On Reading The Constitution

When reading the Constitution, most of it it straight forward. I get it. It’s almost like the 10 Commandants. There is no wiggle room in Thou shalt not kill. However, the Constitution has 225 years of interpretation. I am not aware of any formal changes to the Big 10.

However, you can not just read the Constitution and take it as written because we have 225 years of case law, precedents, that may alter the meaning that lesser mortals such as me have of any section of the Constitution.

For instance, perhaps the section most abused is the Commerce clause. (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." The first thing that grabs me is states shall not discriminate against other states. Also that states are prohibited from engaging in treaties with foreign nations and Indian Tribes or other states. This is reserved to Congress. It seems fairly straight forward to me. Read it again, can you find any thing in it that would restrict how much wheat you plant on your land for your own use? Well do you? If not it may show that your don’t have the kind of mind needed to interpret the Constitution as a Supreme Court Justice.

For 160 years no one saw that the Commerce Clause could not only restrict wheat growing, but a wide variety of actions. Wickard v. Filburn, was a 1942 United States Supreme Court decision that recognized the power of the federal government to regulate economic activity.

A farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat for on-farm consumption in Ohio. The U.S. government had established limits on wheat production based on acreage owned by a farmer, in order to drive up wheat prices during the Great Depression, and Filburn was growing more than the limits permitted. Filburn was ordered to destroy his crops and pay a fine, even though he was producing the excess wheat for his own use and had no intention of selling it. The Court decided that Filburn's wheat growing activities reduced the amount of wheat he would buy for chicken feed on the open market, and because wheat was traded nationally, Filburn's production of more wheat than he was allotted was affecting interstate commerce. Thus, Filburn's production could be regulated by the federal government.

Silencing Conservatives

 

Democrats are working hard to make sure conservative groups are silenced in the 2014 midterms.

By

KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

Jan. 16, 2014 7:19 p.m. ET

President Obama and Democrats have been at great pains to insist they knew nothing about IRS targeting of conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofits before the 2012 election. They've been at even greater pains this week to ensure that the same conservative groups are silenced in the 2014 midterms.

That's the big, dirty secret of the omnibus negotiations. As one of the only bills destined to pass this year, the omnibus was—behind the scenes—a flurry of horse trading. One of the biggest fights was over GOP efforts to include language to stop the IRS from instituting a new round of 501(c)(4) targeting. The White House is so counting on the tax agency to muzzle its political opponents that it willingly sacrificed any manner of its own priorities to keep the muzzle in place.

The fight was sparked by a new rule that the Treasury Department and the IRS introduced during the hush of Thanksgiving recess, ostensibly to "improve" the law governing nonprofits. What the rule in fact does is recategorize as "political" all manner of educational activities that 501(c)(4) social-welfare organizations currently engage in.

Congressional sources tell me that House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R., Ky.) had two priorities in the omnibus negotiations. One was getting in protection for groups that morally oppose ObamaCare's contraception-coverage requirement. The other was language that would put a hold on the IRS rule.

The White House and Senate Democrats had their own wish list, including an increase in funding for the International Monetary Fund, the president's prekindergarten program and more ObamaCare dollars.

Yet my sources say that throughout the negotiations Democrats went all in on keeping the IRS rule, even though it meant losing their own priorities. In the final hours before the omnibus was introduced Monday night, the administration made a last push for IMF money. Asked to negotiate that demand in the context of new IRS language, it refused.

That's a lot to sacrifice for a rule that the administration has barely noted in public, and that then-acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel claimed last fall when it was introduced is simply about providing "clarity" to nonprofits. It only makes sense in a purely political context. The president's approval ratings are in the toilet, the economy is in idle, the ObamaCare debate rages on, and the White House has a Senate majority to preserve. With one little IRS rule it can shut up hundreds of groups that pose a direct threat by restricting their ability to speak freely in an election season about spending or ObamaCare or jobs. And it gets away with it by positioning this new targeting as a fix for the first round.

And an IRS rule that purports to—as Mr. Werfel explained—"improve our work in the tax-exempt area" completely ignores the biggest of political players in the tax-exempt area: unions. The guidance is directed only at 501(c)(4) social-welfare groups—the tax category that has of late been flooded by conservative groups. Mr. Obama's union foot soldiers—which file under 501(c)(5)—can continue playing in politics.

 

Alexis de Tocqueville

No one I know of understood democracy as well as Alexis de Tocqueville and had the gift to express his insights in clear concise terms.

Barry is trying to shift the focus away from the very real scandals to inequality. Here is what Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835 noticed what might be called the paradox of equality: As social conditions become more equal, the more people resent the inequalities that remain.

"Democratic institutions awaken and foster a passion for equality which they can never entirely satisfy," Tocqueville wrote. "This complete equality eludes the grasp of the people at the very moment they think they have grasped it . . . the people are excited in the pursuit of an advantage, which is more precious because it is not sufficiently remote to be unknown or sufficiently near to be enjoyed."

One result: "Democratic institutions strongly tend to promote the feeling of envy." Another: "A depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom."

Which makes a fine argument of preventing the tyranny of the majority from seeking to right perceived wrongs.

Black on White

One of the effects of Obama has been to bold face racial lines. Before Barry, I thought the country was making good progress on eliminating racial bias. Now I see that black hate toward whites is amped up. The mere fact that blacks continue to support him in the face of facts that he has made life worse for blacks shows me their support is purely based on skin color.

I feel much less comfortable around blacks now.

Islam

Muhammad is a narcissist, a pedophile, a mass murderer,
a terrorist, a misogynist, a lecher, a cult leader, a madman
a rapist, a torturer, an assassin and a looter."
Former Muslim Ali Sina offered $50,000 to anyone
who could prove otherwise based on Islamic texts.
The reward has gone unclaimed.

What if a man you knew began telling people that God was routinely speaking to him and only him - and that the "revelations" he claimed to be receiving were mostly about him and his relative importance to all other people?  Say, for example, that this self-proclaimed prophet insisted that God had declared him to be the 'perfect example' for mankind and that others were therefore to accord him with special privilege, unwavering obedience, wealth and earthly desires, including all of the slaves and women that his lust could handle.

The founder of Islam advocated thievery, slavery, rape, murder, etc. The Quran advocates war against non-believers. There is not way it can be compatible with any form of democracy.

Merry Christmas

A Truism

From The End Is Near And It’s Going To Be Awesome, by Kevin D. Williamson. Broadside Books, 2013.

We spend a ton of money on Medicare and Medicaid because medical prices are so high. And medical prices are so high because we spend so much money on Medicare and Medicaid. Subsidizing consumption of a good while paying no attention to its production leads either to higher prices or some other kind of economic distortion.

I love it when someone states a proposition so succinctly.

I Am So Tacky For Posting This