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Mystic Power
admin THC-Ministry YahooGroup
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 3605
Location: Key West
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 Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:17 pm Post subject: Even WALL STREET JOURNAL disapproves Supreme Court ruling... |
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Can anyone say Cognitive Dissonance...?
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FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL PAGE
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
High on the Commerce Clause
The unfortunate implications of the medical marijuana ruling.
Wednesday, June 8, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT
We've never supported drug legalization, even in its "medical marijuana" drag. Still, we can't help but feel uneasy about the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision Monday in Gonzales v. Raich, which held that the federal government can trump state laws permitting the possession and cultivation of small quantities of cannabis for purely personal use.
As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his dissent: "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything, and the federal government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers." By "enumerated powers," Justice Thomas means the idea that the federal government can undertake only such activities as the Constitution explicitly permits.
Hence the 10th Amendment, which reserves those powers not listed--such as criminal law enforcement--to the states. President James Madison, the Constitution's primary author, famously vetoed a highway bill in 1817: "The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers . . ."
How things have changed--largely as a result of New Deal-era jurisprudence holding that the federal government's Constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce could be used to justify all sorts of previously unimagined powers. This can be a good thing, when what we are truly talking about is interstate commerce.
But by the 1990s federal law making had grown so unhinged from any plausible Commerce Clause justification that it provoked a minor Supreme Court backlash. In 1995 in United States v. Lopez, the Court struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act on the grounds that gun possession near a school was not an economic activity. And in United States v. Morrison, the Court struck down portions of the Violence Against Women Act on similar grounds.
Raich would appear to end the Lopez line of reasoning, since the two decisions don't seem reconcilable. If, as Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his majority concurrence, non-economic activities can be regulated so long as they are part of a "comprehensive scheme of regulation," there would appear to be no federal power the Commerce Clause couldn't theoretically justify.
And let no one be deluded that the democratic preference of America's largest state isn't being trampled here. We didn't support the California medical marijuana ballot initiative at issue in Raich. But a clear majority of Californians did. Just because an issue is "important" doesn't mean it should be a matter for federal law. Almost all homicide is regulated at the state level, and contentious issues like abortion rights are best handled not by judicial fiat but by democratic compromises in the 50 states. Who knows what further intrusions into the rights of local polities the Raich decision may one day be used to justify?
Such stakes explain why many conservative legal scholars such as former Reagan Assistant Attorney General Douglas Kmiec and former Bush Solicitor General Charles Fried urged the court to recognize that federal powers shouldn't extend this far. But Justices Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, who voted to limit federal powers in Lopez and Morrison, appear to have retreated from putting any restraint on Commerce Clause-based regulation. This was not a good decision for anyone who believes there are Constitutional limits on the federal leviathan.
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Torkel
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 23 Nov 2004
Posts: 1396
Location: West Virginia, USA
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| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 8:29 pm Post subject: |
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Good article.
Even the wall street carpetbaggers? do not approve of the people's RIGHTS being trampled upon & violated.
Peace,
Torkel 
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Miller vs U.S. (230 F 2nd 486,489): "The claim and exercise of a Constitutional right cannot be converted into a crime."
Miranda vs Arizona (384 U.S. 436, 125): "Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule-making or legislation which would abrogate them."
HAGANS vs LAVINE (415 US 533 N-3,note 5): "Once JURISDICTION is challenged it must be proven by the Plaintiff." |
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Fyrefly1
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 07 Sep 2004
Posts: 2209
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| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 10:34 pm Post subject: |
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Indeed!
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Fyrefly1
"All truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th Century Philosopher |
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Officer
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 132
Location: Upstate New York
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 3:03 pm Post subject: |
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If this had happened a few hundred years ago, we'd be in the middle of a revolution right now.
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Torkel
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 23 Nov 2004
Posts: 1396
Location: West Virginia, USA
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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Officer wrote:
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| If this had happened a few hundred years ago, we'd be in the middle of a revolution right now. |
Ain't that the truth!
When the usa was young, the citizens did not put up with any violation of their rights or corruption.
From what I overstand, the "whiskey rebellion" was the last of these by the young-americans...
Peace,
Torkel
_________________
Miller vs U.S. (230 F 2nd 486,489): "The claim and exercise of a Constitutional right cannot be converted into a crime."
Miranda vs Arizona (384 U.S. 436, 125): "Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule-making or legislation which would abrogate them."
HAGANS vs LAVINE (415 US 533 N-3,note 5): "Once JURISDICTION is challenged it must be proven by the Plaintiff." |
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