The Great Depression Doomed the Constitution

PoliticalChic

Diamond Member
Gold Supporting Member
Oct 6, 2008
124,863
60,200
2,300
Brooklyn, NY
1. The central principle of America’s founding was that the rule of law would be the prime equalizing force; the founders considered vast inequality in every other realm to be inevitable and even desirable…. A small number would of individuals would be naturally endowed with unique and extraordinary talents while most people, by definition, would be ordinary. So the American concept of liberty would be premised on the inevitability of outcome inequality- success of some, failure of others.
a. Law was the one exception; no inequality was tolerable. It was the sine qua non ensuring fairness.
Glenn Greenwald, “With Liberty and Justice for Some; How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful”

Greenwald is way Left, but, as you can see above, conservatives have much in common with ethical and educated Liberals....


2. But when uneducated and self-absorbed Liberals assume power, the result is often catastrophic for this great nation. Wilson, FDR and Obama...all anti-constitutionalists.

a. The Great Depression was a perfect opportunity for American socialists, interventionists, and advocates of omnipotent government to prevail in their long struggle against the advocates of economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited, constitutional government. FDR led the statists in using the economic crisis to level massive assaults on freedom and the Constitution. A good example of the kind of battles that were taking place at the state level is the 1935 U.S. Supreme Court case Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, in which the “Four Horsemen” — Supreme Court Justices George Sutherland, James C. McReynolds, Willis Van Devanter, and Pierce Butler — banded together in an unsuccessful attempt to hold back the forces of statism and collectivism.


b. The Blaisdells, like so many other Americans in the early 1930s, lacked the money to make their mortgage payments. They defaulted and the bank foreclosed, selling the home at the foreclosure sale. The Minnesota legislature had enacted a law that provided that a debtor could go to court and seek a further extension of time in which to redeem the property. The Supreme Court of Minnesota upheld the constitutionality of the new redemption law, and the bank appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

c. The Constitution: “No State shall . . . pass any . . . Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts. . ..”
Did the Minnesota redemption law impair the loan contract between the building and loan association and the Blaisdells? It would seem rather obvious that it did. But in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held otherwise. American statists and collectivists won the Blaisdell case, which helped to open the floodgates on laws, rules, and regulations at the state level governing economic activity in America. And their leader, Franklin Roosevelt, was leading their charge on a national level.


d. But, what happens when an exercise of the police powers contradicts an express prohibition in the Constitution, which is supposed to be the supreme law of the land, trumping both state legislatures and state courts?

That was the issue that confronted the U.S. Supreme Court in Blaisdell. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes set forth the applicable principles: “Emergency does not create power. Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the Federal Government and its limitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency and they are not altered by emergency. What power was thus granted and what limitations were thus imposed are questions which have always been, and always will be, the subject of close examination under our constitutional system.”

“While emergency does not create power, emergency may furnish the occasion for the exercise of power. . .. The constitutional question presented in the light of an emergency is whether the power possessed embraces the particular exercise of it in response to particular conditions. . ..“The economic interests of the State may justify the exercise of its continuing and dominant protective power notwithstanding interference with contracts.


e. So there you have it. In the old horse-and-buggy era, the individual and his freedom were supreme but now in the new modern era, the collective interests of “society” would have to prevail. And society could no longer be bound by such quaint notions of constitutional limitations on state power, especially not during emergencies and especially not when the “good of all” depends on state action.

From Economic Liberty and the Constitution, Part 9


So you see, our friend, Liberal constitutional lawyer Greenwald, who offers "The central principle of America’s founding was that the rule of law would be the prime equalizing force..." does what so many Liberal Progressives do....

...they support the law, and the Law of the Land, the Constitution, when it supports their wishes...
...otherwise 'economic interests of the State may justify rending the Constitution.'

There is an axiom, "Reality is defined by actions, not by words."
Either one supports the Constitution, or one does not.

So, in November, the choice is one of substance.

The Left or the Constitution.
 
1. The central principle of America’s founding was that the rule of law would be the prime equalizing force; the founders considered vast inequality in every other realm to be inevitable and even desirable…. A small number would of individuals would be naturally endowed with unique and extraordinary talents while most people, by definition, would be ordinary. So the American concept of liberty would be premised on the inevitability of outcome inequality- success of some, failure of others.
a. Law was the one exception; no inequality was tolerable. It was the sine qua non ensuring fairness.
Glenn Greenwald, “With Liberty and Justice for Some; How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful”

Greenwald is way Left, but, as you can see above, conservatives have much in common with ethical and educated Liberals....


