Posted on 10/29/2012 6:47:47 AM PDT by Capt. Canuck
The MSM is going to do what it can to keep Libya under wraps and let Obama lie his way to running out the clock.
But what if America rises up against Obama, what if every place Obama goes a huge crowd of loud protestors are there to demand answers. What if every campaign rally he holds has twice as many protesters than attendees, what if the media is hounded about why they are not covering this story every time they try to talk to somebody? What if the media itself became the target of massive protests?
Could Obama be chased by this story until he has no option but to hole up in the WH like Hitler's bunker? Could the media be pushed into doing their job?
I think it's time to move from shock to outrage, and time to let the outrage be heard and seen in massive ways.
The Commerce Clause is an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”
While the commerce clause was abused by the F. Roosevelt administration and later, to include intrastate commerce, this is distinct from a reasoned extension of interstate commerce that is authorized.
Right now, some states are arguing that if they manufacture and use guns and ammunition exclusively within their state, it is beyond federal regulation. And this is correct.
However, if they cannot “contain” a form of commerce within their state, or that form of commerce “commingles” with a federal authority commerce, it is under federal jurisdiction. Today this can mean federal highways, pollution, interstate package delivery, etc.
During the early Lincoln administration, railroads passed through many states, but only some of them got very profitable switchyards, providing jobs and taxes to that state. So at least one state both forbade automatic car coupling, and required railroads passing through their state to use switchyard within that state.
Thus the courts declared that interstate railroads were under federal jurisdiction, and could not be unreasonably regulated or taxed by the states.
About the same time, the telegraph system was built, which likewise needed federal protection from interference by the states. Likewise the FAA is needed to nationally coordinate air travel.
NASA was never commerce related. Its predecessor was created as an aeronautical research and development organization in support of the military during World War I. It because NASA during the Cold War, because the military did not have adequate R&D for aircraft and space technologies.
Which is patently wrong... It was a blatant attempt at extending Federal power via judicial activism and Executive over reach.
An expansion you apparently approve of.
Federal highways were created for the national defense, so that military vehicles and personnel could be moved quickly. Is that a constitutional violation in your eyes?
Pollution, especially air and water pollution can cross state borders easily. Do you believe that all instances of such pollution must be tried in lawsuits between states by the Supreme Court?
Interstate package delivery. Such packages can contain illegal, dangerous and harmful products, and can be used to facilitate wire fraud. Cargoes of contaminated plants and animals can spread disease throughout the US. If under state jurisdiction, packages can be inspected and taxed by each state it passes through.
Pollution... Now you are going to make Leftist EPA arguments as well? Whatever happened to having damages to you or your property being arbitrated via the courts? Oh... That's right, there's no money in it for the lawyers if a criminal damage complaint were in the offing instead of a mere civil suit. Nor is there as much power to be had for yet another government agency with no real reason to exist other than to expand its mandate. Technology in a free market has made things "cleaner" than ANY government mandate ever has.
Interstate package delivery.
Now you are going really far afield in your quest to uphold your favored leviathan FedGov. Dangerous? Like bullets? I order most of my components for reloading online from other States. Are you saying the FedGov has a legit interest there?
You are on the wrong forum...
Nope, I understand the law, enough to know what the constitution is, and how it got there, and why. Parts of it have been abused, but they can be corrected. The underlying document is pretty clear as to what it means, and that rarely means absolutes in anything.
By itself, it is just a framework on which the law is to be built, and there are parts of it for which the enabling acts have never been created.
The founding fathers were well aware that there will be an effort to evade any written law, so they created a number of systems to provide checks and balances to efforts to make new law and change existing law.
But they also created philosophical guidelines on which to work, and a part of one of these is interstate commerce. The effort was not to just dictate what particular divisions of power ‘were’ between the federal government and the states, but to give principals on which future division of power could be made.
They were very aware of social and technological change, and how the world they knew would not be the world of tomorrow.
Betrays that liberal mindset I keep accusing you of. It isn't a "living, breathing" document subject to whatever interpretations the pretenders of the moment chose to invent against it...
If you want an EPA, FAA, FCC... Pass an Amendment... Otherwise, you are no better than Obama...
The US has over 200 years of jurisprudence interpreting the constitution, and they mostly did a good job of it. Throwing all of that out the window to proclaim that you, an originalist to the point of being a fundamentalist, will tolerate no government but what was originally outlined, but not codified, just doesn’t cut it.
The constitution is a skeleton, not a body of law, and the congress was and is supposed to make laws that form its organs and muscles. It was *intended* that they do this. Because unless they do this, there is nothing to our government but a skeleton, not a functional government.
I say again, congress was and is supposed to do this. They are not inherently violating the constitution to do so.
A simple way of explaining this is with prohibition.
The 18th Amendment to the constitution mandated a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol.
But by itself, it did nothing. Only when the Volstead Act, its enabling act, was passed, did the sale, manufacture, and transport of alcohol become illegal. Had the Volstead Act never been written, anyone could violate the 18th Amendment at will, and they could *not* have been arrested, tried, convicted, and punished. Because nobody would have been directed to enforce the law, and there were no penalties given in the Amendment.
As such, the Volstead Act had nothing to do with treating the constitution as “a living document”, or other such hooey. The Volstead Act changed the law, the 18th Amendment did not.
And the entire rest of the constitution is just like that. It is *not* the law of the land. It is just an outline of how the law should be.
Two hundred years of incrementally changing the basic language of the Constitution until "infringed" means "infringable", private is public, and anything the FedGov wants to do in the name of "security" is A-ok...
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