I don't really care if it's Constitutional or not!

[SenorBeef]

@Duckster

(Bolding mine.)

The crust of the biscuit here is all of this is your interpretation, which means nothing in the grand scheme of things. The framework of the Constitution grants that interpretation to the Supreme Court. Then you appear to deny the existence by claiming the Court is in cahoots with Congress and everyone else in the Dark Side.

Why do you need to resort to hyperbole to try to paint me as a conspiracy theorist? I have made no claims that remotely resemble that.

I’m saying that the supreme court is a product of the society it functions in. It isn’t completely beholden to the whim of society, but on broad issues, it generally will reflect the sentiment of its contemporary society. But it is a slave to precedent too. The expansion of our government came gradually at first - powers were used that were arguably not granted by the constitution, and no one raised too big a fuss, and that set a precedent for the next greater abuse to be accepted. Lawmakers always go in the way of growing more government, and public sentiment either supported it or did not object too harshly, and so we gradually moved further and further away from using the constitution as a guiding document. You make it sound like I’m alleging a smokey room with guys with handlebar mustaches, and I’m not.

Assuming this comment as a truth, that says to me the entire system is tainted, and if my thought process here is accurate, the only remedy is throw the baby out with the bathwater and start over. Are you advocating that?

I think that’s out of the scope of this thread.

@begbert2

Naw, I was just lazy and didn’t read far enough into the thread to see that you were using “unconstitutional” in a unique and abnormally limited sense, as opposed to the usual “explicitly in contradiction to something that’s specifically laid out in the constitution.”

This just demonstrates your ignorance. The primary purpose of the constitution when it was written was not to be a list of specific things the government could not do, but rather a specific list of the things the government could do. Many people involved in the constitutional debates objected to adding the bill of rights to the constitution - exactly for this reason, because people would grow to think that the only rights they had were the ones explicitly spelled out, and that if the government wasn’t violating those then they were okay as far as the constitution goes. The tenth amendment was written specifically to allay these fears, but no one seems to think that one has any meaning.

That you think it’s “unique and abnormally limited” that I would call a law that isn’t authorized by the constitution unconstitutional just shows that we largely ignore the constitution. That you don’t understand that the document explicitly lists powers given to the federal government is exactly my point.

But now that I’ve wasted the time getting up to speed on your particular brand of foolishness, it appears that your actual position is that you, and you alone, are qualified to assess what the correct interpretation of the constitution is, and what the scope all the secondary and tertiary implications of things said in the constitution are. Presumably you have this authority because you’re god-king of the universe - which would be all well and good, except the constitution explicitly states which body has the authority to interpret it, and that’s not the god-king, it’s the US supreme court. Therefore, your rejection of their findings of constitutionality is itself unconstitutional, and any assessments you make about the constitutionality of laws that contradicts with theirs is similarly explicitly incorrect under the terms of the constitution itself.

Straw man. I claim no special knowledge. It’s entirely clear that over the last 200 years our politics have changed dramatically and we now operate well outside the bounds of what those who wrote the constitution had intended. I mean - look at how they ran the government in the first years of the country - many of the people who governed were also designers of the constitution. Is it not plainly obvious that our modern government is dramatically different in scope and power to theirs?

Unless you feel that you can cherry-pick the constitution and leave out the bit where it establishes the supreme court. But that makes your position kind of inconsistent, I would say.

Actually - it’s been a while since I’ve read the whole thing - is there a specific part that spells out that the supreme court has the duty and authority to interpret the constitution?

@ivn1188

I’m still unable to glean specific, concrete examples of unconstitutionality from SenorBeef. He’s gone on about, apparently, the delegation problem, and some yammering about how NASA isn’t for the general welfare because it doesn’t benefit everyone equally, or something like that.

You badgered for a bill, so I gave one. The omnibus appropriations bill of 2009. This line of argumentation is irrelevant - it’s minutia. But I went through the first few seconds of the bill and listed parts that were clearly outside the power granted to congress by article 1 of the constitution. The rest of your sentence is nonsensical - I was responding to what someone asked I thought “general welfare” meant.

