L. Neil Smith pans the Supremes

L. Neil Smith has a column in this week's Libertarian Enterprise on the hot topic of the sudden lurch to the authoritarian side by the US Supreme Court:

The last couple of weeks have been illuminating, to say the least. In two separate declarations, the United States Supreme Court has given us all a lesson in civics that nobody should ever be allowed to forget.

In the first, the court held that, no matter what the Constitution says (or doesn't say) to the contrary, the federal government has the legal power to outlaw marijuana — or anything else, for that matter — and that power supercedes any right a state or the people have to disagree.

In the second, it asserted that government has a legitimate power to steal your home or anything else you possess and hand it over to whatever crooks shelled out the biggest contributions the last time around.

In some ways, the two decisions, Raich and Kelo are no surprise: they merely confirm that what the federal government has been doing for the past umpteen years is legal. Just like in Canada, Americans don't really own their property: it can be taken if the government chooses to, and some notion of compensation is offered. The legal marijuana movement has taken a huge body blow, as the court decided that even cancer patients, growing a few cannabis plants for their own use, are somehow having an impact on interstate commerce, and therefore the government can arrest them.

It's been a bad month for personal and economic liberty.