Stevens has announced he’s retiring. He was appointed by Ford, and is 90 years old this April 20th. This is actually a pretty significant blow to the folks who voted against us in Heller, and likely in McDonald too. Stevens was widely regarded as the intellectual leader of the left-leaning side of the Court. It’s widely expected that Obama will get a third pick for the Court when Justice Ginsberg retires. The 2010 elections are only increasing in importance.
Obama will, of course, replace Stevens with a similar lefty, but it’ll be hard to replace his leadership on the Court.
The New York Times is running a series, which isn’t too bad. They at least talk to Robert Churchill, who understands the differences between the various groups. One other thing I’m happy to see is academics acknowledging that the government missteps, crimes and cover-ups at Ruby Ridge and Waco contributed to the rise of militia groups. The left shouldn’t just outright dismiss the concerns about criminal actions by law enforcement as just a bunch of right-wing nuttery. That’s something every American should be concerned about. When the people see their government commit crimes, and then not only fail to see the perpetrators held accountable, but so see them promoted while misdeeds are covered up, it undermines people’s faith in the system to the point where they believe drastic action is necessary. Given that pool of anger and resentment, you’re always going to find charlatans and opportunists willing and able to pour gasoline over the fire.
Section 2. Whenever two thirds of the Governors of the several States concur, they may rescind any law or regulation of the United States, or they may propose amendments to this Constitution, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States.
I actually would suggest something even a little more radical. To allow the state legislatures of just 1/5th of the several states, which would be ten states currently, to propose repealing federal laws by putting the matter to a referendum vote. So if ten states vote to, say, repeal ObamaCare, it would go on the ballot to be voted on by the people. It would look something like this:
Section 2. Whenever one fifth of the legislatures of the several states shall concur, they may propose to rescind a law the United States, which shall be rescinded for all intents and purposes, whenever the people in two thirds of the states shall approve through direct vote, to be held on the election day for members of the United States Congress, according to the law of each state in which the ballot measure shall be held.
I think the barrier to amending the constitution needs to be pretty high, but I’m not too concerned about the people being able to rescind federal laws, especially if they are unpopular. What do you think?
I think freedom loving people need to start thinking about amending the constitution. We’re fast approaching a point where that might even be possible if people get angry enough. I’m glad to see Randy Barnett already thinking about it over at Volokh. He’s proposing an amendment hat goes like this:
The legislative power of Congress shall not be construed to include mandating, regulating, prohibiting or taxing the private health insurance of any person; nor shall the power of Congress to make all laws which are necessary and proper to regulate commerce among the several states be construed to include the power to mandate, regulate, prohibit or tax any activity that is confined within a single state and subject to the police power thereof, regardless of the activity’s economic effects outside the state, whether it employs instrumentalities therefrom, or whether its regulation or prohibition is part of a comprehensive federal regulatory scheme.
My feeling is that a proposed amendment needs to be a very simple idea, boiled down into a few issues as possible. I also think it needs to avoid tying the issue of the day (now HCR) up into it. I would simplify it a bit:
The power of Congress to make all laws which are necessary and proper to regulate commerce among the several states shall not be construed to include the power to mandate, regulate, prohibit or tax any activity that is confined within a single state and subject to the police power thereof, regardless of the activity’s economic effects outside the state, whether it employs instrumentalities therefrom, or whether its regulation or prohibition is part of a comprehensive federal regulatory scheme.
I’d just cut the health care issue out of it. That would make the individual mandate pretty clearly unconstitutional, and leave the issue of HCR out of it. It’s probably better of people don’t think about what the effects are, because this would also weaken a lot of popular federal legislation. The other thing I might consider is that I believe it would be appropriate for federal regulation of commerce among the several states to allow Congress to prevent states from discriminating against products which met a federal standard. For instance, if Congress passes a law that suggests if you do X, Y, and Z, you can call it organic food, California can’t then come in and ban those products because they want Q, R, and X to be done too. Otherwise states could do significant damage to the interstate market in goods by creating ridiculous regulatory requirements. California is quite good at this.
Also, someone in the comments suggests we ought to amend the constitution to allow for referendums, but only on the subject of repealing laws or treaties. If it were so limited, I would agree that’s not a bad idea.
