What Did Democrats Say About The Constitution?

For the last eight years Democrats have told us time and again that George Bush shredded the Constitution. They complained about the warrantless wiretaps of overseas calls that involved Americans and said it was a violation of Constitutional rights. I pointed out several court cases where the courts concluded it was an inherent right of the president and that Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter had done the same thing. That did not stop the liberals from screaming about the Constitution. The courts recently upheld the inherent right of the president.

[note]Bill Clinton illegally intercepted wireless phone calls to listen to his political enemies.[/note]

The funny thing about all this is that Democrats will ignore the Constitution. HR 45 is a gun control bill that infringes upon the rights of gun owners and those who want to own guns. The left routinely looks for ways to limit or remove guns from society and take them from law abiding citizens in direct violation of the Second Amendment.

It is the left who shouts “separation of church and state” when they want to remove some item of religion from the public (usually Christian items) but the Constitution contains no such words and specifically states that Congress shall not prohibit the free exercise of religion. The Democrats like to find things in the Constitution even if they do not exist. Abortion and separation of church and state are not in that document.

Funny though, the Constitution does put Congress in charge of interstate commerce (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) but that is one that Barack Obama has taken away from them and given to the states (more specifically California). I like the way Democrats cried that George Bush usurped his authority and that he involved himself in legislative business and assumed too much power for the executive when Obama removed the Congressional power to regulate interstate commerce which is clearly a legislative function.

Barack Obama will grant the waiver allowing California to set its own tailpipe emission standards. Other states will follow suit but California had requested the waiver. This act removes the regulation of interstate commerce (with regard to automobile emissions) from Congress and, at the present, gives it to California.

Putting aside the fact that the auto industry is in bad shape and will be further burdened by this, it still causes other problems. Automobiles are made in different states in the country. Automakers will not make different models because it would be more costly than making all cars so that they conform to California’s standard.

Barack Obama has given California the power to set fuel efficiency and tailpipe emission standards for the country. Whatever California sets, automakers will have to meet and that means the rest of us will have to live with what California sets. Suppose another state gets a waiver and sets a different standard?

This is going to cause a mess and it is because Obama took it upon himself to give a Congressional duty to a state. The uninformed say this is a state issue and belongs in the states but the Constitution is clear on whose responsibility it is to regulate interstate commerce and it is not the individual states. There is no doubt that since cars are made in various states and then shipped to others that this is a matter of interstate commerce.

It is interesting how Obama will give this up as a state right but things that are absiolutely state’s rights issues such as abortion are regulated at the federal level.

This whole situation will end up as one big mess and it will further drive our auto industry into the ground. We have the same issue with gasoline. There are dozens of different blends for different regions of the nation and making so many different kinds is one of the things that drives up the cost and causes problems when a refinery is off line. Allowing states to define the tailpipe emissions of vehicles will cause even more problems.

Democrats claimed that George Bush shredded the Constitution. It looks like the Democrats are not doing a very good job of following it themselves. And to think, Obama was supposed to be a Constitutional lawyer and professor.

Of course, the Constitution Obama follows and is an expert on has a different name

Source:
My Way News

Big Dog

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6 Responses to “What Did Democrats Say About The Constitution?”

  1. Aaron says:

    “The uninformed say this is a state issue and belongs in the states but the Constitution is clear on whose responsibility it is to regulate interstate commerce and it is not the individual states. There is no doubt that since cars are made in various states and then shipped to others that this is a matter of interstate commerce.”

    This is not an accurate statement in my view. I’d tend to agree that if this were an issue of interstate commerce there would be validity behind government intervention. The truth is that, while many people are masking this as an issue of interstate commerce, it is not. California’s emission standards have nothing to do whatsoever with commerce from the view of California law. It is an environmental procedure from the viewpoint of the state with direct ramifications on the economic environment within the auto industry. What California is responsible for, under the constitution, is to acquiesce to the will of the people and provide the environmental standards the citizens desire within the state.

