How It Became Acceptable to Bastardize the Constitution

During the Great Depression, the FDR administration imposed limits on crop production to artificially increase the price of food.  Yeah, that makes PERFECT sense when people are starving and is another reason why I believe the policies of the FDR administration led to the Great Depression being much worse than it could've been.

A man by the name of Roscoe Filburn was told to plant a little over 10 acres of wheat.  He planted that 10 acres and sold it on the market.  However, he also planted an additional ten for consumption by his own family to save money due to lack of revenue because of the limits on how much he could plant.  His reasoning was that since the wheat was never entering the market, it was not subject to federal regulation under the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

When Uncle Sam found out about this, Filburn was ordered to destroy his excess crops and pay a fine.  Seriously.  He was ordered to destroy the extra 10 acres of wheat while many Americans at the time were starving due to a lack of food production due to the Dust Bowl.  What kind of sense does that make?  About as much sense as its modern parallel (i.e. corporate bailouts).

Filburn sued and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court.  In Wickard v. Filburn, the Supreme Court ruled against Filburn and set the precedent that seems to grant the federal government power to regulate anything under the sun provided it could affect interstate commerce, even if they had to stretch to apply that principle.  In this particular case, the Court reasoned that because this was 10 acres worth of wheat that Filburn would not be purchasing through the markets, Filburn's actions had impacted interstate commerce and where therefore subject to any and all regulations pertaining to wheat production.  This is clearly not what the founding fathers had in mind.

Fast forward to the 1990's.  California voted to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes.  Angel Raich was informed by her doctor and California state law that her use of marijuana to relieve the pain associated with her brain tumor was acceptable.  However, the Feds thought differently.

You see, Uncle Sam doesn't take too kindly to states enacting laws that contradict federal law.  At the federal level, marijuana is wrongfully classified as a Schedule I drug (as in considered worse than heroin and crystal meth).  Of course, federal agencies refuse to recognize state laws, even though the Tenth Amendment suggests that they should.  They proceeded to destroy her homegrown marijuana (legal under California law) that had never entered into interstate commerce.

Raich sued and, like Filburn before, took it all the way to the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court stretched a little further and determined that since she wasn't purchasing her illegal drug off the black market, her actions were having an impact on the black market which is a form of interstate commerce.  So in other words, the Supreme Court basically said that the federal government has the power to regulate an illegal market.

Clarence Thomas famously wrote in the dissent, “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.'"  You will not see much truer words from a Supreme Court justice about how far America has strayed from the founding fathers' visions.