@ivn1188

And even better is that his only cite is an economist from the Cato institute. Well, thread over, I guess.

It wasn’t a cite. I wasn’t backing up facts. I thought it was a good read because it fleshes out part of my position. I originally was only going to post the Jefferson quote, but the whole paragraph that surrounded it stated my case fairly well.

@begbert2

What are you talking about? I was demonstrating that his own position was inherently self-contradictory*. He rejects the supreme court’s authority in determining constitutionality, but its authority is constitutionally based*, meaning that in rejecting it he’s cherry-picking the constitution like it’s the frikking bible - and using this as a starting point to accuse the government of cherry-picking the constitution. So the problem isn’t that he’s arguing a position. The problem is that his position is an incoherent self-contradictory pile of cognitively-dissonant horseshit. There’s a difference.

The supreme court interprets the constitution in line with what society deems to be desirable government at the time of the case in question, in conjunction with precedent set before them. So their interpretations of what it is will be a product of the time and society they live in.

The constitution outlines an extremely limited federal government, almost libertarian. And most people simply would not like a libertarian government - they like having a big nanny state, or at least they’re apathetic enough to let the politicians run wild without interference. So a supreme court that wished to enforce the intent of the constitution would be running afoul of the desires of society - and that may work on some specific issues, but not on broad issues like the scope and power of government.

I mean - look at the rulings the supreme court made on the issues of constitutionality in the early 1800s compared to today. Different, right? And yet they were interpreting the same document. So clearly the interpretation of the supreme court on constitutionality is not some timeless fact - it is political expediency combined with some ideology.

So then where is the supposed cognitive dissonance in believing that the intent of the constitution at the time of its writing is different than the modern interpretation by a supreme court living in a completely different society? And many members on the court openly admit to believing it’s a living document - which is to say that they know they’re twisting its meaning to fit the needs of society in their times.

To make an extreme example to demonstrate this disconnect - imagine years down the road the country became far more of a police state but still gave lip service to the constitution. And they instituted a policy that only state-approved press members could report the news. And the supreme court of the time approved that interpretation. And people said “but this is a clear violation of the first amendment!”… would you then say “haha, you idiot, no it’s not - the supreme court decides that, and clearly since they say it’s alright, then that’s what the first amendment means!”?

[ivn1188]

So I went back at looked at SenorBeef’s cite. I’m going to summarize it.

For the sake of clarity, here is the clause at issue:

@Art. I

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;

To get everyone on the same page, the power to tax and spend is one of the enumerated powers. This is obvious to all, as section 8 is is entirely devoted to enumerating the powers of congress.

The general welfare clause is the one at issue. Mr. Cato Institute and his disciple SenorBeef are both claiming that the clause should be interpreted according to the views of Monroe. Monroe claimed that the general welfare clause should not be interpreted literally, but that it merely means the government has the power to make taxes to support itself in the undertaking of the rest of its powers, ie: to pay for the military, or whatever.

Now, that might be pretty convincing. However, there was this other guy named Hamilton. Hamilton, like almost everyone else, believed that the clause should be interpreted exactly as written, that the tax and spend power was to be used by the government to levy taxes as long as the tax was for the general welfare of the country. Hamilton’s view is more in line with the normal reading of the clause as opposed to reading in an extra limitation.

As part of this argument, CatoGuy quotes my bud Tommy Jefferson:

@CatoGuy TJ quote

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”

Well, that seems clear. But wait! Thomas Jefferson’s actual quote is as follows:

@The actual writings of Thomas Jefferson in context

For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum, for any purpose they lease; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumeration’s of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.

It is an established rule of construction where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which would render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers, and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.

So TJ has written that congress has the power to tax, modified by the requirement that the tax be for the general welfare. Which is, of course, exactly what Hamilton claimed, and not what Monroe claimed (that taxes are only to support the government as an ongoing concern)!

