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US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

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Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#151
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "interstate" does not exist in the text of the Constitution. There's arguably some merit to your position , but the argument that some case law is invalid because it doesn't meet the definition of a term defined in other case law is circular and incoherent.

It uses the phrase “regulate commerce between the states” which effectively has the same meaning.

No. It absolutely does not use that language, and it baffles me as to what would cause you to say that it does.

Please endeavor to say only true things. The truth matters.

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#152
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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I don't think it's unreasonable to desire to be free from the noxious odors of others. > The right to waft my smells in any direction ends where your nose begins. - Abraham Lincoln or Ben Franklin or Mark Twain or someone

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Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#153
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The controlling case is Wickard v Filburn (1942). A farmer was told he could only grow X acres of feed on his own land; feed that he had no intention of selling and was being fed entirely to his own livestock on the same land. This seems to overturn that in part, but until Wickard is overturned, and the interstate commerce clause reigned in, there will be weird side effects of it like this.

Circuit courts may not overrule Supreme Court precedent. Accordingly, this decision purports to rest on the “Necessary and Proper” clause, avoiding Wickard (decided on commerce clause grounds)

In particular, Necessary and Proper as it relates to the taxing power, which the challenged statute relied upon, having been passed decades before the scope of Commerce Clause powers began their expansion, let alone Wickard v. Filburn.

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#154
post #50

how...uh...explosive...are home stills?

They're a significant fire hazard which is why ATF regulations for stills require them to be located at least 100 feet from a residence. I live in a city with 2 distilleries. You can smell when they're dealing with the mash because everyone in town can smell it. Also, we all get some black mold (not the really bad one) all over our siding which I think is some byproduct of the fermentation step. My father worked in t…

Thanks for sharing your comment. I was skeptical about your claim that black mold would be a consequence of living near a distillery, but in fact, it is. It is called Whiskey Fungus and is related to the aging of the spirits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudoinia

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#155
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have identified a root perversion. Roscoe Filburn’s wheat did not leave Ohio or even his farm. He didn’t offer it for sale; the wheat was for his own use. It was deemed to “affect interstate commerce” and thus within the scope of the interstate commerce clause. With that, a provision intended to remove power of states to tax each other’s goods and services and promote a free trade zone instead became a mechanism…

I don't see SCOTUS ever overturning Wickard , sadly. Too many federal programs and regulations would lose their legal basis if that happened.

In Gonzales, O'Connor dissented and Scalia, who was too afraid of pulling the rug out from under the administrative state, issued a concurrence. So, surprises do happen.

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally would be okay with having it legal if smoking could still be banned in multifamily complexes. I don't care if my neighbors are using edibles, but since I know that legalized weed means more smoke coming from my neighbors' balconies, I will always vote "No" when marijuana legalization is on the ballot in my location.

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Oh good grief. This is such an uninformed and unnecessarily belligerent take.

We can and do have public nuisance laws which kick in when an individual is impinging upon the health, safety, comfort etc. of other people. This exists in jurisdictions all over the world for all kinds of things, the penalties are usually minor and applied only to repeat offenders. It is completely reasonable for someone to support the idea of these applying to marijuana use, in fact, in most jurisdictions where marijuana is legal, they probably already do. Yes, repeatedly stink up your neighbor's apartment and you may get a warning followed by a fine, deal with it. Your parent is not a Nazi and is not throwing stoners in prison. Perhaps go touch grass instead of smoking it now and then.

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#158
The best liquor I ever had was by a state police detective who had been home distilling since he was 12. It was made from rye and corn, but tasted like peaches.

I think it is kind of magical to witness the process. I only experimented a few times, and never aged it, so every was very sharp. The best was a sharp brandy made from a bottle of wine I bought. The worst was using a leftover keg of beer, which bittered the copper pipe, so everything after tasted like gin.

I would recommend people try it. You can make one out of copper pipe from a hardware store, a few fittings and a pressure cooker. Be safe, of course, and remember that ethanol is used as a preventative for methanol poisoning :)

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, yes, subsidiarity. HOAs, the lowest level of US government.

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You've made about a dozen comments in this thread and they've escalated from "HOAs are unconstitutional" to "I'd rather shoot my fellow citizens than be drafted if weed isn't legal" to "driving high is fine, I've done it for decades." Each one a little more unhinged than the last, which is an accomplishment given where it started.

It reads less like a coherent political philosophy and more like someone who's been hitting the sacrament a little too hard this morning.

I smoke your "sacrament" daily, and cigarettes, and I'm terrified that people will think you're representative of either of those classes, or even a minority of them.

Most people in this thread broadly agree with you that marijuana should be legal. You're somehow picking fights with your own allies because they had the audacity to say they don't like the smell, or that driving impaired is bad. You're not defending freedom, you're being contrarian and hostile to anyone who doesn't arrive at your exact position with your exact intensity.

And the driving thing isn't a matter of opinion. "I've done it for decades and never caused an accident" is the exact argument every drunk driver makes right up until they do. Your anecdotal survival is not evidence of safety.

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#160
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think much more likely is that it will just be made legal federally sometime in the next decade. Marijuana legalization has majorities across ideologies ( https://news.gallup.com/poll/514007/grassroots-support-legal... ) and even though the inability to create federal law on something so popular seems like a good case study on how the US system doesn't always do a good job representing it's actual people, it seems…

I think the issue is this isn't seen by politicians as a motivating vote driver. It is, however, a motivation for someone to go out and vote against a politician. That's ultimately what keeps things like MJ illegal. There are just far too many people that will get upset about it if it were made federally legal. My state, Idaho, has one such politician that is constantly bringing up and trying to find ways to keep the…

Mormons voted strongly to legalize MJ in Utah. Maybe your politician is just an odd man out?

edit: Well, I should note the Utah vote was only for "medical" MJ.

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