[fortheDeclaration]

Today we need that secondary defense because enumerated powers has been abandoned in the face of rampant nationalism.

Again the issue is not 'nationalism' vs 'localism', the issue is the individual vs the state, all states, local, state and federal.

The Federal gov't is trying to overthrow a gun ban in DC as being an infringment of individual rights.

In the Alaska debate, the question was asked, would the Senate candidates support such action. The GOP candidate did, but the Democrat (who stated he supported the 2nd Amendment) then made an appeal to the right of 'local control'.

The point is that each level of gov't must defend individual rights and each is a threat to the same because each has power it can use against the individual.

The cry of 'states rights' is a misleading one since 'states' can be just as abusive of individual freedoms as the federal gov't.

In fact Madison's appeal for a federal gov't was that a larger gov't was less likely to be corrupted then a small one.

[inquest]

In fact Madison's appeal for a federal gov't was that a larger gov't was less likely to be corrupted then a small one.

The flip side, however, is that it's also harder to un-corrupt it once corruption sets in.

[Tailgunner Joe]

from the article

Our modern regulatory and redistributive state--the state the Framers sought explicitly to prohibit--has arisen largely since 1937, and primarily through just two clauses in the Constitution, the Commerce Clause and the General Welfare Clause respectively. It is striking that this is so, for if the Framers had meant for Congress to be able to do virtually anything it wanted through those two simple clauses, why would they have bothered to enumerate Congress' other powers, much less defend the doctrine of enumerated powers throughout the Federalist Papers?

The explanation, of course, is that the Framers intended no such thing. The modern state arose through judicial legerdemain, following Franklin Roosevelt's notorious 1937 Court-packing scheme.

With the Court's evisceration of the doctrine of enumerated powers, the modern regulatory and redistributive state poured through the opening. One result of the subsequent explosion of federal power, of course, was the contraction of state power where the two conflicted--and the attendant federalism dilemmas.

At the same time, individual liberty contracted as well--the preservation of which was supposed to be the very purpose of government.

The corruption of the meaning of the Constitution and the supremacy of a national government which has usurped powers not granted to it by consent of the governed has resulted in less liberty for all Americans. Those who feel they can improve upon the Constitution as intended by the Founders are invariably mistaken.