Now, just in case SenorBeef’s point is a little more subtle, let’s look at the other part which he hinges his case upon:

@TJ

It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers, and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.

This is the heart of CatoGuy’s argument. But it is a misreading of what Jefferson is saying. The quote says that “It was intended” – meaning the intent of the Constitution itself – to lace them up within the enumerated powers.

In modern terms, he is saying “We meant that Congress has only the powers in Section 8”. CatoGuy thinks Jefferson is saying that “We meant the clause to apply the tax power to all of the other enumerated powers.”

It is more than clear from the context that such a reading of Jefferson is not accurate. Jefferson is talking about the larger argument, namely that a few believed that “for the general welfare” meant that the gov’t could do anything as long as it was for the general welfare. Jefferson is addressing a much simpler point than CatoGuy and SenorBeef would have you believe. Jefferson is saying “If congress could do anything it wanted for the general welfare, why would we have added all that other junk?”

In addition, the article makes a claim that “since the 30’s, courts have yadda yadda”. That is also not true. The government has acted upon the Hamiltonian interpretation of the welfare clause since at least 1792, including, damnably for CatoGuy’s argument, during the presidency of Jefferson himself.

The courts addressed, several times before the 1930’s (which is the date of US v Butler), the Hamiltonian view of the welfare clause, and while they did not need to address the issue to resolve the cases, they made it fairly clear that they also agreed that Hamilton’s (and Jefferson’s!) view was the appropriate one.

So at the center of this we have SenorBeef’s assertion that Madison was correct, and that Hamilton was wrong. I’ll grant that such an argument is at least partly reasonable. However, the vast majority (actually, all) of jurisprudence on the issue agrees with Hamilton. Jefferson and every other president has agreed with Hamilton. Congress agrees with Hamilton. The weight of so many people, who have put in a lot of thought on the matter, lends quite a lot of credence to using the plain meaning of the grant of the tax and spend power as opposed to reading in something that isn’t there.

Furthermore, the argument that we should listen to the intent of the founding fathers and base our interpretation on what they wanted is a seriously flawed one. Even the slightest bit of historical research shows that the founding fathers were by no means of one mind on almost any issue of constitutional meaning. The constitution was hammered out as a matter of compromise, not a unanimous declaration of how things should be. So any argument based on original intent really just breaks down into an argument of which founding father you happen to agree with. If that’s the case, why do we need to bother with the middlemen? We get the exact same result if we simply argue over what each one of us believes the constitution means.

So all in all, I have to say that SenorBeef’s interpretation is one that is not supported by history. Nor is is supported by the Supreme Court. Nor is it supported by the founding fathers. It is not even supported by Jefferson, whom SenorBeef quotes. Furthermore, it is based on a theory of constitutional interpretation that tries to divine the unanimous intent of a large group of men who, as far as it appears from history, were barely able to agree on what to have for lunch, let alone on the meaning of each clause and how it should be interpreted for the next 300 years.

[ivn1188]

Now, I’m sure SenorBeef will say “But no: the general welfare is not aided by spending money on NASA!”

That is simply a foolish idea. In this case, you would be reading in yet another unwritten requirement – that any tax has to effect everyone exactly the same. The general welfare of the United States is clearly increased by making a progressive income tax. The taxing of cigarettes hurts smokers and helps others, but it increases (theoretically) the general welfare of the United States.

I’m sure in your libertarian party paradise, you think that the government is required to stop paying for unemployment or health care or retirement, because people aren’t treated exactly equal. But the constitution has no such requirement unless you read it in, which is exactly at odds with your theory of interpretation. And thankfully, we aren’t required to live in some sort of Harrison Bergeron society.

ETA: P.S. SenorBeef: that is the most rational and clear explanation of your argument that I could gather from your posts. If you want to argue something other than what I’ve addressed, it would behoove you to actually say it, provide examples, and to outline your logic rather than just repeating your premise and asking us to connect all the dots the way you see them.

