Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
Apparently some Amish people about 15 years ago were charged with hate crimes for cutting other Amish men's beards.
They tried to argue that the federal government had no constitutional authority to prosecute them, but the judge ruled that since the scissors used to cut the hair, and the vans used to drive to the men, had at some point crossed state lines, this was a valid prosecution under the interstate commerce clause.
I don't really have the time right now to make this into an effortpost for the main thread. But this is crazy. I'm living in crazytown. How we reached the point where such rulings aren't immediate grounds for revolution, I'll never know.
That "interstate commerce" stuff has been going for a while now. I remember a case where a guy grew weed on his own backyard, and was prosecuted under "interstate commerce" with the logic somewhat like: if you grow it, then you would consume it or sell it. If you'd consume it, you wouldn't buy any other weed on the market, and if you sell it, you participate in the weed market. Since weed is sold and transported across the state lines, participating in the weed market influences interstate commerce, therefore the interstate commerce clause gives the state power to regulate what you grow on your own backyard and smoke in your own house. Yeah, it's nuts and nobody cares. Welcome to the clown world, we have cookies.
Scalia's concurrence in that case, relying on the Necessary and Proper Clause, made a lot more sense than the majority opinion.
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