February 3, 1941. Fair Labor Standards Act upheld, Rommel appointed, Ships sunk, Fleets created.

 On this day in 1941, the Supreme Court upheld the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

Worker on lumber stack, 1941.

312 U.S. 100 (1941)

UNITED STATES

v.

DARBY.

No. 82.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued December 19, 20, 1940.

Decided February 3, 1941.

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA.

Solicitor General Biddle, with whom Assistant Attorney General Arnold and Messrs. Robert L. Stern, Hugh B. Cox, Warner W. Gardner, J. Saxton Daniel, Gerard D. Reilly, and Irving J. Levy were on the brief, for the United States.

Mr. Archibald B. Lovett for appellee.

 MR. JUSTICE STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.

The two principal questions raised by the record in this case are, first, whether Congress has constitutional power to prohibit the shipment in interstate commerce of lumber manufactured by employees whose wages are less than a prescribed minimum or whose weekly hours of labor at that wage are greater than a prescribed maximum, and, second, whether it has power to prohibit the employment of workmen in the production of goods "for interstate commerce" at other than prescribed wages and hours. A subsidiary question is whether in connection with such prohibitions Congress can require the employer subject to them to keep records showing the hours worked each day and week by each of his employees including those engaged "in the production and manufacture of goods to-wit, lumber, for `interstate commerce.'"

Appellee demurred to an indictment found in the district court for southern Georgia charging him with violation of § 15 (a) (1) (2) and (5) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938; 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U.S.C. § 201, et seq. The district court sustained the demurrer and quashed the indictment and the case comes here on direct appeal under § 238 of the Judicial Code as amended, 28 U.S.C. § 345, and § 682, Title 18 U.S.C., 34 Stat. 1246, which authorizes an appeal to this Court when the judgment sustaining the demurrer "is based upon the invalidity or construction of the statute upon which the indictment is founded."

The Fair Labor Standards Act set up a comprehensive legislative scheme for preventing the shipment in interstate commerce of certain products and commodities produced in the United States under labor conditions as respects wages and hours which fail to conform to standards set up by the Act. Its purpose, as we judicially know from the declaration of policy in § 2 (a) of the Act,^[1] and the reports of Congressional committees proposing the legislation, S. Rept. No. 884, 75th Cong. 1st Sess.; H. Rept. No. 1452, 75th Cong. 1st Sess.; H. Rept. No. 2182, 75th Cong. 3d Sess., Conference Report, H. Rept. No. 2738, 75th Cong. 3d Sess., is to exclude from interstate commerce goods produced for the commerce and to prevent their production for interstate commerce, under conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standards of living necessary for health and general well-being; and to prevent the use of interstate commerce as the means of competition in the distribution of goods so produced, and as the means of spreading and perpetuating such substandard labor conditions among the workers of the several states. The Act also sets up an administrative procedure whereby those standards may from time to time be modified generally as to industries subject to the Act or within an industry in accordance with specified standards, by an administrator acting in collaboration with "Industry Committees" appointed by him.

Section 15 of the statute prohibits certain specified acts and § 16 (a) punishes willful violation of it by a fine of not more than $10,000 and punishes each conviction after the first by imprisonment of not more than six months or by the specified fine or both. Section 15 (1) makes unlawful the shipment in interstate commerce of any goods "in the production of which any employee was employed in violation of section 6 or section 7," which provide, among other things, that during the first year of operation of the Act a minimum wage of 25 cents per hour shall be paid to employees "engaged in [interstate] commerce or the production of goods for [interstate] commerce," § 6, and that the maximum hours of employment for employees "engaged in commerce or the production of goods for commerce" without increased compensation for overtime, shall be forty-four hours a week. § 7.

Section 15 (a) (2) makes it unlawful to violate the provisions of §§ 6 and 7 including the minimum wage and maximum hour requirements just mentioned for employees engaged in production of goods for commerce. Section 15 (a) (5) makes it unlawful for an employer subject to the Act to violate § 11 (c) which requires him to keep such records of the persons employed by him and of their wages and hours of employment as the administrator shall prescribe by regulation or order.

The indictment charges that appellee is engaged, in the State of Georgia, in the business of acquiring raw materials, which he manufactures into finished lumber with the intent, when manufactured, to ship it in interstate commerce to customers outside the state, and that he does in fact so ship a large part of the lumber so produced. There are numerous counts charging appellee with the shipment in interstate commerce from Georgia to points outside the state of lumber in the production of which, for interstate commerce, appellee has employed workmen at less than the prescribed minimum wage or more than the prescribed maximum hours without payment to them of any wage for overtime. Other counts charge the employment by appellee of workmen in the production of lumber for interstate commerce at wages at less than 25 cents an hour or for more than the maximum hours per week without payment to them of the prescribed overtime wage. Still another count charges appellee with failure to keep records showing the hours worked each day a week by each of his employees as required by § 11 (c) and the regulation of the administrator, Title 29, Ch. 5, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 516, and also that appellee unlawfully failed to keep such records of employees engaged "in the production and manufacture of goods, to-wit lumber, for interstate commerce."

The demurrer, so far as now relevant to the appeal, challenged the validity of the Fair Labor Standards Act under the Commerce Clause and the Fifth and Tenth Amendments. The district court quashed the indictment in its entirety upon the broad grounds that the Act, which it interpreted as a regulation of manufacture within the states, is unconstitutional. It declared that manufacture is not interstate commerce and that the regulation by the Fair Labor Standards Act of wages and hours of employment of those engaged in the manufacture of goods which it is intended at the time of production "may or will be" after production "sold in interstate commerce in part or in whole" is not within the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce.

The effect of the court's decision and judgment is thus to deny the power of Congress to prohibit shipment in interstate commerce of lumber produced for interstate commerce under the proscribed substandard labor conditions of wages and hours, its power to penalize the employer for his failure to conform to the wage and hour provisions in the case of employees engaged in the production of lumber which he intends thereafter to ship in interstate commerce in part or in whole according to the normal course of his business and its power to compel him to keep records of hours of employment as required by the statute and the regulations of the administrator.