[Isamu]

@Duckster

Last time I checked the interpretation of the Constitution is held by the Supreme Court, and not you, me, or anyone else.

Not exactly, although the Supreme Court is the ultimate recourse for interpretation. Jay Bybee effectively (mis)interpreted the president’s constitutional power in his now infamous memo. This (mis) interpretation had pretty profound effects.

To hold onto the belief that only the Supreme Court interprets the constitution, you have to pretend that what happened in the White House (and the US) as a consequence of the Bybee memo, just didn’t happen. Don’t you?

[Crafter_Man]

Agree with SenorBeef 100%.

To be honest, I am not even sure why we still maintain a federal constitution. Granted the nuts-n-bolts details of how the federal government is structured are still observed, but the original purpose for having a constitution in the first place (Article I Section 8) is completely ignored. Why continue this farce? Why not just be honest, and state that we want an unlimited federal government?

The current belief is that, as long as a federal bill is “helping” people, then the bill is O.K. No one stops to ask if the federal government has the authority to enact the bill. They simply don’t care. In their eyes, the federal government can and should do anything it wants. They do not believe in a limited federal government.

To the libs who desire an unlimited government, I want to remind you that we are not like France or Spain or Great Britain. Those countries have national governments. We do not have a national government; we have a federal government. Or at least we *had *one. Sadly, it has morphed into a national government. If we’re going to have a national government, why not just get rid of the state governments?

[Hamlet]

@Crafter_Man

Agree with SenorBeef 100%.

To be honest, I am not even sure why we still maintain a federal constitution. Granted the nuts-n-bolts details of how the federal government is structured are still observed, but the original purpose for having a constitution in the first place (Article I Section 8) is completely ignored. Why continue this farce? Why not just be honest, and state that we want an unlimited federal government?

The current belief is that, as long as a federal bill is “helping” people, then the bill is O.K. No one stops to ask if the federal government has the authority to enact the bill. They simply don’t care. In their eyes, the federal government can and should do anything it wants. They do not believe in a limited federal government.

To the libs who desire an unlimited government, I want to remind you that we are not like France or Spain or Great Britain. Those countries have national governments. We do not have a national government; we have a federal government. Or at least we *had *one. Sadly, it has morphed into a national government. If we’re going to have a national government, why not just get rid of the state governments?

Not only have you provided us with a strawman, we have a little strawwife, with 2.5 strawkids, a little strawhouse in the burbs in a straw village.

And it surprises me not one whit that you don’t see a reason for the constitution.

[ivn1188]

CraftardMan, why don’t you and SenorBeef come up with something more than rambling misstatements of the law and restatements of the same tired premises with zero supporting argument?

Your statements are demonstrably not true, and are basically parroting whichever TV demagogue you saw this week bitching about how the government is out of control because they aren’t doing what I want.

I am so tired of you dumbfucks that can’t even put together a logical argument in support of your position. No one cares if you agree 100%, just like I don’t give two shits about what what some senile old bat in a nursing home thinks about internet gaming. Since you probably need some help decoding that, it’s because neither of you has the slightest fucking clue what you’re talking about, and your ignorance pretty much makes anything you have to say irrelevant to any serious discussion. Why don’t you buy some guns and move to Michigan and join one of those militias and declare yourself in opposition to the zionist occupied government? At least then you’d be backing up your complete and utter failure to comprehend with some sort of action, as opposed to just repeating what you heard from some other nutcase.

[SenorBeef]

@ivn1188

So I went back at looked at SenorBeef’s cite. I’m going to summarize it.

It’s not a cite. A citation is something you use to establish facts in an argument you’re making. I linked to it because it made a somewhat verbose case along the lines of the argument I was trying to make.

I will address the Monroe/Hamilton stuff when I have more time to read about it tomorrow, so I snipped that for now.

