Great Thread - thanks Sportndandy
I agree 100% with your analysis, but I think there's one very possible avenue to realize the Re-Legalization of marijuana that has been a long tradition in bringing about the revoking of unjust laws in this country, as well as other changes. I'll explain below after I get my rant out of the way.. :)
I hope my rant is read. I think it is important..
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(My Rant about the Controlled Substances ACT of 1970):Being a member of the medical marijuana compassionate club here in California and having a medical marijuana prescription, I think our government's out-right lies and distortions concerning the use of marijuana is just absolutely a crime against humanity
(and I mean that 100%). Especially after you review the mountain of scientific research on how marijuana effects the human body and all the medical benefits that it possesses -- and I strongly feel that denying anyone access to this is a heinous crime. But also, not to leave out, all the superior and environmentally cleaner industrial products that marijuana can provide.
Not that any of this should make any difference because certainly my nervous system and the rest of my body belongs to me and not some government who erroneously thinks that its all mighty.
I also think that wasting the enormous billions of dollars to wage war on citizens who are not committing any crime and wrecking their lives for having done nothing to anyone, is also a gross violation against humanity, and when I say NOT committing any crime, I mean the taking of a drug --
(ANY DRUG)-- is NOT a crime, and is in fact, a constitutionally protected activity. That is of course if we didn't live in a
post constitutional era.
I am sure that I am preaching to the choir here - but please allow me to elaborate because there may be some young neo-cons lurking who simply may be a victim of our current dilapidated, government controlled schools and they might possibly learn something.
I think more people need to be taught our Constitution more in-depth than they have been; because unfortunately when listening to the average person talk about it, I find that they are unfortunately so lacking in its meaning. Most people I run into
(when I hear them discussing the Constitution) seem to be only of the opinion that it is just a document listing Constitutionally protected rights --and-- they only seem to know off the top of their heads a few of the rights listed in the Bill Of Rights -- usually just the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th amendments.
They totally don't realize the profound implications of the other rights listed in the Bill Of Rights, or other amendments, such as the 14th amendment, adopted after the Bill Of Rights. And are usually completely ignorant to the one right listed in the Bill Of Rights that I feel is perhaps the most important one of them all -- and that would be the 9th amendment.
Both the 14th and 9th amendments are germane to the discussion of this thread. Let me quickly point to the section in the 14th amendment to illustrate how it is being violated by the war on drugs.
(14th Amendment):Section 1. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws".
By noting the underlining sections; you can see by making certain intoxicants illegal and others not, the government is denying certain persons the equal protection of the laws that it is not denying to others. Certainly marijuana users don't have equal protection of the law respective to alcohol users. Now lets move on to my favorite amendment -- the 9th amendment.
(9th Amendment): "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
As-far-as one's personal liberties is concerned, you can see in the 9th amendment it implicitly defines the statutory scheme of the whole Constitution itself. What it is basically saying is: The government has no jurisdiction to deny, restrict, or regulate personal activity, and it is not to be mistaken that just because a personal right is not enumerated
(listed) in the Constitution -- that it isn't a right still retained by the people themselves. Certainly you have the right to eat, sleep, travel about, etc. without it being listed in the Constitution.
What you also get from reading the 9th amendment is that personal rights themselves are NOT granted by the government through the Constitution. The Constitution doesn't 'grant' anyone any rights. It, besides defining government offices, merely lists a few rights
(to protect them), so that all other rights will be protected from arbitrary government.
These ideas of the Constitution 'restricting' government and securing
(not granting) certain rights so that all others may be secured -- is supported by both the Declaration Of Independence and the Preamble to the Bill Of Rights:
(Declaration Of Independence): "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 'UNALIENABLE' Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to 'SECURE' (not grant) these rights, Governments are instituted among Men......"
(Preamble to the Bill Of Rights): "The conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution.
So as you can see it is important to note that the Preamble to the Bill Of Rights states that the first ten amendments are "
declaratory and restrictive clauses". Simply put, and supporting the idea of 'restricting' government; this statement means that the Bill Of Rights supersede all other parts of the Constitution and restricts the Constitution --and-- the Constitution itself in-turn restricts the powers of government. So in matters pertaining to personal unalienable rights, the restrictions enumerated in the Bill Of Rights are
permanent & unchangeable. This is why a man by the name Frank I. Cobb made one of my favorite quotes in the LaFollette's Magazine, January, 1920.
