I never said that ALL issues must be done at the state level. Read the Tenth Amendment. Anything not reserved to the Feds goes to the states. As you note, establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof, cannot be properly regulated by the Feds. It IS written in the Constitution. the Founders were also aware of homosexuality AND abortion. Since they mentioned neither in the Constitution, and they explicitly wrote the Tenth Amendment, they explicitly reserved this fight to the states. Why are you so afraid of a federal government not having authority over defining religious sacraments?
Same goes for our belief in the original founding documents.
Sorry, no. Our "beliefs" in "funding documents" (outside of those accepted by the several States and the new Congress) have absolutely zero legal bearing.
The right to life is the first right mentioned in the Declaration of Independence when it mentions the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The Declaration has no legal weight. I understand that you wish to use this easy argument to continue to try to use the overbearing Federal government for your own ends, but you legal argument is beyond new-born-kitten weak.
Either we believe that as a nation and grant that right to life as a nation to the most helpless of our citizens, babies in the womb or we are liars.
Now YOU are telling others what to believe... and hypocrisy has never exactly scared away our politicians. (Further, dichotomies certainly existed at our Founding... like accepting slavery in the "Land of the Free".)
This states rights garbage on big issues like this is for those with wishy-washy beliefs who lack courage.
And blind desire to use the Federal Behemoth as your personal sledgehammer is for those who lack faith in the Founding Documents, and lack faith in your ability at the state level. Perhaps your pridefulness simply won't allow you to give up a chance at forcing hundreds of millions to believe what you believe, rather than just a few.
I, and our Founders, recognize that government is Evil. ("Power corrupts", etc.) However, since it's better than the alternative, it is a necessary Evil. Since it is necessary, they saw the wisdom of limiting that Evil, and keeping it out of most areas of our lives.
...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness...
I am glad that unlike you, TEA Party members know their history. They understand that the Constitution was not pulled out of thin air and assembled without foundation. The TEA Party uses the Gadsden flag, don’t tread on me, as their symbol. They understand that government derives it power from the consent of the governed and that the people have the right to abolish the government when it no longer understands that their job is to protect the unalienable rights from being violated, that the government is seeking it’s own agenda, no longer concerned about the consent of the governed.
None of these principles are found in the Constitution, but every one of them goes towards understanding that our nation’s Constitution came after an extremely costly war. Families were torn up, fortunes were lost, brothers, sons, and fathers were killed because of their belief in that declaration. After that war ended they assembled men to craft a document that would continue to provide for all the things for which they fought.
Little did they know that a mere 200 some odd years later. There would be people with the nerve to say the Declaration of Independence has no bearing on the laws of this country. Even though TEA Party understands the truth of this document, and that it is the very foundation of our nation and its laws, these people believe it should have no bearing on people at all because its wording is not in the Constitution.
If they had said something about ignoring the principles of Declaration in the Constitution years ago at its founding, look at all the trouble it would have saved us.
The Fifteenth Amendment crafted to finally agree with the Declaration in that all men are created equal, but why did we as a nation ever worry about that at all since in the beginning that was not in the Constitution. They say we should have left that up to the states.
A unborn baby’s life isn’t important even though we as a nation especially of TEA Party members believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, because that too should be left up to the states since it’s not in the Constitution.
Governments are to secure these rights by getting its power from the consent of the governed, but since consent of the governed is not in the Constitution, we should not even try to get anything done on a federal level according to you, because we just need to leave it all up to the states since it’s not in the Constitution.
So sorry but some principles this nation is founded on really are self-evident even though those who will not see refuse to open their eyes and look.
Just because it is not now in the Constitution does not mean it isn’t something important to be dealt with constitutionally. As you have stated they knew about abortion and homosexuality, they also knew about slavery. It took them years to correct that mistake.
You don’t give up just because it’s difficult. You don’t pull a Romney throw your hands up in the air and say let the states deal with it.
To this day we are paying for the 50,000,000 + American citizens (by any definition) we have murdered in the womb with illegals over taking our country. If the founders had known the extent to which this country was going to fall due to abortion and homosexuality, you can guarantee they would have put something in the Constitution about it. They just could not imagine the levels of infant murder and debauchery that exists today. Those things are tearing our country apart and this is going to have to be addressed on a national level because somethings (like slavery) are too important to who we are as a nation to be left to the states.
Some things are inherently wrong -- murder, especially of innocents. Though psychopaths don’t believe murder is wrong, most people do. As I stated before, the right to life is found on a Founding Document as you state, the Declaration of Independence, making it a founding principle. Why should I believe it is something that should be dealt with nationally? Because it is a founding principle of our country. Just because we have not gotten around to handling it properly in the Constitution, does not mean it should only be dealt with on the state level.
Not everything should be dealt with at that level but some things are too important, too much a part of what this country is about to approach it on a state level. I have faith that other individuals in the TEA Party movement have a similar understanding. When government goes awry, it needs to be fixed, and not just on a state level. Unlike you, my faith isn’t in any Founding Document. My faith is in the Creator mentioned in those founding documents.