As part of this argument, CatoGuy quotes my bud Tommy Jefferson:
Well, that seems clear. But wait! Thomas Jefferson’s actual quote is as follows:

I don’t understand why you think the rest of the text supports your argument. The quote was to indicate that “general welfare” is not a justification for congress to assume any power it wants. Your context does not change that - it actually reinforces it.

“To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumeration’s of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.”

That’s exactly what I’ve been saying - if you think the general welfare clause means congress can do anything it wants so long as it is provides for the general welfare, then you essentially invalidate the rest of the section. You are quoting something from Jefferson that unambiguously supports my position, and then using it to claim victory.

…

It is more than clear from the context that such a reading of Jefferson is not accurate. Jefferson is talking about the larger argument, namely that a few believed that “for the general welfare” meant that the gov’t could do anything as long as it was for the general welfare. Jefferson is addressing a much simpler point than CatoGuy and SenorBeef would have you believe. Jefferson is saying “If congress could do anything it wanted for the general welfare, why would we have added all that other junk?”

What is your point here? My point is that the general welfare term does not mean Congress can create whatever power it wants so long as it benefits the general welfare. You seem to be claiming I’m wrong, but I’m not sure what your beef is with what I’m saying exactly. The quotes you’ve used in support of yourself agree with my original position - so what is it here that you’re arguing exactly?

In addition, the article makes a claim that “since the 30’s, courts have yadda yadda”. That is also not true. The government has acted upon the Hamiltonian interpretation of the welfare clause since at least 1792, including, damnably for CatoGuy’s argument, during the presidency of Jefferson himself.

Could you provide specific examples by Jefferson himself?

More snips - Madison/Hamilton stuff that I need to do more reading on.

Furthermore, the argument that we should listen to the intent of the founding fathers and base our interpretation on what they wanted is a seriously flawed one. Even the slightest bit of historical research shows that the founding fathers were by no means of one mind on almost any issue of constitutional meaning. The constitution was hammered out as a matter of compromise, not a unanimous declaration of how things should be. So any argument based on original intent really just breaks down into an argument of which founding father you happen to agree with. If that’s the case, why do we need to bother with the middlemen? We get the exact same result if we simply argue over what each one of us believes the constitution means.

We get the same result if we just ignore the constitution too. Unless a law clearly runs afoul of something in the bill of rights, the constitutionality of a bill is never discussed. No one asks “which part of the constitution provides the power for this bill?” or “is this bill an authorized use of federal power?” - the very fact that this is never under discussion is pretty good evidence that no one gives a shit. And that has been my main point in this thread - it’s stupid to get all worked up over the constitutionality of anything so selectively.

I mean - even if you’re correct, and the correct interpretation of article is much more broad than I give it credit for, is there anything that isn’t justified under it? Should we ever discuss whether a bill invokes federal powers that don’t exist? What role does article 1, section 8 actually play in our modern Congress?

If we never debate the constitutionality of any law (again, aside from bill of rights infarctions), and we never evaluate whether anything is justified under article 1, section 8 - then how could we possibly be running under its proper interpretation if we’re effectively ignoring it?

So all in all, I have to say that SenorBeef’s interpretation is one that is not supported by history. Nor is is supported by the Supreme Court. Nor is it supported by the founding fathers. It is not even supported by Jefferson, whom SenorBeef quotes. Furthermore, it is based on a theory of constitutional interpretation that tries to divine the unanimous intent of a large group of men who, as far as it appears from history, were barely able to agree on what to have for lunch, let alone on the meaning of each clause and how it should be interpreted for the next 300 years.

Again, what function does article 1 section 8 currently serve in our Congress? When was the last time a law was rejected, repealed, or voted down on the basis that it is not an authorized federal power?

If it serves no purpose, do you honestly believe that is the intent of the writers of the constitution?

@ivn1188

Now, I’m sure SenorBeef will say “But no: the general welfare is not aided by spending money on NASA!”

