Re: The limits of the Commerce power?
The SCOTUS should not have to play referee to OBVIOUS attempts to make end runs around what is clearly stated by the U.S. constitution. A few examples follow:
1) The federal gov't has no constitutional power over education, NONE, yet the fastest growing, cabinet level, federal department is the DOEd. How much more clear can the 10th amendment be? The federal gov't MUST remain limitted to its narrow and listed (enumerated) powers or have the new power(s) added by constituional amendment. The endless expansion of 'perceived' or 'implied' federal powers simply by congressional slight of hand, coupled with bribes to the states (they now get about 10% of their annual budgets in the form of federal 'education aid') and the ignoring of the obvious infraction by the SCOTUS does not make it "right".
2) the 2nd amendment clearly states that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed", yet states may now SELL (rent?) "gun permits" or "CCW permits" for substantial fees and then prosecute ONLY those that exercise their constitutional right to bear arms WITHOUT first buying that express permission from the state. The state did not add rights or privileges of any kind, they simply chose to charge you money to keep that which is rightly yours to begin with. This is much the same as prior "poll taxes" made up to limit those which were legally able to vote, strangely this took a constitutional amendment (the 24th) to stop, not a mere SCOTUS decision that it was unconstitutional to begin with, as was done with the voter "literacy tests" that followed.
Alittle perspective goes a long way....
Yes, we as American citizens do have the right to keep and bear arms, but there will always be this tug-o-war between individual liberty (freedom), state's rights (laws that govern what residents of any given state can and cannot do) and prosperity whether it be from the stand point of an individual desiring to risk his own capital to join in the free market system based on capitalism or the state's to make laws that set the rules of engagement where commerce is concerned within their boarders and the federal government establishing laws that govern our system of commerce where same is delcared to be national in scope.
Moral law (not to mention common sense) tells you you can't just purchase any weapon you want despite what the 5th Amendment says. I know there are a lot of strict Constitutionalist out there who believe otherwise (I know because I've debated some here before on the merits of individuals possessing the same types of weapons a militia is entitled to have under this very clause), but common sense dictates that if everyone were allowed to purchase an AK-47 or a machine gun and mount it on their roof or their backyard, you'd have anarchy! And that's not what our Founding Fathers wanted.
The whole point of the 5th Amendment was to keep a government from taking up arms against its citizens. All one needs to do is see the civil unrest that has already taken place in countries such a Lybia and especially in Syria to know that a country cannot murder its citizens unopposed if the citizens are armed themselves. However, under both state and federal laws we as free individuals CAN go out and purchase such aforementioned weapons as long as we adhere to the law. Again, state's rights, folks...with a little praticality and common-sense thrown in NOT to necessarily keep free men from possession such weapons but rather to limit the types of weapons that inadvertantly get in the hands of people who wish to disolve the public trust and disrupt good order and discipline.
Think it through...
As for voting rights where the "poll tax" is concerned, there's a reason the federal government intervened here. Just as it was concerning who were and weren't citizens of this country prior to the ratification of the 14th Amendment, the states went a bit nuts with voter suppression laws. It got so bad that the federal government had no choice but to intervene, but it did so by use of it's taxing power under the Constitution. By outlawing the poll tax, states could no longer surpress votes by charging free men their constitutional right to participate in the election process. Now, if only they'd amend that damned 2/3's person rule we'd be straight.
3) If the gov't wishes to make "health insurance" into a federal right (or power), then it must do so directly, just as with social security by levying a tax, establishing 'benefit' rules and then paying them using gov't funds, or as with Medicare/Medicaid by direct action using gov't funds, not by making all sorts of unfunded mandates and producing a massive 2,400+ page mess, supported by 187 new agencies and panels and pretending them (as it was sold to the public) to be simply (minor?) revisions to an existing private health insurance system, made under the commerce clause. Adding thousands of moronic "waivers" (to the initial law), some at the entire state level, should also be found unconstitutional as violating the equal protection guarantee of the 14th amendment.
I agree with that portion of your statement in bold. However, I think you have some of your facts wrong (i.e., 2,400+ page healthcare reform bill, 187 new agencies and panels, etc.). Furthermore, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (HR 3590) is only approximately 920 pages long (and probably 1,500 pages long if you include the Education Reconsiliation Act). Nonetheless, in priciple I agree with you. It's why I've argued that The CLASS Act would have been a better piece of legislation in and of itself had Congress had the courage to set a date far enough in the future to eliminate Medicare and Medicaid, take that portion of the payroll tax working-class Americans are already paying toward Medicare and instead apply it toward The CLASS Act and operate a national health care system along the exact same lines as the Health Insurance Exchanges but with near instant accessibility to health care as those who receive Medicaid now receive which is through the private sector. But people made such a sink over health care reform that no body in Congress truly wanted to push The CLASS Act in a meaningful way. Still, I think it will be back in a few years because folks will get tired of either paying the high cost of health insurance/health care OR will finally get smart and realize that Texas Gov. Rick Perry was absolutely right - Medicare/SSN is a ponsi scheme. Think about it...
You start working as early as 15.5 yr of age in most states and work until you're 65 before you can access YOUR federal health care benefits (unless, of course, you're rendered or declared "disabled" by the SSN) and in the interim you purchase private health insurace through your employer taking hundreds of thousands of dollars out of your pocket over the course of your working years!?
These same people who are declaring "my right to spend my money as I damned well please" really have NOT thought our health care system through at all. Instead, they've been suckered in by rhetorical talking points.
