[Jim Robinson]

"Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution lists the activities for which Congress is authorized to tax and spend. Nowhere on that list is there authority for Congress to tax and spend for: Medicare, Social Security, public education, farm subsidies, bank and business bailouts, food stamps and thousands of other activities that account for roughly two-thirds of the federal budget. Neither is there authority for congressional mandates to citizens about what type of health insurance they must purchase, how states and people may use their land, the speed at which they can drive, whether a library has wheelchair ramps, and the gallons of water used per toilet flush. The list of congressional violations of both the letter and spirit of the Constitution is virtually without end. Our derelict Supreme Court has given Congress sanction to do just about anything for which they can muster a majority vote.

James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, explained in Federalist Paper No. 45: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State."

Amen, amen, amen. I've been trying to hammer these points home for a long, long time.

[paristexas]

I’m in agreement with you, but I wonder how many of us could live without Social Security, Medicare, or other federally funded pensions and medical care. We’ve all grown up with these programs and unwittingly gotten so dependent on them, that it would be hard for many older Americans to get by without them. Family ties are not what they were, and the days of being able to count on your children’s help when you are old seem to have disappeared.

[vanilla swirl]

“Americans have several options. We can like sheep submit to those who have contempt for liberty and our Constitution. We can resist, fight and risk bloodshed and death in an attempt to force America’s tyrants to respect our liberties and Constitution. A superior alternative is to find a way to peaceably separate into states whose citizens respect liberty and the Constitution. My personal preference is a restoration of the constitutional values of limited government that made us a great nation.”

That’s incredibly naive. Any attempt to restore the Constitution will result in bloodshed. Any attempt to separate the states will result in bloodshed. “The State” has grown far too powerful to fight unless a good number of the military reject “the State” and join us. (Oh yea, “the State” can read every word we type, time to go back to typewriters and pamphlets handed out under the Liberty Tree.)

I fear that there will be a mild turnover in 2014 elections and the sheep will go back to sleep.