-----------
In The Door to Totalitarianism I wrote: Since 1937, Federal courts have interpreted the Constitution’s commerce clause as conferring, in effect, unlimited power upon Congress to regulate anything and everything occurring anywhere in the universe....[The Constitution’s commerce clause gives Congress authority to regulate commerce among the states, not within a single state]
After 1937, the Court sanctioned increasingly broad-impact Congressional enactments that regulated economic activity confined entirely within individual states. This obviously contravened the ruling of Chief Justice John Marshall in the Gibbons v. Ogden case stated above.
The Court’s sophistic rationalization was that any activity, even if confined to a single city within a single state, could be construed to have a “substantial effect” on commerce in other states and among the states.
If one accepts this interpretation, then anything can be regulated by Congress under the commerce clause power. Carried to the extremes favored by liberal-socialists, even the birth of a baby is subject to regulation, because it creates new demand for products, some of the components of which may move in interstate commerce. Is abortion a means to regulate interstate commerce?
This is an exceedingly steep and slippery slope headed straight to Hell.
**********
Mr. Will writes:
“New York Sen. Charles Schumer, a member of the Judiciary Committee and an author of the Democrats’ catechism regarding constitutional reasoning, soon will be questioning Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Herewith some questions someone should ask Schumer:
Does Congress have the power to require Americans to floss after brushing their teeth? Or to regulate the amount of homework children do each night?
The federal government’s powers supposedly are limited because they are enumerated. As James Madison said in Federalist 45, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.” For seven decades, however, Congress has treated the commerce clause ("Congress shall have power . . . to regulate commerce . . . among the several states") as a license to do what it wants to do.”
Visit MoveOff Network Members
Back to summary...
