If federal law supercedes state law.......

[Girodin]

Keep spending your hard earned money trying to control your neighbor - and let me know how that works out for you.

For most of us it works out quite well that's why throughout all of history man has seen fit to create one form of government or another to do just that.

It is a reference to the Leviathan, by Hobbes, where in he lays out one of the earliest expressions of the idea of social contract theory and often considered one of the most influential works of political thought ever written. The basic idea being we all give up soveriegnty to govt for some reason. Hobbes lays out some ideas about human nature and notes that the natural state of man is all men competing against all other men. He notes that in the state of nature there will always be conflict and that people basically are willing to give up their right to total self governance to escape the state of nature and that it is to our benefit to do so.

In sum I imagine that as soon as I am not spending money to control my neighbors one of them will come shoot me the first time I mow my lawn at an hour they take exception to or they want something I have, or perhaps just because they don't like me. We can stop regulating things and some big company that stands to make a profit by not disposing of their industrial waste properly can put it right in your drinking water, or better yet right in your yard or house since no one can control them. Let me know how that works for you.

None of this is to say the government doesn't have some responsibilities (or voters who put people in office for that matter) as to the types of laws to be passed nor is it to say that there are not legitimate policy determinations about the types of things we want the government regulating, or otherwise doing. It is to say that without function government life would be much worse for most of us or as Hobbes described it "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Forgive me if I dismiss as unconvincing your one line attempt at refutation of a classic and enduring political work.

I used to know a rough/ruff? figure for the percentage of people imprisoned for some type of drug charge but today I have no idea.

I think it would behoove the discussion to make sure you are getting what these statistics are telling you correct. There is a difference between a drug defined crime and a drug related crime and drug using lifestyle crimes. There are drug defined crimes e.g. possesion or possession with intent to distribute and then there are drug related crimes which are "offenses to which a drug's pharmacologic effects contribute; offenses motivated by the user's need for money to support continued use; and offenses connected to drug distribution itself." There are also drug life-style crimes. All might be generally referred to as drug crime.

It is also worth separating types of drugs IMHO as I believe some have more social harm than others.

I can tell you from the time I spent working at a law firm that did criminal defense that the vast majority of crime I saw was drug related (i.e. the person was committing them to score drugs things like burglaries robberies, lots of forgeries and other ID theft type stuff, prostitution, Then there are the acts of violence towards others with underlying drug issues, like the young man that beat a woman to death during a burglary motivated by is coke habit. Also child welfare cases because people weren't taking care of their kids because of their drug addiction. DUIs are another drug related case which range from minor to tragic (and then often involve homicide charges) and lastly cases of possession or possession with intent to distribute) or stemmed from mental illness (and often those two elements were present at once). If people weren't crazy or doing drugs there would be a lot of crimes that wouldn't happen.

Aside from DUIs and possession with intent to distribute I cannot think of seeing many cases involving pot where as people doing meth almost invariably had laundry list criminal records. That is why I think it is worth distinguishing types of drugs.

How much does it cost (tax dollars) to house and feed all the drug prisoners?

I'm sure it varies by state and perhaps in the federal system as well but in my state I believe it is roughly $47K to incarcerate someone for a year. It is enough to give you pause about the way we handle a lot of crimes. I've seen cases where I do not feel much safer with a particular drug criminal in prison. I've also seen cases where it is a "drug criminal" and society should be very pleased the person is locked up.

A lot could be said about US drug policy, whether it is well guided, how its been executed, including what has not been done for that matter. Meaningful discussion would be more lengthy than this medium of communication is well suited to and would need to rise above over simplistic bumper sticker politics. Since it is all off topic I'm certainly not going to spend my time addressing it at greater length.

 

[ArtP]

For most of us it works out quite well that's why throughout all of history man has seen fit to create one form of government or another to do just that.

It is a reference to the Leviathan, by Hobbes, where in he lays out one of the earliest expressions of the idea of social contract theory and often considered one of the most influential works of political thought ever written. The basic idea being we all give up soveriegnty to govt for some reason

I think we can agree that some form of government and regulation is necessary. The question and debate between people like us is how much government and how far should it reach. I happen to be in favor of the least amount possible. You're extremely well written and well spoken, but that doesn't make your ideas of a bigger government better, necessarily.

The key to success for any society is prosperity, it isn't the model of government we use. Prosperity, or lack of, creates most crime and affords us the ability to isolate those that don't fit into society. The question becomes, when does our government begin to cost us so much that it kills prosperity to the point that the whole model caves onto itself? Our society, somewhat from luck and timing, has been very prosperous. How well will the model hold up when luck and timing are no longer on our side?

