I'm interested in the fact that the less secure a man is,
the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.
Clint Eastwood
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| Congratulations, Don Boundreaux (Cafe Hayek), announced this evening as winner of the 2014 Coolidge Prize for Journalism! |
When Commerce Isn't Commerce: The Federal Government's Abuse of the Commerce Clause
This blog holds that that the purpose of the commerce clause is to promote free markets across states and free trade among nations. There are multiple reasons to believe so, but one of the clearest is the fact that the tariff power is reserved to the Congress, not the states. (For a good discussion of other barriers of trade, especially administrative (think of occuptional restrictions), see here.)
Where did prarie dogs in Utah fit into the Commerce Clause? Let's recall one of the worst decisions in Supreme Court history: Wickard v Filburn. In the megalomaniacal attempts of the FDR administration to bolster wheat prices, quotas were imposed on how much wheat any farmer could raise depending on farm size. (In fact, Americans were paying nearly 3 times the world price for wheat due to FDR's manipulation of supplies.) Filburn raised more wheat than his quota, not for sale but for his own farm's consumption. Even if you disregard there was no exchange, i.e., commerce, and even when you consider Filburn's excess wheat never crossed state lines, SCOTUS held that Filburn's own consumption affected the aggregate wheat market, and they considered this economically illiterate quota system to be a legitimate exercise of federal authority. (As if anti-consumer policies of artificially high prices "helped" people with limited resources. Can you imagine throwing out good food, milk, etc., while people are going hungry, just to support farmers by propping up prices? Our simple rule of economics: if it serves the consumer's best interest of low prices for goods or services and/or more variety/supplies....)
At the risk of oversimplification, all hell broke loose with Carolene Products. This dates back to the 1920's when Carolene Products sold a canned form of filled milk, say skim milk with coconut oil, used for cooking or baking, an alternative to evaporated milk. Big Dairy objected to the hybrid product, engaging in fear-mongering. They persuaded Congress to abuse its interstate authority by banning shipments across borders, although Carolene Products, traditionally regulated by the states with relevant plants, could sell where they had a factory presence. Carolene Products got caught shipping across lines and the case ended up before the Supreme Court. Long story short, the Supreme Court came up with the infamous Footnote 4, which basically is an act of judicial surrender. Except for a few special cases (say, discrimination) which would more fully be considered under regular 'strict scrutiny', SCOTUS basically gave the benefit of the doubt to legislators, so long as their bills/laws were deemed rational. In fact, activist jurists often engage in rather elaborate sophistic reasoning to find the rational basis for absurd legislation. That's the kind of leap of logic that Filburn had to put up with, seeing Filburn's consumption of his own wheat as an act of interstate commerce.
In this case, the Feds are trying to restrict activities to control damage to private property caused by prarie dogs in Utah . By what authority are the Feds trying to legitimize their intervention? You guessed it, even though prarie dogs are not being sold across state lines:
Utah prairie dogs exist only in Utah and are neither bought nor sold on any market. But the Feds gamely tried to make the connection by arguing that prairie dogs encourage tourism and are of great biological value to the ecosystem.But we have found at least one voice of reason at the district judge level;
Judge Benson refused to accept at face value the government's baseless assertion that tourism would be affected by prairie dog takings on non-federal land, noting that all of the websites cited by the government as evidence of the prairie dogs' supposed connection to tourism referred to the animals' presence in national parks and forests--not private property. He also rejected the government's argument that, owing to the Utah prairie dog's "biological value" to the ecosystem, prairie dog takings may have effect on interstate commerce, declining to indulge in factually baseless, government-favoring speculation.Pope Francis Continues to Lose My Respect
Non-Catholics may not understand, but there have been tensions for some time between conservative/traditional Catholics with an emphasis on prayer and discipline and "progressive" Catholics, who are more interested in updating the Church with cultural influences and a redistributive social justice perspective. The last two Popes, not exactly pro-capitalist, were more conservative, and "progressives" were frustrated with the responsiveness of the Vatican to issues like the ordination of married or female priests. Pope Benedict showed more toleration, e.g., for the Latin Mass, (I've always loved the older rites, Gregorian chants, big cathedrals, etc.; in fact, my high school principal claimed there was no demand for Latin classes, so I personally called his bluff and came up with enough signatures. He was pissed, arguing he wasn't going to hire a Latin teacher for one class.)
