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To: ConservingFreedom

We are talking past each other here.

Let me try one more time in a way you might understand regarding the Tenth amendment.

The 10th simply says (paraphrasing) that all things not specifically mentioned in this document are the purview of the States.

What that means is that initially, the 10th limits government to those things mentioned, but we also find in the document the creation of legislative branch and the other two branches. We set up the House of representatives to be a direct representation of the people of a State, and Senators were to be appointed by the State legislature making them representatives of the state government who is representing the people of a State.

When the people of a State through their representatives create a new law, the Supreme court recognizes that law as a legitimate request of the people. Therefore it supersedes the 10Th amendment language. While the law it’s self could be viewed as unconstitutional for other reasons mentioned in the Constitution, it does not violate the 10th.

10th amendment arguments, therefore, are not always successful. and they generally fail if the Congress has either participated in making the law, or ceded that responsibility to a government agency. The court recognizes that Congress did this, and that congress is a representative of the people, therefore the people approved it and it’s constitutional, assuming it passes all other constitutional tests whatever they are.

That’s how it works, and why Marijuana is illegal or any other substance that the government justifies as harmful, dangerous or whatever..

It’s why the 10th amendment arguments are often mute and without standing in a court of law, particularly the supreme court.

In a second amendment argument, where congress has acted to restrict guns, the 10th also does not apply but 2nd does...for example...

That’s how we do things...not saying it’s right in all cases,,

The Ceding of power and responsibility by Congress in some cases is difficult to justify, but if they don’t act for whatever reason and a case ends up in SCOTUS, then whatever the 9 robes decide, we generally must live with as our representation has failed to deal with it.

It’s not rocket science...and yes, it’s all a mess that has existed over a long period of time. One can pick it apart and then say it violated the 10th, but if you defend on those grounds, and congress is involved or was silent, SCOTUS becomes the arbiter. And you can plainly see what the result is.


174 posted on 11/12/2015 11:25:37 AM PST by Cold Heat
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To: Cold Heat
When the people of a State through their representatives create a new law, the Supreme court recognizes that law as a legitimate request of the people.

From George Washington's Farewell Address

"It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield. "

If all that is necessary for the federal government to assume and exercise a power is for Congress to pass a law and delegate the exercise of that power, what is the purpose of the process of amendment?

175 posted on 11/12/2015 11:37:21 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: Cold Heat
What that means is that initially, the 10th limits government to those things mentioned, but we also find in the document the creation of legislative branch and the other two branches. We set up the House of representatives to be a direct representation of the people of a State, and Senators were to be appointed by the State legislature making them representatives of the state government who is representing the people of a State.

When the people of a State through their representatives create a new law, the Supreme court recognizes that law as a legitimate request of the people. Therefore it supersedes the 10Th amendment language. While the law it’s self could be viewed as unconstitutional for other reasons mentioned in the Constitution, it does not violate the 10th.

10th amendment arguments, therefore, are not always successful. and they generally fail if the Congress has either participated in making the law, or ceded that responsibility to a government agency. The court recognizes that Congress did this, and that congress is a representative of the people, therefore the people approved it and it’s constitutional, assuming it passes all other constitutional tests whatever they are.

I strongly doubt that any court has said this is how it works - and in any case under the Constitution the states as states are given voice by their state legislatures and NOT the federal Congress.

185 posted on 11/12/2015 12:15:44 PM PST by ConservingFreedom (a "guest worker" is a stateless person with no ties to any community, only to his paymaster)
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