[flaja]

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Even if the Supreme Court did not change its interpretation of the commerce clause to accommodate New Deal programs, the constitution would have been amended to explicitly permit this sort of regulation, just as it was in the case of the income tax. Most federal programs that would be struck down by the 19th-century interpretation are extremely popular.

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This is something that rabid libertarians will never understand. The Founders were often great statesmen, but none of them was a Moses. Their words were never meant to be written in stone. This is why they gave up an amendment process. (Actually Thomas Jefferson believed that the Constitution should be re-written every 20 years or so because he thought it would otherwise become too outdated to be worthwhile.) What the Founders may have found to be anathema in their day, we can easily find to be necessary in ours. The Founders and their original intent have no bearing on today’s society. If their original intent makes it difficult for us to deal with today’s socio-economic problems, then their original intent must become moot. We don’t live in the libertarians’ utopia. We live in the real world with real problems. Any would-be politician who doesn’t realize this will simply be rejected for being lunatics or ignored altogether. They have their prime arena here on the internet- where they accomplish nothing more than providing amusement or wasting people’s time.