2. But when uneducated and self-absorbed Liberals assume power, the result is often catastrophic for this great nation. Wilson, FDR and Obama...all anti-constitutionalists.

a. The Great Depression was a perfect opportunity for American socialists, interventionists, and advocates of omnipotent government to prevail in their long struggle against the advocates of economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited, constitutional government. FDR led the statists in using the economic crisis to level massive assaults on freedom and the Constitution. A good example of the kind of battles that were taking place at the state level is the 1935 U.S. Supreme Court case Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, in which the “Four Horsemen” — Supreme Court Justices George Sutherland, James C. McReynolds, Willis Van Devanter, and Pierce Butler — banded together in an unsuccessful attempt to hold back the forces of statism and collectivism.


b. The Blaisdells, like so many other Americans in the early 1930s, lacked the money to make their mortgage payments. They defaulted and the bank foreclosed, selling the home at the foreclosure sale. The Minnesota legislature had enacted a law that provided that a debtor could go to court and seek a further extension of time in which to redeem the property. The Supreme Court of Minnesota upheld the constitutionality of the new redemption law, and the bank appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

c. The Constitution: “No State shall . . . pass any . . . Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts. . ..”
Did the Minnesota redemption law impair the loan contract between the building and loan association and the Blaisdells? It would seem rather obvious that it did. But in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held otherwise. American statists and collectivists won the Blaisdell case, which helped to open the floodgates on laws, rules, and regulations at the state level governing economic activity in America. And their leader, Franklin Roosevelt, was leading their charge on a national level.


d. But, what happens when an exercise of the police powers contradicts an express prohibition in the Constitution, which is supposed to be the supreme law of the land, trumping both state legislatures and state courts?

That was the issue that confronted the U.S. Supreme Court in Blaisdell. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes set forth the applicable principles: “Emergency does not create power. Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the Federal Government and its limitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency and they are not altered by emergency. What power was thus granted and what limitations were thus imposed are questions which have always been, and always will be, the subject of close examination under our constitutional system.”

“While emergency does not create power, emergency may furnish the occasion for the exercise of power. . .. The constitutional question presented in the light of an emergency is whether the power possessed embraces the particular exercise of it in response to particular conditions. . ..“The economic interests of the State may justify the exercise of its continuing and dominant protective power notwithstanding interference with contracts.


e. So there you have it. In the old horse-and-buggy era, the individual and his freedom were supreme but now in the new modern era, the collective interests of “society” would have to prevail. And society could no longer be bound by such quaint notions of constitutional limitations on state power, especially not during emergencies and especially not when the “good of all” depends on state action.

From Economic Liberty and the Constitution, Part 9


So you see, our friend, Liberal constitutional lawyer Greenwald, who offers "The central principle of America’s founding was that the rule of law would be the prime equalizing force..." does what so many Liberal Progressives do....

...they support the law, and the Law of the Land, the Constitution, when it supports their wishes...
...otherwise 'economic interests of the State may justify rending the Constitution.'

There is an axiom, "Reality is defined by actions, not by words."
Either one supports the Constitution, or one does not.

So, in November, the choice is one of substance.

The Left or the Constitution.

To PoliticalChic: Great thread.

Socialists did, indeed, use the Great Depression to doom the Constitution. The Commerce Clause has been their weapon of choice. The Affordable Care Act should be viewed as the Left’s final assault on the Constitution. Happily, Jim Byrd destroys the Left’s misuse, and misinterpretation, of the Commerce Clause:


Harvard Law School Professor Einer Elhauge published an article in The New Republic titled, “If Health Insurance Mandates Are Unconstitutional, Why Did the Founding Fathers Back Them?” The foundation of his argument is the belief that the Militia Act of 1792 was a mandate to purchase a firearm, and the 1790 and 1798 acts by Congress requiring that ship owners purchase medical insurance for seamen, was a mandate forcing the citizens of the states to make a commercial purchase under the Commerce Clause.

Professor Elhauge presents as fact that these two mandates required engagement in commerce, thus setting 200+ years of precedent by the first Congress, “which was packed with framers,” as per his depiction. He then states, “Nevermind that nothing in the text or history of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause indicates that Congress cannot mandate commercial purchases.” The professor appears to subscribe to the oft employed licentious theorem of the Left that if it is not enumerated in Article 1, Section 8, then Congress can presume it has unfettered authority to mandate, tax, legislate, control, and dictate wantonly. But, plausibly, historically, and factually, that is neither the intent nor the spirit of Article 1, Section 8, as it was not an enumeration of what the government should or could do, but rather a very narrow set of limitations constraining what the government can do. What the government cannot do is mandate commercial purchases under the Commerce Clause, as that power was not enumerated, intended, nor would it have survived ratification. Perhaps a perfunctory history lesson of why the Constitution was created, and the purpose of the Commerce Clause, may be the antidote to apocryphal balderdash.