This pope is definitely from the more progressive faction of cardinals, although it's like he's adapted a false Obama-like "middle of the road" persona. I think, as I've mentioned in prior posts, that his use of ambiguous language is leading to problems at the parish level as lapsed or prospective Catholics think that the pope has "changed" moral teachings on marriage and the gay lifestyle. Even "married" gay Elton John has been quoted saying let's make Francis a living saint already. To me, it's all hat, no cattle. The Church has always taught that gays willing to live a chaste, God-fearing lifestyle are welcome to join our community; Francis isn't really saying anything new in substance. I don't like gimmicks; I think being a good Catholic is hard work, requires discipline.
But it's not this stuff or his economically illiterate writing that is the focus of this segment. The first thing is the fact that Pope Francis went against his own rules including a controversial passage on homosexuality in the Synod document (not meeting vote rules), which comes across as an abuse of authority. A second point of dissatisfaction is his demotion of conservative American Cardinal Burke from effectively a member of the Vatican Supreme Court to a largely ceremonial role over the Knights of Malta, a charitable organization. This is clearly in response to Burke's calling out Francis to reaffirm Church moral teachings on the gay lifestyle. John Paul II and Benedict had faced similar situations from Church "progressives" without similar type demotions. This comes across as a little too thin-skinned and authoritarian for my tastes. Burke is an outstanding prelate.
I have some related discussion below in FB Corner. I came across a comment from a Ron Paul group reporting that Pope Francis has distanced himself from State redistributive processes. I seem to have run into a paywall problem accessing the post, but I went into detail into Francis' exhortation and I showed him paraphrasing anti-capitalist rhetoric, arguing social darwinism, while praising the political profession. I'll try to find what Paul or one of his writers is writing about, but I'm increasingly finding Ron Paul to be like a crazy old uncle, even if we share similar views on the issues.
Facebook Corner
(LifeSiteNews). BREAKING!: Pope Francis removes Cardinal Burke from Vatican post, demoted to ceremonial role http://ow.ly/E0E09
Cardinal Burke doesn't view his new position as a demotion. Stop the gossip-mongering.
As a Catholic, I can tell you OP is being taken in by Vatican spin. Of course, Cardinal Burke is going to give the Pope cover, but make no mistake: this has everything to do with Burke calling out the Pope during the recent synod.
Not breaking. LSN, I like your reporting on life issues, but could you stop the divisive Church reporting?
Said troll (MC) is either naive or deceitful. IT IS A DEMOTION. I think the OP probably heard unconfirmed rumors of such a move during the Synod--I think I heard the same rumor. But the Pope probably waited until now to avoid the appearance of a knee-jerk reaction to Burke calling out the Pope to reaffirm traditional Church moral beliefs.
I don't understand Catholics who are voicing distaste for the Pope. Isn't he supposed to be infallible?
No, on dogma, we've seen infallibility being the Assumption and Immaculate Conception of Mary. Others also consider declarations of sainthood infallible. But as a libertarian Catholic, I don't agree with the economic illiterate writings of this Pope, and this Pope's confusing populist statements on gays are divisive; the Church has been clear that gays, and all sinful people, can be forgiven and accepted by the Church, but this is no exoneration of sinful behavior.
(Catholic Libertarian). People have such a warped view of rights these days, it's refreshing to see a few people get it right every once in a while. (Sixth Circuit upheld traditional marriage laws.)
I believe it is your right to marry whoever you want regardless of gender, but as we have said before a minister should get to choose if he wants to marry them or not.
I've never thought of marriage as a legal construct. I simply saw state regulation as reflecting the social context. The issue has never been whether gays could commit themselves to others in their own traditions or even call said commitments "marriage" but whether the state had to recognize "gay marriage". I oppose socially experimental policy imposed by judicial authoritarians.
This is unfortunately an outlier, although correct interpretation, and will certainly be overruled at some point. Whether SCOTUS does it or not is questionable but there seems enough judicial activists on the court to do so. It's unfortunate, because it will be a blow not only to traditional marriage, religious tradition, but also to states' rights and individual freedom.
