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July 8, 2022

June 2022’s Supreme Court decisions are embedded with the same reasoning, common law, traditions and precedents written into our Constitution as our nation’s operating system.

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That logic-and-evidence combo is the kind of tool kit useful for uninstalling over a century of incompatible plug-ins.

West Virginia rules out a 2015 EPA plan to deploy expansive, implied jurisdiction dormant since 1970. For decades, EPA’s regulations to reduce emissions controlled retrofitting of existing energy plants and constructing new facilities to the highest standards. The Agency’s suddenly asserted authority to combat climate change would have enacted impossible-to-meet standards, forcing reductions of coal plants. The decision uses Gonzales v. Oregon, which stopped a state attorney general revoking licenses of doctors prescribing under assisted-suicide law.

Bruen ended New York’s 1911 system of gun licenses functioning as prohibition by requiring undefined but specifically individual “proper cause.” Living in a crime-filled area wasn’t sufficiently uniquely dangerous. Citing Heller and McDonald, the Court rejected restraining one activity to serve other goals. If a previous generation addressed a social problem without gun restrictions, targeting that problem with gun legislation isn’t constitutional. “To justify its regulation, government must not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest.” Remember that. The decision acknowledged centuries of statutes and court rulings showing gun ownership routine and restrictions few, proving our Second Amendment codified a long-existing right, not a novel approach.

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Roe and Casey claiming abortion — or privacy enveloping abortion — among rights not enumerated in the Constitution was rejected in Dobbs. Endeavoring to locate abortion rights within the 14th Amendment’s due process clause was incompatible with the abortion prohibitions in every state when the amendment was ratified. Those restrictions that began at quickening weren’t confirming a right to abort before that point. “Deciding whether precedent should be overruled depends in part on whether the rule it imposes is workable — that is, whether it can be understood and applied in a consistent and predictable manner.”

Ruan sides with two MDs convicted of knowingly or intentionally prescribing outside generally accepted practice. The Controlled Substances Act outlaws distributing many drugs, makes an exception for licensed prescribers, and makes prescribing outside legitimate medical purpose is a crime. The ruling notes, “The conduct prohibited by such language (issuing invalid prescriptions) is thus ‘often difficult to distinguish from the gray zone of socially acceptable…conduct’ (issuing valid prescriptions).”

These recent decisions reject implicit mandates, expanding authority, regulating one activity for effects elsewhere, and bad precedent continuing to stand because it’s precedent. They recognize the opposition to arbitrary authority that manifested as common law, and blossomed into centuries of American self-determination.

Or should I say they recognize these American principles except for 108 years of federal drug prohibition?

Time to pull planks out of nine pairs of eyes.

The generations of Americans defending themselves with firearms, respectfully recalled in Bruen, were equally self-sufficient facing illnesses and injuries. Like all humans for all of history, including us, they handled almost all their afflictions with treatments chosen and administered at home. Remedies — homemade, purchased from apothecaries, or mail ordered — were developed mostly by guesswork. One ancient, readily-available and reliable treatment was opiates.