Liberals, progressives, and a particular genus of law professors are wringing their hands in animated intoxication regarding these two particular mandates cited by Professor Elhauge. And reinforcing Professor Elhauge’s theorem of mandated purchases under the Commerce Clause, the Left are evidencing case law functioning as unsanctioned amendments to the Constitution, or as unsanctioned legislation fabricated by American jurisprudence. This benighted infatuation with stare decisis, this judicial inbreeding of the Supreme Court assigning dominion of past Supreme Court rulings as surrogates for the Constitution, has resulted in the passing of deleterious and recessive traits to each Supreme Court progenitor. As with genetics, if the Supreme Court reaches a faulty decision, or flagrant political or agenda driven decision, this trait is passed down to each successive Supreme Court that is indentured by the judicial genetics of stare decisis. Professor Elhauge appears to be erroneously attesting that the first Congress, “which was packed with framers,” mandated that the citizens of sovereign states, states that ceded very few enumerated powers to the newly created federal government, were forced to engage in commerce ad libitum.

Harvard Law, the Commerce Clause, and the Obamacare Mandate
Jim Byrd Friday, May 11, 2012

Harvard Law, the Commerce Clause, and the Obamacare Mandate

I think you’ll enjoy the remaining details in the linked article.
 
So which ammendment to the Constitution says "The Constitution is not valid when an idiot gets elected to office" ?
 
So when the founding fathers produced the Constitution they protected the rights of the rich and powerful by allowing slavery, allowihg only rich gentry to run the nation(since there was no pay for term of service)and allowed only the landed white European men only to elect the president and vice president.
Althrough US history the Constitution was not enforced and neither was it used in the justice or penal communities. cruel and unusual punishment was meted to those convicted and awaiting conviction.

I do oppose those aricles posted by polichic because they are produced with a poltical propaganda which she falls for and is hooked upon.
She is as bad as those she despises.
There is no moderation in her tone or message. She will now respond to my post with a juvenile insult, as she does with many posters that do not see her fanatsism.
Don't you Love living in a free nation where the Constitution enables her right to protest openly and falsly about our nation and her leaders.
 
So which ammendment to the Constitution says "The Constitution is not valid when an idiot gets elected to office" ?

So very glad to have the opportunity to answer that question.

1. Each of the winners of the office of the President of the United States take the following oath:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

It can be found in Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight.

a. The assumption is that the men who have assumed the presidency are honorable men, and will uphold that oath.

b. With respect to the Constitution, the following men have been found wanting: Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Barack Obama.


2. Here is the test of their repute:
"The enumerated powers are a list of items found in Article I, section 8 of the US Constitution that set forth the authoritative capacity of the United States Congress.[1] In summary, Congress may exercise the powers that the Constitution grants it, subject to explicit restrictions in the Bill of Rights and other protections in the Constitutional text. The 10th Amendment states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Enumerated powers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


3. So, my querulous friend, it is not a question of 'which ammendment to the Constitution says "The Constitution is not valid when an idiot gets elected to office"' but, rather, which men who have won the presidency have been honorable.

The Founders, it seems, mistakenly assumed that only honorable men would be elected.
 
Last edited:
So when the founding fathers produced the Constitution they protected the rights of the rich and powerful by allowing slavery, allowihg only rich gentry to run the nation(since there was no pay for term of service)and allowed only the landed white European men only to elect the president and vice president.
Althrough US history the Constitution was not enforced and neither was it used in the justice or penal communities. cruel and unusual punishment was meted to those convicted and awaiting conviction.

I do oppose those aricles posted by polichic because they are produced with a poltical propaganda which she falls for and is hooked upon.
She is as bad as those she despises.
There is no moderation in her tone or message. She will now respond to my post with a juvenile insult, as she does with many posters that do not see her fanatsism.
Don't you Love living in a free nation where the Constitution enables her right to protest openly and falsly about our nation and her leaders.


"She will now respond to my post with a juvenile insult,..."

How could one possibly insult anyone who uses such a juvenile avi as you do?

You are your own insult: a glace at your avi immediately identifies you as non-insultable.

I'd be wasting a good insult, as the old saying goes:
"The drowning man is not disturbed by the rain."
 
