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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

#331

Post by schiem »

porksoda wrote: post #270
dfdsjsdklfjs wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's exhausting. Methanol is only ever a tiny portion of the fermented output and that's only with grain fermentation. There's nowhere near enough to blind anyone. Fruit or sugar fermentation does not produce any methanol. In that case the unwanted contaminate is ethyl acetate, which is less harmful but still ruins the drink. It gives bad whiskey its burn and causes hangovers. In both cases the procedure is the…

In this very comment section an earlier post claimed the opposite (that specifically grain fermentation did not produce the big M), and sounded just as knowlegable and plausible to the lay-ear.

The person you're responding to is incorrect, fruit fermentation produces methanol: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8125215/

The primary mechanism of methanol production during fermentation is from pectin degradation. Grain contains considerably less pectin than fruit, so grain fermentation produces less methanol than fruit.

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

#332

Post by IAmBroom »

hansvm wrote: post #257
wiredfool wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best I’ve ever done was a double distilled Spanish box wine we picked up for 1eur/l. The wine was undrinkable, but the brandy was sooooo smooth. Next best was cheap tokaij furmint, distilled once and then mixed back into some of the undistilled wine. Basically the same thing as pineau de charante, but Hungarian and on the kitchen table.

I'm not sure if it extends to box wines or Spanish wines, but my main complaint of bottom-shelf wines in the US is that they're pure sugar/acid/alcohol with almost no extra flavors and pretty bad distributions of the main components (especially being far too sweet). A small pattern I'm noticing in your description is the presence of sugar in the distillation inputs. Assume I know nothing about distillation; is that r…

> A small pattern I'm noticing in your description is the presence of sugar in the distillation inputs. Assume I know nothing about distillation; is that relevant?

Sugar should be completely removed by a proper distillation setup (although a lazy setup can allow some "contamination" with sugars).

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

#333

Post by tastyfreeze »

mothballed wrote: post #328
marcusverus wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The power of the judiciary to "interpret" the constitution was a huge chink in the armor of the Constitutional order. A handful of unelected judges can effectively amend the constitution via simple majority, but can only be "overruled" by the people if there is extremely broad opposition (as a constitutional amendment requires 2/3 of both houses)--which is, of course, a total inversion of the democratic-republican pr…

The check elected officials have on this is to pack the courts. This is what FDR threatened to do to get through (at the time unconstitutional, now magically "not") a bunch of popular legislation.

The size of the Supreme court is not defined in the Constitution. So, packing the court is not unconstitutional. It is dishonest and shady as hell. But, the only check on the power of each branch are the other two branches that don't desire to be sidelined by one branch growing more powerful. All three branches are supposed to be in contention for power within the bounds of their interpretation of the Constitution. It is the duty of the other two branches to deem an action of the third branch as unconstitutional.

But, the system has been broken over time. Congress abdicated the majority of their power to the executive and somehow judicial became the official arbiters of constitutionality.

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

#334

Post by yieldcrv »

mothballed wrote: post #328
marcusverus wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The power of the judiciary to "interpret" the constitution was a huge chink in the armor of the Constitutional order. A handful of unelected judges can effectively amend the constitution via simple majority, but can only be "overruled" by the people if there is extremely broad opposition (as a constitutional amendment requires 2/3 of both houses)--which is, of course, a total inversion of the democratic-republican pr…

The check elected officials have on this is to pack the courts. This is what FDR threatened to do to get through (at the time unconstitutional, now magically "not") a bunch of popular legislation.

FDR is written about phenomenally in US history books for reasons that don't seem to match the reality of what happened. We can separate foreign policy wins from domestic policy losses, just like we do now.

The now-heralded New Deal was getting torn apart by the Supreme Court, program after program for half the decade. And the remaining parts of the New Deal still exist on shaky constitutional ground if you really look at how much of an abberation they are and how they survived. Spoiler alert, for things that remain its nearly impossible to get standing in Federal Courts to question them and the people that could get standing aren't interested and benefit from them.

FDR threatened to pack the courts, just like modern presidents and party constituents demand.

It was actually very partial that the FDR-era Supreme Court backed off from that threat. So to consider our current Supreme Court to be the aberration is inaccurate, it is even more autonomous.

Everything I look at gives me the opposite conclusion of the public discourse, except when I'm in very small legal circles.

