Posted on 01/25/2005 3:57:10 PM PST by jonestown
Congress Shall Make No Law
by Matt Giwer
Without going through a myriad of examples of Congress exceeding it delegated authority, let us cut to the quick.
In passing laws in areas not delegated to it in the Constitution, it is not, repeat NOT, responding to new social pressures and changes in the world. I grant there have been many changes in the two hundred plus years since it was adopted. But what Congress is doing is not adapting to those changes.
What Congress is doing is exactly the state of affairs the Constitution itself was intended to prohibit.
For example, at no time was the granting of the power to regulate interstate commerce intended to me the power to prohibit interstate commerce.
If the power to regulate were intended to be the power to prohibit interstate commerce then the federal government would have been granted the power to economically isolate the states. No one suggests that was a power granted to Congress.
Yet, while agreeing there is no power of prohibition, we have many laws prohibiting some forms of interstate commerce. Try selling kiddie porn across state lines with an FBI agent present and see what happens. That is the power of prohibition that was not granted in the general and obviously does not exist in the particular, ANY particular.
The assault weapons ban is the same issue. It is clear that if Congress has the power to ban the manufacture of assault weapons and prohibit them from interstate commerce then in fact Congress has the power to ban any and all interstate commerce, regardless of the commodity.
If Congress should decide it does not want people traveling between states it clearly has the power to make doing so a felony if you grant it has the power to prohibit any activity between the states.
-Snip-
Technology does not change human nature.
19+1 rounds in a handgun instead of one shot flintlocks do not increase crime. In the history of London the single most effective thing to decrease crime was gaslights on the streets. The "guest bedroom" came about as no dinner guest in his right mind would go home after dark in the best of neighborhoods.
So are increasing gun restrictions a result of increased technology? Of course not. But why the increased restrictions?
Because human nature wants regimentation of human behavior.
Regulating the arms a person may possess is as old as human history. When Romans were using short swords "civilian" swords were limited to a fraction of that length. When Japan saw its Samurai system threatened by black powder it banned guns rather than getting better guns. When the peasants revolted against Peter the Great's attempt to industrialize Russia they were banned from having any weapons.
So what is new? The people who claim new laws are necessary because of changing times are NOT talking about laws which address the changes in our times. They are in fact regressing to the exact traditional and primitive response people have always had. And the people specifically did not give Congress the power to exercise those primitive responses.
Why should Congress have the power to prohibit Kentucky from growing and exporting marijuana? Where is it written Congress has the power to prohibit arbitrary items from interstate commerce? The last time that was tried, it was called Prohibition and took a Constitutional Amendment.
Where is it written Constitutional Amendments are no longer needed to do the same thing?
I am fully aware that the points I am raising are at best thirty years away from a "concerted and no failures along the way" effort to be recognized again as the meaning of the Constitution. It really is time to start over. At present the country is on a path of worship it prior decisions and refusing to admit its previous errors lest "the turmoil be too great."
It is trivial to point out that a finding against all federal drug laws would wreck havoc upon our country. But it is more important to uphold justice in that they have committed no crime as Congress had no power to pass any such law.
We are arguing our own precedent rather than the Constitution. The Constitution is not sacred. It can be changed at any time and the means of changing it are stated within it.
But when these "forces of change" are in fact regressions to exactly the arbitrary powers of government it was intend to prohibit, that is not progress. It is not response to changing times. It is regression to pre-constitutional times when anything was fair game. Gentlemen and ladies, it looks like a duck, it waddles like a duck. I would prefer to believe it is a duck than a Constitutional law.
True enough, - however, the basic principles of our Constitution cannot be materially changed or 'amended away'.
We have inalienable rights to life, liberty and property that cannot be prohibited by Amendment.
Perhaps not by Amendment, but definitely by judiciary. There is the greatest threat to liberty and property rights.
...and a threat to life if you just happen to be unborn.
Unnngh.
This person is spouting a load of claptrap.
I WANT the laws he's objecting to, and so do the majority of Americans.
If it were not possible to pass a law to outlaw kiddie porn, for example, it would continue to exist. How does that serve the interests of our citizenry?
I am not personally in favor of legalizing drugs.
There are some criminal laws that are enhanced by uniformity, and thus I support the right of Congress to pass them.
I've been saying for years now that we need to have a Constitutional Convention once again, to review the US Code. All codes found not to be in compliance with the Constitution should be rescinded.
Unfortunately, when Congress finds that it cannot pass a law they merely pass a regulation. If Congress doesn't pass one or the other, then we still have the judiciary who now writes their own laws.
Bear in mind that all of those rights are qualified in the Bill of Rights and in the 14th Amendment.
No person shall [...] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. - 5th Amendment
No State shall [...] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; [...] - 14th Amendment
That's not to say that I don't agree that the Commerce Clause has been abused beyond all recognition. I simply think it's important to understand that the Constitution qualifies many of the rights that it enumerates.
I am of the opposite opinion. I believe that most people are smart enough to make up their own minds about whether or not they will do drugs and the law is no deterrence to most of the population. The injustices done in the name of the WOD and the numerous powers that the federal government has granted itself far outweigh the benefits, not to mention the lives and freedoms lost.
The WOD is a complete, total, and utter failure, just like Prohibition was but at least we had the sense to repeal the 18th Amendment and let the states decide how to handle alcohol sales themselves. When was the last time two liquor distributors had a shootout over territory? It was just before Prohibition was lifted.
I agree to the destructiveness of illegal drugs, but they are no more destructive than alcohol and the vast majority of people CAN make the right decision.
I disagree. I think if drugs were legalized, a whole lot more people would be addicted.
There are so many problems attached to that that I don't even want to think about it.
Until I came to FR, I had no idea how right you are about that.
"I WANT the laws he's objecting to, and so do the majority of Americans. "
Yes, but this sort of legislation was supposed to be done by the several states, under their power to regulate for the common welfare, public safety, and morals -- the so called "police power." What the original author is driving at is that the problem is not what is being regulated so much as who is doing the regulating.
Let me ask you a question: Are we adults or are we children who cannot be trusted and must turn over authority of our lives to others?
P.S. If there are so many problems, then why was Prohibition repealed? I'll tell you, because the problems involved and the freedoms and lives lost living in a police state were jus tnot worth it.
I don't see that a Convention is needed.
Individual States still have the Constitutional power to defy the Feds and demand [in court] that "All codes found not to be in compliance with the Constitution should be rescinded".
All it would take would be one..
Bear in mind that all of those rights are qualified in the Bill of Rights and in the 14th Amendment.
Prohibitions are not reasonable regulations, using due process of law. -- They are banns on some guns, & 'wars' on drugs, and attempts to legislate morality.
As it says in my profile, I am pro-choice (up to the point of viability), yet I OPPOSE Roe vs. Wade - because I believe it unconstitutionally federalized an issue that should be left up to the states.
If the Federal government is finally forced to abide by the Constitution, it doesn't mean that kiddie-porn will be legal, only that it will not be a Federal crime.
For instance, as I understand it, there is no Federal law against murder (except of the President perhaps), yet murder is universally outlawed. The FBI can only become involved when a fugitive crosses a state line.
It does not "delegate" this power to the Federal government, but, at least originally, the states could. Remember, some states actually had state religions once because the Constitution only prohibits that to the Federal government.
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