Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Raich:

I think my sentiments don't differ from what most libertarians have been saying about this decision. Thomas's dissent is absolutely heroic. The first paragraph says it all:

Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana
that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything—and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.


Most people don't appreciate just how central the doctrine of limited and enumerated powers is to the Constitution. You know what gets my gall: Robert Bork said something along the lines of "Lawrence v. Texas means that the Constitution is simply gone." Why can't we say the same thing with this decision, or Wickard v. Filburn, the decision this case affirms that destroyed the doctrine of limited and enumerated powers? From an "Original Intent" standpoint, Wickard and Raich are in no conceivably legitimate way any more defensible than Lawrence.

The Constitution has been "simply gone" since Wickard and Justice Scalia clearly desires to live without it.

No comments: