Posted on 12/29/2011 9:55:58 AM PST by mnehring
In McDonald V Chicago, Paul says that the States have the right to limit the 2nd Amendment under the 10th Amendment.
In Kelo, he believes again, the 10th Amendment trumps the 14th Amendment.
This belief that federalism is the end-all of rights is dangerous, especially when one like Paul takes it to the extreme and sides with States limiting fundamental individual rights. This is also reflected in Paul's abortion positions.
Ping of interest
What makes this even more bizarre about the pervert Paul is that there is one issue whereas he takes a counter approach and holds pretend individual rights higher than even so-called State’s rights, or a person’s right to association and that is the issue of homosexuality whereas the pervert Paul thinks that homosexual behavior must be treated as equal to heterosexual behavior and that individuals must be forced to treat it as such.
Of course Paul’s position on homosexuality is not Constitutional at all. It seems to me that he is being exposed as a complete phony when calling himself a Constitutionalist.
Read more about it at this link.
Well when you think about it: the Second Amendment is already a dead letter in places like New York State but at least with federalism you can make sure that the anti-Second Amendment tendencies of the north east are not imposed via Washington onto your states. That is the sort of thing that the Tenth Amendment is supposed to protect.
Except Paul is taking the opposite approach with his opinion of McDonald V Chicago. He is siding with Chicago’s right to ban ownership of guns stating that the 10th Amendment is trumping the 2nd. He is not protecting the 2nd, he is removing it as an individual right.
Kelo is also a major violation of the 4th & 5th Amendments, something the article doesn’t really address. Again, Paul fails the Constitutional test on that as well.
Outstanding.
Thank you very much for making me aware of this important piece!
Correction. It created a citizen small c when prior one was a Citizen Capital C of their various states. There are legitimate concerns with the Fourteenth Amendment but its new class of citizen actually does not trump or negate the original state citizen or sovereign citizen.
Just like the 16th was not.
Good point.
This is a great article.
Thanks!
I have a BIL that is snowed by this guy.
I want to pass this excellent article on to a number of friends around the country. But I don’t see an author to attribute it to.
Ah yes. Amendments are meant to clarify murky issues or adresses issues not mentioned in the constituiton, not to flat-out contradict the Constituiton. The Consitution said Congress may levy no direct tax, but then Congress went off and said in the 16th amendment “Oh yes we can!” Disgusting.
“In Kelo, he believes again, the 10th Amendment trumps the 14th Amendment.”
There can actually be a very reasoned argument, here.
The constitution has as a basic principal the understanding that the written law is invariably undermined as soon as it is written. Thus, the way to prevent this is by there being co-equal bodies of people that try to prevent such undermining.
The one we are most familiar with is the balance between the three branches of the federal government. But just as important, or even more important, is the never resolved federalism and anti-federalism balance between the federal government, the state governments and the people.
And this balance was ruined with the 17th amendment, the direct election of senators, which took away both any ability of the states to balance the federal government, as well as any ability the states had to protect the people from the direct, invasive involvement in their lives by the federal government.
Since then, the federal government has run “hog wild”.
Importantly, the “privileges or immunities” clause in the 14th amendment, resolved the other side of the argument, by allowing the federal government to intervene to protect the people from abuse by their state governments.
Now enters Kelo and McDonald. In McDonald, the SCOTUS for the most part looked at the 2nd amendment argument, to decide if arms are an individual or collective right, under the authority of the states. Yet finding that it was an individual right made it a “federal issue”, instead of a “state issue”. This was reinforced by Justice Thomas who did an extended and brilliant dissertation on “privileges or immunities” clause as well.
The trouble is that by finding for an individual right, the federal government is actually empowered, and power is taken away from the state governments.
The background for this is that, for many years, the gun lobby argued that arms were indeed a collective right, and a state issue, so that the federal government could neither control or limit guns at its level.
Even today, several states are trying to challenge this federal control in the other direction, saying that if guns and ammunition are made and used just within their state, that the federal government cannot limit or control it.
So in *that* case, the 10th amendment *should* trump the 14th amendment.
It’s a paradox. If we win recognition of more rights, we might lose more rights. But if the states are recognized, some states could win, and other states could lose.
How about the 10th trumping the 4th and 5th (which really isn’t addressed here regarding Kelo) or the 10th trumping the 2nd?
The 14th is a contentious issue however, no Conservative in their right mind thinks the 10th can trump the 2nd, 4th, or 5th.
Back to the top.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.