1. The central principle of America’s founding was that the rule of law would be the prime equalizing force; the founders considered vast inequality in every other realm to be inevitable and even desirable…. A small number would of individuals would be naturally endowed with unique and extraordinary talents while most people, by definition, would be ordinary. So the American concept of liberty would be premised on the inevitability of outcome inequality- success of some, failure of others.
a. Law was the one exception; no inequality was tolerable. It was the sine qua non ensuring fairness.
Glenn Greenwald, “With Liberty and Justice for Some; How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful”

Greenwald is way Left, but, as you can see above, conservatives have much in common with ethical and educated Liberals....


2. But when uneducated and self-absorbed Liberals assume power, the result is often catastrophic for this great nation. Wilson, FDR and Obama...all anti-constitutionalists.

a. The Great Depression was a perfect opportunity for American socialists, interventionists, and advocates of omnipotent government to prevail in their long struggle against the advocates of economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited, constitutional government. FDR led the statists in using the economic crisis to level massive assaults on freedom and the Constitution. A good example of the kind of battles that were taking place at the state level is the 1935 U.S. Supreme Court case Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, in which the “Four Horsemen” — Supreme Court Justices George Sutherland, James C. McReynolds, Willis Van Devanter, and Pierce Butler — banded together in an unsuccessful attempt to hold back the forces of statism and collectivism.


b. The Blaisdells, like so many other Americans in the early 1930s, lacked the money to make their mortgage payments. They defaulted and the bank foreclosed, selling the home at the foreclosure sale. The Minnesota legislature had enacted a law that provided that a debtor could go to court and seek a further extension of time in which to redeem the property. The Supreme Court of Minnesota upheld the constitutionality of the new redemption law, and the bank appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

c. The Constitution: “No State shall . . . pass any . . . Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts. . ..”
Did the Minnesota redemption law impair the loan contract between the building and loan association and the Blaisdells? It would seem rather obvious that it did. But in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held otherwise. American statists and collectivists won the Blaisdell case, which helped to open the floodgates on laws, rules, and regulations at the state level governing economic activity in America. And their leader, Franklin Roosevelt, was leading their charge on a national level.


d. But, what happens when an exercise of the police powers contradicts an express prohibition in the Constitution, which is supposed to be the supreme law of the land, trumping both state legislatures and state courts?

That was the issue that confronted the U.S. Supreme Court in Blaisdell. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes set forth the applicable principles: “Emergency does not create power. Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the Federal Government and its limitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency and they are not altered by emergency. What power was thus granted and what limitations were thus imposed are questions which have always been, and always will be, the subject of close examination under our constitutional system.”

“While emergency does not create power, emergency may furnish the occasion for the exercise of power. . .. The constitutional question presented in the light of an emergency is whether the power possessed embraces the particular exercise of it in response to particular conditions. . ..“The economic interests of the State may justify the exercise of its continuing and dominant protective power notwithstanding interference with contracts.


e. So there you have it. In the old horse-and-buggy era, the individual and his freedom were supreme but now in the new modern era, the collective interests of “society” would have to prevail. And society could no longer be bound by such quaint notions of constitutional limitations on state power, especially not during emergencies and especially not when the “good of all” depends on state action.

From Economic Liberty and the Constitution, Part 9


So you see, our friend, Liberal constitutional lawyer Greenwald, who offers "The central principle of America’s founding was that the rule of law would be the prime equalizing force..." does what so many Liberal Progressives do....

...they support the law, and the Law of the Land, the Constitution, when it supports their wishes...
...otherwise 'economic interests of the State may justify rending the Constitution.'

There is an axiom, "Reality is defined by actions, not by words."
Either one supports the Constitution, or one does not.

So, in November, the choice is one of substance.

The Left or the Constitution.

To PoliticalChic: Great thread.

Socialists did, indeed, use the Great Depression to doom the Constitution. The Commerce Clause has been their weapon of choice. The Affordable Care Act should be viewed as the Left’s final assault on the Constitution. Happily, Jim Byrd destroys the Left’s misuse, and misinterpretation, of the Commerce Clause:


Harvard Law School Professor Einer Elhauge published an article in The New Republic titled, “If Health Insurance Mandates Are Unconstitutional, Why Did the Founding Fathers Back Them?” The foundation of his argument is the belief that the Militia Act of 1792 was a mandate to purchase a firearm, and the 1790 and 1798 acts by Congress requiring that ship owners purchase medical insurance for seamen, was a mandate forcing the citizens of the states to make a commercial purchase under the Commerce Clause.

