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Comment by meowface | Hacker News Reader

>There is no provision in the constitution for the federal government to regulate money exchange.

Er, what? If you fund or help fund a criminal enterprise, you can be prosecuted for it. If someone was funnelling millions of dollars to, say, a child sex slave ring, you think that the constitution protects their sending of that money and they can't be charged for it?

I don't personally think drugs should be illegal at all, but I do think that funding crimes in general should be illegal, which is essentially what Shrem was charged with here.

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Without taking a position on whether I think <MCRed> is right as a policy matter, you're responding to a different point.

<MCRed> is arguing (admittedly in a rant-y kind of way) that the U.S. Constitution is a document that grants limited and specific powers to the federal government and reserves the rest for the states and the people. That argument says those powers do not include the ability to regulate money exchange. An implication of that argument is that nearly all law enforcement would be left to the states -- so your hypothetical sex slave ring would be prosecuted by the states, and in fact every state currently has a law on its books making such a conspiracy illegal. And in fact most criminal prosecutions are already done by state governments.

Again, I'm not saying what I would prefer as a normative matter, just that it looks like you're talking past each other to some extent.

You're right, I am responding to a completely different point because I didn't really want to argue about what kind of powers are and aren't granted to the federal government by the Constitution. etchalon did a great job at that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8277608

Ignoring the legal system and the Constitution entirely though (purely for the sake of argument), it makes practical sense that for offenses that constitute multistate or multinational money laundering, the federal government would be the most appropriate enforcer of the law.

It's sad that you don't care about the quality of arguments or what the truth is. You just seem to care about what fits your ideology, which I'm sorry to say is fascist. (I await the time that another term is coined for this ideology so that I can stop using that one which people presume is a cheap insult rather than a precise description of an ostensible capitals society where the government has unlimited regulatory power.)

I submit to you that the "crime" of money laundering is one you're guilty of. I know for a fact, under the law, the way it is written you are guilty of it.

Thus you are advocating for your own incarceration.

I don't think you understand what "fascist" means.

I'm not entirely sure you know what "truth" means either.

Ok, well you consider what was done here "funding crimes", by the law, is it is written, you are guilty of both funding drug sales AND child sex slavery. IT doesn't have to be millions of dollars, all that's necessary is that money that crossed your hands was used for those purposes.

Therefore, by your argument you're a felon.

That's why I'm saying the law is illegal. I'm saying you're not a felon.

But of course, I get down voted to hell here, just convincing me that there is no intelligent life to be found on hacker news.

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