[DustyMoment]

Hopefully Ron Paul's effort to sway the scope of the discussion over Harriet Miers will have some traction.

Politicizing the SCOTUS is one of the biggest disservices that the two political parties have engaged in since the founding of this country.

[Redbob]

As usual, Mr. Paul is right on target - and as usual, he'll be widely ignored.

[Redbob]

"The Constitution is written in plain, forthright text, and there is nothing mystical about it."

Ah, but does it have a "penumbra?"
<grin>

[Prokopton]

The Constitution certainly does empower government. In fact, there is no federal government without the Constitution. He is right that the Constitution does not disparage other rights, not enumerated in the Constitution, that are innate in the people (ninth and tenth amendments).

[Congressman Billybob]

Rep. Paul is dead on in this piece. Many people of different political stripes confuse a "conservative" politician with a "conservative" judge. A conservative politician should generally support certain positions on schools, welfare, taxes, etc.

However, a conservative judge is an entirely different creature. Such a judge in this nation will respect, defend and enforce the Constitution, just as his/her oath of office requires. That may result in a "liberal" result in a given case.

To illustrate: the First Amendment freedom of the press is a remarkably "liberal (meaning free)" part of the Constitution. It does defend some types of speech which "conservatives" might well prefer be not permitted. (I am NOT talking about pornography, or the "right" to dance naked, or other such nonsense.) A conservative judge should read the Constitution and note that it says, "Congress shall make no law." The judge will then decide the case in a way that the conservative politician might not like.

Ron Paul, to his great credit, does not make this mistake. He understands that the proper job of a judge is to enforce the Constitution -- first, last and always. Paul has it right.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column: "Hillary Knew, David Knew, Only the Post Reporter Was in the Dark"

[Irontank]

By ignoring the strict constitutional limits placed on the federal government and bulldozing states’ rights, federal judges opened the door to the growth of wildly extra-constitutional government in the 20th century

Of course he's right...the federal government has very limited powers and that is fundamentally what the Constitution is...a framework document by which the states delegated limited powers to the federal government they created...98% of the federal bureaucratic apparatus today is unconstitutional

Unfortunately, I've lost quite a bit of respect for Dr. Paul...he has been a lone voice for years in calling for adherence to the Constitution's limits on the federal government. But, a couple of weeks ago, he wrote a piece in Texas Straight Talk calling for the federal government to send money to his hurricane-ravaged district in Texas...housing and welfare assistance, etc....all things beyond the legal Constitutional authority of the federal government...as Dr. Paul has so many times reminded us.