Never said anything like that. You don’t seem to have any desire to actually find out what my positions actually are - you have a ridiculous hyperbolic idea of what my beliefs are with no evidence to back it up.

That is simply a foolish idea. In this case, you would be reading in yet another unwritten requirement – that any tax has to effect everyone exactly the same. The general welfare of the United States is clearly increased by making a progressive income tax. The taxing of cigarettes hurts smokers and helps others, but it increases (theoretically) the general welfare of the United States.

For spending to benefit the general welfare has no explicit or implicit requirement that it must be taxed equally.

I’m sure in your libertarian party paradise, you think that the government is required to stop paying for unemployment or health care or retirement, because people aren’t treated exactly equal. But the constitution has no such requirement unless you read it in, which is exactly at odds with your theory of interpretation. And thankfully, we aren’t required to live in some sort of Harrison Bergeron society.

What the hell does a Harrison Bergeron society have to do with a libertarian paradise anyway? Are you mixing up your dystopias? Harrison Bergeron is the dystopia of a “progressive”, equality-focused society run amok.

I haven’t even advocated in this thread that these laws are wrong - I have only argued that it’s silly to worry about the constitutionality of laws at this point, when we’re way past it. And almost exclusively, as other people in this thread has said, sudden concerns for constitutionality are a partisan distractiion tactic with no real substance.

@ivn1188

CraftardMan, why don’t you and SenorBeef come up with something more than rambling misstatements of the law and restatements of the same tired premises with zero supporting argument?

Your statements are demonstrably not true, and are basically parroting whichever TV demagogue you saw this week bitching about how the government is out of control because they aren’t doing what I want.

Tell me, what TV demagogues am I listening to on this? You think I’m some Glen Beck watching teabagger because you are a presumptuous asshole less concerned about actually understanding what the person you’re addressing has to say than attacking them. You have moments of clarity where you can actually make good points - and you completely ruin it by ignoring the arguments and motives of your opponents and just assuming the worst and inserting motives and arguments into their mouths.

I am so tired of you dumbfucks that can’t even put together a logical argument in support of your position. No one cares if you agree 100%, just like I don’t give two shits about what what some senile old bat in a nursing home thinks about internet gaming. Since you probably need some help decoding that, it’s because neither of you has the slightest fucking clue what you’re talking about, and your ignorance pretty much makes anything you have to say irrelevant to any serious discussion. Why don’t you buy some guns and move to Michigan and join one of those militias and declare yourself in opposition to the zionist occupied government? At least then you’d be backing up your complete and utter failure to comprehend with some sort of action, as opposed to just repeating what you heard from some other nutcase.

In my decade long history of the board, I have rarely, if ever, ignored arguments from someone who opposes me based on their disposition - but you are almost there. You clearly know enough to make arguments, so why do you have to lower the level of discourse and discredit yourself by doing this? You are wrong. I am not right wing. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I am not a tea bagger. I do not watch or listen to any right wing pundits. I have not only recently come into my views. This is not a partisan issue for me, and I don’t align with either major political party in the US anyway. Whatever image you have in your head of me is massively wrong. I have told you this and you don’t care.

If you continue to post substantive arguments like you did in the first post I quoted, I will engage with you. If you insist on making utterly unfounded attacks on my motivations and characters like you have in the last post, I will not.

@Hamlet

Not only have you provided us with a strawman, we have a little strawwife, with 2.5 strawkids, a little strawhouse in the burbs in a straw village.

And it surprises me not one whit that you don’t see a reason for the constitution.

What? I think you missed his point entirely. He probably believes in the US constitution far more than you do. He’s not saying he sees no need for it, he’s saying that aside from some of the amendments in the bill of rights and some logistical stuff, we largely ignore it, and we may as well admit we’re chucking it aside entirely instead of pretending it’s still the most important binding contract on our government.

[ivn1188]

The problem, sir, is that you have yet again completely missed the point of my post, and you still haven’t made an argument of your own that I haven’t made for you.

