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Charles L. Cotton wrote:The constitutional authority for LEOSA is the Commerce Clause. It's been so perverted that just about anything the U.S. Congress wants to do will be found constitutional, if it based upon the Commerce Clause.

I was just thinking about this earlier today. How did its meaning get so muddled? Was there a specific SCOTUS decision, or a series of them, or did congress just want a way to get more authority and they figured the commerce clause was vague enough to give it to them? Something else that I haven't thought of? All of the above? Also, what would have to be done to fix it? Could congress just pass a law defining it more clearly, or is a full-on constitutional amendment required? (Not that anyone in congress would ever vote to take away their own power...)

Edit: Or could a reversal of some number of SCOTUS decisions do it?

I heard that Washington state has a bill to let 18 year olds get carry licenses. That would fix that problem if they pass it.

Dave2 wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:The constitutional authority for LEOSA is the Commerce Clause. It's been so perverted that just about anything the U.S. Congress wants to do will be found constitutional, if it based upon the Commerce Clause.

I was just thinking about this earlier today. How did its meaning get so muddled? Was there a specific SCOTUS decision, or a series of them, or did congress just want a way to get more authority and they figured the commerce clause was vague enough to give it to them? Something else that I haven't thought of? All of the above? Also, what would have to be done to fix it? Could congress just pass a law defining it more clearly, or is a full-on constitutional amendment required? (Not that anyone in congress would ever vote to take away their own power...)

Edit: Or could a reversal of some number of SCOTUS decisions do it?

It has been a series of decisions since Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court by adding enough judges to get his unconstitutional plan to get us out of the Great Depression past a constitutional challenge. He was loosing until the court packing plan was clearly going to pass Congress. Some people think FDR was the person who saved the U.S. and got us out of the depression. He wasn't; he was a criminal who cared nothing about the constitution and who violated federal law in shipping war material to England during WWII. He can be credited as being the beginning of the end of constitutional government in the United States. He was hands down the worst thing that ever happened to the United States. (My mother is spinning in her grave now. Sorry Mom, I'm right and you were wrong.)


Chas.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:

Dave2 wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:The constitutional authority for LEOSA is the Commerce Clause. It's been so perverted that just about anything the U.S. Congress wants to do will be found constitutional, if it based upon the Commerce Clause.

I was just thinking about this earlier today. How did its meaning get so muddled? Was there a specific SCOTUS decision, or a series of them, or did congress just want a way to get more authority and they figured the commerce clause was vague enough to give it to them? Something else that I haven't thought of? All of the above? Also, what would have to be done to fix it? Could congress just pass a law defining it more clearly, or is a full-on constitutional amendment required? (Not that anyone in congress would ever vote to take away their own power...)

Edit: Or could a reversal of some number of SCOTUS decisions do it?

It has been a series of decisions since Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court by adding enough judges to get his unconstitutional plan to get us out of the Great Depression past a constitutional challenge. He was loosing until the court packing plan was clearly going to pass Congress.

Oh that's interesting... I didn't even know that the number of SC justices could be changed... Hmm...

So with the Commerce Clause letting Congress do whatever they want, what's the practical point of having separate states? I am being somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but surely I'm not the first person to wonder. If I were to ask a SC justice who supported this broad interpretation, would he or she have an actual answer (however incorrect it may be), or would they just talk at me about obscure legalese, constitutional theory, and question-dodging until I got bored and left?

They ruled that growing food in your own garden was interstate commerce, even if you don't sell it, so the Feds can regulate growing corn or tomatoes to feed your own family.

I don't know if the justices were crazy, stupid, or morally bankrupt. If I had to guess, it would be the third option, because it seems more likely than a majority of SCOTUS being non compos mentis.

Dave2 wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:The constitutional authority for LEOSA is the Commerce Clause. It's been so perverted that just about anything the U.S. Congress wants to do will be found constitutional, if it based upon the Commerce Clause.

I was just thinking about this earlier today. How did its meaning get so muddled? Was there a specific SCOTUS decision, or a series of them, or did congress just want a way to get more authority and they figured the commerce clause was vague enough to give it to them? Something else that I haven't thought of? All of the above? Also, what would have to be done to fix it? Could congress just pass a law defining it more clearly, or is a full-on constitutional amendment required? (Not that anyone in congress would ever vote to take away their own power...)

Edit: Or could a reversal of some number of SCOTUS decisions do it?

