Brian’s Utah Weblog

On our last day in Canada my family and I made the usual shopping trip to buy souvenirs. And, of course, we stocked up on large quantities of prescription drugs we needed while we had the chance to get them at less-inflated prices. Happily for us, many of the safer prescription drugs don’t even require a prescription in Canada; their prescription-only status in the U.S.A. is just another Congressional pork project for big pharma.

I wanted to get a nice present for the neighbor who looked after our pets and mail. Since Penticton is Canada’s wine country and my neighbor seems to enjoy nice wine, I went to the state store. Strangely, in Canada the state stores are privately owned and operated. This has not served to make them inexpensive.

I picked out a bottle that had been recommended to me at a delicious little farmhouse restaurant I had mountain biked past a few days before and bought it. I talked to the proprietor for a minute and she asked me where I was from. When I told her I was from Utah, she asked me if I was a Mormon. They never ask you that at the state stores in Utah. (Nor the logical follow up, “and just who is your bishop?”) The nice Canadian lady helpfully informed me that well over 90% of Utahns are Mormons.

I was going to tell her about all the happy gentiles in Utah, but I thought that might send the wrong message.

A classic repost from Brian’s Old Utah Weblog:

Here are some Constitutional Amendments I would like to suggest.

The United States Supreme Court ruled this spring in Kelo v. New London (04-108, 2005) that states may take private property not only for use by the public (for ports or roads) but also to give the property to private corporations the state prefers over current owners. In this case the preferred owner was Pfizer but Wal-Mart and other giant retailers are common recipients also.

We should reverse the opinion of the court with a constitutional amendment like this,

In the decision Gonzales v. Raich (03-1454, 2005), the court declared that Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce included the power to regulate every area of life, including intrastate noncommercial activity. Now Congress can overrule any state law or private freedom.

We should reverse the opinion of the court with a constitutional amendment like this,

In McConnell v. FEC (02-1674, 2003) the Supreme Court ruled that spoken and written communication advocating the election of a political candidate or a position on an issue is not protected by the First Amendment and that citizens may be prohibited by Congress from running issue advocacy advertisements within 60 days of an election.

We should reverse the opinion of the court with a constitutional amendment like this,

In Eldred v. Ashcroft (01-618, 2003), the Supreme Court ruled that Congress may extend copyrights in perpetuity, with no limit on the amount of time copyright would persist. It has long been established that preserving our cultural history requires that works eventually pass into the public domain.

We should reverse the opinion of the court with a constitutional amendment like this,

We are often told that if we don’t like the way our Constitution is interpreted or a decision of the Supreme Court, we should amend the Constitution. If we just pass the amendments I propose here, the Supreme Court will have to change these bad decisions.