MSNBC says the 10th amendment is "a bunch of baloney"

YouTube ^ | September 12, 2009

[GoldStandard]

That according to brilliant constitutional scholar MSNBC's David "biased in favor of facts" Shuster, who matter-of-factly insists the "general welfare" clause in Article 1 of the Constitution "unambiguously authorizes" social welfare spending like "social security, Medicare, veterans' care, etc."

Shuster made his comments today shortly after 4:30 p.m. EDT in reaction to Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R), who recently suggested that Tenth Amendment grounds could be a means of opposing as unconstitutional certain Democratic health care proposals.

[TheZMan]

Violence.

[Tanniker Smith]

“general welfare” != “individual welfare”

[FlingWingFlyer]

David Shyster thinks that the Constitution and its Bill of Rights is a bunch of baloney. Like the commies always like say, there are “too many negatives” telling BIG government what it CAN’T do.

[From The Deer Stand]

So Shuster is now a constitutional lawyer. Geez, these news heads are some smart people. (/sarcasm)

[TommyDale]

Ask Bill Clinton if the 10th Amendment is baloney. He tried to overturn it by Executive Order 13083 in 1998 during his administration, and got slapped down by the U.S. Senate.

[CT]

I’m no attorney, and won’t play one. But Anne Coulter is. And she can tell you how that ‘commerce’ clause was created out of whole cloth (the use of it for nefarious purposes). This happened under......drum roll...............FDR! Gee, what a surprise. It is right up there with Roe v Wade as an example of poor work by the courts.

[hoosier hick]

As I recall, the Federalist Papers discuss the “general welfare” in some detail, and it doesn’t include “free” healthcare....

hh

[hoosier hick]

singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare."

But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?

I found this reference from Madison's Federalist No. 41.....

hh

[Repeal The 17th]

Constitution of the United States-Article I-Section 8.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings; — And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

[plangent]

Schuster could benefit from reading what James Madison had to say"

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America."

The Schusters of this media are talking, in Madison's words, subversion.

[A_Former_Democrat]

And Shuster’s educational and professional background gives him what knowledge and authority on Constitutional law?

[Red in Blue PA]

David Schuster is a heterosexual.

Now THERE is “a bunch of baloney”

[Plutarch]

He's got another thing coming, when a State stands up and decides to take it seriously, like, by declining to participate in Obamacare.

That'd wipe off his supercilious grin.

[Straight Vermonter]

If the general welfare clause means what they say it means then there are no checks on the power of government. I wonder what they think the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the constitution...

[sourcery]

Veto of federal public works bill (President James Madison):

To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being expressly declared "that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision.

A restriction of the power "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" to cases which are to be provided for by the expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution.

If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill can not confer the power. The only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution.

[plangent]

#10 provides the list of Enumerated Powers.

So, the question is this: Why would there be a list of Enumerated Powers if the Constitutional authors had intended for “General Welfare” to apply to any want or desire of Congress?

Obviously not, but fuzzy SCOTUS rulings have so diluted the meaning that we are stuck until a clarifying ammendment is passed — and that opens the demon of noxious ammendments also included.

[Bryanw92]

>>We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Does that dumbass know the difference between “provide for” and “promote”? It’s right there in the clause he’s citing as his “proof” for the constitutionality of Obamacare. The government (which means the People since the government doesn’t do any work to make money) is supposed to provide for (i.e. pay for) defense, but is only supposed to promote general welfare. Since Obamacare will reduce my ability to see a doctor on my terms, he’s actually breaking the general welfare clause by doing the opposite of promoting the general welfare.

[spinestein]

[As I recall, the Federalist Papers discuss the “general welfare” in some detail, and it doesn’t include “free” healthcare....]

It does now. The Constitution is a living evolving document, you know. The framers of the Constitution knew how stupid they were so they wrote it so that it could be re-interpreted according to the wisdom of the time as needed.

This wisdom is obviously best represented by the government and it’s only natural that in our current enlightened age, government committees will decide for us what our “rights” will be.

Old “rights” such as the right to keep and bear arms or the right to freedom of religion, speech, assembly and petition or states’ rights will have to make room for the newer, better rights such as the right to free health care, the right to equal outcomes, the right to not have to make decisions for ourselves about what is and isn’t good for us and the right to be protected by a benevolent federal government from any harm inflicted upon us by greedy private businesses.

[Yardstick]

What a forking doofus. The general welfare clause — which, let’s face it, is really the only part of the Constitution that liberals agree with — is in the preamble and has no legal significance. Only the body of the Constitution is binding.

For instance, had the framers written “In order to form a more perfect platifunkapus and to promote the general funkulation, we do establish this Constitution...”, it wouldn’t have given the federal government the power to subsidize Bootsy Collins bass lines. That power would be left to the states and to individuals, since it is nowhere granted in the body.

The framers addressed this point specifically, though of course you wouldn’t expect a journalist to know this.