The case comes here on assignments by the Government that the district court erred insofar as it held that Congress was without constitutional power to penalize the acts set forth in the indictment, and appellee seeks to sustain the decision below on the grounds that the prohibition by Congress of those Acts is unauthorized by the Commerce Clause and is prohibited by the Fifth Amendment. The appeal statute limits our jurisdiction on this appeal to a review of the determination of the district court so far only as it is based on the validity or construction of the statute. United States v. Borden Co., 308 U.S. 188, 193-195, and cases cited. Hence we accept the district court's interpretation of the indictment and confine our decision to the validity and construction of the statute.

The prohibition of shipment of the proscribed goods in interstate commerce. Section 15 (a) (1) prohibits, and the indictment charges, the shipment in interstate commerce, of goods produced for interstate commerce by employees whose wages and hours of employment do not 113*113 conform to the requirements of the Act. Since this section is not violated unless the commodity shipped has been produced under labor conditions prohibited by § 6 and § 7, the only question arising under the commerce clause with respect to such shipments is whether Congress has the constitutional power to prohibit them.

While manufacture is not of itself interstate commerce, the shipment of manufactured goods interstate is such commerce and the prohibition of such shipment by Congress is indubitably a regulation of the commerce. The power to regulate commerce is the power "to prescribe the rule by which commerce is governed." Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 196. It extends not only to those regulations which aid, foster and protect the commerce, but embraces those which prohibit it. Reid v. Colorado, 187 U.S. 137; Lottery Case, 188 U.S. 321; United States v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U.S. 366; Hoke v. United States, 227 U.S. 308; Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland Ry. Co., 242 U.S. 311; United States v. Hill, 248 U.S. 420; McCormick & Co. v. Brown, 286 U.S. 131. It is conceded that the power of Congress to prohibit transportation in interstate commerce includes noxious articles, Lottery Case, supra; Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States, 220 U.S. 45; cf. Hoke v. United States, supra; stolen articles, Brooks v. United States, 267 U.S. 432; kidnapped persons, Gooch v. United States, 297 U.S. 124, and articles such as intoxicating liquor or convict made goods, traffic in which is forbidden or restricted by the laws of the state of destination. Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois Central R. Co., 299 U.S. 334.

But it is said that the present prohibition falls within the scope of none of these categories; that while the prohibition is nominally a regulation of the commerce its motive or purpose is regulation of wages and hours of persons engaged in manufacture, the control of which has been reserved to the states and upon which Georgia and some of the states of destination have placed no restriction; that the effect of the present statute is not to exclude the proscribed articles from interstate commerce in aid of state regulation as in Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra, but instead, under the guise of a regulation of interstate commerce, it undertakes to regulate wages and hours within the state contrary to the policy of the state which has elected to leave them unregulated.

The power of Congress over interstate commerce "is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than are prescribed in the Constitution." Gibbons v. Ogden, supra, 196. That power can neither be enlarged nor diminished by the exercise or non-exercise of state power. Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra. Congress, following its own conception of public policy concerning the restrictions which may appropriately be imposed on interstate commerce, is free to exclude from the commerce articles whose use in the states for which they are destined it may conceive to be injurious to the public health, morals or welfare, even though the state has not sought to regulate their use. Reid v. Colorado, supra; Lottery Case, supra; Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States, supra; Hoke v. United States, supra.

Such regulation is not a forbidden invasion of state power merely because either its motive or its consequence is to restrict the use of articles of commerce within the states of destination; and is not prohibited unless by other Constitutional provisions. It is no objection to the assertion of the power to regulate interstate commerce that its exercise is attended by the same incidents which attend the exercise of the police power of the states. Seven Cases v. United States, 239 U.S. 510, 514; Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Co., 251 U.S. 146, 156; United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 147; United States v. Appalachian Electric Power Co., 311 U.S. 377.

The motive and purpose of the present regulation are plainly to make effective the Congressional conception of public policy that interstate commerce should not be made the instrument of competition in the distribution of goods produced under substandard labor conditions, which competition is injurious to the commerce and to the states from and to which the commerce flows. The motive and purpose of a regulation of interstate commerce are matters for the legislative judgment upon the exercise of which the Constitution places no restriction and over which the courts are given no control. McCray v. United States, 195 U.S. 27; Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U.S. 506, 513 and cases cited. "The judicial cannot prescribe to the legislative department of the government limitations upon the exercise of its acknowledged power." Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533. Whatever their motive and purpose, regulations of commerce which do not infringe some constitutional prohibition are within the plenary power conferred on Congress by the Commerce Clause. Subject only to that limitation, presently to be considered, we conclude that the prohibition of the shipment interstate of goods produced under the forbidden substandard labor conditions is within the constitutional authority of Congress.

In the more than a century which has elapsed since the decision of Gibbons v. Ogden, these principles of constitutional interpretation have been so long and repeatedly recognized by this Court as applicable to the Commerce Clause, that there would be little occasion for repeating them now were it not for the decision of this Court twenty-two years ago in Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251. In that case it was held by a bare majority of the Court over the powerful and now classic dissent of Mr. Justice Holmes setting forth the fundamental issues involved,  that Congress was without power to exclude the products of child labor from interstate commerce. The reasoning and conclusion of the Court's opinion there cannot be reconciled with the conclusion which we have reached, that the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause is plenary to exclude any article from interstate commerce subject only to the specific prohibitions of the Constitution.

Hammer v. Dagenhart has not been followed. The distinction on which the decision was rested that Congressional power to prohibit interstate commerce is limited to articles which in themselves have some harmful or deleterious property — a distinction which was novel when made and unsupported by any provision of the Constitution — has long since been abandoned. Brooks v. United States, supra; Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra; Electric Bond & Share Co. v. Securities & Exchange Comm'n, 303 U.S. 419; Mulford v. Smith, 307 U.S. 38. The thesis of the opinion that the motive of the prohibition or its effect to control in some measure the use or production within the states of the article thus excluded from the commerce can operate to deprive the regulation of its constitutional authority has long since ceased to have force. Reid v. Colorado, supra; Lottery Case, supra; Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States, supra; Seven Cases v. United States, supra, 514; Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Co., supra, 156; United States v. Carolene Products Co., supra, 147. And finally we have declared "The authority of the federal government over interstate commerce does not differ in extent or character from that retained by the states over intrastate commerce." United States v. Rock Royal Co-operative, 307 U.S. 533, 569.

The conclusion is inescapable that Hammer v. Dagenhart, was a departure from the principles which have prevailed in the interpretation of the Commerce Clause both before and since the decision and that such vitality, as a precedent, as it then had has long since been exhausted. It should be and now is overruled.

