The American Spectator

Reader Mail

p> APPEAL DENIED br> Re: Joel Miller's More Crime for the Money : /p>

Hear! Hear! In the past several decades, the feds have intensified their invasion of state legislative areas. Using the Highway Trust Fund as a club, they imposed the 55 mph speed limit and the 21-year-old drinking law. On general do-gooder (or busybody) impulses, Congress enacted the "assault weapon" ban and the recent federalized Amber Alert system. Etc., etc. Whether these are wise or unwise laws is really besides the point -- the federal legislature has no business passing them. We don't need Leninist "democratic centralism" here, or -- God forbid -- a centralized state à la française.

p>As a recovering lawyer and part-time judge myself, I have to put much of the blame for this appalling pandemic on federal appellate judges. Congress has passed harebrained and unconstitutional laws throughout our history, but the judges who have historically protected us from those laws aren't doing their job any more. br> -- Richard N. Burns br> Canoga Park, CA /p>

Though Joel Miller makes a presentable case against the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, his arguments do not justify his skepticism.

First of all, a federal law is needed because backwater liberal states (hello Maine) and even large ones (Texas) may never pass an act protecting unborn children who are murdered.

In other words, in the current political climate, many states are faced with the situation of either having a federal law protecting the unborn or no law protecting them.

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