912 Project Idaho HomeAbout 912 Project Idaho912 Project Idaho Events912 Project Idaho Blog912 Project Idaho Forum912 Project Idaho Project912 Project Idaho Photo Gallery912 Project Idaho912 Project Idaho Register912 Project Idaho Login
Tyranny, thy name is the Commerce Clause

Author: 912 Project Idaho | Date: July 02, 2010

This source blog can be found at the “Rightly Concerned” website link given at the bottom of this page. 


rightly-concerned-header.jpg width=670 height=104


Date:  7/1/2010 10:37:58 AM

By Bryan Fischer
________________________


Sen. Tom Coburn asked Elana Kagan a simple straightforward question: can the government, under the guise of the Commerce Clause, pass a law requiring Americans to eat three vegetables a day? The video of this exchange, which you can see here, has justifiably gone viral.


Ms. Kagan’s response is one of stupefied, stunned silence. A long awkward pause follows the question. Her reaction was so blank that it would be uncharitable to our antlered friends in the forest to describe her facial expression as that of a deer caught in the headlights.


She could not bring herself to say that Congress has no authority to dictate the dietary intake of every American.


Thus the Commerce Clause has been distorted out of all recognition to justify any and all expressions of the tyranny of the central government over every aspect of our lives.


It would be a travesty for this woman to take a seat on the Supreme Court when she is so clueless about the constitutional limits on the federal government. She is clearly prepared, as a justice, to justify any overreach of government into our daily lives. Under Justice Kagan, we would be serfs rather than not citizens.


Apparently she believes that while government has no place in our bedrooms, it can squat in our refrigerators and cupboards 24 hours a day. Do you see the much-vaunted right to privacy here anywhere? I sure don’t.


James Madison, who, as you may recall, is the Father of the Constitution and therefore may be presumed to have more right to speak to this issue than the mind-numbed Ms. Kagan, made it clear in Federalist Paper Number 42 that the purpose of the Commerce Clause was to prevent states from imposing import and export taxes on goods shipped across their borders from neighboring states.


Merchants in the days of the founding, in order to get their goods to metropolitan centers or to shipping ports, would often have to transport them across state lines. States had taken to charging import taxes on these goods when they came into their jurisdiction and slapping export taxes on them when they left.


Madison and the Founders recognized the threat this posed to harmony among the States of the newly created Union. Said Madison, if this practice were allowed to continue, “it would nourish unceasing animosities, and not improbably terminate in serous interruptions of the public tranquillity.” So the Commerce Clause was added to prevent this pernicious practice.


Madison makes this explicit. “A very material object of this power was the relief of the States which import and export through others States, from the improper contributions levied on them by the latter.”


Let’s be clear: the Commerce Clause, as framed by the Founders, gives Congress no authority other than to ban the imposition of import and export fees by the various States. That’s it.


The fact that Dean Kagan does not understand this is alone reason enough to disqualify her from sitting on the highest bench in the land.


It is perhaps unsurprising to find that it is possible to graduate from Harvard Law School without ever once taking a class in constitutional law. Dean Kagan made a class in international law obligatory, but a class in constitutional law is still just an elective. [Emphasis added by 9-12]


Maybe that’s why graduates of Harvard Law, and even former deans, appear to know more about the constitution of Zimbabwe than they do about the constitution of the United States.

________________________________________________________________________________________


Visit the source blog here…....  Rightly Concerned, Cautiously Observing the Left. From the Right

________________________________________________________________________________________

Comments:

I agree with most of what is on 912. What is missing is an action I can participate in to change what Congress is doing. It is good to recognize a problem, but useless unless there are guidelines with actions the individual can take?

Posted by Larry Ware on July 26, 2010

Leave a comment:

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.