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

#335

Post by yieldcrv »

snowwrestler wrote: post #295

Decisions like this illustrate what a hollow farce the modern federal courts’ approach is to Constitutional governance. To be clear, courts are not supposed to change policy or make new policy, they are just supposed to interpret the law as written. So supposedly this ruling is “not a change in the law” but rather a discovery that actually the law has always been this way but oops, someone read it wrong 158 years ago…

I don't think it does demonstrate that at all, it would demonstrate that if there was a prior court challenge were it was found to be constitutional. but there was not, this was the first court challenge, hundreds of millions of people, maybe over a billion over the last 150 years never thought to take it to federal court

one person finally did, and this decision matches what a lower court found in 2024, this is a pattern of consensus actually. the government (executive and legislative branch) is losing, while the judicial branch has complete consensus

this would actually be the worst example of anxiety about a fictionally different modern federal court, and seems more so to be an example of not knowing how they work at all

one suggestion that I've seen in other democracies is that a law passed by the legislature can be sent for constitutional review immediately by the President, instead of simple sign or veto. In the US system, all laws can be passed and it takes someone challenging it, and of the people that challenge the law they have to find a way to have "standing" - as in, prove how they were affected by the law - which is a huge risk if the law has a penalty you have to risk being affected by. That's how we have a massive nearly infinite set of laws that have never been challenged.

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

#336

Post by yieldcrv »

nineseventynine wrote: post #325
mattmaroon wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would violate equal protection.

How so? Left handed people aren't human. Just like how criminals aren't treated like normal humans with equal rights. Seriously though, I don't think it technically violates anything given that we do have a set of humans (criminals) that we treat unequally. Culturally we believe theft and murder gives us the right to treat such people who do such things unequally and we've encoded that into law. It is simply another…

The left handed tax law could be passed and declared unconstitutional almost instantly under a challenge brought by any individual that referenced the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, to any federal court. if the government appealed it at all, the appeals court would agree with the lower court, if the government appealed it again, the Supreme Court would also agree with the appeals court and lower court, and it would be a phenomenal waste of time.

That's the only validity of the example.

Nothing occurring in the court system matches the angst of people that view recent appointments and decisions to be invalid. Anything overturned only affected the day to day life because there was never an actual federal law passed at all. The courts are operating much closer to how people imagine them, than in prior times, despite people believing the opposite is occurring. Media.

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

#337

Post by [deleted] »

bsimpson wrote: post #13

Do this one next: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich The Supreme Court somehow held that the feds can regulate what you do in your own home (in this case, growing marijuana for personal use) because it could have a butterfly effect on the interstate price. (Constitutionally, the feds can only regulate _interstate_ commerce.)

[deleted]

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

#338

Post by hellojesus »

gbacon wrote: post #150
laughing_man wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You’re almost certainly correct. Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson would argue this consequentualist line. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch could be persuaded by textualist or originalist arguments and are the most likely overturn votes. Kavanaugh was a key man on standing up and defending the so-called PATRIOT Act during the George W. Bush administration, so no way he knocks out this pillar. ACB talked a strong originalist ga…

There's no way Roberts would vote to overturn this given his history of pretending a penalty directly remitted to the IRS for not carrying health insurance was not a tax for the whole ACA fiasco.

But Filburn must needs be overturned. The sovereignty of states depends on it.

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

#339

Post by mothballed »

yieldcrv wrote: post #334
mothballed wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The check elected officials have on this is to pack the courts. This is what FDR threatened to do to get through (at the time unconstitutional, now magically "not") a bunch of popular legislation.

FDR is written about phenomenally in US history books for reasons that don't seem to match the reality of what happened. We can separate foreign policy wins from domestic policy losses, just like we do now. The now-heralded New Deal was getting torn apart by the Supreme Court, program after program for half the decade. And the remaining parts of the New Deal still exist on shaky constitutional ground if you really lo…

Isolating yourself to small legal circles can unfortunately open yourself to the vulnerability of mistakenly appealing to the authority of legal training that has specifically been tailored for success in the system we're in, which may optimize for coming to conclusions that help you win cases rather than optimizing for some other analysis. Looking at the bigger picture is an entirely different skill set than having legal training to be a good lawyer, so I think it's folly to place in special stake in "small legal circles" for this and in the worst case, might usher you into an echo chamber built out of practical adaptation.

If I wanted a healthy view I might include those with legal backgrounds but they would only be a small selection of the landscape of ideas to draw from, I certainly wouldn't place special stock in the "legal" community.

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

#340

Post by hellojesus »

giantg2 wrote: post #330
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please suggest one, but ideally three, things that you think that overturning Wickard would lead to that would cause K, S & J to vote against doing so?

The federal civil rights act of 1964 is probably a good one. The clean air act is another. Probably others like consumer protection laws, healthcare regulations, safety laws (OSHA), etc. These are all based on the expanded powers from wickard v fillburn. If portions of these were challenged and overturned, I believe those justices would not view that as a good thing.

Isn't OSHA already unconstitutional under current implementation due to competing intelligible principles?

I agree they won't do it, but they absolutely should.

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