From the podcast Radiolab:More Perfect from early 2018, it discusses Wickard and Katzenbach, including interviews with the sons of Roscoe Filburn and Ollie McClung. It considers the question that Cris raised this evening--should we really be resolving moral questions as a matter of money and commerce?
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Radiolab Podcast on Wickard and Katzenbach
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ReplyDeleteThe way this discussion is presented in the podcast is just wonderful. My reaction is that the commerce clause, although not allowing to address fundamental discussions of what is right—particularly in connection with the protection of civil rights—it’s been used to reach those same goals under a more utilitarian perspective: Avoiding moral questions and discussions in political scenarios, that may lead into never ending debates that may even aggravate social divisions and hinder or even destroy what has been reached so far.
Trying to produce practical results that would end in the materialization of those civil rights through the interpretation of the commerce clause, appears to be a way out. However, it also opened the valve for an unstoppable Congress’ power that, in spite of not generating too much discussion in justifying the utilitarian use of the commerce clause to protect and support civil rights, it raises many doubts in the potential use of such path to intervene and regulate other areas of our lives. How to define the limit? Who defines the limit of that power? It is a very interesting strategic discussion.