G-Max said:
1) The Supreme Court has been wrong about a hell of a lot of things, and will continue to be wrong about a hell of a lot of things, so citing a Supreme Court decision is an instant fail.
The supreme court has been on iffy grounds about alot of things but enough cases have come up for them to overturn McCulloch. Remember, they overturned Plessy, they effectively overturned Roe with Casey v. Planned Parenthood, and so on.
2) Saying "the Supreme Court said this; ergo, it must be true" is an appeal to authority, making this a double fail.
The Supreme Court is the final arbiter of American Law. If they say it is constitutional then it is, regardless of your personal opinions. At times they can be wrong but that is why precedent can be overturned.
3) Deciding what is or isn't Constitutional is for the state legislatures, not the Supreme Court, to decide, making this a triple fail.
While that situation may be true whenever you engage in Constitutional onanism, it isn't true in the real world.
4) There is no "federal supremacy clause". Congrats on your quadruple fail.
My, you need that educational refund, don't you?
Article 6 said:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.
Article VI, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, known as the Supremacy Clause, establishes the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Treaties, and Federal Statutes as "the supreme law of the land." The text decrees these to be the highest form of law in the U.S. legal system, and mandates that all state judges must follow federal law when a conflict arises between federal law and either the state constitution or state law of any state. (Note that the word "shall" is used, which makes it a necessity, a compulsion.)
Wrong. They knew exactly what to do with it, and even went through the trouble of writing it down in the Constitution for everyone to see.
Sure, they included it in the Constitution because they knew they needed a Judiciary. They just hadn't figured out quite what to do with it besides the 'arbiter of interstate disagreements'. That is why we had the Judiciary Act that Marbury saw declared unconstitution. The founding fathers were trying to find someway to give the Judiciary enough teeth to carry out its functions of checks and balences.
The Constitution already said "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United State". Ratifying an Amendment saying "When we say all legislative powers, we really do mean ALL of them" would be absolutely pointless.
Legislative powers, yes. However, the legislature can grant discretionary authority which has been affirmed with numerous cases included the somewhat recent case of Whitman v. American Trucking Association where Congress can grant broad powers to regulatory agencies. However, can you point me to where the Judiciary (or even executive agencies) are passing legislation?
The fact that every state got equal representation in the Senate ensured that small states didn't get screwed over, but that's irrelevant. We're talking about the fact that Senators were originally chosen by the state legislatures rather than by Joe the Plumber, and THAT was established so that states could stop the Federal government from overstepping its authority.
States can already deal with overreaches of the federal government. It is called the appeals process and constitutional conventions that can bypass the federal government only completely. If I remember the amendment process properly, it is possible to amend the Constitution without it ever being dealt with by the Federal Government.
You can't trade paper for things that are not made anymore. When an economy collapses and there is a lack of vital products like food, no one would accept paper as payment.
When an economy collapses our entire system of exchange will have to change and will likely be based on gasoline. It makes no sense to base our currency off gasoline due to the massively fluxuating prices and scads of other issues involving it being a consumable good. We live in a civilized society with an economy that while shaky, shows no signs of collapsing and returning us to a barter level of transactions. Why should we not take advantage of the benefits of a stable society to create a system of exchange that fits our needs? As Larry Niven once said, "Society has the morals it can afford". Well, we can afford to have a paper currency backed up by a federal reserve. While that system may be mediocre at times, in the long run it is far better then the best your system could handle.
They foresaw that they could not foresee everything, which is why they wrote all that "amendment" stuff. DERP.
They also included the 'necesary and proper clause', Mr. 'I know everything about the constitution better then two centuries of accumulated precedent by the brightest legal minds in the country'.