You seem to be ignoring the fact that the congress clearly has power to tax anything it wants, as long as the tax power is used for the general welfare. You have yet to propose any reasons why the omnibus act you cited as unconstitutional is not allowed under the tax power. No one is saying Congress can do anything they want as long as it’s for the general welfare. No one.

What I need from you is an actual statement of your point, rather than yet more “That’s not what I said” or “You’re right, but it’s still unconstitutional”. Your wild surmise that no one looks at what gives congress the power to pass law X is incorrect, which you should know since you posted US v Lopez. Every court case discussing the constitutionality of a law is examining what power congress used to make that law, and how far that power extends.

Most people who know the law (aka, me) don’t bother to argue if congress can or cannot do X, because in 99.9% of cases, it’s clear, and isn’t arguable. That is not the same thing as just accepting that Congress can do X without question.

Do you recall portions of the Patriot act being struck down? Hell, all it takes is a Google to find laws that have been declared unconstitutional.

You are putting your horse before your cart. You can’t claim that questioning the constitutionality of a law is pointless because we never do it right anyway without first showing that we never do it right in the first place.

Lemme put this in bold:
YOU NEED TO MAKE AN ACTUAL ARGUMENT AS TO WHY YOU THINK ALL OF THESE LAWS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL BEFORE WE CAN EVEN ADDRESS YOUR POINT ABOUT THE USELESSNESS OF CLAIMING A LAW ISN’T CONSTITUTIONAL.

[Duckster]

@Isamu

Not exactly, although the Supreme Court is the ultimate recourse for interpretation. Jay Bybee effectively (mis)interpreted the president’s constitutional power in his now infamous memo. This (mis) interpretation had pretty profound effects.

To hold onto the belief that only the Supreme Court interprets the constitution, you have to pretend that what happened in the White House (and the US) as a consequence of the Bybee memo, just didn’t happen. Don’t you?

Sorry, but you lost me. Assuming your legal mind is greater than mine (it probably is since IANAL) I will defer on this to you. I just take a laymen approach to all of this and assume the legal scholars here support your view.

That said, let us not forget the general population doesn’t even approach the debate and argument quality here. Thanks to that overwhelming ignorance (deliberate and otherwise) it’s an uphill battle to educate that ignorance (if one is willing to listen and be educated) and move forward when so many follow like rats the Pied Pipers for the tea bagger set.
8,000

[Isamu]

@Duckster

Sorry, but you lost me. Assuming your legal mind is greater than mine (it probably is since IANAL) I will defer on this to you. I just take a laymen approach to all of this and assume the legal scholars here support your view.

That said, let us not forget the general population doesn’t even approach the debate and argument quality here. Thanks to that overwhelming ignorance (deliberate and otherwise) it’s an uphill battle to educate that ignorance (if one is willing to listen and be educated) and move forward when so many follow like rats the Pied Pipers for the tea bagger set.
8,000

Hey Duckster,
I’m not sure how many of the legal beagles here would agree with what I said. It just seems that way to me. As usual, I could be wrong.

[Crafter_Man]

@ivn1188

congress clearly has power to tax anything it wants, as long as the tax power is used for the general welfare.

The problem is that you believe any bill can be construed as promoting the general welfare. If the bill is somehow, someway, “helping” people, then it is for the general welfare. Same with the interstate commerce clause… what doesn’t affect interstate commerce?

If you believe the federal government is unlimited, why even have Article I, Section 8? Why bother to list specific powers and duties?

[AqualungBats5th]

@foolsguinea

I am so sick of people saying, for health care or occupational safety or, I don’t know, protecting the environment, defining marriage, whatevs: “You can’t do that, it’s unconstitutional. It’s not a government function.” Or, “It’s not a federal function.”

I’m sick of it too, but the people I run into who make this argument do so because they clearly do not actually understand the constitution, most often in regard to the first amendment. They seem to think it gives them the right to any and all speech, all of them time, regardless of context.

