Has anybody read Antonin Scalia's latest book, "Reading Law"?

desert dude

Well-Known Member
I think this is a grand idea but it seems the founders figured it should be very hard to create an amendment. Considering the state of our political system today, it would be impossible and so your grand idea will remain just an idea. Let us look at something as simple as prohibition. There could be found no instance in the constitution that would allow for a law prohibiting the production or consumption of alcohol and so they had to go back and change the basis of all of our laws, they had to get to the root and alter it.

Why did they not see it necessary to do the exact same thing when it came to the prohibition of drugs in this country? What changed?
Glad you asked. What changed was a bunch of "living costitution" judges legislated from the bench and changed the meaning of the commerce clause in Wickard V Filburn. Thanks for joining me in objecting to living constitutionalists.
 

Dr Kynes

Well-Known Member
What you are saying is that if effects didn't mean cell phones back then, then it can't mean it now. As I said, if the document was written using 200 year old meanings for words then it cannot apply to current meanings. Meanings change, hell, we can see that all over the place - do you recall when the word gay meant carefree and happy?
i would suggest you google the phrase "personal effects" and see that it means now, exactly what it meant in the 1700's.

your personal property, particularly the shit you are carrying on your person. that not only describes a cell phone, but USB drives, PDA's, lighters, flashlights, ballpoint pens, and billfolds full of credit and debit cards, none of which existed at that time, an none of which are exempted from the "unreasonable searches and seizures" clause, save those that the cops can search without touching since they dont actually have to "seize it" so the "searches" are just fine.

your living constitution nonsense obviates and destroys the constitution by submitting it to the "Death of a Thousand Cuts" if yoiu want to dance that dance, then every electronic communication you might indulge in is open for examination by Lawer Infurcmint Offisurs since Ben Franklin didnt have a hotmail acount and George Washinton never used an iPhone.
 

desert dude

Well-Known Member
The feds get to regulate six toed cats thanks to a "living constitution" approach to the constitution. Kommerce Klause, bitches!

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/12/11/53024.htm

" The Animal Welfare Act, intended to govern zoos and circuses, gives the USDA jurisdiction over any exhibition of animals that is a "distribution ... which affects [interstate] commerce."

"The museum argues that its activities are of a purely local nature because the Hemingway cats spend their entire lives at the museum - the cats are never purchased, never sold, and never travel beyond 907 Whitehead Street," he added. "But the local character of an activity does not necessarily exempt it from federal regulation. And it is well-settled that, when local businesses solicit out-of-state tourists, they engage in activity affecting interstate commerce."
 
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