Validity of the wage and hour requirements. Section 15 (a) (2) and §§ 6 and 7 require employers to conform to the wage and hour provisions with respect to all employees engaged in the production of goods for interstate commerce. As appellee's employees are not alleged to be "engaged in interstate commerce" the validity of the prohibition turns on the question whether the employment, under other than the prescribed labor standards, of employees engaged in the production of goods for interstate commerce is so related to the commerce and so affects it as to be within the reach of the power of Congress to regulate it.

To answer this question we must at the outset determine whether the particular acts charged in the counts which are laid under § 15 (a) (2) as they were construed below, constitute "production for commerce" within the meaning of the statute. As the Government seeks to apply the statute in the indictment, and as the court below construed the phrase "produced for interstate commerce," it embraces at least the case where an employer engaged, as is appellee, in the manufacture and shipment of goods in filling orders of extrastate customers, manufactures his product with the intent or expectation that according to the normal course of his business all or some part of it will be selected for shipment to those customers.

Without attempting to define the precise limits of the phrase, we think the acts alleged in the indictment are within the sweep of the statute. The obvious purpose of the Act was not only to prevent the interstate transportation of the proscribed product, but to stop the initial step toward transportation, production with the purpose of so transporting it. Congress was not unaware that 118*118 most manufacturing businesses shipping their product in interstate commerce make it in their shops without reference to its ultimate destination and then after manufacture select some of it for shipment interstate and some intrastate according to the daily demands of their business, and that it would be practically impossible, without disrupting manufacturing businesses, to restrict the prohibited kind of production to the particular pieces of lumber, cloth, furniture or the like which later move in interstate rather than intrastate commerce. Cf. United States v. New York Central R. Co., 272 U.S. 457, 464.

The recognized need of drafting a workable statute and the well known circumstances in which it was to be applied are persuasive of the conclusion, which the legislative history supports, S. Rept. No. 884, 75th Cong. 1st Sess., pp. 7 and 8; H. Rept. No. 2738, 75th Cong. 3d Sess., p. 17, that the "production for commerce" intended includes at least production of goods, which, at the time of production, the employer, according to the normal course of his business, intends or expects to move in interstate commerce although, through the exigencies of the business, all of the goods may not thereafter actually enter interstate commerce.^[2]

There remains the question whether such restriction on the production of goods for commerce is a permissible exercise of the commerce power. The power of Congress over interstate commerce is not confined to the regulation of commerce among the states. It extends to those activities intrastate which so affect interstate commerce or the exercise of the power of Congress over it as to make regulation of them appropriate means to the attainment of a legitimate end, the exercise of the granted power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. See McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421. Cf. United States v. Ferger, 250 U.S. 199.

While this Court has many times found state regulation of interstate commerce, when uniformity of its regulation is of national concern, to be incompatible with the Commerce Clause even though Congress has not legislated on the subject, the Court has never implied such restraint on state control over matters intrastate not deemed to be regulations of interstate commerce or its instrumentalities even though they affect the commerce. Minnesota Rate Cases, 230 U.S. 352, 398 et seq., and case cited; 410 et seq., and cases cited. In the absence of Congressional legislation on the subject state laws which are not regulations of the commerce itself or its instrumentalities are not forbidden even though they affect interstate commerce. Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U.S. 1; Bacon v. Illinois, 227 U.S. 504; Heisler v. Thomas Colliery Co., 260 U.S. 245; Oliver Iron Co. v. Lord, 262 U.S. 172.

But it does not follow that Congress may not by appropriate legislation regulate intrastate activities where they have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. See Santa Cruz Fruit Packing Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 303 U.S. 453, 466. A recent example is the National Labor Relations Act for the regulation of employer and employee relations in industries in which strikes, induced by unfair labor practices named in the Act, tend to disturb or obstruct interstate commerce. See National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 38, 40; National Labor Relations Board v. Fainblatt, 306 U.S. 601, 604, and cases cited. But long before the adoption of the National Labor Relations Act this Court had many times held that the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce extends to the regulation through legislative action of activities intrastate 120*120 which have a substantial effect on the commerce or the exercise of the Congressional power over it.^[3]

In such legislation Congress has sometimes left it to the courts to determine whether the intrastate activities have the prohibited effect on the commerce, as in the Sherman Act. It has sometimes left it to an administrative board or agency to determine whether the activities sought to be regulated or prohibited have such effect, as in the case of the Interstate Commerce Act, and the National Labor Relations Act, or whether they come within the statutory definition of the prohibited Act, as in the Federal Trade Commission Act. And sometimes Congress itself has said that a particular activity affects the commerce, as it did in the present Act, the Safety Appliance Act and the Railway Labor Act. In passing on the validity of legislation of the class last mentioned the only function of courts is to determine whether the particular activity regulated or prohibited is within the reach of the federal power. See United States v. Ferger, supra; Virginian Ry. Co. v. Federation, 300 U.S. 515, 553.

Congress, having by the present Act adopted the policy of excluding from interstate commerce all goods produced for the commerce which do not conform to the specified labor standards, it may choose the means reasonably adapted to the attainment of the permitted end, even though they involve control of intrastate activities. Such legislation has often been sustained with respect to powers, other than the commerce power granted to the national government, when the means chosen, although not themselves within the granted power, were nevertheless deemed appropriate aids to the accomplishment of some purpose within an admitted power of the national government. See Jacob Ruppert, Inc. v. Caffey, 251 U.S. 264; Everard's Breweries v. Day, 265 U.S. 545, 560; Westfall v. United States, 274 U.S. 256, 259. As to state power under the Fourteenth Amendment, compare Otis v. Parker, 187 U.S. 606, 609; St. John v. New York, 201 U.S. 633; Purity Extract & Tonic Co. v. Lynch, 226 U.S. 192, 201-202. A familiar like exercise of power is the regulation of intrastate transactions which are so commingled with or related to interstate commerce that all must be regulated if the interstate commerce is to be effectively controlled. Shreveport Case, 234 U.S. 342; Railroad Commission of Wisconsin v. Chicago, B. & Q.R. Co., 257 U.S. 563; United States v. New York Central R. Co., supra, 464; Currin v. Wallace, 306 U.S. 1; Mulford v. Smith, supra. Similarly Congress may require inspection and preventive treatment of all cattle in a disease infected area in order to prevent shipment in interstate commerce of some of the cattle without the treatment. Thornton v. United States, 271 U.S. 414. It may prohibit the removal, at destination, of labels required by the Pure Food & Drugs Act to be affixed to articles transported in interstate commerce. McDermott v. Wisconsin, 228 U.S. 115. And we have recently held that Congress in the exercise of its power to require inspection and grading of tobacco shipped in interstate commerce may compel such inspection and grading of all tobacco sold at local auction rooms from which a substantial part but not all of the tobacco sold is shipped in interstate commerce. Currin v. Wallace, supra, 11, and see to the like effect United States v. Rock Royal Co-op., supra, 568, note 37.

