The Federal Government was set up with very important functional roles, relating to Commerce, avoidance of problems between the States, and protecting all of them from foreign dangers, etc.. The day to day interaction of Government with respect to questions of health, safety and morals--the Police Power--was left to the States; or better put, not delegated to the Federal Government. In short, moral rule setting was never intended to be a Federal function.
The Fourteenth Amendment has been the avenue by which the Federal Courts have interfered with the exercise of State Police powers, where someone claimed, on one of various rationales, that they were unfair. The problem is that the Fourteenth Amendment has been the vehicle to apply restrictions originally put on the Federal Government, which was not supposed to act in certain fields, to the States, which from time immemorial have had the role to act in those very fields.
In this application, the enemies of our traditions have achieved a certain societal anarchy. While some, around here, have mistakenly confused this with Libertarianism, it actually flies in the face of the rights of a free people to protect themselves from societal anarchy (the very opposite of the Libertarianism of the Fathers). What the ACLU and other groups have succeeded in doing, via the Fourteenth Amendment, is to do away with the right of self-Government, with respect to promoting religion, protecting babies, dealing with certain forms of criminal activity, and protecting the family, educating children, etc..
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
I agree, but the usurpation of state police powers by the federal government is no exclusive to Fourteenth Amendment issues.
"I write separately only to express my view that the very notion of a "substantial effects" test under the Commerce Clause is inconsistent with the original understanding of Congress' powers and with this Court's early Commerce Clause cases. By continuing to apply this rootless and malleable standard, however circumscribed, the Court has encouraged the Federal Government to persist in its view that the Commerce Clause has virtually no limits. Until this Court replaces its existing Commerce Clause jurisprudence with a standard more consistent with the original understanding, we will continue to see Congress appropriating state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce."
-Justice Clarence Thomas
bumpkin
. The Federal Government was set up with very important functional roles, relating to Commerce, avoidance of problems between the States, and protecting all of them from foreign dangers, etc.. The day to day interaction of Government with respect to questions of health, safety and morals--the Police Power--was left to the States; or better put, not delegated to the Federal Government.
In short, moral rule setting was never intended to be a Federal function.
"Moral rule setting" was never intended to be a primary function of State or local government either. We were to have a republican form of government in the States, where our individual rights to life, liberty, & property were not to be infringed. Moral rule setting by majority will is against all of our basic Constitutional principles.
The Fourteenth Amendment has been the avenue by which the Federal Courts have interfered with the exercise of State Police powers, where someone claimed, on one of various rationales, that they were unfair.
After the civil war, some States were violating the individual rights of former slaves, using the 1833 Marbury opinion as their rationale. The 14th attempted to stop those violations.
The problem is that the Fourteenth Amendment has been the vehicle to apply restrictions originally put on the Federal Government, which was not supposed to act in certain fields, to the States, which from time immemorial have had the role to act in those very fields.
State & local governments can reasonably regulate public behaviors, using Constitutional methods. -- See Art. VI, as to how all Officials are bound to support our Constitution as the Law of the Land.
In this application, the enemies of our traditions have achieved a certain societal anarchy. While some, around here, have mistakenly confused this with Libertarianism, it actually flies in the face of the rights of a free people to protect themselves from societal anarchy (the very opposite of the Libertarianism of the Fathers).
'States rights' advocates claim that our BOR's does not apply to local/state governments. -- This is "social anarchy", -- the opposite of our libertarian principles.
What the ACLU and other groups have succeeded in doing, via the Fourteenth Amendment, is to do away with the right of self-Government, with respect to promoting religion, protecting babies, dealing with certain forms of criminal activity, and protecting the family, educating children, etc.. William Flax
Flax, you are sounding more socialistic every day in urging more government to promote all of the above.