    The confusion here among conservatives seems to be that because there is an obvious end result here in that the auto manufacturers will use California as the new standard for emissions, that this obvious end result must be an effect directly related to legislation over commerce.

    The end result is related to, and only to, the fact that California is the automotive proving grounds for changes in the industry and technology, as there are 38 million citizens within the state and 3 times as many cars. So logically really, the inner-industry changes the automotive world will undertake are related to the fact that California is the litmus test for world auto sales, period.

    That is why the nationwide emissions will be set at California levels, not because it is related to the legislation itself. The legislation merely reflects the will of Californians that happen to reflect a massive portion of auto industry sales.

    It will be the automotive companies, in the interest of profit margins, that will make these decisions. They aren’t “forced” to do anything. Their decision is an arbitrary economic result that happens between consumers and corporations every day. In my view and the “uninformed” view of so many others, that IS an issue of state powers. Interstate commerce has nothing to do with it as the impacts on interstate commerce are based upon the financial decisions of automakers to maintain profits, not on the legislation itself.

    This is an important distinction to make. The constitution is careful to cite that all powers other than those most necessary on the federal government are to be dictated on the local level by the states themselves. For the federal government to come in and use interstate commerce as a clause to reverse state legislation is a farce and a clear abuse of federal power.

    The irony of this situation to me is that it is conservatives whining about this the most and they are the supposed champions of free markets. This is a perfect example of the free market at work but apparently a double standard exists here related to whether the results are convenient for certain parties or others. We can’t be selective about our values.

    When I say “conservatives” by the way I mean generally republicans. I myself am a conservative (libertarian) and recognize that this is most certainly an issue of state powers and their infringement by the federal government. Obama’s decision to negate the ban on California emissions is not based upon the right values, but the result is one that is the correct result for California and the nation.

  2. Big Dog says:

    Regardless of what you think, the cars are made in other states and transported to California which makes it interstate commerce. If it were an issue that only affected California then it would be a different issue, as in they regulate more stringently what comes out of smoke stacks in plants there. This is because the plants are there and there is no movement between the states.

    The Constitution is clear with who regulates interstate commerce.

    If this were a California issue then it would only affect them but it will affect all other states.

  3. Big Dog says:

    I might add that if this issue is important then the California legislature should discuss it with their federal politicians and introduce it at the federal level.

    What will happen when all the states try to have different standards?

  4. Barbara says:

    Obama is going to show his true self and hang himself sooner or later. Right now, my dander is up at Pelosi, who puts economy over children. I guess she will be happy when the US says people can only have 2 children like China. People had better wake up and take a close look at what our government is doing. You will find your rights suddenly gone and wonder how it happened. Open your eyes!

  5. Aaron Smith says:

    “If this were a California issue then it would only affect them but it will affect all other states.”

    No it won’t. You aren’t listening to what I’m saying. California is enacting environmental legislation. The automakers, knowing full well that the baseline of the industry’s sales is rooted in California, will recreate their company wide emission standards for vehicles in the interest of profits. The Federal government has no place in telling California what it can and cannot do on this issue. The issue is not directly a commerce issue. The issue of the automakers decision to change it’s manufacturing practices is a commerce issue.

    The government may arguably have full legal authority under the constitution to regulate the prices that automakers can sell at in the other states, but it does not have the right to come in and tell California it cannot enact it’s own environmental standards.

    What you are describing is a subjective abuse of the interstate commerce clause in which the Federal government frames any issue it desires as “interstate commerce” in order to exert unconstitutional authority over the individual states. It isn’t about what I think. It’s about the facts, and you seem to be struggling to understand the ones I’m pitching at you.

    If you want to call this interstate commerce then you can justify calling just about anything interstate commerce through some arbitrary chain of connections. That’s exactly the kind of manipulation of constitutional ideals that has the interstate commerce clause under so much fire. The government has used it several times in major turning points in history to exert its power over the states forcefully.

    That is not what the founding fathers intended under the constitution and the government has no business acting as such.

  6. Bunny Colvin says:

    Hang himself? Babs, lay off the sauce. I thought Dog was crazy but you are taking it to a whole new level.