We think also that § 15 (a) (2), now under consideration, is sustainable independently of § 15 (a) (1), which prohibits shipment or transportation of the proscribed goods. As we have said the evils aimed at by the Act are the spread of substandard labor conditions through the use of the facilities of interstate commerce for competition by the goods so produced with those produced under the prescribed or better labor conditions; and the consequent dislocation of the commerce itself caused by the impairment or destruction of local businesses by competition made effective through interstate commerce. The Act is thus directed at the suppression of a method or kind of competition in interstate commerce which it has in effect condemned as "unfair," as the Clayton Act has condemned other "unfair methods of competition" made effective through interstate commerce. See Van Camp & Sons Co. v. American Can Co., 278 U.S. 245; Federal Trade Comm'n v. Keppel & Bro., 291 U.S. 304.

The Sherman Act and the National Labor Relations Act are familiar examples of the exertion of the commerce power to prohibit or control activities wholly intrastate because of their effect on interstate commerce. See as to the Sherman Act, Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197; Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U.S. 375; United States v. Patten, 226 U.S. 525; United Mine Workers v. Coronado Coal Co., 259 U.S. 344; Local  No. 167 v. United States, 291 U.S. 293; Stevens Co. v. Foster & Kleiser Co., 311 U.S. 255. As to the National Labor Relations Act, see National Labor Relations Board v. Fainblatt, supra, and cases cited.

The means adopted by § 15 (a) (2) for the protection of interstate commerce by the suppression of the production of the condemned goods for interstate commerce is so related to the commerce and so affects it as to be within the reach of the commerce power. See Currin v. Wallace, supra, 11. Congress, to attain its objective in the suppression of nationwide competition in interstate commerce by goods produced under substandard labor conditions, has made no distinction as to the volume or amount of shipments in the commerce or of production for commerce by any particular shipper or producer. It recognized that in present day industry, competition by a small part may affect the whole and that the total effect of the competition of many small producers may be great. See H. Rept. No. 2182, 75th Cong. 1st Sess., p. 7. The legislation aimed at a whole embraces all its parts. Cf. National Labor Relations Board v. Fainblatt, supra, 606.

So far as Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238, is inconsistent with this conclusion, its doctrine is limited in principle by the decisions under the Sherman Act and the National Labor Relations Act, which we have cited and which we follow. See also Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, 310 U.S. 381; Currin v. Wallace, supra; Mulford v. Smith, supra; United States v. Rock Royal Co-op., supra; Clover Fork Coal Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 97 F.2d 331; National Labor Relations Board v. Crowe Coal Co., 104 F.2d 633; National Labor Relations Board v. Good Coal Co., 110 F.2d 501.

Our conclusion is unaffected by the Tenth Amendment which provides: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay fears that the new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted, and that the states might not be able to exercise fully their reserved powers. See e.g., II Elliot's Debates, 123, 131; III id. 450, 464, 600; IV id. 140, 149; I Annals of Congress, 432, 761, 767-768; Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, §§ 1907-1908.

From the beginning and for many years the amendment has been construed as not depriving the national government of authority to resort to all means for the exercise of a granted power which are appropriate and plainly adapted to the permitted end. Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 324, 325; McCulloch v. Maryland, supra, 405, 406; Gordon v. United States, 117 U.S. 697, 705; Lottery Case, supra; Northern Securities Co. v. United States, supra, 344-345; Everard's Breweries v. Day, supra, 558; United States v. Sprague, 282 U.S. 716, 733; see United States v. The Brigantine William, 28 Fed. Cas. No. 16,700, p. 622. Whatever doubts may have arisen of the soundness of that conclusion, they have been put at rest by the decisions under the Sherman Act and the National Labor Relations Act which we have cited. See also, Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 330-331; Wright v. Union Central Ins. Co., 304 U.S. 502, 516.

Validity of the requirement of records of wages and hours. § 15 (a) (5) and § 11 (c). These requirements are incidental to those for the prescribed wages and hours, and hence validity of the former turns on validity of the latter. Since, as we have held, Congress may require production for interstate commerce to conform to those conditions, it may require the employer, as a means of enforcing the valid law, to keep a record showing whether he has in fact complied with it. The requirement for records even of the intrastate transaction is an appropriate means to the legitimate end. See Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Comm'n, 221 U.S. 612; Interstate Commerce Comm'n v. Goodrich Transit Co., 224 U.S. 194; Chicago Board of Trade v. Olsen, 262 U.S. 1, 42.

Validity of the wage and hour provisions under the Fifth Amendment. Both provisions are minimum wage requirements compelling the payment of a minimum standard wage with a prescribed increased wage for overtime of "not less than one and one-half times the regular rate" at which the worker is employed. Since our decision in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379, it is no longer open to question that the fixing of a minimum wage is within the legislative power and that the bare fact of its exercise is not a denial of due process under the Fifth more than under the Fourteenth Amendment. Nor is it any longer open to question that it is within the legislative power to fix maximum hours. Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366; Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412; Bunting v. Oregon, 243 U.S. 426; Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Comm'n, supra. Similarly the statute is not objectionable because applied alike to both men and women. Cf. Bunting v. Oregon, 243 U.S. 426.

The Act is sufficiently definite to meet constitutional demands. One who employs persons, without conforming to the prescribed wage and hour conditions, to work on goods which he ships or expects to ship across state lines, is warned that he may be subject to the criminal penalties of the Act. No more is required. Nash v. United States, 229 U.S. 373, 377.

We have considered, but find it unnecessary to discuss other contentions.

Reversed.

[1] Sec. 2. (a) The Congress hereby finds that the existence, in industries engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, of labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers (1) causes commerce and the channels and instrumentalities of commerce to be used to spread and perpetuate such labor conditions among the workers of the several States; (2) burdens commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; (3) constitutes an unfair method of competition in commerce; (4) leads to labor disputes burdening and obstructing commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; and (5) interferes with the orderly and fair marketing of goods in commerce.

