Aspects of America

[kandrathe]

Hmm, me personally I like America, I have been there many times, met a lot of people of whom the majority were great, but I don't share you romantic view of what the US stands for.
Don't you in Norway have liberty, equality etc.? I think you do, you probably just have a different opinion on what is liberty. What the US does is creating an image of being 'the true democracy' and 'the land of the free' etc.etc. I think this disregards the fact that in many other countries things are at least as good only different. (this is of course all because of a historic facts; the religious outcasts that all moved there to be free).
Many Americans find it freedom that they have the right to carry a gun, I find it freedom that I can smoke a joint when I want, or drink a beer on the street. Who is right? Both, or both are wrong, it is just a difference of opinion. But I don't think it is right to think that the US would be more equal, diligent or free than Norway.

The idea of America, is that you may have the "right" to some things even if the government passes a law forbidding it. I do believe that I have the right to smoke cannabis whenever I would like, or take any drug I so desire. I believe that, even though many have chosen to try to legislate morality. I believe also that the federal government has overstepped its authority into many areas by misusing vague constitutional language, like the interstate commerce clause. The Commerce Clause, in pertinent part, provides that Congress has the authority "[t]o regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." At the time of the writing of the Constitution commerce was understood to be the intercourse or exchange of one thing for another, the interchange of anything; trade; traffick. The misuse of this to regulate what citizens can grow or sell goes back to 1942, FDR's administration and Wickard v. Filburn.

In 1942, the Court considered the constitutionality of FDR’s Agricultural Adjustment Act. In Wickard v. Filburn, the Court was presented with the question of whether Congress could regulate a farmer’s growing of wheat intended solely for consumption on his farm. A local activity, lectured the Court, can "be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce." Although the 11.9 acres of wheat in question did not seem to affect interstate commerce, the Court reasoned that the farmer’s wheat, "taken together with that of many others similarly situated, is far from trivial." Because the growing of wheat for home consumption by hundreds or thousands of farmers could affect the demand and price of wheat, the acts of a solitary bucolic soul fall under Congress’ power to regulate commerce.

It is nonsense like this, where a man cannot grow wheat for his own consumption, that has rendered citizens more and more impotent in the face of growing federal tyranny.

Common Sense Americanism -- Wickard v. Filburn