The Constitution is Not Crap!

Our local newspaper is pretty small compared to the papers you get in Chicago. There's usually only about a dozen pages, and at least half of that is sports, which I don't read. There is a lot of local yokel stuff, which I usually just scan over because most of it doesn't concern me. There is only a page or two of national and international news that comes from the AP, and there is one editorial page that features a different columnist each day. Some of them are local guys and some are syndicated from somewhere or other. There are some lefties and some righties, but none of them are as extreme as the guys you have been telling me about. The only nut jobs are found in the "letter to the editor" section, which I usually read only for entertainment. What I glean from this paper is a general summary of the news highlights, which is also what I get from the TV news, since I only watch it while waiting for the weather report and the stock market numbers to come on. If anything catches my interest and I want more information about it, I look it up on Wiki, or submit the question to the Beaglesonian Institute.

Since you don't believe in God either, I shouldn't be surprised that you don't believe in the constitution. You fucking Atheists are all alike, you don't believe in nothing!

All that jawboning and stuff that you mentioned is part of the legislative process. Article I, Section 5 provides that "Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings", and that seems to be what they've come up with over the years. I don't think any of that negates the fact that "All legislative powers shall be vested in a Congress of the United States" (Article I, Section 1).

Congress does indeed have the power to "Declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water." (Article I, Section 8). The president, however, is "Commander in Chief of the army and navy" (Article II, Section 2). Historically, the president can send troops anywhere in the world for the execution of limited missions but, when it looks like they are going to be there for awhile, he consults with congress. For some reason, congress hasn't issued a formal declaration of war since World War II, but they have passed "war powers acts" from time to time, giving the president the authority to operate as if war had actually been declared. I think it has something to do with not wanting to recognize the enemy power as a sovereign nation.

I don't know if I'm for against the way they are currently handling that pot thing, I just think that it's interesting. Personally, I believe that the federal drug laws are all unconstitutional to start with, and I'm surprised that, to my knowledge, nobody has ever challenged them in court. The prohibition of alcohol required a constitutional amendment that was subsequently repealed. Shortly after the repeal of prohibition, the feds started issuing all those drug laws and didn't bother with the formality of another amendment. I don't know how they got away with that.