Section 3 (b) defines "commerce" as "trade, commerce, transportation, transmission, or communication among the several States or from any State to any place outside thereof."

[2] Cf. Administrator's Opinion, Interpretative Bulletin No. 5, 1940 Wage and Hour Manual. p. 131 et seq.

[3] It may prohibit wholly intrastate activities which, if permitted, would result in restraint of interstate commerce. Coronado Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers, 268 U.S. 295, 310; Local 167 v. United States, 291 U.S. 293, 297. It may regulate the activities of a local grain exchange shown to have an injurious effect on interstate commerce. Chicago Board of Trade v. Olsen, 262 U.S. 1. It may regulate intrastate rates of interstate carriers where the effect of the rates is to burden interstate commerce. Houston, E. & W. Texas Ry. Co. v. United States, 234 U.S. 342; Railroad Commission of Wisconsin v. Chicago, B. & Q.R. Co., 257 U.S. 563; United States v. Louisiana, 290 U.S. 70, 74; Florida v. United States, 292 U.S. 1. It may compel the adoption of safety appliances on rolling stock moving intrastate because of the relation to and effect of such appliances upon interstate traffic moving over the same railroad. Southern Ry. Co. v. United States, 222 U.S. 20. It may prescribe maximum hours for employees engaged in intrastate activity connected with the movement of any train, such as train dispatchers and telegraphers. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Comm'n, 221 U.S. 612, 619.

 

World War Two raged on, of course.

By some accounts, it was on this day in 1941 when Adolf Hitler appointed Erwin Rommel to lead the German military mission to North Africa in aid of the Italians, who were getting the stuffing beat out of them by the British Commonwealth forces.  Hans von Funck was already in Libya organizing the effort but was judged to lack enthusiasm for the project.  Von Manstein was considered, but Rommel was chosen.  Other accounts place the appointment on July 6.

Rommel would obtain fame there, but it's fame that outmatched his real record in many ways.  Considered in a "good Nazi" by fans of the Wehrmacht, there's not real reason to excuse him for going along with Nazism as he did up until mid 1944, when he seems to have become a supporter of the July 1944 plot, even though he was not one of the direct actors in it.  His real association with it, however remains unknown.

Rommel did prove to be a very effective commander in North Africa, commanding, as is sometimes forgotten, German and Italian forces by the end.  Much of his success was due to the difficulties and delay in communications with Berlin, which allowed him to ignore instructions and act on his own.  His success there did lead to his appointment in France as the general primarily responsible for the defense against the impending Allied landing.  He was wounded while a passenger in a vehicle during an Allied strafing run, however, on July 17, so he was out of action soon after Operation Overlord, although the Germans were already in severe trouble in countering it by that time.

Rommel had been in the German military since age 18,  having first been a cadet in a military school at that age in 1910 and having been commissioned the following year.  He met his wife while a cadet, she was 17 years old at the time.  She was perhaps uniquely, for what was to follow, of Polish and Italian descent.  In spite of being engaged early, he formed a relationship with Walburga Stemmer, who was of working class background. That relationship ended up in producing a daughter, Gertrude.  Because Stemmer was of working class background, and because he was already engaged to Lucia Maria Mollin, he did not marry Stemmer but carried on and married Mollin.  Stemmer later lived in the Rommel household with Gertrude passed off as Rommel's niece, a story that was widely believed.  Stemmer committed suicide in 1928 when Lucia was pregnant with the couple's first child, apparently being unable to accept that she and Rommel would never marry.

Rommel's record in regards to the Nazis is mixed.  He clearly objected to some of their actions but he supported their early rise and his actions as a commander in some instances, in that context, are mixed.  For whatever reason he seems to have come around to supporting, if not participating in, the July 20, 1944 plot against Hitler, although he was recovering from his wounds at the time and could not have been an active participant if he wanted to be.  He none the less was implicated based on the belief that he was a fellow traveler with the plot, which he may have been.  He committed suicide in October rather than suffer arrest, a peculiar option given to members of the German officer corps in some instances but which in this one cuts against the claims by some that his late actions were motivated by religious beliefs, suicide being contrary to Christian tenants.

This, and, other things going on in the war on this day may be read here:

Day 522 February 3, 1941

In anticipation of entering the war, the United States split its fleet into three, the Atlantic, Pacific and Asiatic Fleets.  It's odd to think of the Navy being one big fleet, but up until then, it was.

You can read more on what was going on with that here:

Today in World War II History—February 3, 1941

The war on the Atlantic was already on, of course, even if the U.S. was not yet in the war.

‘Q-ship’ torpedoed in the Atlantic

And, on Malta:

3 February 1941: New Bomb Disposal Officer Embarks for Malta

Weld County, Wyoming? No thanks.

The degree to which boosters completely fail to think out the things that they boost is one of the stories that repeats itself continually throughout history.

The law of unintended consequences.

Weld County, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Weld County, Colorado, is unhappy with the direction the State of Colorado has taken in recent years, with those recent years probably stretching back into the 1990s.

For those who aren't familiar with it, Weld County is a big blocky county in northeastern Colorado which includes Greeley, that city being its county seat.  The county has a lot of oil and gas, being part of the oil and gas province stretching up into Laramie County, Wyoming and down nearly into Denver and it borders Fort Collins.  Oil and gas makes up its bread and butter.

The state flag of Colorado at the time of my grandmother's birth in Leadville, Colorado.

It's unhappy for the following reasons.

Colorado has always had divides between its regions. The east slope of the Rockies doesn't get along very well with the west slope.  The southwestern regions, first settled by New Mexicans, doesn't get along with anyone else (in my view, they may most closely resemble Wyomingites from Wyoming).  And the rural areas don't get along with Denver.

All of which leads you to wonder why Colorado was so hip on boosting the Big Blight, Denver.  

Denver, the Queen City of the Plains, was a giant version of Casper, Wyoming up into the 1980s.  A large city even then, its economy was based on agriculture and petroleum.  My father was born in Denver in 1929 when his father, originally from Dyersville, Iowa, was working there in the office of a meat packing company.  He's later move from there to another meat packing company in Scottsbluff, Nebraska and then own his own in Casper.  The point there is that he was from a heavily agricultural state, Iowa, and worked in the production end of agriculture first in Denver.

