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Election Year Debates 2012 The Commerce Clause

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YOU DECIDE
the GREAT election debates
2012

The People's Cube is the fourth estate of government and as such we embrace our responsibilities to you, the voters.

In an effort to help Americans better understand the issues of the day, to foster a more informed electorate, and to help the people cast their votes in the upcoming elections, The People's Cube presents: YOU DECIDE 2012 - important debates on the issues of the day.

Today's debate has been suggested by ObamaCare and the recent Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of the health insurance mandate. Many People's Cube readers have written, asking us today's debate question:

How much power to regulate does the Commerce Clause delegate to Congress?

The Commerce Clause: The Congress shall have power... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

Today's debate is between:


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The esteemed Algaecon Solyndra Cronybucks III is a top advisor to the President of the United States as well as an internationally acclaimed authority on the environment, the sciences, the economy, international policy issues, social justice, and the Constitution. In his spare time "Daddy Cronybucks" mentors young idealistic Progressive youth to become the leaders of the next generation.


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$.$. Halliburton is a Republican party operative and apologist for the 1%. He is an advocate of far right extremism, imperialist hegemony, and on your own-winner takes all social Darwinism. He is a frequent comentator at corporate owned and operated media.

$.$. Halliburton:

TPC summary of $.$. Halliburton's argument: It gives congress unlimited power. America needs to get some balls and use the Commerce Clause to take over the world. It gives congress power over every square inch of the earth. Draft everyone under the age of sixty! Total world conquest is our right. Imperialism now! Once we've subjected the world and milked it dry of all surplus labor we'll expand out into space. There are alien civilizations out there. The Commerce Clause is imperialism on steroids! Let's use it!

Prior to the Constitution, the States under the Articles of Confederation engaged in trade wars that were harmful to the economy and the peace of the Union. The purpose of the Commerce Clause in the new Constitution was to rectify this so as to end the chaos of disastrous trade wars. This was the way it was understood for most of the history of the United States.

The Commerce Clause doesn't say that Congress regulates commerce with foreign nations and the indian tribes and gives Congress the power to regulate everything that affects interstate commerce in the United States.

The purpose of the Commerce Clause is to ensure the regularity of commerce with foreign nations, the Indian tribes, and among the States. It is to ensure free trade.

To illustrate the absurdity of the Progressive idea that the purpose of the Commerce Clause is to delegate to Congress power to regulate everything that affects the interstate commerce of the United States, and thus everything to do with the economy then, to be logically consistent, it must also mean that Congress has the power to regulate everything that affects the economic activity of foreign nations and the Indian tribes.

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To take the Progressives interpretation to it's logical conclusion, the Commerce Clause effectively gives Congress power over all the economic activity on earth. To be logically consistent, their interpretation gives the United States de facto dominion over the entire world. This is the Monroe doctrine on steroids! The necessary and proper clause could be invoked to send our armies to other nations to force them to comply.

I point this out to illustrate just how absurd their interpretation is, not as an argument for taking over the world.

Today, very few question the right of the Obama administration to destroy the coal industry through regulation based on the Progressive's interpretation of the Commerce Clause. Many who disagree with the policy only see it in pragmatic economic terms. And then there's health care and the use of Progressive rationalizations that even destroy the religious right of conscious.

But the absurdity of the Progressives interpretation aside, they are using it for real harm and destroying "the consent of the governed" and the great experiment of self government. Not only does their interpretation harm economic activity but it also fosters the creation of federal agencies that have been given open-ended legislative and judicial powers in and of themselves. And then, as arms of the President, make of the President the center of gravity around which all the spheres of our life revolve. This makes him a power unto himself and turns politics into the realm of loyalty and fealty to a man. It creates the rule of man over man. It destroys the very reason the United States was founded, the Revolutionary war was fought, and the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (which contains the Commerce Clause) was written. So in a very real sense, their interpretation destroys the very document that their interpretation is based on.

