31–40 of 135 posts
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Such an absurd ruling, but none of the current supremes have the stones to overturn it
Clarence Thomas actually dissented on this and said it was crazy.
It's the most incredible form of mental gymnastics in order to grab power
I always wonder why nobody has made an argument that drug laws are unconstitutional since the 9th amendment states clearly that rights don't need to be enumerated, and there's abundant evidence of people making their own drug decisions prior to the existence of the USA.
The Ninth doesn't mean "you can't regulate anything we didn't mention". It just says that any mere omission shouldn't be construed to mean anything. The lack of an enumerated right to privacy doesn't forbid the courts from deciding we have one.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
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What’s the basis of the argument for prohibition if someone isn’t hurting others?
With the welfare state that exists, a common argument is that people that destroy their bodies or brains are a burden on "society".
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Looking from the outside, US constitutional law has always seemed like this absurd tangle of kabbalistic reinterpretations, but it seems important to mention that AFAIK the federal ban on child labour (whether or not its products cross state lines) rests on similarly twisty reasoning. (Things like environmental protections as well, probably, but this looks to have been the first example.) “Let’s allow the federal gov…
I don't think its value neutral when drug laws allowed slavery to essentially continue and has destroyed countless communities and families
- Activities staying inside state lines should not be subject to federal regulation so that people don’t get sent to prison in droves for what is essentially a medical problem.
Seems to me like federal regulation is fairly value-neutral, as in usable in equal measure for both good and evil. The tricky part is deciding which is which, of course.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Such an absurd ruling, but none of the current supremes have the stones to overturn it
Looking from the outside, US constitutional law has always seemed like this absurd tangle of kabbalistic reinterpretations, but it seems important to mention that AFAIK the federal ban on child labour (whether or not its products cross state lines) rests on similarly twisty reasoning. (Things like environmental protections as well, probably, but this looks to have been the first example.) “Let’s allow the federal gov…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Ninth doesn't mean "you can't regulate anything we didn't mention". It just says that any mere omission shouldn't be construed to mean anything. The lack of an enumerated right to privacy doesn't forbid the courts from deciding we have one.
Correct. That is the 10th: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The Ninth is a reminder that the Tenth has its limits too.
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What’s the basis of the argument for prohibition if someone isn’t hurting others?
Imagine opioid pills were OTC. For a lot of people, they will initially be instant feel-good happy pills, even though people know there will be disastrous repercussions to taking them indefinitely. How many people go through bouts of severe depression? Won't some percentage of them, in moments of weakness, decide to try the opioid pills, feel good, and get sucked in? Shouldn't we as a society, try to curb humanity's…
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Imagine opioid pills were OTC. For a lot of people, they will initially be instant feel-good happy pills, even though people know there will be disastrous repercussions to taking them indefinitely. How many people go through bouts of severe depression? Won't some percentage of them, in moments of weakness, decide to try the opioid pills, feel good, and get sucked in? Shouldn't we as a society, try to curb humanity's…
No we shouldn't. There is a big difference between a parent safely bringing up a child and a state interfering with what an adult person does to themselves. Otherwise you open a can of greater good worms. If you have money, opioids are easily available via dealers throughout the world and there is no epidemic of addicts. Yes there are individual cases, but most of these would be destroying their lives in some other a…
Yes, we definitely are sacrificing some of everyone's bodily autonomy because we think it's less bad than the consequences of putting no limits on it.
Caffeine, Alcohol, Cigarettes, Cannabis, Cocaine, Meth, Heroin, Fentanyl, biological weapons
and on some parallel track:
BB gun, .22, Glock, AR-15, automatic rifle, RPG, cannon, tank, land mines, nuclear warhead
If there's even one thing on the above list that you'd not want to be automatically OK for every person in the world to own and operate (at least on a "until you hurt someone" basis), then you're putting an arbitrary limit which values "preventing likely harms to others" over absolute autonomy.
Even if you'd allow the warhead I don't think either of us can be said to be 'right' or 'wrong' -- just that it's most productive if we acknowledge which "paramount value" (perfect freedom vs. reduction in predictable harms to innocent others) we are prioritizing, and acknowledge that we have to make a significant sacrifice in the other one in order to do that.
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What’s the basis of the argument for prohibition if someone isn’t hurting others?
it was supported by progressives and feminists in the early 1900s and actually resulted in fewer deaths from alcohol and lower domestic violence. The anti-prohibition rhetoric in modern times was essentially manufactured by corporate interests to imply it doesn't work https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibit... https://time.com/5501680/prohibition-history-feminism-suffra...
I always wonder why nobody has made an argument that drug laws are unconstitutional since the 9th amendment states clearly that rights don't need to be enumerated, and there's abundant evidence of people making their own drug decisions prior to the existence of the USA.
Probably because most people want regulations and enforcement around pharmaceuticals. If we decide that the government has no power to pass laws surrounding drugs we'd be hurting ourselves.