The O'Reilly clip I posted earlier got me thinking about the commerce clause in the constitution, and reminded me of the recent court case of Gonzalez v. Raich. This is an excellent example of activist judges, although one that Republicans never cite.

In Gonzalez v. Raich, the court held that the federal government has the authority to prohibit growing medical marijuana in one's back yard because doing so affects interstate commerce. They had to establish this since all federal drug laws are based on the Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the constitution) which grants the government the power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."

In their insane leap of logic, the court held that the person growing the plant would buy it from someone else if they could not grow it themselves, and therefore the growing influenced price levels across state lines. Because of this, growing things in your back yard is "interstate commerce" in the eyes of the federal government. What kind of idiots do we have as judges in this country? By this logic, the federal government could put a tax on tomatoes you grow in your back yard, tax you for transferring ownership of a shirt to your children or siblings, and basically tax, regulate, or prohibit pretty much any production or use of anything they can think up. They could even, by the same logic, prohibit teaching children that drugs and alcohol are harmful, since doing so would influence whether or not they purchase these things, and therefore influence the prices of these goods across state borders.

Congress has for a long time been using the Commerce Clause to claim federal powers they very obviously do not have under the constitution, but this case shows just how insane their claims to these powers really are, and how little we can trust the courts to control the government from exceeding its authority.

You have to love our free* country, and the freedom** we have because of our limited*** government.

*not free
**slavery
***not limited

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." – George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004