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Originally Posted by moosenose
I'll respond to your issues politely. Ever hear of Wickard v. Filburn, 317 US 111 (1942)? That decision, made after FDR had broken the Judiciary to his will, and in DIRECT contradiction of decades of previous caselaw and the Constitution itself, gave the Federal Government the right to meddle in virtually ANYTHING they wanted by allowing them to draw a highly tenuous connection to the Interstate Commerce Clause. It was an INCREDIBLE expansion of Federal powers, and the Patriot Act, in comparison, is chicken-feed. Wickard COMPLETELY altered the political landscape. It wasn't until 1992, in U.S. v. Lopez, that the damage FDR caused to the Constitution started to be repaired. It's still got a LONG way to go. For the sake of comparison, in order for the Patriot Act to have had as far-reaching effects as Wickard had and still has, it would have had to have done something like repeal the entire Bill of Rights while striking, say, Article I in it's entirety from the Constitution. Wickard was THAT huge.
I'd love to have an intellegent, rational discussion on Constitutional law, et cetera, free from ad-homs and other personal attacks, with you on this if you so desire. If you don't wish to engage in a respectful conversation on this, that's OK too.
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Sorry but the constitution reads in Article 1 section 8 "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"
Wickard v. Filburn is simply reasserting the power of the federal government which had, by previous courts, been ruled unapplicable to some forms of intrastate commerce. It's a different interpretation than the court had previously held, sure, but I don't see it as a wholesale abrogation of the constitution.
Are farm subsidies the next target for conservatives? Are Republicans smug enough to believe that rural voters are so blinded by guns and gay issues that they wouldn't notice the complete destruction of the single-family farm? There's a reason a gallon of milk costs more than a gallon of gasoline, and it isn't production cost. It simply isn't profitable to offer the wide range of products in the sheer quantities available in every supermarket.
Has Roachboy not yet made it clear in this thread that Capitalism is not enshrined in our constitution? There even seems to be room for the neo-feudalism being pushed by the Republicans.
I'm beginning to believe that the only way conservatives will learn the error of their ways is by letting them deal with the subsequent failure of their policies. Go ahead destroy farm subsidy, and then deal with an erratic food supply. Make contemptous John Bolton our representative to the world, then deal with the economic sanctions and war that could result. Scrap social security, and then care personally for your family's elderly. Destroy Medicare and pay your parents' medical bills.
Break the backs of the labor unions (one federal ruling I don't expect to hear whining from the Right about) and deal with diminished wages and benefits-or strikes.
Okay Moosenose your turn to tell me how the USA Patriot act is completely within the bounds of our constitution even though parts of it
have already been declared unconstitutional.