It started with Wickard v. Filburn, which said that the federal government could prohibit a farmer from growing wheat for his own use because it had an interest in controlling the price of wheat during the Depression (and if he grew his own he could buy less, thus affecting supply and demand). There have been a number of cases since then, including a couple from the Rehnquist court limiting the reach of the Commerce Clause (specifically Lopez and Morrison), but culminating with Gonzales v. Raich, which was a medical marijuana case where the patient was prosecuted for growing marijuana for her own use. The outcome of that decision was basically that if Congress claimed that an activity had any impact on commerce they could regulate it.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

The inconvenient truth is when Congress claims justification in the commerce clause, at least nine times out of ten, they're intentionally and knowingly acting against the US Constitution. Instead of honoring their promise to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States" they are undermining and attacking it, and choosing of their own free will to become one of the "enemies, foreign and domestic" named in that oath. The solution to the problem is unpleasant but obvious.

http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/oathoffice.html

Ameer wrote:The inconvenient truth is when Congress claims justification in the commerce clause, at least nine times out of ten, they're intentionally and knowingly acting against the US Constitution. Instead of honoring their promise to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States" they are undermining and attacking it, and choosing of their own free will to become one of the "enemies, foreign and domestic" named in that oath. The solution to the problem is unpleasant but obvious.

What's unpleasant about an amendment to clarify it, or the SCOTUS reversing itself? I would probably tie up the courts for years while they sort out what parts of which laws are still valid. It'd be facinating for people who are interested in how our government is supposed to work to watch, though.

We don't need another amendment. We need to make them obey the first ten. That could get unpleasant but Thomas Jefferson warned us about that.

hirundo82 wrote:It started with Wickard v. Filburn, which said that the federal government could prohibit a farmer from growing wheat for his own use because it had an interest in controlling the price of wheat during the Depression (and if he grew his own he could buy less, thus affecting supply and demand).

That, as my roomate would say, is a load of horse feathers. Makes me want to start a wheat farm exclusively for personal use, and double dog dare them to sue me over it. Can they make it illegal to make my own clothes or furniture? It might affect the prices for those goods, too. Why are we allowed to bake our own cakes? The bakeries need our support in these tough economic times! I'm gonna stop now before I violate the forum's obscenity rules.

Charles L. Cotton wrote: It has been a series of decisions since Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court by adding enough judges to get his unconstitutional plan to get us out of the Great Depression past a constitutional challenge. He was loosing until the court packing plan was clearly going to pass Congress. Some people think FDR was the person who saved the U.S. and got us out of the depression. He wasn't; he was a criminal who cared nothing about the constitution and who violated federal law in shipping war material to England during WWII. He can be credited as being the beginning of the end of constitutional government in the United States. He was hands down the worst thing that ever happened to the United States. (My mother is spinning in her grave now. Sorry Mom, I'm right and you were wrong.)


Chas.

AMEN!!!

One of the worst if not the worst president this country has had. I think the current one is trying to be worse.

Ameer wrote:We don't need another amendment. We need to make them obey the first ten. That could get unpleasant but Thomas Jefferson warned us about that.

Forum Rule 4 wrote:4. No posting of messages promoting illegal conduct.

Stop now.
Chas.

Dave2 wrote:

hirundo82 wrote:It started with Wickard v. Filburn, which said that the federal government could prohibit a farmer from growing wheat for his own use because it had an interest in controlling the price of wheat during the Depression (and if he grew his own he could buy less, thus affecting supply and demand).

That, as my roomate would say, is a load of horse feathers. Makes me want to start a wheat farm exclusively for personal use, and double dog dare them to sue me over it. Can they make it illegal to make my own clothes or furniture? It might affect the prices for those goods, too. Why are we allowed to bake our own cakes? The bakeries need our support in these tough economic times! I'm gonna stop now before I violate the forum's obscenity rules.

The Commerce Clause has been distorted so much that the federal government can basically do whatever it wants, and it will get even worse if the challenges to the individual mandate of ObamaCare fail.

As Justice Thomas said in his dissent to the decision in Raich,

If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not because it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress' Article I powers -- as expanded by the Necessary and Proper Clause -- have no meaningful limits.

Ameer wrote:We don't need another amendment. We need to make them obey the first ten.

Unfortunately the Supreme Court has decreed that the 9th and 10th amendments, which are supposed to constrain federal power, are pointless.

The principles on which the Constitution was based have been turned on their head. The federal government is no longer one of enumerated powers thanks to the decisions regarding the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. At the same time, the Court refuses to recognize that we the people, and the states, have any rights which are not enumerated in the Constitution, which is counter to the 9th and 10th Amendments.

hirundo82 wrote:As Justice Thomas said in his dissent to the decision in Raich,

If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not because it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress' Article I powers -- as expanded by the Necessary and Proper Clause -- have no meaningful limits.

Many Americans believe that the federal government can do anything it wants and there's nothing anyone can do about it. (The really sad part is that many Americans see nothing unconstitutional about it.) Our only recourse is to vote out the offenders. (And many would claim that doesn't do any good because we just replace them with more of the same.)

Thomas Jefferson said

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild and government to gain ground.