I think we make it up as we go along, and have been from Day One. I think the Constitution was written by intelligent men of good will who didn’t trust each other further than they could be tossed. I think it is a structure of ambiguities, umbras, penumbras. Luckily, we have a Supreme Court to certify what it says, as they were empowered by the Constitution to do.
It is absurd for a twenty-first century nation to overrule anything it may require due to the opinions of eighteenth century men who hadn’t the least clue as to the world we would inhabit.
For me, the Constitution is a statement of intent, with guidelines, to create the amazing experiment that is America. Its what America stands for that is glorious, not the instruments we use to attain it.
So, in other words, you side with ElvisLives and Dio that the US federal government is NOT a government only of enumerated powers. Good to know.
By the way, the Constitution doesn’t explicitly empower the Supreme Court to decide what the Constitution says (but the Supreme Court has decided that it does).
The other thing about your position luci is that you can’t seem to separate out the concepts of how things work and how you think things should work.
It absolutely is the case that the USFG can’t do whatever it wants. Just read Lopez, and that’s what it says. The fact that you disagree with this doesn’t matter.
I also believe that “what the USFG can do” is set at the wrong level, but I understand that I am making an argument about what should be and not what is.
What does America stand for, if not what have enshrined in the constitution? I mean, how does any of us know what that is? Some of us may think it stands for Christ’s Kingdom on Earth.
Having read the Wikipedia background on the origins of “deem and pass”, I’d like to suggest that the appropriate name for the lawsuits proposed by the Cooch, Idaho, etc., should be the “Slaughter House cases.”
Oh, and guys? Yeah, I knew about Marlboro v. Madison, having a bit of fun there, you know? Talking how some of this stuff is made up as we go along? Not a great joke, but it didn’t deserve to die like that. Too hip for the room, story of my life…
(I kinda expected RR to think I was that stupid, but you, John? I only hope I can find the strength to go on…)
But now that you mention it…if we are strictly Constitutional in our thinking, then that dastardly abrogation of power is illegal and all those decisions are null. But we don’t think that, we mostly think it was such a good idea it should have been included, so we shrug and accept it.
I’m cool with that, I think it was that good an idea, and Marshall performed a service for his country he had absolutely no right to. Yay.
