The Rational Basis Test Isn't

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

Thus spake Denis Diderot, a shining intellectual beacon, to be sure, but he is only partially correct.

He left out lawyers--and, by default, judges.*

Only lawyers will maintain, with straight faces, that Congress' classification of marijuana as a dangerous addictive substance with no use whatsoever is rational.

Yet this is precisely what government lawyers argued: that so long as Congress could rationally believe that their total ban on marijuana might effect (as in accomplish) the legitimate Congressional interest in promoting public health, then it does not matter if that belief is based upon bad information.

I know it sounds batshit crazy, but it is the sort of thing lawyers argue about in Constitutional-level cases every goddamned day.  Quoting from a government brief:

Rational basis review does not permit the Courts to ‘second guess’
Congress’ conclusions, but only to enjoin decisions that are totally
irrational or without an ‘imaginable’ basis.

In other words, Congress can be wrong about marijuana, demonstrably wrong, stupendously wrong, contradicted by overwhelming scientific evidence--but for the law to be constitutional under the rational basis test, Congress need only demonstrate that it believes the wrong science. (Judge's order here, if you care.)**

I propose we amend Diderot's quote to read

Humanity will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest--and force-fed--(wafer thin mint-style)--to the last lawyer

Peace.
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* There's an old joke among litigators: What do you say to an attorney with an IQ of 98?
"Your Honor, I object--" 

**In previous posts I indicated this case was before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but I was wrong.  Judge Mueller sits on the District (trial) court for the Eastern District of California. The NORML lawyers will certainly appeal this result--and that case will be before the 9th Circuit.