[nordsieck]

The garbage part is not that there is a large volume of law, but that the law is made even larger implicitly through a system of historical precedent without being explicitly updated to reflect those changes.

As an easy example, the commerce clause in the US constitution has come to mean something that no layman would ascribe to it.

[dsfyu404ed]

>As an easy example, the commerce clause in the US constitution has come to mean something that no layman would ascribe to it.

Another easy example in the opposite direction is how case law has substantially diluted the meaning of words like "infringe", "unreasonable" and "excessive" in amendments 2^1, 2^2 and 2^3.

[torstenvl]

As an easy example, the commerce clause in the US constitution has come to mean something that no layman would ascribe to it.

Any support for that statement?

[lainga]

I think you would be hard-pressed to find a layman who, when presented with the commerce clause, replied that he had inferred the Dormant Clause [0] or Civil Rights Act [1] from it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dormant_Commerce_Clause [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 - "... principally its power to regulate interstate commerce"

[torstenvl]

I dunno. Seems pretty straightforward to me. Commerce among the states is Congress's domain, so state laws can't unduly interfere.

[lovich]

Its also been interpreted by the courts to mean that you cannot grow crops you consume yourself, because you would have purchased the crops otherwise and are affecting interstate commerce.

Whether or not you agree with that interpretation, it would take some willful ignorance to say that the plain text reading of regulating interstate commerce means you can regulate all commerce because you might have bought something from someone otherwise

[steve_g]

Wheat grown by a farmer for his own consumption, not bought or sold, not carried across state lines, can be regulated by Congress as it affects "commerce ...among the several States."

See Wickard v. Filburn.

[freehunter]

If you don't want to look it up but still want to understand it, the gist is that by growing your own wheat, you're not buying wheat from farmers, which lowers the price of wheat that may be grown by out-of-state farmers. By growing your own wheat, you're impacting inter-state commerce.

At least that's the logic of the court.

[PurpleBoxDragon]

This is the sort of loophole that allows it to apply to everything. By going on a date with person A, you reduce their willingness to spend money on certain products associated with people who don't go on dates, and increase their willingness to spend money on certain products associated with going on dates. Therefore, the federal government can make laws about who you date, and dating becomes considered a commercial venture (so freedom of association wouldn't apply, same reason freedom of association doesn't allow people to bypass minimum wage laws).

This is stretching the law beyond any reasonable interpretation, done so by the same government who gains a lot of power by doing so.

[cwkoss]

Seems like a poor conclusion.

If a started a business that picks peoples noses among multiple states, would Congress be able to regulate nose-picking by individuals on their own private property?