Enforcing the criminalization of drugs not only takes a large bite out of our prosperity, it also creates the criminal element we are trying to eliminate in the first place. It's a vicious cycle. Not only are we creating an artificial criminal element by criminalizing drugs, we're using up a big chunk of precious government resources (prosperity) to police the criminal element we've created.

 

[seal]

as far as the civil war goes well the winners write the history books not everyone agrees that war was solely about slavery.

marijuana reform is desperately needed. the war on drugs much like the war on prohibition was, is a losing battle. the cost to this nation to regulate something that despite being illegal is often used is absurd.

the legalization for recreational use in California will be the first step to national reform should it pass. It has been proven that to enforce a federal law on a state that has voted against it is a dubious path to follow.

I would also be interested to see where they pull the extra funding from to enforce the federal standard.....

libertarian views are interesting they don't seem to want to regulate much outside of whats on the constitution.

 

[Cosmoline]

Congress *could* pass a law permitting hi-caps and "assault weapons" and invoke Supremacy to federalize the matter. But that would be an unusual measure. One example in gun laws where they DID invoke Supremacy is the firearm owner protection act, which trumps local law when you're traveling through a state or city and abide by the rules of the federal statute. So the feds could, if they wanted, pass a law trumping the various AWB's surviving in some states. Or they could make federal CCW laws that would trump local law. But passing such measures takes extra clout and ruffles more feathers. Besides, most gun owners do NOT want to see firearm law completely federalized.

 

[ArtP]

libertarian views are interesting they don't seem to want to regulate much outside of whats on the constitution.

ding ding ding ding ding!! You're right! Is that a flawed line of thinking?

 

[230therapy]

This fight is all about the abuse of the Commerce clause. FDR threatened to pack the court unless they gave him the verdict he wanted. He "won" in their ruling to allow the Commerce clause to be the foundation for vast amounts of regulation.

It was never intended to be used to control everything...much less be used to violate the Second Amendment.

 

[Girodin]

You're extremely well written and well spoken, but that doesn't make your ideas of a bigger government better, necessarily.

Who said I had ideas of bigger government? I simply took exception to the idea that government does not serve some very useful purposes and that there are things well worth regulating and absent a hierachical system doing it we would be in a mess (and would naturally gravitate to some form of heirachical system to deal with it be that war lords or a bicameral legislature, an executive and an independent judiciary). I believe there are market failures that need to be addressed in other ways. I also believe there are some very serious flaws in current administrative state.

libertarian views are interesting they don't seem to want to regulate much outside of whats on the constitution.

Well congress is supposed to be limited to its enumerated powers. They simply as a constitutional matter cannot legitimately regulate things outside that grant of power. As has been previously mentioned in this thread the commerce clause has become nigh unto carte blanche form them to regulate anything they like. After the we shifted our interpretation of the commerce clause (again) in the new deal era it was not until Lopez was there any indication that it wasn't total carte blanche. The Raich case I mentioned earlier could have been the big step in the right direction but Scalia let us down.

 

[jimmyraythomason]

Not quite. It was State's rights to keep slaves. Any other argument is revisonist BS.

That's not quite right either. The possible expansion of slavery to the border states played a much bigger part than did existing state's right to keep slaves. Remember slavery was a constitutionally protected institution prior to the ACW. It ultimately came down to a central government versus individual state's ability to choose their own paths. The tenth amendment was essentially nullified.

 

[cbrgator]

Remember slavery was a constitutionally protected institution prior to the ACW

Where does it say that?

 

[ArtP]

Who said I had ideas of bigger government?

Your original comments seemed to be a thinly veiled position of supporting the criminalization of drugs and the associated cost, which is part of a larger government and more government intervention position.

I believe the most productive positions are those which are generally for or against larger government, excluding the debate of each and every sub-issue. The minute we get away from principle and start to pick and choose which parts of government should be bigger is where the debate, fighting and disagreement take over. As our founding fathers did, if we can agree on principle, it makes the decisions easier. Example: Allowing a society to be free as a whole, even if some issues are detrimental, is easier to set policy for and enforce and takes personal bias out of the equation.

A simple way to clear up this possible misunderstanding and assumption I've made of you is if you'd state your position.

This is already way off topic, and if you would state your position, I'll let yours be the last word on the subject.

 

[Zoogster]

Remember slavery was a constitutionally protected institution prior to the ACW. It ultimately came down to a central government versus individual state's ability to choose their own paths.

