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 keep some modicum of control over the federal bureaucracy, z8 we have had
 to cope with what amounts to a fotknh branch of government that was not
 even a gleam in the eye of a founding father or framer of the U.S.
 Constitution. The checks and balances, and separations of powers, so
 carefully analyzed and argued over m prevent the concentration of power
 (and inevitable tyranny) simply do not exist for the f_ fotwth branch°
 The medical marijuana issue is a sad but typical example. With impunity,
 without a hint of even a threat of reprimand or punishment to mLv of the
 actors, they have taken 20 years to accomplish nothing but to begrudgingly
 assimilate research, then arbitrarily ignore it, at the expense of people
 suffering tmimaginable agony, relievable only by breaking an arcane and
 arbitrary laWo Tyranny does tend to follow unlimited power, and here, it has.
 More than a hundred years after the ratification of the U.So
 Constitution, Washinggton's constittufional framers had a different gleam in
 their eyes. They saw clearly that power concentrated either in govermment or
 in private hands (corporations) would inevitably lead to erosion of personal
 fights and liberties°
 The Washington delegates to the Coustitutional Convention had seen
 what was done to individual rights under a century of interpreting the U.S.
 Constitution, and they were not happy with the results. For example, they
 saw the concept of "natural law" twisted from a guarantee of personal liberty
 to an inkposition of laissez-faire economics, under the guise of "freedom of
 contract;" that is, natural law prohibits the courts from interfering with the
 right of a laborer to contract for his labor, and never mind that the laborer
 starves while the company owner thrives. 29
 In addition, the Washington delegates had more recent, localized
 experience with territorial government. In the tumultuous decade be_bre the
 Constitutional Convention, WasNngton had grown from a vL_tual wiIderness
 with 75,000 settlers cut off from the national capital by a month's travel time,
 to a state of 350,000 citizens who could reach the east coast by a three-day
 z8 Ixmr_,_ration_.xkNalur_ Chadha, 462 U.So 919 (1982). TNs case is cited in teethes
 by Prof. David Skover of the Universi_' of Puget Sound School of Law as "the second me_t inane
 decision ever har_ded down by the Supreme Co,afro"
 29 Chartes Haines, The RevivN of Natural Law Concepts 220 (1930).
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