Daddy Cronybucks:

TPC summary of Daddy Cronybucks argument: Daddy Cronybucks believes the Commerce Clause gives congress only specific limited powers. His understanding of the constitution is informed by strict constitutional constructionism and the original intent of the framer of the constitution, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck you can be sure it's a duck. And when it comes to the Republicans you better duck and cover because they're out to bomb the American taxpayers into oblivion. The song went "Love and marriage, love and marriage. They go together like horse and carriage." Halliburton and Romney and all the Republicans sing: "War and profits, war and profits; they go together like bombs and..."

Well, you can imagine the rest. I can't bring myself to put such a vile odious sentiment to print.

The moderate Institute for Public Studies report on political and economic trends stated that historically the Republicans have been very expansive in their interpretation of the Commerce Clause. They've been using it to bomb America with their bizarre reactionary ideas of the General Welfare; which is to say they've been expanding the meaning of the Commerce Clause to destroy the very idea of the General Welfare. They wage war on the 99% of America that isn't rich but are forced to pay all the taxes that subsidize the corporations the 1% rich own. And then the rich 1% take that money the 99% were forced to subsidize the corporations with and the rich use it to buy the government. So the poor are forced to pay for their own enslavement.

Which brings us to another finding in the official report. To wit: most of the narrow 5/4 splits in the vote of the Supreme Court have been bought and paid for with money, money money. That's our money! And they use it to buy the court.

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And that's how the Republicans are going to defeat ObamaCare and force the ever expanding power they pull out of the ass of the Commerce Clause to justify their crazy imperialist dreams of using it to claim that the entire world is America's because the Commerce Clause gives them power to invade every nation on earth.

Bomb's away on Canada! Bombs away on Europe! On Japan! On Russia! On Iraq and Iran! Cuba is ours! Bombs away! Bombs away!

It's madness but this is what Rommney will do if they manage to smuggle him into the White House.

War and profits. War and profits. That's love and marriage to Republicans. Better duck and cover, folks. Love and marriage for the Republicans is a shotgun wedding. Between America and the rest of the world.

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As a follow up to this discussion, it is quite clear that the commerce clause is able to extend the reach and parameters of government oversight to regions where interstate commerce takes place. This is glorious news because there does not have to be any commerce at all in order for the Commerce Clause to apply. This judgment was rendered in 1942 in the Supreme Court case Wickard v. Filburn, in which an Ohio wheat farmer grew more wheat than he was permitted to by the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. This surplus of wheat was solely for his farm and family consumption and was not available for sale or barter to his neighbors, let alone the public in any other nation or state.

As is clear to anybody, the Commerce Clause is the greatest aspect of the Constitution and the only part of the document that needs to be kept in order to explain to the dissenters that such actions of the government are both just and necessary for the successful implementation of equality, fairness and welfare. If people were allowed to do anything they pleased, they may not choose to please the state.

We can all hope and pray that the current Supreme Court will rule in favor of empowering the Commerce Clause to further compel individuals to participate in an economic activity for the sole purpose of then regulating that activity. In this way, there will be several precedents set to then compel individuals on quantities of production, quantities of purchase, items of production and purpose and most importantly the means to enforce these judgments should an act of deviation occur. Such unpatriotic and subversive actions must be found and stamped out, and we must not allow dilatory practices of appealing such decisions, or accusing these rulings as infringing up the antiquated notions of “freedom”. The modern definition of freedom must the only truth disseminated, in that people must be made to understand freedom only flows from the highest form of government, and only at the behest of that government to be repealed at any whim arbitrarily for any person.

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If republicans abused it then democrats are entitled to abuse it as well but only after pointing out that republicans abused it. Did I mention that republicans abused it?

The Supreme Court has to be fair now and let the DNC profit from it.

It's simple logic...

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Does the commerce clause also include TSA?

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Fortunately for all of us the TSA is under the Department of Homeland Security, and they report directly to the president. Such an inefficient body as Congress has no say over their activities as they are an appointed agency under the President of the United States. Just imagine of something like the TSA had to actually be accountable to the people? The mere idea is so unfair it is laughable.


 
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