Professor Elhauge presents as fact that these two mandates required engagement in commerce, thus setting 200+ years of precedent by the first Congress, “which was packed with framers,” as per his depiction. He then states, “Nevermind that nothing in the text or history of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause indicates that Congress cannot mandate commercial purchases.” The professor appears to subscribe to the oft employed licentious theorem of the Left that if it is not enumerated in Article 1, Section 8, then Congress can presume it has unfettered authority to mandate, tax, legislate, control, and dictate wantonly. But, plausibly, historically, and factually, that is neither the intent nor the spirit of Article 1, Section 8, as it was not an enumeration of what the government should or could do, but rather a very narrow set of limitations constraining what the government can do. What the government cannot do is mandate commercial purchases under the Commerce Clause, as that power was not enumerated, intended, nor would it have survived ratification. Perhaps a perfunctory history lesson of why the Constitution was created, and the purpose of the Commerce Clause, may be the antidote to apocryphal balderdash.

Liberals, progressives, and a particular genus of law professors are wringing their hands in animated intoxication regarding these two particular mandates cited by Professor Elhauge. And reinforcing Professor Elhauge’s theorem of mandated purchases under the Commerce Clause, the Left are evidencing case law functioning as unsanctioned amendments to the Constitution, or as unsanctioned legislation fabricated by American jurisprudence. This benighted infatuation with stare decisis, this judicial inbreeding of the Supreme Court assigning dominion of past Supreme Court rulings as surrogates for the Constitution, has resulted in the passing of deleterious and recessive traits to each Supreme Court progenitor. As with genetics, if the Supreme Court reaches a faulty decision, or flagrant political or agenda driven decision, this trait is passed down to each successive Supreme Court that is indentured by the judicial genetics of stare decisis. Professor Elhauge appears to be erroneously attesting that the first Congress, “which was packed with framers,” mandated that the citizens of sovereign states, states that ceded very few enumerated powers to the newly created federal government, were forced to engage in commerce ad libitum.

Harvard Law, the Commerce Clause, and the Obamacare Mandate
Jim Byrd Friday, May 11, 2012

Harvard Law, the Commerce Clause, and the Obamacare Mandate

I think you’ll enjoy the remaining details in the linked article.

1. An interesting and heartening article, to be sure, and I wish I felt as secure as Byrd...but
consider the view of Jeffrey Rosen, Legal Affairs Editor of the New Republic:

a. There are Conservatives, and Pro-Business Conservatives: represented by policies of the US Chamber of Commerce, strongly represented on the Roberts’ Court, where they won some 13 of 18 cases in which they filed a brief. Most business cases are unanimous or 7-2 decisions, vs those cases that deal with culture war issues.

These conservatives favored TARP, and the use of federal pre-emption (federal law to take precedence over or to displace a state law) for farm subsidies, healthcare cases. Based on this sentiment, a court which has embraced a broad vision of federal power, as found in regulation of medical marijuana, expect the Roberts Court to reject the pro-states rights view that would lead to the invalidation of the healthcare case.

b. Reminder...

“Gonzales v. Raich (previously Ashcroft v. Raich), 545 U.S. 1 (2005), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court ruling that under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, the United States Congress may criminalize the production and use of home-grown cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes.” Gonzales v. Raich - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2. It would seem that you and I rather agree with Barnett...


a. The three clauses that have been used by the courts since the New Deal to expand federal power are the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the Taxation Clause, which give birth to the spending clause.

b. Professor Randy Barnett: “I have always been attracted to Madison’s view that there is no freestanding Spending Clause, but only a power to spend what is necessary and properly incident to the enumerated powers. Madison did not believe that the spending power grew out of the taxation power, but instead that all exercise of the spending power had to be incident to the other enumerated powers.”
“Originalism,” Steven Calabresi, p. 263.
 
Last edited:
So when the founding fathers produced the Constitution they protected the rights of the rich and powerful by allowing slavery, allowihg only rich gentry to run the nation(since there was no pay for term of service)and allowed only the landed white European men only to elect the president and vice president.
Althrough US history the Constitution was not enforced and neither was it used in the justice or penal communities. cruel and unusual punishment was meted to those convicted and awaiting conviction.

I do oppose those aricles posted by polichic because they are produced with a poltical propaganda which she falls for and is hooked upon.
She is as bad as those she despises.
There is no moderation in her tone or message. She will now respond to my post with a juvenile insult, as she does with many posters that do not see her fanatsism.
Don't you Love living in a free nation where the Constitution enables her right to protest openly and falsly about our nation and her leaders.


"She will now respond to my post with a juvenile insult,..."

How could one possibly insult anyone who uses such a juvenile avi as you do?

You are your own insult: a glace at your avi immediately identifies you as non-insultable.

I'd be wasting a good insult, as the old saying goes:
"The drowning man is not disturbed by the rain."