The oddly simple minded flag of Colorado from 1911 to 1964.  After 1964 the "C" grew enormously in size, but the flag is basically the same and still oddly simple minded.

The oil crash of the 1980s made downtown Denver like a ghost town.  I can well recall waking around in Denver as a college student.  Lots of businesses where shuttered.  The windows of the Episcopal cathedral had been busted out.  It was bad.

So Colorado rose to the occasion.  It boosted different reason to visit Denver, a lot of those rural entertainment themed.  

And then came dope.

Colorado attracted a lot of west coasters who were fleeing the blight of California to come to Denver to make Denver west coast blighty.  They were politically far to the left of the Coloradoans who had acted to attract them.  They gained in the legislature, legalized weed, and Denver became the stupefied capital of the Rockies.  That solidified political control in the left and in recent years the legislature has been acting like Democratic legislatures due, seeking to regulate oil and gas and restricting all things firearm.

D'uh.

Old building in downtown Greeley.

All of this was predictable.

Now some of the rural counties of Colorado want out of Colorado.  Some years ago there was an effort to take five of them out and form a new state.  Presumably the proposed name of the new state was going to be Delusional, as that was never going to happen.

Now there's a petition in Weld County to have it leave Colorado and join Wyoming.

Weld County Courthouse.

And Governor Gordon, on Fox News, gave it support.

Weld County has a population of 320,000, nearly the same as Wyoming itself.  If it was part of Wyoming, it would control the House completely.

Moreover, Wyoming would now border weedy Denver, which is basically expanding into Weld County, and we couldn't begin to control what that might mean.  Oil and gas might be temporarily safe in Weld County, and there'd be no significant firearms restrictions, but soon the Hippy Dippy Denverites would be electing representatives to the Wyoming House itself.  

Our increased population might mean we'd get another Congressman, but between Weld County, Albany County, Fremont County and Teton County, there's be no guaranty at all that said Congressman would be a Republican.

Railroad station in Greeley.

Wyomingites would hate Weld County.

Truth be known, there's a lot of division in Wyoming already.  Most of the state isn't happy with Teton County most of the time, but is unwilling to do the simple things that would address that, such as a real estate sales importation tax, or high income, income tax.  That'd drive out the jet set, but we're not there yet, and by the time we will be, it'll be too late.  Additionally, the entire state is suspicious of the southeastern farm counties to some degree, which Weld County would be another of, as they keep producing the radical anti public lands legislators.  There is no public land there, we've noticed.

This proposal is, of course, not going anywhere.  Colorado isn't going to let Weld County go and in short order the political forces that are boosting this will be subsumed by the expansion of Denver into Weld County.  But the Governor boosting this secessionist movement is really ill advised.

Indeed, what Wyoming ought to do is sit back and consider the example of Weld County. The state is perpetually boosting "come on in" efforts, even though most Wyomingites have a "stay out" view.  Colorado had that same attitude and people came on in.  Now the areas of Colorado that remain what Colorado was before that want out of the state.

And, hence, a person must be careful what they wish for.

Cliff notes of the Zeitgeist Part I. Some Observations on current events, political, economic, religious, and otherwise.

1.  Populism and racism aren't the same thing, even if some populist are racist.

Theodore Roosevelt.  He was a populist, and a progressive.  Just being a populist doesn't make a person a racist, or even a conservative.

What happened on January 6 with an attempted coup in Washington D. C. will go down as one of the back marks in American history.  Truly, an infamous day.

Post insurrection analysis has frequently strayed into suggesting that part and parcel of the insurrectionist goal is a deep seated racism.  To hear commentators speak of it, you'd get the idea that the storming was by the Dixiecrats of the last century.  This does a disservice to the facts and ignores the real divide in the country.

Some of the populist are racists, there's no doubt about it. And Donald Trump did nothing to distance himself from racists while he was President.  Having said that, however, the GOP started quietly down this path in the 1970s with Ronald Reagan's "Southern Strategy".  Before that, the Democrats were the party with a regional race problem and the Republicans were not.  The GOP couldn't win in the South for that reason.  So, much like in the compromise that resulted in setting the 1876 election, the GOP decided to abandon its strong civil rights position in order to court the otherwise highly conservative, and mostly white, Southern electorate.  

That's a legacy of what we're seeing now, and its a feature of some of the populist movements from around the country, but it doesn't really define what's going on. What defines it is the abandonment of the Rust Belt working class by both political parties.

The American blue collar working class was hailed since the early 20th Century as the real definers of what it was to be an American.  There's an endless amount of propaganda about it and everyone has seen it.  Rosie the Riveter wasn't a college educated career woman who was living with a Soy Boy café worker.  No, there was about a 50/50 chance that she hadn't finished high school and was going to stop working the second her boyfriend returned from defeating the Axis and took back his welding job, after which point they'd get married and have stout little kids who played baseball and football and who would look forward to the same careers their parents had had.

Now that seems to be all gone, but the implications have not been worked out at all.  You can't tell a group of people that they define what it is to be an American and then one day that they're the enemy of progress.  Men and women who simply want jobs to live rather than to live their jobs and who are Christians with traditional Christian values have, over the past decade or so, been told that they need to move on to the metro and reeducate, and that the values they held which defined society are now not only obsolete, but they need to keep them to themselves.

When people speak of a "culture war", that's what they're talking about, and that's what's brought about what we're seeing right now.  At least half the country, and probably more, is sick of being told that their deepest values need to be put on the shelf forever.  

That doesn't excuse what occurred on January 6, but it gave rise to it.  Trump gave voice to it.  And at some point a group of people who were told over 90 years that they were the real Americans, and defined Americanism, are going to react with huge suspicion if they're suddenly told they aren't.

The culture war rift in the country is now a grand canyon.  And its runs right through Western society into other countries.  It's not close to being over and there's no good reason to believe that Joe Biden can heal it.

But claiming that everyone who is on the right is basically Nathan Bedford Forest, as some on the left, and the constant press commentary, has, isn't going to make things better.  It may actually make it much, much worse.

2.  The "choice" isn't between "Democracy and Socialism".

Socialist leader of France, and anti Communist, Francois Mitterrand and his ally, Ronald Reagan.