Not sure. The key vote is Kennedy; in his initial opinion, he did not find a constitutional right to marry and paid lip service to the tenth amendment. He basically sidestepped the fact CA Prop. 8 was voted into law by the people and decided the case on a legal technicality of standing (because Schwarzenegger and Brown refused to defend Prop. 8 in court). I think he was hoping that alleged trends in "gay marriage" acceptance would lead to popular-based "gay marriage" recognition. Now given the fact that he hasn't acted to hear some of more recent appeals is not a good sign that the Cincinnati reversal will be upheld (maybe he'll make a 14th amendment argument based on reciprocity of marriage recognition). It does seem unlikely that some states would be allowed to keep their traditional marriage laws but not others merely because of the circuit they file appeal under.
(Cato Institute). "Americans don’t want a permanent ruling class of career politicians. But that’s what the power of incumbency and all the perks that incumbents give themselves are giving us. We want a citizen legislature and a citizen Congress—a government of, by, and for the people. To get that, we need term limits."
Term limits is a bad idea. It is undemocratic and will strengthen the executive at the expense of the people. Shrink the house districts instead (ie increase the House membership). It will lower the costs of elections and make it winnable for ordinary people.
No. Term limits are a key weapon against corruption and cronyism. Incumbency brings natural advantages--media access, name recognition, internal influence--that few novices have. We need to get over the idea that 535 members of Congress can't be replaced from a nation of over 310M people.
NO, term limits by their very nature are a limitation on self determination. What we need is to find a away to limit or cap how much money can be expended for a campaign. Better yet we need an amendment to the constitution that specifically defines and articulates clearly that these rights, apply only to individual citizens: NOT Pacs, corporations, etc.
No, we should not encourage professional parasites, like Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, and Joe Biden; the first two were seriously ill and effectively died in office, putting their political ambition above their constituents. What we need is less horsetrading of subsidies, special tax break, etc. for political benefit and a less activist, full-time government. And no Constitutional amendment limiting political speech.
(IPI). This week, Illinois legislators adopted rules to allow for companies to begin fracking in the state. And it only took them 507 days to do it.
Awesome! When can I start setting my water on fire?
Freaking moron troll. From Reason: "Falsehood 1: You can light your tap water on fire. Fox made this claim famous in the first Gasland movie when he showed a resident of Colorado striking a match as water came out of his tap; the natural gas dissolved in the water burst into flame. Yet the water was tested by the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, which reported to the resident: "There are no indications of any oil & gas related impacts to your well water." The agency concluded that the natural gas in his water supply was derived from natural sources—the water well penetrated several coal beds that had released the methane into the well.
The FWW letter warns, "When fracking loosens gas, it can cause methane to migrate into nearby household wells and drinking water." It adds, "Your home could explode, like the house that blew up in Pennsylvania and killed three people." This appears to be a reference to the 2004 case of Charles and Dorothy Harper and their grandson Baelee, in which natural gas migrated into their basement from some new nearby wells being drilled by the Snyder Brothers production company.
This artfully constructed section of the letter wants readers to conclude that fracking caused the deaths of the Harpers. Yet the wells in question were conventional gas wells; no fracking was taking place. The Harpers were killed by negligence: The company had not made sure that the casings on the wells were properly sealed with cement. (Cement is poured down around the well's steel piping to prevent gas or fluids from traveling upward and coming in contact with exposed rock along the borehole, where it can leach into drinking water aquifers.) Fracking technology had nothing to do with the tragedy, for which the Snyder Brothers made court-ordered restitution to the Harper family.
Another house exploded—fortunately without significant injury—when natural gas seeped in from a well in Ohio in 2007. In this case, the Ohio Valley Energy Systems Corporation was fracking an old conventional well whose cement casing was inadequate to block new supplies of highly pressurized natural gas from migrating into nearby water wells. Once the company fixed the casing, the problem was solved.
As A. Scott Anderson, a senior policy adviser with the Environmental Defense Fund, told The Wall Street Journal last year, "The groundwater pollution incidents that have come to light to date have all been caused by well construction problems." As the number of wells increase, so too will the chances that some will not be properly cemented, but that's not a problem inherent to fracking. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that the vast majority of natural gas explosions do not involve wells at all."
(follow-up comment)
Just an aside to the dumbass OP troll: Do you not understand 'RT' is an acronym for 'Russia Today'? Do you not understand that Russia, as one of the largest oil and gas countries in the world and heavily dependent on its resources for foreign trade, might have a vested interest in competing against potential US exports to Europe and Asia? Did you know the Kremlin financially backs RT? That makes you a useful fool.
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| Courtesy of Eric Allie via Townhall |
Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville, "Don't Know Much"
