Here's an open question. First a prelude to explain.
Over the years, I've seen both political wings screw "that's unconstitutional" many a time. You have organizations, which don't have much in common taking laws and actions to court over constitutionality (NRA, ACLU, etc.) Oddly enough it seems that few enough people are always upset about the unconstitutionality of acts such that they agree with what both sides are hollering about (some Libertarians maybe). It makes one wonder about how many of the screams are actually valid and how many are crying wolf.
So why don't we give something a shot here, and I don't want this limited to conservatives (though non conservatives are a bit thin on the ground here).
How about we list off, say, a president and give examples of unconstitutional acts. Then, it would probably be a good idea to actually cite the relevant portion of the constitution to make the case.
I'll start with an easy one.
Barrack Obama- the BP shakedown- demanding a $20B fund to be administered by the government provided by BP violates both the fourth and fifth amendments. There's hasn't even been a trial, much less due process of the law in this case.
FDR- seizing all the privately held gold in the U.S. via executive order 6102 back in 1933. Again we have a violation of the fourth amendment.
Nixon (and others after him)- the Drug war, which has a host of violations and a slew of laws which wouldn't pass constitutional muster in an earlier era. There was a reason that the 18th amendment was passed in the day. But I guess I'm asking for specific cites, so we'll go with 4th amendment, 5th amendment, 9th amendment, 10th amendment. The Drug War is rife with unreasonable search and seizure, as well as incredible numbers of takings from private citizens who have about nothing to do with the violations. State laws with regard to particular substances are regularly trampled, and congress keeps inventing new powers for itself with which to persecute this "war".
So, post up any ones you can come up with. What I'd really like to see is a litany of the Bush constitutional issues. We've certainly heard no end of their existence from the talking heads, so that should be low hanging fruit for anyone who wants to provide them. |