"The Bill of Rights is a born rebel. It reeks with sedition. In every clause it shakes its fist in the face of constituted authority. It is the one guarantee of human freedom to the American people." --Frank I. Cobb
Thus -- the government only has jurisdiction where it is specifically given jurisdiction; and no statute or legislative act may override the Constitution. That is why when our government first sought prohibition against an intoxicant
(Alcohol), they went about it the correct and legal way, they sought a Constitutional amendment giving them the legal jurisdiction because an
ACT doesn't supersede the Constitution. However, arguably as I pointed-out above, this Constitutional amendment against a personal 'unalienable' right was in the strict sense of the Constitution -- Unconstitutional as well.
Now another very important document to point-out that supports these restrictions, is what many people refer to as the most important landmark Supreme Court case in our history -- The case of Marbury Vs. Madison, 5 US 137 (1803). In this case the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and that any legislative 'act' repugnant to the Constitution is null and void.
Here is a excerpt from Marbury v. Madison and below it a few others from other important cases, and believe you me, there are many others I could list:
(Marbury Vs. Madison): "That the people have an original right to establish, for future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis, on which the whole American fabric has been erected. The exercise of this original right is a very great exertion, nor can it, nor ought it to be frequently repeated. The principles, therefore, so established, are deemed fundamental. And as the authority, from which they proceed, is supreme, and can seldom act, they are designed to be permanent."
Dred Scott Vs. Sanford (1856): "Neither the Legislative, Executive nor the Judicial departments of the Federal Government can lawfully exercise any authority beyond the limits marked out by the Constitution."
Miranda Vs. Ariz. 384 U.S. 436 at 491(1966): "Where rights are secured by Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which will abrogate them."
So as we can see, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970
(the war on drugs) is, Constitutionally speaking, a gross violation of a person's unalienable rights. Which I assert constitutes a human right's violation. And on top of that, as we can see, it violates the Constitution itself in many different ways. It tramples underfoot the basic principles our country was founded upon, slapping us all in the face -- especially those who bled for those principles.
(End Of Rant):smoke:
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Sportndandy, the method that may be used that I was referring to -- a method that's been used successfully all throughout our history. The method used by labor unions to fight corporations. The method used by people during the prohibition to bring about the dismantling of an even more powerful law than an act
(a constitutional amendment). The method frequently used by early Americans to lay the smack-down on arbitrary government laws. The method used by Andrew Hamilton while defending a newspaper printer by the name of John Peter Zenger of siditious libel for printing critical but true news stories about the Governor of New York Colony. That method is: JURY NULLIFICATION!!
Jury nullification has a LONG standing history in our country, and even going all the way back to English common law and the Magna Carta. American colonial juries regularly thwarted bad law sent over from mother England. Britain then retaliated by restricting both trial by jury and other rights which juries had won or protected. Result? The Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution!
Afterwards, to forever protect all the individual rights they'd fought for from future attacks by government, the Founders Fathers in three places included trial by jury meaning tough, fully informed juries in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
I mentioned above about labor unions. This is where we see the government beginning its attack on a "fully informed jury". The Supreme Court, under pressure from large corporations, ruled in a bitter split decision that courts no longer had to inform juries they could veto an unjust law. The giant corporations had lost numerous trials pressed against labor leaders trying to organize unions. Striking was against the law at that time. "Juries also ruled against corporations in damage suits and other cases, prompting influential members of the American Bar Association to fear that jurors were becoming too hostile to
their clients and too sympathetic to the poor.
"Bad law" special-interest legislation which tramples our rights is no longer sent here from Britain. But our own legislatures
(as you are aware) keep us well supplied. That is why today, more than ever, we need juries to be "fully informed" and ready to protect us, our rights and our founding principles.
"If a juror accepts as the law that which the judge states then that juror has accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government employee and has surrendered a power and right that once was the citizen's safeguard of liberty." --- (1788) (2 Elliots Debates, 94, Bancroft, History of the Constitution, 267)
Read: Jury Nullification: The Top Secrete Constitutional Right!
http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/131jur.pdf
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