Journal Sylver Dragon's Journal: California, at it again 5
It looks like the California Legislature is at it again, and about damn time. As I wrote in my previous journal entry, I tend to believe that the Federal Government is allowed far to much power over intrastate commerce by the expansions of the Interstate Commerce Clause which happened in the early 20th Century. The War on Drugs is a good example of this.
Back in 1996, the voters of California passed Proposition 215. The idea was that we would allow those medical patients who could benefit from marijuana use to grow, own and consume it. Of course, with the War on Drugs still in full swing, and Federal Laws which criminalized the growing and possession of marijuana, and with the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, this Proposition was unlikely to have any real effect. Granted, there has been some leeway given to those with medical prescriptions, but let's be honest, this has been abused. The real goal is to reach a point where marijuana is treated like alcohol; regulated but legal.
Now, one of the things which came out of this was an important case which went before the US Supreme Court. This case Gonzales V. Riach essentially allowed Federal enforcement of the Federal drug laws, despite the California law. It was in this case that Justice Thomas wrote:
If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption...then Congress' Article I powers...have no meaningful limits.
And
If the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States. This makes a mockery of Madison's assurance to the people of New York that the "powers delegated" to the Federal Government are "few and defined", while those of the States are "numerous and indefinite."
Which, when you really sit down and think about it is true. By declaring a Federal plan to control any item, from drugs to guns to wheat, they can then invalidate any sort of State independence. There is no such thing as State's Rights with regard to commerce within its own borders. Really, if taken to its logical extreme, we may as well abolish the States and simply do everything at the Federal level. Yes, I am sure that there are plenty of people in the US who would be all for this idea, I'm not. I like to have as much government power within shooting distance as possible. The closer to the actual people a government is, the more power it should have, as distance increases power should decrease.
There's two reasons for my desire to have governmental power distributed as such. First, it makes it much harder to concentrate power into the hands of a few. Yes, a powerful local government may be able to wreck a lot of havoc on a local population, but that is easy enough to escape, and if bad enough can be resisted. As I said, I like to have the people in power be within shooting distance. Obviously, one hopes that their government never gets bad enough that it becomes necessary, but if it does, it's nice to not have to travel several hundred or thousand miles to put a bullet in them. The other part of this is that, if power is so decentralized, it becomes hard to effectively direct it. Trying to convert such a decentralized setup to a tyrannical system would mean trying to setup something akin to Feudalism. Its possible, but its going to be much harder than a power grab against an already centralized seat of power.
The second reason that I favor a decentralized system of power is that a local government can react better to local issues. For example, consider housing codes. In California, having housing codes which prevent houses falling over in the average 6.0 earthquake is important. It's an interesting (if morbid) exercise to watch such an earthquake move around the Rim of Fire. There will be a 6.0 or so earthquake in the Philippines and thousands will die. Shortly after a similar quake will go off in Mexico and thousands will die. Some time later a similar earthquake will happen in California and we might lose a few dishes. The difference is the housing codes. However, the folks in Florida have no need for such codes, they need houses which will withstand flooding and hurricanes. Were they to build in earthquake protections, it would raise the cost of building for no real gain. Similarly, there is no need for houses to deal with hurricanes in California, and the cost of such changes would be nonsensical.
A central government just doesn't need to have the strong control over daily life of its citizens. It doesn't provide anything which cannot be better handled at a more local level. What the Federal Government needs to be is essentially a meta-government, a government of governments. The Federal Government exists to ensure that the State Governments are not acting in such as way as to imperil the rights of the people, and to provide for national defense. The State Governments exist to ensure that the local governments are not imperiling the rights of the people. And, at the lowest level the local governments are the ones providing for the actual laws which affect the people and their day to day lives.
So, what does all this have to do with the current California Bill? Well, it's another attempt to setup a showdown on State's Rights vs. Federal Powers; and ultimately, the scope of the Interstate Commerce Clause. This is a good thing, in my opinion. Our federal government has been growing, and as the Bush Administration showed us, it is starting to act more like the government of Soviet East Germany than a free county. It's time we realized that having a powerful central government is dangerous to our freedom and stuffed it back into its little box of being just a meta-government. This means that the War on Drugs has to die. Much like Prohibition before it, the War on Drugs needs to be brought to an end and the sale and manufacture of drugs needs to be regulated at a local level.
Do I think this Bill has a hope in hell? Nope. It will probably pass the California State Legislature, the Governator might even sign it. But, it's going to go up the chain of courts, pass through the Ninth Circuit and end up before the Supreme Court where it will die a horrible death. Still, we need to keep making noise like this. Change doesn't happen all at once, it happens slowly. You have to keep beating on the walls for a long time before they finally fall.
Back in 1996, the voters of California passed Proposition 215. The idea was that we would allow those medical patients who could benefit from marijuana use to grow, own and consume it. Of course, with the War on Drugs still in full swing, and Federal Laws which criminalized the growing and possession of marijuana, and with the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, this Proposition was unlikely to have any real effect. Granted, there has been some leeway given to those with medical prescriptions, but let's be honest, this has been abused. The real goal is to reach a point where marijuana is treated like alcohol; regulated but legal.
