Deleting Bookmarks

I read a lot of political blogs. Recently, I have discovered that I just cannot stand to read some of them.

Hugh Hewitt got nuked because I got so damn sick of reading about how tasty the Romney shit sammich was. Rah rah rah, RINO!

Kim DuToit got nuked today because I am sick of reading about how RIGHT he is and how WRONG I am. It must be nice to be that CERTAIN. His wife's comments in one thread were the final straw. More than once with them I have seen them rant about how unconstitutional something is and then say that the war on drugs is OK because so many people want it. The recent comment thread was about exactly that. I believe it was Tamara explaining that Prohibition was legal because an amendment was added giving the Feds the power to do what they did and the war on drugs is illegal because no such power is found in the Constitution, nor has an amendment granting that power been added.

I've noticed that whenever the war on drugs vs prohibition legality thing comes up, conservatives immediately dive for the libertarian=drug smoking hippie line. I find this exasperating. What Tamara was trying to say is the Constitution defines the powers the government legitimately has and the power of making drugs illegal is not there. This position is reinforced by the 18th amendment, by the way. If the government had the power to ban liquor (or drugs) then an amendment would not have been required. The position that the power was always there and the 18th was not really required is squashed by the 21st amendment. If the government had the power to ban alcohol (or drugs) without the 18th amendment, then all of the laws passed during prohibition would still be valid and in place today. Saying so does not make me a hippie.

I've raged on this point before, the Constitution is a limiting document listing the powers of the Federal government in plain English. If a power is not specifically, and clearly, listed then it is forbidden to the Feds. The 9th and 10th amendments are reminders that this is so. This position demands quite a bit smaller and less intrusive Federal Government than we have today. Saying so does not make me a libertarian, anarchist or minarchist.

There's a lot of legitimate power in there. It mentions "the people" a lot. I don't think we needed special laws protecting women, blacks or gays because all three are PEOPLE! The people are protected. I do think that passing the laws protecting women, blacks, and gays means that as a straight white male I am less protected. Saying so does not make me a bigot, racist, sexist or homophobe.