There's something humorously ironic about the very un-Christ-like Hummer limo parked in front of a Catholic church.
Christ died for your sins. Dinosaurs died to fill up your gas tank!
Ah well. Almost all economics is based on treating the Earth like a giant going-out-of-business liquidation sale anyway.
I find it entertaining that I generally don't appreciate the judges that dissented but now have reason to appreciate them.
Nonetheless, why not just allow the states to regulate marijuana and sell it in pharmacies? Isn't there a good deal of profit there?
Interesting that all the Democrat-appointed justices ruled against the medical marijuana, and the three dissenters were narrow-minded, rightwingers.
Perpetuating the Crazy Frog:
You're <i>evil</i>.
:-D
Read the majority opinion of the case. This had nothing to do with morality, Stevens even hinted pretty strongly that people might want to consider changing congress with their votes if they believe in this. The simple fact is that the federal government regulates trade, and has the right to take the steps needed to do so, trumping the states, whether its pot or wine. The right wingers didn't dissent because they think people should have pot but because they think the states should have the right to override the fed. It all makes sense to me.
I thought the federal government regulates INTERSTATE TRADE, and that this case was carefully cherrypicked to NOT BE INTERSTATE TRADE.
But the morality shmorality of it was enough that 5-4 majority in favor of states right wilted away.
So it seems like you have people who might be ok with medical marijuana, but saying our fricking Fox-news-level, won't-somebody-PLEASE-think-of-the-children congress has to approve, voting against it, and justices who are probably less favorably disposed towards the medical arguments voting for it, because of the whole states rights thing.
Wacky.
Mmmmmm. . .for some reason, things made sense around Eric, then I got lost. . ..
:-P
Well Kirk, here's the wrinkle. It is illegal for California to ban the export or import of pot sales because of interstate trade. Look at this very recent case:
www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8A4CGN81.htm?campaign_id=apn_home_down
Therefore, the fact that this pot was not bought or sold across state lines is moot. It's a catch-22, the only way CA can't violate interstate trade on this is to ban pot sales altogether. And the fact that this stuff was not actually bought or sold is also moot, because its a commerical good. There is precedent on the fact that saleable goods are considered as such for the purpose of interstate trade as a facet of the good, not the actual sale of a particular lot. Unfortunately I can't point you to the case because I don't remember what its called and IANAL so I'm not sure how to find it.
I find that most people who get bent out of shape about judicial decisions have never even read an actual judgement. Try it, they are pretty remarkable and you will quickly learn how much different judges are than congresspeople, despite the media's lumping of them together:
caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=03-1454&friend=usatoday
"But perhaps even more important than these legal avenues is the democratic process, in which the voices of voters allied with these respondents may one day be heard in the halls of Congress." - Justice Stevens
What's wrong with opium dens next to every McDonald's?
MUSHROOMS AT WAL-MART! TOMORROW!
Also, I recently rediscovered The Frog, and got to see the racecar when it first came out. The video was cool. And I also saw him on the Jamster ads.
I don't think frogs even have penises.
now I'm curious about how two-stroke engines work.
Oh. . .the media. . ..
Maybe I'm being dense but I still don't see why this is interstate commerce. I hear what you're saying that it's just the fact that it's a potentially sale-able good, not whether it's actually being sold, but I think its history as a generally illegal and super-specially controlled substance would reinforce its status as something that can be considered a strictly in-state matter.
Seriously, does interstate commerce cover ANYTHING you feel like? That's at the core of the issue here.
I think the importance of this ruling is exagerrated. From a practical standpoint, anyone who wants marijuana, and I mean real weed . . . not the weaker doctor prescribed kind . . . can obtain it very easily. If you need it for medical purposes, it's very easy to come by.
Weed is widely available, but I don't think people like the risk of jail: from this salon piece,
www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/06/07/war_on_drugs/index.html
"The ridiculously costly war on the consumption of cannabis is clearly misdirected, as detailed in a May 2005 report by the Sentencing Project. Of the nearly 700,000 marijuana arrests in 2002, a shocking 88 percent were for simple possession. (The number of marijuana arrests far exceeds the number of arrests for murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault combined.) And the Sentencing Project estimates that 27,000 men and women are currently locked up for a marijuana-related offense."
From what I'm gathering, the ruling has to do with the potential for prescription pot or homegrown medical pot from CA leaving the state then getting sold on the street, thus making it a commercial product, except that it's illegal in other states, which creates a hard to fight contradiction NOT SIMILAR to the contradictions created by same-sex marriage in Massachusetts in that these marriages aren't legal outside of the State. . .WHICH creates something of an ideological contradiction for democratic judges or non-very conservative types, if they vote to stomp on medicinal pot in California, wouldn't they essentially have to vote against same sex marriage in Massachusetts?
Or does the fact that it's something commercial that makes the big difference?
Or have I overstepped some kind of bounds because, especially when it comes to same sex marriage and talking with conservatives, my logic is completely wrong. . ..
Ugh. . .politics and ideology.
OK. . .after some thought, I guess there's some wiggle room in the idea that since pot is something commercial, the other states can't deny the illegal "benefits" afforded by the pot, while with same-sex marriage, states can deny those benefits.
To terribly over-simplify:
the argument about marijuana has to do with the "Interstate Commerce" clause, which is suposed to be the only kind that Congress can regulate.
The argument about other states recongnizing gay marriage tends to revolve around the "full faith and credit", which is meant to prevent situations where a wedding in one state is somehow not recognized in another.
You didn't over simplify. You simplified just right. This conversation is pretty enlightening, though, because I kinda figured the "full faith and credit" thing would apply to all state laws. Guess I was wrong.
Jeez. . .I think I got something figured out, then something comes along and screws up with my sense of stuff. Screwy human made laws. . .only us humans can make something more screwed up than biology or something. . .just look at literary theory.
Well, "full faith and credit" as applied to ALL laws would be kind of weird. A citizen from a state with liberal laws would then be bound by those laws even when in a conservative state? So they could do things that were legal "back there" but not here? It would be sort of strange.
I have mixed feelings about Federalism vs. state rights. To be honest I tend to prefer whichever laws seem to be getting the results I want.
Now we're get philsophical and greedy. . .. =d
Since virtually all Europeans I see (here in Belgium) share the same resentment towards the "crazy frog" tunes, I can only come up with conspiracy theories to explain their so-called high popularity (in charts etc).