Wow, good job being so dense.
So let me get this straight. You not going to waste your time insulting him, after you just finished insulting him? Twice.
Good job, I am thoroughly impressed.
:clap2:
 
So when the founding fathers produced the Constitution they protected the rights of the rich and powerful by allowing slavery, allowihg only rich gentry to run the nation(since there was no pay for term of service)and allowed only the landed white European men only to elect the president and vice president.
Althrough US history the Constitution was not enforced and neither was it used in the justice or penal communities. cruel and unusual punishment was meted to those convicted and awaiting conviction.

I do oppose those aricles posted by polichic because they are produced with a poltical propaganda which she falls for and is hooked upon.
She is as bad as those she despises.
There is no moderation in her tone or message. She will now respond to my post with a juvenile insult, as she does with many posters that do not see her fanatsism.
Don't you Love living in a free nation where the Constitution enables her right to protest openly and falsly about our nation and her leaders.


"She will now respond to my post with a juvenile insult,..."

How could one possibly insult anyone who uses such a juvenile avi as you do?

You are your own insult: a glace at your avi immediately identifies you as non-insultable.

I'd be wasting a good insult, as the old saying goes:
"The drowning man is not disturbed by the rain."

Wow, good job being so dense.
So let me get this straight. You not going to waste your time insulting him, after you just finished insulting him? Twice.
Good job, I am thoroughly impressed.
:clap2:

"... I am thoroughly impressed."

I'm so happy....I live to impress you.


Glad you took the time to produce such a pithy post.....but shouldn’t you be off cavorting at the dysfunctional family follies, or something?
 
PoliticalChic;5272597

2. It would seem that you and I rather agree with Barnett...

a. The three clauses that have been used by the courts since the New Deal to expand federal power are the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the Taxation Clause, which give birth to the spending clause.

b. Professor Randy Barnett: “I have always been attracted to Madison’s view that there is no freestanding Spending Clause, but only a power to spend what is necessary and properly incident to the enumerated powers. Madison did not believe that the spending power grew out of the taxation power, but instead that all exercise of the spending power had to be incident to the other enumerated powers.”
“Originalism,” Steven Calabresi, p. 263.

To PoliticalChic: I’m relying on overturning the Affordable Care Act as the best way to weaken the Left’s grip on interpreting the Commerce Clause. Should it not be overturned there will be no stopping socialism even if the XVI Amendment is repealed. As it stands now the Income Tax Amendment is socialism’s funding mechanism.

Socialists can only govern by telling people what they must do rather than what they must not do. In that sense the income tax becomes superfluous when every American is forced to purchase everything the government dictates. And it’s not only purchasing. The Commerce Clause will continue to expand until the government dictates every aspect of daily life. They are almost there now. That is why I find Eric Hoffer’s observation following my signature so timeless.
 
Last edited:
Conservatives have been whining about Blaisdale for decades yet the ruling stands as settled law.

As the Court explained the original intent of the Contract Clause was not to create a blanket prohibition of the states’ altering the conditions of a given contract when justified in the context of ‘the general good of the public,’ nor should it be construed literally.

The Blaisdale Court merely followed precedent established in Stone v. Mississippi (1880):

The legislature cannot "bargain away the public health or the public morals." Thus, the constitutional provision against the impairment of contracts was held not to be violated by an amendment of the state constitution which put an end to a lottery theretofore authorized by the legislature. Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U.S. 814, 819. See also Douglas v. Kentucky, 168 U.S. 488, 497-499; compare New Orleans v. Houston, 119 U.S. 265, 275. The lottery was a valid enterprise when established under express state authority, but the legislature, in the public interest, could put a stop to it. A similar rule has been applied to the control by the State of the sale of intoxicating liquors. Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U.S. 25, 32, 33; see Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623, 664, 665. The States retain adequate power to protect the public health against the maintenance of nuisances despite insistence upon existing contracts. Fertilizing Co. v. Hyde Park, 97 U.S. 659, 667; Butchers' Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U.S. 746, 750. Legislation to protect the public safety comes within the same category of reserved power. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Nebraska, 170 U.S. 57, 70, 74; Texas & N.O. R. Co. v. Miller, 221 US. 408, 414; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Goldsboro, 232 U.S. 548, 558. This principle has had recent and noteworthy application to the regulation of the use of public highways by common carriers and "contract carriers," where the assertion of [p437] interference with existing contract rights has been without avail. Sproles v. Binford, 286 U.S. 374, 390, 391; Stephenson v. Binford, supra.

