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More Perfect

WNYC Studios

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4.8 • 14.7K Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2018

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

An unassuming string of 16 words tucked into the Constitution grants Congress extensive power to make laws that impact the entire nation. The Commerce Clause has allowed Congress to intervene in all kinds of situations — from penalizing one man for growing too much wheat on his farm, to enforcing the end of racial segregation nationwide. That is, if the federal government can make an economic case for it. This seemingly all-powerful tool has the potential to unite the 50 states into one nation and protect the civil liberties of all. But it also challenges us to consider: when we make everything about money, what does it cost us?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Leadership support for more perfect is provided by the Joyce Foundation.
0:07.0	Hey I'm Chad Ippumrod this is more perfect.
0:11.6	Final episode of season 2, long overdue.
0:14.3	Today I'm going to fulfill promise that I made to myself at the very beginning of more
0:19.2	perfect several years ago.
0:22.4	When I started the show it was out of a very basic desire to understand some things that
0:27.7	I knew nothing about to be able to talk about some things I knew nothing about.
0:32.2	In one of the very first questions that I bumped into as a Supreme Court idiot, was it
0:38.7	why does everybody keep talking about this thing called?
0:41.7	The Commerce Clause.
0:42.7	Commerce Clause.
0:43.7	Commerce Clause.
0:44.7	Commerce Clause.
0:47.7	The Commerce Clause.
0:48.7	What the hell is it?
0:49.7	Well, it's Article 1 Section 8 clause 3 of the Constitution.
0:53.7	16 words, two commas.
0:55.7	The number of the powers who regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several
1:00.7	states and with the Indian tribes.
1:02.9	The power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with
1:07.5	the Indian tribes.
1:08.5	There are no more sexier words in the English language.
	...

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