Transterrestrial Musings

1. 
   Brock

   November 9, 2012, 2:01 pm | #

   Bull s**t. That guy didn’t even read the Roberts decision. ACCA was found Constitutional as a tax. The very same decision limited the powers of Congress in other ways. It was a pretty good decision for conservatives, even if it didn’t serve their short-term desire to get rid of ACCA.

   And (short of assassination) the conservative justices on the Court aren’t going anywhere in that time. Kennedy and Scalia are the oldest, but as long as Alzheimers doesn’t set in lawyers have longevity in their profession. Don’t expect Obama to get a change to appoint anyone else.

   More to the point, Wickard v Filburn is going to go up for challenge in 2015, only three years from now.

   That sounds pretty precise, doesn’t it? But it’s based on one thing- Colorado’s weed mandate.

   Wickard found that growing wheat in your own property for your own use was within the Federal mandate under the commerce clause. It’s obviously a crappy case, but that’s the case law.

   Well the Colorado law allows you to grow weed on your own property for your own use. Do you think the DEA is going to let that slide? They are not. Someone’s getting arrested, and when that happens it’ll go straight to the Courts – and Wickard is the obvious case on point.

   The conservatives will get their chance to overturn Wickard fairly soon. Time will tell whether they’ll prioritize constitutional principles over their urge to send some hippy to jail.

   • 
     McGehee

     November 9, 2012, 2:13 pm | #

     The very same decision limited the powers of Congress in other ways.

     No, it didn’t. Roberts didn’t use the Commerce clause at all in supporting his opinion; as such, any commentary he did include about the Commerce clause was dictum, which no one else is bound to respect in future deliberations.

     And after the underhanded way he arrived at his opinion, I’m fairly sure there are eight justices on the Supreme Court who will ignore that dictum.
2. 
   ken anthony

   November 9, 2012, 3:10 pm | #

   Left out of all these decisions is the presumption of liberty. If laws have unlimited authority to compel, where is liberty?

   Right, there is none.

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