I'm noting this here as I hear things like this all the time, and I read an op ed article in the Trib by somebody who is a clear supporter of Anthony Bouchard's run against Liz Cheney which referenced that phrase, although not in connection with Bouchard's primary effort to displace Cheney, which I'll predict will end up just being an expensive waste of time on his part.  The author of the op ed apparently wrote a book in which he claims that will be the choice for 2024.

No it won't, and it doesn't make sense.

I'm really sick of people getting these confused.  It's perfectly possible to be an ardent (small d) democrat and a Socialist.

Indeed, the Social Democratic Party is the largest party in Germany and, sorry US, its' considerably more democratic than the United States.  The current German constitution and body of electoral laws makes us look rather backward in that regard, restrictions on the freedom speech where it pertains to fascism and restrictions on strange movements like Scientology notwithstanding.

And the SDP isn't the only full democratic, and Socialist, party that's governed in Europe. France had a massively anti communist, heavily allied to the United States, elected premier during the Reagan administration, Francois Mitterrand, who was the First Secretary of the Socialist Party in France.

Every European nation except for the United Kingdom and Ireland has a viable and large Socialist Party that participates in their parliaments.  And, taking us back to history again, it was the SDP that was the last bulwark against the Nazi Party and the Communist Party in 1932 in trying to keep democracy running in post World War One Europe.  Yes the CDU was in there too, but the SDP was the big, anti Communist, anti Fascist, party.

Why do people believe this myth?

Bad historical education.

People seem to think that Socialism=Communism, and way, way back when, before there were any Communist countries, this was in fact true.  It hasn't been true since 1917/18 however, and in that time frame the Communist and the Socialist separated with the Socialists uniformly supporting democratic governments.  They went down in defeat on that point against the Communists in the Russian Revolution and in Nazi Germany.

What Socialism really is, is an economic system that argues for "social" control of the economy.

Get it straight.

Indeed, while not a Socialist whatsoever, I'd note that Socialist will claim that Socialism is more democratic than Capitalism, as there's social vestment of the economy in society at large.  I think that's mostly hooey, and in reality the economy always ends up being vested in the government, but the end game for Socialism and unrestrained Capitalism is the same. . a monopoly.  That's why nearly all Capitalist economies have Distributist laws, even if they don't call them that, such as the Sherman Anti Trust Act.

FWIW, the percentage of the GDP that's attributed to the government hovers between 35% and 40% in the United States irrespective of whether the GOP or the Democrats are in control.  There's never been a country, ever, whose government didn't dominate some aspects of its economy.  It's just that people tend not to be able to recognize it, except in the case of outright Socialism, including in Wyoming. For example, the state could completely contract out highway snow removal if it wished to, which would be a lot more free market.  But it's not going to. Or the state could close the remaining 100% of the highway rest stops and let people travel to gas stations, etc. in times of need, but that sure wouldn't be very popular.  You get the picture.

3.  While we're at it, "free market economics" doesn't equal Capitalism either.

Capitalism is a system under which business organizations which are actually partnership in the natural sense obtain state protection for their de fact partners by making them de jure shareholders and granting the corporation legal personhood.  It can't exist without the state.

There are a lot of reasons this system has proven to be such a huge success, but its a mistake to assume that the system is natural or that its a pure free market one.  In a pure free market natural economy (which would be a type of distributist economy), corporations wouldn't exist but partnerships would.

Every member of a partnership, of the traditional type, is legally liable for the acts of the company.  In a corporation, generally, only the company itself is. That's why corporations are so successful at raising "capital".  Only the shareholder's investment money is at risk.

Anyhow, if you point out that Capitalism is always a state sponsored and created economic system, as Socialism is when actually applied, you'll draw a blank look.  People are so use to thinking the opposite that they don't grasp that Capitalism is not a natural system, and that it requires state support to exist.

4.  The GOP adrift. Real Wyoming isn't as alt right as the alt right thinks.  It isn't even as conservative as people think.

There's conservative and then there's Wyoming conservative and then there's the conservatism of Wyomingites. 

They're not the same.

Time may prove me incorrect on this, but what has been going on in the state's GOP in the last few years really doesn't reflect the way most Wyomingite's actually think.  In reality, most Wyomingites just don't follow politics all that closely.

To grasp this you have to first realize that there's basically two, or maybe three, Wyoming populations. There's the temporary one made of transient workers who are here during booms, and then depart during busts.  When they're here, they make a big difference in politics and they bring their politics with them.  They aren't all oilfield workers by any means, as some of them have come in as professionals due to the boom, or occupy other boom time economic positions.  Then there's the Jackson Hole crowed, which is now more diffused than in just Teton County, who are also from somewhere else, but upon arriving here they buy a puffy coat or a Stetson and imagine themselves to be Wyomingites.  They also bring their politics with them.

And then there's the people who were born here, brought here while very young, or who were from a neighboring rural state that was much like Wyoming in some ways.  These are the people who are staying and whom make up most of the electorate.

They're political views are really unique to themselves. They aren't actually all that conservative, but can be mistaken for conservatives. They're more in the nature of rural libertarians combined with something that might be most comparable to the Russian Civil War era Ukrainian Greens.

This group isn't going to rail against Liz Cheney for voting her conscience and, like it or not, they aren't all that worked up on social issues either.  They're just as likely to support a "right to roam" as they are property rights, and no matter what your views are on one thing or another in social trends, they're going to espouse the traditional views while ignoring whatever it is that other people are doing.

I note all of this as the current drift of the GOP towards a really, really hard right is already beginning to further split an already split party and the GOP doesn't seem to get it.  At the same time that county GOP organizations are voting to censure Liz Cheney, the written comments to the Trib are overwhelmingly in her favor, including those written by her avowedly former opponents.  The GOP seems to be on the verge of splitting in two nationally and if it does, it's pretty clear that the bulk of the state party will go wherever the Trump wing of the party does, which in state politics is likely to pretty quickly end up in their becoming a minority party.

5.  Apparently "innocent until proven guilty" is something that nobody really believes. . . or at least it doesn't apply to Catholic clerics.

I haven't commented on this before and perhaps I shouldn't here, but I'm going to anyhow.

The Tribune has been following, understandably, the legal woes of retired Wyoming Bishop Joseph Hart now for years.  Bishop Hart was accused of sexual ickyness with male minors.

During the same period of time during which Hart has been dealing with this, three local Protestant ministers have faced the same accusations, and they all proved true. Mention of it in the Press was very brief.  No following story occurred.  Hart's story has, however, proven different.