[In Manigault v. Springs (1905), T]he Court sustained the statute upon the ground that the private interests were subservient to the public right. The Court said:

“It is the settled law of this court that the interdiction of statutes impairing the obligation of contracts does not prevent the State from exercising such powers as are vested in it for the promotion of the common weal, or are necessary for the general good of the public, though contracts previously entered into between individuals may thereby be affected. This power, which in its various ramifications is known as the police power, is an exercise of the sovereign right of the Government to protect the lives, health, morals, comfort and general welfare of the people, and is paramount to any rights under contracts between individuals

Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell

As Justice Stevens observed in Keystone Bituminous Coal Association v. DeBenedictis (1987):

It is well settled that the prohibition against impairing the obligation of contracts is not to be read literally.

FindLaw: United States Case Law

Clearly conservative opposition to Blaisdale has nothing to do with the Constitution or the intent of the Framers and everything to do with the political affiliation of the Administration at the time of the ruling.

Moreover, given the fact the Constitution exists only in the context of its case law, it is the right that ignores the principles of the Founding Document, and exhibits contempt for the rule of law.

The choice this November is indeed clear.
 
Conservatives have been whining about Blaisdale for decades yet the ruling stands as settled law.

As the Court explained the original intent of the Contract Clause was not to create a blanket prohibition of the states’ altering the conditions of a given contract when justified in the context of ‘the general good of the public,’ nor should it be construed literally.

The Blaisdale Court merely followed precedent established in Stone v. Mississippi (1880):

The legislature cannot "bargain away the public health or the public morals." Thus, the constitutional provision against the impairment of contracts was held not to be violated by an amendment of the state constitution which put an end to a lottery theretofore authorized by the legislature. Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U.S. 814, 819. See also Douglas v. Kentucky, 168 U.S. 488, 497-499; compare New Orleans v. Houston, 119 U.S. 265, 275. The lottery was a valid enterprise when established under express state authority, but the legislature, in the public interest, could put a stop to it. A similar rule has been applied to the control by the State of the sale of intoxicating liquors. Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U.S. 25, 32, 33; see Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623, 664, 665. The States retain adequate power to protect the public health against the maintenance of nuisances despite insistence upon existing contracts. Fertilizing Co. v. Hyde Park, 97 U.S. 659, 667; Butchers' Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U.S. 746, 750. Legislation to protect the public safety comes within the same category of reserved power. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Nebraska, 170 U.S. 57, 70, 74; Texas & N.O. R. Co. v. Miller, 221 US. 408, 414; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Goldsboro, 232 U.S. 548, 558. This principle has had recent and noteworthy application to the regulation of the use of public highways by common carriers and "contract carriers," where the assertion of [p437] interference with existing contract rights has been without avail. Sproles v. Binford, 286 U.S. 374, 390, 391; Stephenson v. Binford, supra.

[In Manigault v. Springs (1905), T]he Court sustained the statute upon the ground that the private interests were subservient to the public right. The Court said:

“It is the settled law of this court that the interdiction of statutes impairing the obligation of contracts does not prevent the State from exercising such powers as are vested in it for the promotion of the common weal, or are necessary for the general good of the public, though contracts previously entered into between individuals may thereby be affected. This power, which in its various ramifications is known as the police power, is an exercise of the sovereign right of the Government to protect the lives, health, morals, comfort and general welfare of the people, and is paramount to any rights under contracts between individuals

Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell

As Justice Stevens observed in Keystone Bituminous Coal Association v. DeBenedictis (1987):

It is well settled that the prohibition against impairing the obligation of contracts is not to be read literally.

FindLaw: United States Case Law

Clearly conservative opposition to Blaisdale has nothing to do with the Constitution or the intent of the Framers and everything to do with the political affiliation of the Administration at the time of the ruling.

Moreover, given the fact the Constitution exists only in the context of its case law, it is the right that ignores the principles of the Founding Document, and exhibits contempt for the rule of law.

The choice this November is indeed clear.

It may well be too late to save you from yourself, torte, but I will try, once again, to put you on the right path.


1. Attorney-General Meese spoke at Tulane University in 1986, and caused quite a stir.

2. In his speech, he draws a distinction between the Constitution and constitutional law. General Meese argues that only the first is the supreme law of the land. Meese quotes constitutional historian Charles Warren in the following: “"however the court may interpret the provisions of the Constitution, it is still the Constitution which is the law, not the decisions of the court." Justice Frankfurter made the same point: “The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it.”

a. Indeed, if the text were not supreme over decisions, the court would not be empowered to overrule itself, as it has done more than one hundred and seventy times in its history.