For example, I know a teabagger who was up in arms about Rush Limbaugh being unable to buy his way into part ownership of an NFL team essentially because of his comments about Donovan McNabb years earlier that were construed as racist. Somehow that was a violation of Rush’s right to free speech. Bwuh?

My advice? Stop talking to morons about politics. Your blood pressure will go down.

[adhay]

@BrainGlutton

[hijack]

Everyone who is even marginally interested in the thread topic, on either or any side of the argument, should read The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy, by Daniel Lazare.

[/hijack]

Continuing, who says the Constitution is a democratic constructor? To Madison, the purpose of govt was to protect the “opulent” minority from the resentment of the unpropertied masses, “the Beast” as Hamilton characterized them.

The bicameral legislature is designed to do just that. The Senate was not popularly elected until the early 20th century and representation in the House was designed so that each representative had a large heterogeneous constituency which was often at odds within itself over local issues and thus was incapable of exerting concerted public will on any particular representative in regard to national issues. Popularizing the Senate has had the same effect there. It made real Lincoln’s adage “you can fool some of the people all of the time”.

It’s easy to see how that works today. While we argue among ourselves about UHC, the rights and wrongs of our doings in the Middle East, gay marriage, tea baggers and the rest of the “culture war” conflagration, Wall Street and defense contractors, public and private, those who benefit from any expenditure of armament anywhere no matter at whom, control Congress and our Executive.

Is it racist to refer to Obama as Bush in Blackface?

[ivn1188]

@Crafter_Man

The problem is that you believe any bill can be construed as promoting the general welfare. If the bill is somehow, someway, “helping” people, then it is for the general welfare. Same with the interstate commerce clause… what doesn’t affect interstate commerce?

If you believe the federal government is unlimited, why even have Article I, Section 8? Why bother to list specific powers and duties?

:smack:

See, this is what’s called a strawman. You are assigning to me a position that I do not hold. Even worse, I have repeatedly made it clear that I do not hold that position. Then you attack that position, and claim you’re making a point.

I believe your lack of reading comprehension and critical analysis are making you look kind of like an idiot. Correct it.

[Martini_Enfield]

@Crafter_Man

To be honest, I am not even sure why we still maintain a federal constitution. Granted the nuts-n-bolts details of how the federal government is structured are still observed, but the original purpose for having a constitution in the first place (Article I Section 8) is completely ignored. Why continue this farce? Why not just be honest, and state that we want an unlimited federal government?

The current belief is that, as long as a federal bill is “helping” people, then the bill is O.K. No one stops to ask if the federal government has the authority to enact the bill. They simply don’t care. In their eyes, the federal government can and should do anything it wants. They do not believe in a limited federal government.

To the libs who desire an unlimited government, I want to remind you that we are not like France or Spain or Great Britain. Those countries have national governments. We do not have a national government; we have a federal government. Or at least we *had *one. Sadly, it has morphed into a national government. If we’re going to have a national government, why not just get rid of the state governments?

FWIW, Australia manages to have a more or less unlimited Commonwealth (Federal) “National” Government and State Governments as well. Seems to work just fine.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

So, uh, who is supposed to provide for the welfare of admirals and majors and commanders and colonels?

[Crafter_Man]

@Martini_Enfield

Seems to work just fine.

Can you buy an AR-15 or Glock and keep it next to your bed with a fully-loaded mag?

(No disrespect toward you, Martini. My comment was directed toward your government.)

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

The subtext, of course, being that if you can’t, your country sucks. Yeah, that makes sense.

[SenorBeef]

@Crafter_Man

Can you buy an AR-15 or Glock and keep it next to your bed with a fully-loaded mag?

(No disrespect toward you, Martini. My comment was directed toward your government.)

Not only is that going to bring a total thread derailment, but it doesn’t even really make sense. The issue of gun control/rights is seperate from the balance of power between national and lower levels of government. It only serves to invite a hijack and makes your position seem unnecesarily extreme for the discussion at hand.