I don't see any problem with them getting married.

As for having kids, it leads to a slippery slope. I'd bet that heavy drinking during pregnancy is more likely to cause problems for a kid than brother sister incest. As far as I know drinking during pregnancy isn't illegal in the US. So the question is then do we allow people to do things that will likely result in birth defects? I wouldn't be opposed to this in general, but how far should it be applied? What about people who are both recessive carriers for genetic diseases? Do we only bar people from knowingly increasing the odds of defects? Why not mandate genetic tests to ensure there isn't an increase in odds?

http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/615/784/415927/

I admit that they argued the Federal government had the authority here because it was in the airspace. However, I think if they wanted to they'd regulate hunting on the ground too. After all, hunting could affect some sort of interstate fur market, even if it doesn't exist.

The Constitution doesn't do either of these things. The use of the Army for law enforcement is barred by federal law. And, really it's not even barred. It can be overturned by any act of Congress. The Navy and USMC aren't covered by it at all, but by DOD regulation.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that the Constitution bars standing armies. Admittedly, some of the founders might have opposed them, but there is nothing in the Constitution that would prevent them. The closest I could find, was the requirement that funding for the Army be for less than 2 years at a time.

I'll agree that's a common opinion. Yet, Congress consistently gets reelected. People want to be left alone until someone else is doing something they don't like. People can think congress is doing a horrible job all they want, but they just keep reelecting them, rewarding failure. Many people don't know their representatives, let alone how they've voted on important issues in the past. When it comes time to vote people will just pick which ever person is on their team (D or R), even if that guy voted for things like SOPA or the Patriot Act or the wars.

Every member of the House must be reelected every 2 years. The reelection rate never drops below 80%. While I would support recall at the federal level, I don't know how much a difference it would make. Most people are simply too apathetic and ignorant about anything that doesn't obviously and directly affect their day to day lives.

http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php

I'm not arguing the specific case you gave here. But in general, I think the creation of SWAT teams should be a last resort. Let them exist at the state level, to be called in by local police forces.

When there are more SWAT teams they will get more use. And every time a SWAT team is used it's an opportunity for something to go wrong. See for example this map of botched SWAT raids, including numerous examples of SWAT killing innocent bystanders.
http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

You have to admit, that while SWAT teams do provide a benefit they also provide a cost. A monetary cost, a freedoms cost, and avoidable death cost. The question is if the cost/benefit is worth it.

It's the same thing as a GPS tracker on a car vs a full surveillance team. In both cases the problem is that the new tech is much cheaper. Because it is cheaper it will be used much more frequently and by many more agencies. My local police department can't afford their own helicopter, but 10 years from now I wouldn't be surprised if they have a drone.

It boils down to the previous expense made it much less common, and traceable. You probably couldn't use a police helicopter to follow some guy who made your shitlist 24/7, but drones will soon make that sort of thing inevitable. At least when this stuff was less common abuses were also less common; when it was more expensive, accountability was also higher.

The person you're responding to wasn't talking about the cop, he was talking about the guy in the story (Andrew Sprung) that made this claim:

In other words OP thinks this statement isn't true because the pain of pepper spray or a beating is worse than the infamy that can be inflicted with a camera.

Now all that being said, I disagree with the OP, and agree with Andrew Sprung. I have been pepper sprayed, and I can only describe it as, by far, the worst pain of my life. It was years ago, and I still am very apprehensive whenever someone has pepper spray around me. As awful as it was, the pain subsides in a few hours, and the next day there is basically no ill effects. However, the cop in this case (Lt. John Pike) has been publicly identified, and will be receiving weeks and months of harassment. He will also, hopefully, lose his job. He should to go to prison for assault (but won't), but even so, I'd much rather be pepper sprayed once than receive the public scorn he will receive.

The problem is there is no clear way to define related or not. Similar to regulating drugs falling under "interstate commerce", they will just come up with some convoluted way in which anything is related to anything else.

I think the reason he was modded down was he was making comments that were plainly trolling. See this:

He was either purposely trying to troll, or he was commenting on the incident without even watching the videos in the link. I don't think there's any other way to describe the group of students sitting in a public space than peaceful. They certainly weren't pushing into any riot police.

See here:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/2018247/How-Norway-Fought-Staph-Infections
And here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-rather/the-antibiotics-crisis_b_807887.html