see Congress appropriating state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce."
Yours is a very sane and rational approach. Some state like Texas should try it. There may be better ones, and there are certainly worse ones that sound good on paper. Other states should try those. States who pick rational leaders will migrate towards the policies that work better over time.
Oh, wait, the fedgov runs the War on Drugs. Sorry, we can’t try your approach. And besides, anyone who wants to is a drug-addled hippie Ron Paul libertarian nutjob. /last sentence is SARC
And that works out as drugs are pretty freely available in prison.
Yet statists believe that making society a prison will solve the drug problem
And I have no problem calling out someone who tries to conflate the powers of collecting taxes with the power to regulate commerce and present that as a valid argument in the debate.
I see Thomas as wishing to resort halfway back to the original understanding - that there needs to be commerce and/or interstate movement, but once that standard has been met, there is a federal regularoy role.
Hence the feds would not be able to crack down on California medical marijuana, nor use the Commerce Clause as a rationale in situtations such as creating federal laws in the Violence Against Women Act, but would still have the powers to regulate actual commerce.
I think that statement by Justice Thomas proves that he is an advocate for legalizing drugs & turning our children into drug addicts. Anyone w/ a slight amount of common sense can see through those comments. < / sarc >
Our government DOES NOT WANT TO WIN the war on drugs.
On what basis do you "see" that?
The 9th Amendment is a restriction on federal power, it has no proper bearing on the states - states were free to prohibit alcohol prior to and after Prohibition.
From the scope of his arguments - specifically, the use of ‘more consistent’ - not ‘return to’.
Who should regulate the above vices... the states under the Tenth Amendment; or fedgov under the Commerce Clause?
Conservatives don’t like the drug war. We really hate the drug use. There would be no drug war if there was no drug use. The users have given government the excuse to do the drug war. Don’t blame the people who did not start this mess.
And you submit that we should agree that's sufficient count Clarence Thomas as viewing the current drug domestic drug war as being on sound constitutional footing and consistent with an "original intent" interpretation of the document?
Show me any boundary between the state and federal government authority that the federal government could not sweep away with that same argument.
Instead, elections happen every two years, and Congress can undo the drug war through legislation. But you have to win in the court of public opinion to facilitate change there - I see that already happening when it comes to pot, but I doubt you'll get traction with hard drugs - I used to be more in favor of legalization until I had to deal directly with a crackhead - who is now where he belongs - in jail, where he can't harm others out in society - because the impacts of his habit didn't stop with him - and such impacts seldom do stop with the user when it comes to hard drugs.
Exactly...that's why I thought it, too, was just as relevant as the 10th Amendment is on the drug issue -- that if the People proclaim their right to use marijuana, the fedgov doesn't have the power to interfere in what the states & the People have chosen to do.
I don’t consider drugs, gambling and prostitution to be legitimate enterprises to be regulated. I can understand health regulations on prostitution, and I can see charging income tax on any income, legal or illegal, but I can’t see anyway to force the participants to pay their income tax, except maybe to make them file quarterly like independent contractors. I frankly, don’t care whether people gamble, do drugs or engage in prostitution, but I don’t like the societal problems that go along with the drugs, gambling and abuse of alcohol. Maybe we could set up places in every state where every vice is perfectly legal, where people don’t drive cars and can just stay until their money runs out. Then they can go to the Obamacare clinic and receive the drugs for assisted suicide. End of problem.
Do you (or anyone else) have any idea on how the feds will react if California voters decide to legalize marijuana in the November elections?
What would the Obama Administration do?
If the Dims are able to keep control of both Houses of Congress, how will they react?
If the GOP takes over next January, will their current Drug Warrior mentality win out, or will they respect the rights of the People under the 9th & 10th Amendments & keep out of it?
I think addicts are people who make really poor choices but Nanny government hasn't solved any problems even while taking away the freedoms of the reponsible people.
It all boils down to the choice of freedom and responsibilty for one's acts versus government control.
We are on opposite sides of the fence.
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