No slavery was not protected, in fact many of the founding fathers, including some who had owned slaves were against the institution of slavery. They felt slavery was contrary to their ideas of freedom, but that to tackle the issue at the time would have been suicidal to the nation they were creating.
Many portions of the economy were heavily intertwined with slavery and indentured servitude (slavery for a fixed number of years, often extended beyond those years to cover "expenses" of the 'owner' during those years.)
Ironically in colonial times many slaves were given firearms to supplement a portion of their food through hunting, the attitude towards slaves changed later.

The founders felt that slavery would eventually die out, as it was showing evidence of waning at the time of founding, a trend that had been continuing for awhile.
It was not until the cotton gin was invented that the huge resurgence of slavery happened.
Thomas Jefferson even included a passage critical of the slave trade in the Declaration of Independence (despite being a plantation and slave owner) which congress removed prior to passage.
They wanted to unite the new nation against the British, and so limited the scope of focus to British rule in order to maximize support.

But they were against slavery, and discussed it at length in official records. It was simply intertwined with the economy.

 

[jimmyraythomason]

No slavery was not protected,

Yes it was until the ratification of the thirteenth amendment in 1868(passed in 1866). Article 4 section2.3 of the U.S.Constitution provided for the return of runaway slaves to their holders as did the Runaway Slave Act of 1850. I can see a thread lock coming and I don't want another off topic infraction.

 

[Zoogster]

Okay, but it was not until the Fugitive slave act of 1793 (the year of the invention of the cotton gin) that a method was implemented that enabled the return of slaves.

There is record of many of the founders discussing slavery at length, and the majority were against it, as sentiment amongst both colonists and the English in general was growing against slavery.

 

[cbrgator]

Yes it was until the ratification of the thirteenth amendment in 1868(passed in 1866). Article 4 section2.3 of the U.S.Constitution provided for the return of runaway slaves to their holders

I'm sorry, but you are not correct. A constitutional right to have a someone/something returned to you, is not a constitutional right to own it. The Constitutional right in question is contingent on legal ownership which, in and of itself, is not protected.

If the 2nd Amendment had read, "A state which has confiscated arms from a person who has stolen them from a citizen of another state shall deliver up on Claim of the Party to whom such arms may be due," that would not be a constitutional right to keep and bear arms. It would merely mean you have a Constitutional right to have a state return your arms to you, but nothing in my hypothetical would preclude Congress from banning ownership of arms in their own right.

The portion of the Constitution you are referring to was to create some uniformity between states in terms of records, property, criminals, etc. so that each state did not act like an individual country in terms of jurisdiction. Those clauses exist so that you don't need 50 driver's licenses or 50 marriage licenses, and cannot claim asylum in one state to avoid extradition to another.

 

[Girodin]

A simple way to clear up this possible misunderstanding and assumption I've made of you is if you'd state your position.

In the interest of not writing a small paper here and boring people to tears I will refer you to a paper written by Ezra Taft Benson that has a number of ideas I subscribe to in it. I actually think you will enjoy it. It was published in '68 but seems fairly applicable today.

http://www.laissez-fairerepublic.com/benson.htm

 

[mboylan]

States can make laws that are MORE restrictive then the federal law BUT NOT less restrictive.

Thus the issue with Prop 19 legalizing marijuana. It is less restrictive than the federal law thus the Feds say it’s not legal no matter what the citizens of the state say. Not sure how that floats with COTUS.

This concept also is applied in reverse to the mag issue. There is NO federal law against the hicap mags SO the state can make one because it is MORE RESTRICTIVE then what the feds say is ok.

BTW I will choose dealing with a stoner over a drunk any day of the week.

You don't quite have it right. California has no obligation to make any state laws at all regarding marijuana. It's a Federal crime and the Feds can enforce it. New York did not have any state laws regarding the prohibition of alcohol during the Federal prohibition.

They cannot make a law that supercedes the Federal law. They can say it will no longer be a state crime to possess a certain amount of marijuana, but they cannot do anything to prevent the Feds from enforcing Federal drug law.

 

[Sebastian the Ibis]

While watching the news theres a vote going on in california in order to legalize the private use of cannabis.interviews with federal officials & state sheriffs say they would still make arrests because its still illegal under federal law.So for states with bans on hi cap magazines,folding stocks,etc,shouldnt federal law supercede state law making it legal to own?

The short answer is no, because the U.S. code does not allow you to have hi cap mags, folding stocks etc. nor does it prohibit them, it says nothing, therefore the states are allowed to regulate it. If the U.S. code said "no state shall prohibit mags based on capacity" then state laws would be invalid. The long answer is the short answer plus, states cannot also regulate where the federal government has set up a whole carefully balanced scheme. The best example of this is immigration the federal government has their whole scheme to determine who stays and who goes, the states cannot interfere and make their own decisions since that would upset the federal scheme.