Jennifer makes a really good point that if health care is a right, so the government can force you to buy it, why can’t they force you to buy a gun? I’ll take it a step further and argue that at least forcing people to buy a gun and keep it would likely be a legitimate exercise of Congress’ military powers, and power to arm, train and discipline the militia. Such a law certainly would not be without precedence in this country, and the practice certainly wasn’t unknown to our founders.
It is at least an enumerated power of Congress to force everyone to buy a gun. It’s a bit of a stretch to say forcing me to buy health insurance is a necessary and proper component of Congress’ regulation of the national health insurance market. If forcing me to engage in commerce is necessary and proper, what isn’t? Congress’ power is effectively limitless because they can force me to subject myself to its jurisdiction.
Aside from my moral objection from congress mandating that I have to purchase goods and services, the US is creating a dependent class along with a vast entitlement program. That, in addition to the fact we can’t afford the two entitlement programs we already have. Yes. I see the pattern. A government creating a dependency on a significant portion of the population. This, folks, is the issue. And they’ve done it before with Social Security and Medicare. They’re creating a group beholden. A group that will vote a certain way or risk losing benefits. Another lobby group rivaling the AARP can spring from this and be a player under the guise of preventing what I talked about earlier from happening. But still complicit in the dependence.
The bill is so long there’s bound to be a lot of crap it in it that are really going to piss off voters. There’s even vending machine requirements that require posting nutrition information. That could be a problem for my club, who has a machine for members. I suspect given federal requirements, we’d just as soon scrap the whole thing. Nice thought, you see, but we don’t want to risk offending the federal requirements. You’d think the vending machine industry would be against such practices, but probably not. It’s regulatory capture. Vending providers will make out because they’ll be the only ones that can afford to deal with the regulations. Vending machine makers will make money on an entirely new class of machines that meet the requirements. How many other nanny state requirements are in this bill? Plenty, I’m sure. The people need to get pissed, and ride these mothers until things change. You can’t depend on the free market to save you. Corporations are now in bed with big government, and it’s all of us who will be the losers.
As for vandalizing private property, it would seem the three percent movement has adopted the tactics of Palestinian school children, and I expect all this to work out just about as well for liberty in this country as it has for the Palestinians. The brick hurlers can wrap themselves in the imagery of the founders all they like, but the founders deplored this kind of mob violence:
Some modern scholars have argued that this interpretation is a myth, and that there’s no evidence that Adams had anything to do with the Stamp Act riots.[58] After the fact, Adams did approve of the August 14 action because he saw no other legal options to resist what he viewed as an unconstitutional act by Parliament, but he condemned attacks on officials’ homes as “mobbish”.[59] According to the modern scholarly interpretation of Adams, he supported legal methods of resisting parliamentary taxation—petitions, boycotts, and nonviolent demonstrations—but he opposed mob violence, which he saw as illegal, dangerous, and counterproductive.[60]
The mob violence was mostly instigated by a gang leader and well known rioter and instigator Ebenezer McIntosh. Fortunately for this country, the movement against the Stamp Act would be taken up by cooler heads. There will always be “herds of fools, tools, and synchophants,” as Sam Adams once said, in any movement. The trick is identifying them and distancing yourself from them. Vandalizing private property is not civil disobedience, or righteous protest. It is, to borrow a term from Sam Adams, “mobbish,” and is not at all within the realm of what the founders would have viewed as legitimate action. If you want to stand with the founders, use the system they created and join us in helping vote these bastards out come November. Then we can see what our options are in terms of getting rid of the monstrosity.
The obvious difference between Roosevelt’s position in 1940 and Obama’s in 2010 was World War 2. That global conflict destroyed practically the entire productive capacity of the industrialized world with the exception of the US. It allowed for an unparalleled economic expansion and was followed by a burgeoning demographic explosion we know as the Baby Boom. Those two factors together made Roosevelt’s entitlements appear to be sustainable. Even Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society 20 years later could still count on riding those two trends. Today’s crisis is largely the result of the final exhaustion of those twin booms. Where FDR found himself at the beginning, Obama finds himself at the end.
