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Getting out of the way of business

Posted by $ rainman0720 9 years ago to Government
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Every time I either read or listen to Scott Brick narrate Atlas Shrugged, I pick something up I hadn't seen or understood. This time is no exception; it's what Judge Narragansett is adding to The Constitution: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade."

I'd heard and read this many times, but until tonight, never really thought about applying it to the laws of this country, and what that would mean.

The effect of this simple 12 word sentence, if applied not only to current laws but any future law prior to its even being considered, would be stunning. Even if the law wasn't specifically designed to hinder trade (perfect example: I live in Indiana; you can't buy carry out beer or wine on Sunday unless it's from a microbrewery or an Indiana winery), their net effect is almost always some kind of hinderance to business.

I can't even imagine how much better off we would all be, and I've got quite an imagination.



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  • Posted by $ jlc 9 years ago
    But you would need to add another requirement to the Constitution in order for your new pro-business regulation to have any effect: "Before any law or regulation can be enacted or submitted for a public vote, it must be in compliance with all aspects of the Constitution of the United States of America."

    To me, this is the single most important addition we could make (though probably better worded than I have just jotted down). I suspect that 70% of the local, city, county, state, and federal laws that we have would not pass this criterion. If we wanted to do One Thing to return freedom, this is the thing to do.

    Jan
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    • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years ago
      "Before any law or regulation can be enacted or submitted for a public vote, it must be in compliance with all aspects of the Constitution of the United States of America."
      I do not understand how/why started interpeting the Constitution so broadly that we're not really following it, so I don't understand if one line would be enough to make us follow it. It seems like the line should say, "We really mean it. We're not just whistling Dixie. We the People need to follow this."
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    • Posted by $ jdg 9 years ago
      If you want the Constitution to have actual "teeth", what needs to be added is to give courts the authority to fire any executive branch official who disobeys their orders (thus abolishing the separation of powers).

      Until and unless this is done, Andrew Jackson's precedent (ignoring a Supreme Court ruling that the Indian Removal Act was unconstitutional, and getting away with it) will continue to stand, and any president who has the cheek to use it will do so.
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      • Posted by $ jlc 9 years ago
        It is certainly not my point that my suggested amendment is the _only_ one that could be made. But I do want to make a strong point that our Constitution is a lot more capable - as it stands - of protecting personal freedom. The one thing it needs (in my opinion) is to have each law be constitutional Before it can be voted on or go into effect. The retrospective 'pass it first and then dispute it' SOP means that most laws are never vetted for constitutionality.

        Having a more active check-and-balance that allows one branch of the government to try the others if the others break the law may be a good idea - it is better to change than to engage in a lamentable consistency.

        Jan

        Jan
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    • Posted by plusaf 9 years ago
      Jan, I, as I've probably proven over and over again here, am NOT a Constitutional Scholar by any means, but I think I have absorbed some slings and arrows that informed me that the Constitution is basically a document designed to assign AND LIMIT what the Federal Government can or may do.

      All the rest is 'left to the states.'

      While there are many times when I think that some laws SHOULD be at the federal level so the 'rights' are guaranteed to ALL citizens in Every State, a lot of people argue that the States must retain those rights and powers.

      If that's the case, the unintended consequences of your suggested change to the Constitution should be looked into in depth!
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  • Posted by SaltyDog 9 years ago
    Make no mistake...legislators have an almost instinctive understanding of a simple truth...they can afford to be hated, ridiculed and reviled; they can't afford to be ignored. This, in a nutshell, is why they must continuously and continually enact new legislation on EVERYTHING. This is also why the kind of thinking practiced by people like us must be contained.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years ago
    Indiana.
    That's the state in which several photographer friends of mine, while attending a Professional Photographer's school were arrested for taking off their shirts while fishing on a nearby lake. Things probably have changed since then but it was quite a shock even 25 years ago. Interestingly, the name of the town that had the school, was Warsaw.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years ago
    One of the real undermining problems to the Constitution was in getting changes made to the way officers are elected. The Twelfth Amendment making it a party-line ticket for President/Vice-President in my opinion neuters the threat of Impeachment/Conviction. The Seventeenth neuters the ability of the States to push back against the Federal Government through Senate action.

    If you want to start righting the ship, those two Amendments need to be repealed.
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  • Posted by johnpe1 9 years ago
    Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom
    of tne people of the United States.

    how 'bout that one? -- j

    oh. . needs a p.s. these days:
    The Executive Branch shall not, either.

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  • Posted by DeanStriker 9 years ago
    All the talk is good, I suppose, but there's only one fix.
    That's getting GOVERNment and it's Force out of the way of humanity.

    The coming Great Collapse will put them all out of business and shut them all down. That'll be our Last Chance to Go Voluntary.
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  • Posted by $ jdg 9 years ago
    I like the general idea, but that one bald sentence would have side effects that I don't think even Gulchers would like. For instance, what about somebody selling WMDs?
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  • Posted by TeresaW 9 years ago
    Indaina's law may have something to do with this:
    The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation and prohibited discrimination against African-Americans, was passed under the Commerce Clause in order to allow the federal government to charge non-state actors with Equal Protection violations, which it had been unable to do up to that point because of the Fourteenth Amendment’s limited application to state actors. The Supreme Court found that Congress had the authority to regulate a business that served mostly interstate travelers in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States. 379 U.S. 241 (1964). It also ruled that the federal civil rights legislation could be used to regulate a restaurant, Ollie’s Barbeque, a family-owned restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama because, although most of Ollie’s customers were local, the restaurant served food which had previously crossed state lines. Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 274 (1964). https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/commerce...

    specifically Ollie's BBQ.

    Sundays only (?) No idea what background machinations were going in your state on to lead to such state legislation, but it seems to fit.
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  • Posted by wiggys 9 years ago
    rainman if you are suggesting that government get out of the way of business that fits into the category of wishful thinking, it just isn't going to happen regardless of how many jobs are killed or how large the unemployed population gets to be. and sooner vs later there will no longer be customers so even the largest of businesses will go by the way side. welcome to america.
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    • Posted by $ jdg 9 years ago
      It can be done. The only question is whether we'll have to go through a constitutional crisis first (and that can have several possible meanings).
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