Posted on 11/06/2008 12:05:40 PM PST by Amendment10
I seriously propose an amendment to the Constitution based on the following concerns. The Founding Fathers intended for the powers of the federal government to be limited to those expressly delegated to it by the federal Constitution. This is clearly evidenced by the following constitutional statutes.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 18: 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.10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The problem is that the federal government has not been operating within the restraints of the federal Constitution since the time of FDR. This is because constitutional flunky FDR foolishly chose to politically broaden the scope of the so-called general welfare clause in Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, instead of leading the Article V majority to amend the Constitution to specifically authorize his New Deal federal spending programs. Constitution-ignoring Democrats, Republicans too, have been exercising constitutionally non-existent federal government powers since that time, particularly where constitutionally unauthorized federal spending is concerned.
Given the federal government's ongoing, unlawful ignoring of it's constitutionally limited powers, the amendment would require Congress to officially list in a given bill, for every line in the bill, the constitutional statutes which give Congress the power to justify the line in the first place. Any bills missing such information for any line will not be made into law - period.
Given justices who likewise ignore the Constitution, such an amendment would be enforceable by the people exercising their 2nd Amendment rights.
Discussion of and suggestions for such an amendment are greatly encouraged.
I was told that clause “the elastic clause” allowed for the government to overstep its bounds when it was necessary for the general welfare of the nation. Of course I knew they were wrong.
A repub. has been trying to pass a law to that effect for quite some time. Unfortunately, neither the law nor the amend has any chance whatsoever of ever being passed. Period. If passed, it would be ignored, much like the Cons. itself is ignored.
The problem is that the PTBs in Washington can twist the Constitution to mean anything...it is often said that you can prove anything in the Bible, well, if you are twisted enough, you can support anything by reading into the Constitution...
For example, I’ve known legislators who look at the 10th Amendment and read the part “..or the people”, then take that and say that they are elected as representatives of the people, and use that to justify almost any legislative action.
IMHO, it is more of getting back to our core, Conservative individualist principles so when we read and understand the Constitution, we do it through the principles that where guided in its writing.
Yes, if the people are kept uninformed about such a bill like they were concerning the subprime loan problem then the bill will probably never pass.
BTW, got the name of the repub. who tried to pass the law by any chance?
The only way to hold the dems in check at this point is to
push for ballot initiatives at the state level that call
for a federal constitutional convention. This is the true
‘nuclear option’.
What would be the top ten topics at such a convention:
1. Balanced budget to limit the federal debt
2. Judiciary limits. Eliminate ‘for life’ appointments.
Direct election of judges to serve a single term of 4 years.
3. Define when a fetus gets civil rights.
4. Update the right to bear arms
More please....
No, but I think he was in the house. I distinctly remember the bill would require the sponsor to put in proposed leg. a notation specifying which part of the Cons. authorized the law in question.
Thank you for trying to remember the name.
Again, if the people are informed about what's going on with the Constitution, then I feel that things will change for the better.
How about an activist Supreme Court that strikes down the NEA, USDA, and all welfare programs as unconstitutional?
I wish that people would stop using the word "unconstitutional" because it conveys the wrong idea about the amendable Constitution, in my opinion.
To begin with, the given that the federal Constitution says nothing about programs like NEA, USDA, the 10th A. automatically reserves the power to tax and regulate these programs to the states. So there can constitutonally be up to 50 programs like the NEA and USDA at this time in the states, no questions asked.
But the point remains that the federal NEA and USDA are constitutionally unauthorized and thus illegal. Again, thank constitutional flunky FDR for this mess.
Next, if the states decided that the feds could somehow manage a national NEA and USDA better than they could, and there's a first time for everything, then the Article V majority could consider amending the Constitution to authorize the feds to do so.
But even if today's Article V majority decided not to allow the feds to administer things like NEA, USDA, tomorrow's Article V majority might be okay with the idea and appropriately amend the Constitution.
The problem now, of course, is that minority factions are wrongly subverting the will of the Article V majority as reflected by the Constitution's silence about things like NEA, USDA and many other constitutionally unauthorized programs. And the reason that they are getting away with this is because of widespread ignorance of Congress's constitutionally limited powers. The abuse of judicial power by corrupt, Constitution-ignoring judges is not helping things either.
Again, and I don't mean to insult you, but the idea that some federal program is "unconstitutional" reflects a lack of understanding of the amendable Constitution's division of federal and state powers.
What we really need is a “Vanity Clause” to the FR constitution.
An idea for another amendment!
Given a partisan Congress that refuses to do its job where corrupt justices are concerned, the Article V majority should have the power to reverse a USSC case decision and remove Constitution-ignoring justices from the Supreme Court.
No ammendments!
Inforce the Constitution as written!
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.