Now, one of the things which came out of this was an important case which went before the US Supreme Court. This case Gonzales V. Riach essentially allowed Federal enforcement of the Federal drug laws, despite the California law. It was in this case that Justice Thomas wrote:
If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption...then Congress' Article I powers...have no meaningful limits.
And
If the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States. This makes a mockery of Madison's assurance to the people of New York that the "powers delegated" to the Federal Government are "few and defined", while those of the States are "numerous and indefinite."
Which, when you really sit down and think about it is true. By declaring a Federal plan to control any item, from drugs to guns to wheat, they can then invalidate any sort of State independence. There is no such thing as State's Rights with regard to commerce within its own borders. Really, if taken to its logical extreme, we may as well abolish the States and simply do everything at the Federal level. Yes, I am sure that there are plenty of people in the US who would be all for this idea, I'm not. I like to have as much government power within shooting distance as possible. The closer to the actual people a government is, the more power it should have, as distance increases power should decrease.
There's two reasons for my desire to have governmental power distributed as such. First, it makes it much harder to concentrate power into the hands of a few. Yes, a powerful local government may be able to wreck a lot of havoc on a local population, but that is easy enough to escape, and if bad enough can be resisted. As I said, I like to have the people in power be within shooting distance. Obviously, one hopes that their government never gets bad enough that it becomes necessary, but if it does, it's nice to not have to travel several hundred or thousand miles to put a bullet in them. The other part of this is that, if power is so decentralized, it becomes hard to effectively direct it. Trying to convert such a decentralized setup to a tyrannical system would mean trying to setup something akin to Feudalism. Its possible, but its going to be much harder than a power grab against an already centralized seat of power.
The second reason that I favor a decentralized system of power is that a local government can react better to local issues. For example, consider housing codes. In California, having housing codes which prevent houses falling over in the average 6.0 earthquake is important. It's an interesting (if morbid) exercise to watch such an earthquake move around the Rim of Fire. There will be a 6.0 or so earthquake in the Philippines and thousands will die. Shortly after a similar quake will go off in Mexico and thousands will die. Some time later a similar earthquake will happen in California and we might lose a few dishes. The difference is the housing codes. However, the folks in Florida have no need for such codes, they need houses which will withstand flooding and hurricanes. Were they to build in earthquake protections, it would raise the cost of building for no real gain. Similarly, there is no need for houses to deal with hurricanes in California, and the cost of such changes would be nonsensical.
A central government just doesn't need to have the strong control over daily life of its citizens. It doesn't provide anything which cannot be better handled at a more local level. What the Federal Government needs to be is essentially a meta-government, a government of governments. The Federal Government exists to ensure that the State Governments are not acting in such as way as to imperil the rights of the people, and to provide for national defense. The State Governments exist to ensure that the local governments are not imperiling the rights of the people. And, at the lowest level the local governments are the ones providing for the actual laws which affect the people and their day to day lives.
So, what does all this have to do with the current California Bill? Well, it's another attempt to setup a showdown on State's Rights vs. Federal Powers; and ultimately, the scope of the Interstate Commerce Clause. This is a good thing, in my opinion. Our federal government has been growing, and as the Bush Administration showed us, it is starting to act more like the government of Soviet East Germany than a free county. It's time we realized that having a powerful central government is dangerous to our freedom and stuffed it back into its little box of being just a meta-government. This means that the War on Drugs has to die. Much like Prohibition before it, the War on Drugs needs to be brought to an end and the sale and manufacture of drugs needs to be regulated at a local level.
Do I think this Bill has a hope in hell? Nope. It will probably pass the California State Legislature, the Governator might even sign it. But, it's going to go up the chain of courts, pass through the Ninth Circuit and end up before the Supreme Court where it will die a horrible death. Still, we need to keep making noise like this. Change doesn't happen all at once, it happens slowly. You have to keep beating on the walls for a long time before they finally fall.
On a related note (Score:2)
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/02/23/news/state/18-rights.txt [billingsgazette.net]
Re: (Score:2)
Granted, considering the makeup of the US Supreme Court, I'm expecting neither the Montana law nor the California one to win, but you have to start somewhere.
Re: (Score:2)
Since the founding of our nation, there seems to be a 70-80 year cycle of the federal government claiming hugely expanded powers. The first instance was the American Civil War (Or maybe the Whiskey Rebellion was really the first?), the next was the Great Depression and the New Deal, and now we're seeing the latest peak in the cycle.
If it doesn't end here, I hate to think where the next iteration of the cycle will take us.
Re: (Score:1)
And before the depression there was Wilson debasing the currency and arresting war protesters merely for speaking up.
But I believe the Feds should do things like regulate contamination (it almost always crosses state lines and national borders), and insure the uniform quality of goods, even when they don't cross state lines.
Prohibition must be repealed, but economically, the weed thing is a bit different from the rest. All your other drugs require a certain amount of processing before they're ready for cons
Prohibition, War on Inflation, War on Drugs... (Score:2)
...War on Terrorism, War on the Recession.
Every time there is a crisis, it's "the government needs to do something about this". The federal government, being what it is (large and unwieldy and collectively clueless), usually makes things worse - but it appears to be doing something. So we give it a little more power to deal with our problems.
You're absolutely right about the appropriate scale of government. I don't have a lot of hope for reversing the trend, however.