Posted on 10/01/2002 7:16:59 AM PDT by Phantom Lord
Suggested? Don't beg the question, make your case. For once.
You see, the ONLY provisions in the Constitution in relation to "Interstate Commerce" is the power to REGULATE said commerce. It doesn't grant Congress the authority to PROHIBIT ANY goods or substances in that clause, but simply empowers them to tax or regulate such.
You seem to forget that Gibbons v. Ogden dealt with real, bona-fide commerce and there were actual, actionable interstate relation issues pertaining to the steamship industry at risk. The USSC stepped in to help resolve an actual commerce issue in G.v.O.I called you on this when we were first introduced on these Drug War threads. Once again, you've proved you have absolutely no ability to understand what's going on in a Supreme Court argument. For the last time, the issue isn't whether or not the federal government has the authority to regulate interstate commerce. The issue is what constitutes interstate commerce. Since the New Deal, everything the government wants to regulate is construed in some way, shape, or form as interstate commerce.
Who said they did?
I guess in your zeal to find more court decisions to misinterpret you missed this part of my #268:2) How could you possibly say that this definition of what constitutes interstate commerce is not overly broad? You could say a major portion of the traffic in ANYTHING flows through interstate and foreign commerce, and that incidents of the traffic which are not an integral part of the interstate or foreign flow, such as manufacture, local distribution, and possession, nonetheless have a substantial and direct effect upon interstate commerce, and that statement would be as valid as if you substituted the word "narcotics" for "anything" or "bicycles" for "anything." If you could make such a substitution and the resulting statement is equally as true, that, by definition, is an overly broad statement.
Who said they did?
Must you rehash everything? Simply tell FormerLurker it was done for political cover only, like you wrote in another thread when I asked you that exact question, and be done with it.
"Commerce among the states cannot stop at the external boundary line of each state, but may be introduced into the interior. It is not intended to say that these words comprehend that commerce which is completely internal, which is carried on between man and man in a state, or between different parts of the same state, and which does not extend to or affect other states. ."
-- United States Supreme Court, Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1 (1824)"Drug trafficking organizations in Mexico and Colombia produce an estimated 10,000 metric tons of marijuana yearly; approximately 7,500 metric tons of that marijuana is intended for U.S. markets."
-- Department of Justice
Wonderful. Make an argument, then, that the federal government has the authority to regulate commerce in marijuana with foreign countries.
False, as usual.
"Comgress" wasn't even the moving force behind the Amendment.
You think the 7,500 metric tons of that marijuana that come across our national borders from Mexico and Columbia each year all gets smoked in San Diego?
Like garlic to a vampire.
The findings don't, the statute does. BTW, contraband isn't property.
Who said they did?
Are you saying that there was no 18th Amendment to the Constitution which PROHIBITED the sale, manufacture, and transportation of LIQUOR?
"Why was the 18th amendment needed for the goal of banning the intrastate manufacture and sale of 'intoxicating liquors'".
Because it served the purpose you just set out. As a Constitutional amendment, it would tend to foreclose possible political objections and/or litigation by states which had an extensive history of regulation of alcohol.
Was it a Constitutional necessity? That's your argument to make, if you can.
730 posted on 8/30/02 2:38 PM Eastern by Roscoe
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Why would that make a difference if the federal government has the authority to regulate (stop) it at the border?
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