Posted on 03/17/2010 10:55:56 PM PDT by Xottamoppa
N.B. The 21st Amendment was approved by State ratifying conventions.
Merlin to Mad Madame Mim: “One more rule: no cheating.”
The real problem is that we have leftist Constitutional Law professors educating our government leaders. We need that resolved.
The operative words are the foregoing Powers. The foregoing powers refer to the “Powers herein granted” in Article 1, Section 1, listed, or enumerated if you will, in Article 1. Section 8.
The Constitution is a homogenous document. A latter section or clause does not trump a previous section or clause.
Article 1, Section 1, establishes a congress as the sole governmental entity with the power to legislate.
Ref: Article I. Section. 1.
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Article 1, Section 8, enumerates the Powers herein granted that Congress is empowered to write legislation concerning.
Article 1, Section 8, concludes with what socialist twist and refers to as the elastic clause.
Ref: Article 1 Section 8.
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.
Congress’s legislation is restricted to only its delegated powers when reconciled with the beautiful and glorious 10th amendment, which in effect says, if we forgot anything you can’t do that either.
Ref: Amendment 10.
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.
Question...What is the primary function of Congress?
Answer...To protect the rights of the American Citizens and not compete with previous Congresses to see how many new laws can be passed each year.
Every bill will refer to Article I, Section 8 and claim that it ‘promotes the general welfare’ of the United States. Case closed.
Well there goes the First Amendment.
If we allow those parties to prosper, the end conclusion would be the elimination of most of our amendments.
I get it. THEY don’t get it.
I appreciate your caution, mountn man, but individual amendments do not require a Constitutional Convention. I wholeheartedly agree with you about the unspeakable dangers of a Con-Con today and made that very case in an editorial a year ago in The Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124105694445071685.html
I addressed the Article I., Section 8 problem in my earlier post “It’s Not About Insurance; It’s About Surrendering Liberty”: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2409410/posts
“General Welfare” cannot be interpretted to mean “plus whatever government thinks best” or there is no point in enumerating anything. The existence of the Constitution itself is evidence against an open interpretation of the clause, an interpretation Madison himself shut down.
I addressed the Article I, Section 8 problem in an earlier post: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2409410/posts (”It’s Not About Insurance; It’s About Surrendering Liberty”)
The Founders left the States and the People as the enforcers of our Constitution; there is no other provision. The People and States made two fatal errors that will be our undoing unless they are corrected. First, we allowed the income tax which accrued vast sums of wealth in the hands of the government that they can use to our disadvantage. Second, following World War II. the U.S. Army did not disband as it had after every conflict up to and including World War I.
Before you think I’m radical or crazy, hear me out and check your history, friends. The reason you and i feel (and are) powerless against Big Government in Washingrad is because they have more money and superior firepower. Our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is relatively useless as a check on a government that we bought Tomahawk missiles and Apache gunships. By allowing a standing army rather than disbanding back into militia in 1945, we equipped Washington with a palace guard that can be used against the People. The Constitution (check it out...) makes NO PROVISION for an army. That was no oversight. It provides for a navy which, in the 18th century was a defensive force for our coasts. But the Founders provided no standing army. A standing American army, in fact, was prohibited in many state constitutions, Pennsylvania’s and Virginia’s, for example.
By giving Uncle Sam a cut of every dollar we earn (income tax, 1913)and building him a military superior to the firepower of the citizens (1945), we have locked ourselves into a permanent position of inferiority to the federal government. We have exchanged our liberty for security, against which Ben Franklin warned us, and now we have neither.
The one and only way to cut Washington down to size again is to defund and defang it. That is, repeal the income tax and dissolve the standing military in favor of State militia.
I know. I know what you’re going to say. I know it’s never going to happen, I know it’s the 21st century, I know it’s a dangerous world, I know, I know, I know...I’m simply retracing what went wrong and explaining why we can’t fix things so long as Washingrad has more money and bigger guns. the preclusion against a standing army is the companion principle to the Second Amendment; they work in tandem and were meant to operate in harmony. by no means give up your Second Amendment (!!!, but the reality is that since 1945 is has been stripped of any real power as a check on federal usurpations and is reduced to a matter of home security, target practice and sport hunting.
That said, the States still have the Tenth Amendment and MUST reassert it to the fullest extent of the law. When you or i break the law, we don’t lose our jobs in 4 Novembers-—we go to jail. When traitors in Washingrad break the Supreme Law of the Land, they need to be dragged to jail for treason. Only the States remain equipped to press for this.
Bottom line, there’s no recliner-bound push-button remote way to restore a Constitutional Republic. Unfortunately it will take sacrifices and courage on the part of individual Americans and of the 50 States.
The States and the People are the only guardians the Founders left to enforce our Constitution. If we are not men enough to demand these rights, we do not deserve them. Our Fathers did not ask for Liberty; they demanded it.
Individual amendments do not require a full Constitutional Convention. I would never think of opening that Pandora’s Box and argued against that just last April in The Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124105694445071685.html
Actually aamendments are a State initiative and one of the few remaining bulwarks of State power. If 2/3 of the States approve the Amendment, D.C. is stuck with it. it then remains for the People and the States (Amendment X.)to enforce it through the courts.
Great response. The Tenth Amendment leaves the People and the States as the sole guardians of their own liberties. Several states are reasserting their rights even as we speak. Virginia has banned mandatory health insurance laws, putting it on a direct collision course with D.C. if the Marxist bill passes there. Theirty-four other States are presently writing similar laws. All of this means an inevitable showdown at the Supreme Court. The States MUST continue to press for their own rights (and ours) and to curtail Washingrad’s usurped power. My amendment suggestion is one attempt to reduce Washingrad’s POWER by limiting it to its AUTHORITY alone.
Absolutely! The original purpose of the Senate was to be the watchdog for the rights of the individual States. The 17th Amendment reduced the Senate to a superfluous House of Representatives...neither of which represents anything but itself.
Yes, but the “foregoing powers” are enumerated, not a suggested starting point.
You are correct: 3/4 of the States; not 2/3 as I erroneously stated.
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