Read the whole thing. Tomorrow we return to our regularly scheduled gun blogging, but I thought this health care vote was historic enough to warrant a day’s coverage.
I was born in 1954, and ever since my brain began laying down memories of what was going on, I have watched the relentless, steady, constant growth of Big Government –Â regardless of which party was in power.
Yet in all that time, this country has never had an honest debate over socialism. The word has been avoided for decades, but now that it is upon us, there is no avoiding it.
We need to have this debate. Badly. It’s so long overdue that I could scream.
My sincere hope is that the passage of Obamacare will bring it on.
This is not doom and gloom. Far from it. I welcome the debate, and I think it will be clarifying. Perhaps there will be a genuine fight over whether America wants want to go the socialist route, instead of phony and pointless haggling over diversionary peripheral issues (like whether abortion should be socialized right now or temporarily privatized).
I couldn’t agree more. Sadly the main stream media is still living in the world of bread and circuses. To the extent we have this debate in society it won’t be in the traditional media.
The FDA released new rules for cigarette advertising. These things go so far that I swear, the next thing they will target will be my Christmas tree.
These restrictions are draconian – all in the name of the children.
1) No Sector Sixes. No manufacturer can use the name of a non-tobacco product in a tobacco product name, unless both products existed and shared the name prior to 1995.
2) No freedom to buy less than 20 cigarettes. This is kind of the like Pennsylvania’s beer laws. Bureaucrats want us to drink less, so we have to buy beer by the case at a distributer unless we buy it at a bar. FDA doesn’t want people smoking as much, so it’s only possible to buy cigarettes 20 or more at a time.
3) You may still buy cigarettes through mail-order, but you can’t use coupons or get any samples. (Damn coupon clipping kids!) Vending machines are now outlawed unless the premises bans kids at all times.
4) Free samples of cigarettes – even in a room full of adults – is banned. For smokeless tobacco, it’s severely limited and only about half an ounce per person per day provided that means they do it in a temporary facility surrounded by opaque material at least 7 feet high (and no more than one foot off the ground) where children and alcohol are banned and does not mention anything about tobacco on the outside. I guess that means they will have to start logging names if they hand out samples. Oh, and no samples to sports teams or entertainment groups. And none of these highly restricted non-advertising temporary structures may be set up at a football, basketball, baseball, soccer, or hockey event or any other sporting or entertainment event.
5) Any attempts to advertise outside of pre-defined limits (“in newspapers; in magazines; in periodicals or other publications [whether periodic or limited distribution]; on billboards, posters, and placards; in nonpoint-of sale promotional material [including direct mail]; in point-of-sale promotional material; and in audio or video formats delivered at a point-of sale”) must be be filed with the FDA at least 30 days in advance. Creativity and social media – damn you & your crazy innovation!
6) Declaring a war on color: all labeling or advertising for cigarettes or smokeless tobacco shall use only black text on a white background. Exceptions including the limited places where vending machines are allowed and porn magazines.
7) Declaring a war on music and sound effects: No audio advertisement can have anything other than a voice reading words. No video can have anything other than black text on white background and any associated audio cannot include music or sounds other than words.
8) Declaring a third theater of war on names, logos, and recognizable colors on non-tobacco products: No more hats, shirts, or products without tobacco can be released with the name of a brand, logo, motto, or even “recognizable color” of a brand.
9) Customer rewards are off the table. I remember people who used to clip the Marlboro Miles for random gifts – kind of like you credit card rewards. No more rewarding customer loyalty!
10) No more sponsorships of anything. Technically, the rule only says no sponsorships of any athletic, musical, artistic, or other social or cultural event, or any entry or team in any event. I know that UST has sponsored more than a few things in the gun/hunting world. Does these events qualify as athletic, social, or cultural? Well, we just lost a sponsor. Damn. They were good to our community for a long time. Technically, these companies can still sponsor, but only if they don’t tell anyone who they are or what they produce – which kind of takes the impact out of sponsorship.
So as you can see, it’s not completely a joke that my ornaments probably send the bureaucrats at the FDA into a tizzy. I just have to hope that the next round of rules doesn’t force me to keep the curtains closed while our tree is on display.