3. Note, it is only the text of the written Constitution to which we the people of the United States have given our consent, never having consented to be governed in a formal way by the five hundred volumes of the U.S. Reports. We know from the D of I that a precept of our order is that it is the people who must consent to governance.

a. Consider the opposite view, in the words of Chief Justice Hughes: “The Constitution is what the judges say it is.”
Correct?
Or hubris?

4. Thomas Paine said, “America has no monarch: Here the law is king.” Originalists believe that the written Constitution is our most fundamental law and that it binds us all. Justices who abandon the original meaning of the text of the Constitution invariably end up substituting their own political philosophies for those of the framers. Americans have to decide whether they wish a government of laws or one of judges.


Thus, the error in your post:
"It is well settled that the prohibition against impairing the obligation of contracts is not to be read literally."

I trust that you now see what nonsense the Stevens quote represents.
 
PoliticalChic;5272597

2. It would seem that you and I rather agree with Barnett...

a. The three clauses that have been used by the courts since the New Deal to expand federal power are the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the Taxation Clause, which give birth to the spending clause.

b. Professor Randy Barnett: “I have always been attracted to Madison’s view that there is no freestanding Spending Clause, but only a power to spend what is necessary and properly incident to the enumerated powers. Madison did not believe that the spending power grew out of the taxation power, but instead that all exercise of the spending power had to be incident to the other enumerated powers.”
“Originalism,” Steven Calabresi, p. 263.

To PoliticalChic: I’m relying on overturning the Affordable Care Act as the best way to weaken the Left’s grip on interpreting the Commerce Clause. Should it not be overturned there will be no stopping socialism even if the XVI Amendment is repealed. As it stands now the Income Tax Amendment is socialism’s funding mechanism.

Socialists can only govern by telling people what they must do rather than what they must not do. In that sense the income tax becomes superfluous when every American is forced to purchase everything the government dictates. And it’s not only purchasing. The Commerce Clause will continue to expand until the government dictates every aspect of daily life. They are almost there now. That is why I find Eric Hoffer’s observation following my signature so timeless.


The only way to regain the direction plotted by the Founders is to put originalists on the court.

Note how our friend torte,in the post below yours, falls into the trap of believing that court decisions have the same or more import than the Constitution itself.

He writes so well....if only he could think as well.
 
PoliticalChic;5273021

The only way to regain the direction plotted by the Founders is to put originalists on the court.

To PoliticalChic: A worthy goal.

Note how our friend torte,in the post below yours, falls into the trap of believing that court decisions have the same or more import than the Constitution itself.

He writes so well....if only he could think as well.

To PoliticalChic: Also note that everything liberals agree with is “settled law”:

Quote C_Clayton_Jones

Conservatives have been whining about Blaisdale for decades yet the ruling stands as settled law.

For the rest of it the Constitution is a living, breathing, document —— without pestering the American people with constitutional amendments.
 
The only way to regain the direction plotted by the Founders is to put originalists on the court.

Note how our friend torte,in the post below yours, falls into the trap of believing that court decisions have the same or more import than the Constitution itself.
The liberal mindset is that everything needs "evolving".

Basically, lefty code for, "We want to change it to suit us; and our way of thinking, and to hell with you".

These nitwits want to "evolve" the Constitution, our society, the family, the military, etc.

I truly believe they are mentally deranged. :evil:
 
"She will now respond to my post with a juvenile insult,..."

How could one possibly insult anyone who uses such a juvenile avi as you do?

You are your own insult: a glace at your avi immediately identifies you as non-insultable.

I'd be wasting a good insult, as the old saying goes:
"The drowning man is not disturbed by the rain."

Wow, good job being so dense.
So let me get this straight. You not going to waste your time insulting him, after you just finished insulting him? Twice.
Good job, I am thoroughly impressed.
:clap2:

"... I am thoroughly impressed."

I'm so happy....I live to impress you.


Glad you took the time to produce such a pithy post.....but shouldn’t you be off cavorting at the dysfunctional family follies, or something?

Moonglow and MiddleoftheRoad were spot on there.
 
Wow, good job being so dense.
So let me get this straight. You not going to waste your time insulting him, after you just finished insulting him? Twice.
Good job, I am thoroughly impressed.
:clap2:

"... I am thoroughly impressed."

I'm so happy....I live to impress you.


Glad you took the time to produce such a pithy post.....but shouldn’t you be off cavorting at the dysfunctional family follies, or something?

Moonglow and MiddleoftheRoad were spot on there.

I need you to put both feet in your mouth: are you in support of the position that the actual and specific words of the Constitution are able to be changed by political appointees...outside of the amendment process?


If so, you are self-identified as one who fails to agree with the following:

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.."
Article VI


Not that I would be shocked....
 

Forum List

Back
Top