The initial investigation lead the Laramie County authorities to pass on doing anything. They didn't see enough evidence.  The current Bishop, however, Bishop Biegler, chose to revive the matter within the church itself and that lead to it being looked at by the authorities a second time.  On that second occasion, the prosecutor in Natrona County again determined not to charge Bishop Hart with anything.  That lead to criticism, he reopened the file and, after some time had passed, he once again determined not to file charges.

The internal church matter, however, went on to some sort of tribunal at the Vatican. And now it also has determined that there's not enough there to do anything.  

With this being the case, Bishop Hart, over a period of decades, has endured and prevailed over four separate prosecutorial episodes, three at the state level, and one at hte Vatican level.

The American myth is that you are innocent until proven guilty.  Hart hasn't been proven guilty of anything. The Tribune, however, continues to treat his as if he is guilty and getting away with it.  Indeed, Bishop Biegler isn't helping much either as, having gotten this rolling, he's still basically sending out signals that he believes that Hart is guilty and will be crediting his accusers in spite of years and years of such efforts having failed.  This gets to something regarding Bishop Biegler we'll deal with in a moment, but we'll note this here.

Bishop Hart gets this sort of attention as he's Catholic.  The Catholic Church has gone through a horrific episode recently, now mostly addressed, with clerics who are now all older having committed terrible sexual transgressions.  Most of these, however, seem to have arisen due to a vareity of factors that let in priests who were not there for the right reasons, although their views are ones that the press also genuinely celebrates.  Indeed, this takes us back to the culture wars item above, as Catholic clerics that are loyal to the Church's traditional beliefs and dogma are ones that the press really doesn't like.

And for that reason, it doesn't like the church itself, which is why this gets so much press but real proven accusations by protestant minister is the same readership field, do not.

6.  Bishop Biegler and the rearward gaze.

We're now a full year into a present massive crisis that has caused a crisis in the Church but to look at the Diocese of Cheyenne, you'd not know it.

The Bishop has suspended the obligation to attend Mass on what is now running up on a year.  I had real doubts about this early on, but as the pandemic deepened, I have to admit that at some point, that's valid.  As soon as the churches were opened back up, I started going back to Mass, but in the recent deepened episode, I suspended going, taking advantage of the dispensation as I had a childhood asthma condition and I really don't want to get virus, particularly with vaccinations come on so soon.

Anyhow, if you check in on the Diocese website the first thing you are going to find is a statement by Bishop Biegler about retried Bishop Hart.

Bishop Hart was the bishop here from 1978 until 2001.  I.e., he hasn't been the bishop for 20 years.  He's been retired for 20 years.  We're on our third bishop since that time.

Wyoming, as we've noted above, is a highly transient state.  There's a core of us diehards who were born here, and who will die here, and who are watching people come and go in the meantime.  And quite a few of us, although its a minority in the state's population, are Catholic.  Quite a few of the transients are too. 

Most of the people in the pews have very low interest, in this point, in the Joseph Hart saga.  It doesn't impact our daily lives whatsoever.  When Hart was last Bishop, I was 37 years old and my youngest child was a baby.  

The pandemic does impact my daily life.

During the entire pandemic, I haven't had a representative of the parish reach out even once.  I've reached in several times, but at the time the pandemic struck I'd only recently gone off of a parish council.

Indeed, the pandemic struck at a particularly bad time, in this context, for me, as I'd gone off of the council and I stepped down as a lector as the Mass time didn't work well for my spouse and both kids were headed off to Laramie.  I'd been a lector at that point for years and years, and I do miss it. But as that occurred it was also the case that the downtown parish was clearly being changed into the Hispanic parish. That's fine, but Mass times were also altered for reasons that aren't clear to me, and therefore I went across town to another parish. The entire process left me feeling a bit unmoored as the parish that I'd served at quickly became pretty unrecognizable, the new Priest had no idea who I was, the focus was on a demographic that needs to be focused on but which I'm not part of, and then the pandemic hit.

The parish I was going to did a good job at first at dealing with the crisis but then the Bishop ordered the doors closed.  I'm sure I'm just lost to where I was at, and now I'm barely known where I am.  I get that.

What I don't get, quite frankly, is why there wasn't a full scale effort to require the parishes to reach out to parishioners.  There wasn't.  Or at least there wasn't one that I could see.  And to check in on the Diocese website to learn the latest in regard to the church and the pandemic is a disappointment, as the information is hard to find.  News on Bishop Biegler and Bishop Hart is easy to find, however.

And here's the point.  In a pandemic in which our connections with our parish is now strained and souls stand to be lost, dealing with a problem that's now 20 years in our review mirror should not be front and center.

7.  "I have a right to an opinion" doesn't mean your opinion is worth listening too.

Given that so much discourse happens on social media anymore, you've seen this argument. Some issue is out there, somebody argues the facts, and the reply is "I have a right to an opinion".

First of all, it's debatable if you have a "right" to an erroneous opinion.  It may be your opinion that you are a polar bear, but you don't really have a right to that, as that would be delusional.  That's an extreme example, but it demonstrates a point. At some point opinions can so depart from reality that they can lead to institutionalization.  So, in fact, you don't have a right to an opinion without question.

You may have a right to an opinion, however, on matters which are fairly debatable.  And that's the kicker.  A lot of people raise the "I have a right to an opinion" defense at the point at which their opinion is, in fact, no longer fairly debatable.  

Now, assuming that the opinion doesn't constitute a danger to yourself or others, you may have a legal right to hold it, but that doesn't amount to an existential right.  You have no right, really, to be wrong.  So taking refuge in that argument actually isn't a defense at all.

Monday Morning Repeat for the Week of February 20, 2011

 And we're doing more than one again:

Heating

Not to get too preachy here, but recent events have shown this thread to be more relevant than ever:

Nice Post on what every American should learn about U.S. History

The distance of things.

Blog Mirror: Lustration: A Modest Proposal, by Dina Francesa Haynes

 

Lustration: A Modest Proposal, by Dina Francesa Haynes

Blog Mirror: NOTICE & COMMENT Advice to Presidential Appointees: Familiarize Yourself With OMB, by Christian Bale

NOTICE & COMMENT

Advice to Presidential Appointees: Familiarize Yourself With OMB, by Christian Bale