Constitution- Who Cares?

It goes without saying among the few of us who care about such things that the United States has veered off track from the constitutional republic envisioned by its Founders. From a system of limited government, where the federal government had a few defined powers expressly delegated by the Constitution (shown, right) with the remainder left to the states, we have morphed into a regime under which the federal government defines its own powers and progressively turns the states into its own administrative units.

Part of the answer is monumental constitutional ignorance. People don't seem to understand that the Constitution is supposed to limit government, not just establish procedures by which the government operates. It says that the president must be at least 35 years of age and native-born, but it also contains a Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms that the federal government must not infringe upon. It enumerates the specific powers of the central government. The average American simply has no idea what the Constitution says or does.

Of course, it has long been the case that the Constitution was too radical for the American people. For a number of years, polls have shown majorities opposing protections afforded by the Bill of Rights when they were not identified as such. This doesn't even include the Tenth Amendment, but amendments that are ostensibly popular among liberals such as the First and the Fourth. So it isn't clear that a majority of Americans would support the Constitution even if they understood it.

This is tragic, because apart from constitutional government there is no basis for lawful government. In order for the law to act as a shield and not a weapon, the lawmakers cannot be a law unto themselves. We are devolving to precisely that point.

After all, we argue for and against various government spending programs or adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare on the alleged merits of these proposals. Nobody bothers to ask whether any of these proposals are constitutional. Those who support them are never challenged to show where in the Constitution the federal government specifically received its authorization to intrude in that area. The columnist Joe Sobran has quipped that anything called a "program" is unconstitutional.

Constitutional conservatives don't always help their own cause. The reality is that while a government unconstrained by the Constitution is in principle tyrannical, most Americans are still free to live their lives largely as they please. So talk about our tyrannical government produces nods of agreement from true believers, but causes the average voter to roll their eyes. Rather than educating people about the Constitution, many constitutionalists would rather reinforce "black helicopter" and "tinfoil hat" stereotypes and drive soccer moms into the arms of Hillary Clinton.

Yes, horrible things happened at Waco and Ruby Ridge at the hands of the federal government. But most Americans don't identify with lunatics who believe they are Jesus Christ and start bizarre religious cults. Nor do they identify with nutty white separatists who want to isolate themselves from modernity. This does not mean that any of these people deserved to die. What it does mean is that Joe Average is not going to look at the burning compound in Waco on TV and say, "Wow, those people were so much like me, I fear that I could be next." Sure, some pretty awful things have happened to fairly ordinary people on account of the drug war, but by and large, the federal government hasn't given ordinary people much of a reason to worry.

Most people live in nice homes and enjoy a nice standard of living. They are free to go to school where they want, work where and what profession they want, live where they want, marry who they want, etc. Millions of Americans no longer even pay income taxes. The federal government doesn't significantly impede them in anyway. Once in a while somebody forgets to pay their income taxes, or runs afoul of racial quotas, or has their livelihood ruined by some regulation like the farmers of Klamath Falls. But it doesn't happen to enough people to spark much of a popular uprising the way inflation-induced "bracket creep" did 20 years ago.

A welfare state is not this writer's idea of a free society, but it is a great deal freer than totalitarianism. The difference between the two is as great as the difference between Bill Clinton and Joseph Stalin. People who can't tell this difference are why advocates of limited government get tarred as alarmists and nutcases.

Of course, some of the power gained by the federal government has not actually led to a net increase in government power over citizens' lives. The Constitution limited the federal government, but did not originally offer any protections against the depredations of state governments, which were still free (subject to their own constitutions) to establish churches, knock people's doors down and otherwise deny their rights. Some of the powers the federal government has gained resulted from curbing anti-freedom policies enacted at the state level.

The fact that Americans still enjoy a greater degree of freedom than most of the rest of the world does not mean that concerns about unconstitutional government are unwarranted. Just because we have retained our freedoms after the limits on government were uprooted doesn't mean that unlimited government will never be exploited for evil means. Some people suggest secession as a means of combating big government that doesn't respect the Constitution. In principle, secession is a valid tool for escaping a rapacious central government. But who is going to secede from what? It is not as if there is one constitutionally pure section of the country that is being oppressed by another. The American people have democratically chosen to go down the path of big government, North, South, East and West. The differences are only in degree.

Life is really good in the United States. The downside is, while preserving the Constitution may keep it that way, things being so good make it more difficult to make that case. Yet it is important to understand why this is so rather than make all kinds of proclamations that insure that constitutionalism will simply be ignored.

Methinks that "jargon and slogan" is your jargon and slogan, as that is your response to every statement or question. You made inaccurate points with regard to police protection, weights and measures and other issues and were asked valid questions regarding these inaccuracies. You chose not to respond to them, but only to pose your own question in return and dismiss everything you disagree with as "jargon and slogan."

I find you in an inconsistency here. First, you assert that all sorts of essential functions being performed by the federal government, ranging from agricultural policy to law enforcement, would end and be pushed back to the state governments that are incapable of performing them if we adhered to the Constitution. Second, you assert that the federal government already adheres to the Constitution, as evidenced by the fact that "conservatives" control the House of Representatives.

Well, which is it? If the federal government is already following the Constitution to the letter, then no government policies would be interrupted. Please actually explain this rather than dismissing this observation as jargon and slogan.

"Don’t you just love all the folks who define freedom as a license from the government"

You've got that right verboten. The alleged "LincolnDefender" does not address all the things the government has done wrong prior to 9/11 and post 9/11.

While he has no problem with the trampling of the 4th amendment for US citizens can he defend the US Immigration service, FBI, CIA, NSA that were the real failures leading up to 9/11?

In typical government fashion, don't go after the group (I am speaking within the USA)of people we know are less than supportive of the USA but screw the rights of US Citizens.

I pray to God there is no Allah for if there is, Allah is one evil deity.

What isn't interstate about agriculture?

It is only interstate if it crosses from the jurisdiction of one state to another (thus the term "interstate"). Agriculture in all its aspects should not be enveloped by the commerce clause simply because some product might cross state lines.
Do you really contend that the intrusion by the government has enabled better markets or products?

OVER HERE
(Tune: WWI ditty "Over There")

Over here, over here,
freedom's gone, we are doomed over here.
For the feds are winning, the Founders spinning
in their graves, I hear them over here.

Over here, over here,
We are taxed to the max over here.
Bureaucrats are feeding, taxpayers bleeding
Like bone dry turnips over here.

Over here, over here,
Schools produce all those sheep over here.
From the bull they're hearing, they love the shearing,
And line up, smiling, over here.

Over here, over here,
Solons buy all those votes over here.
With the sheeples' money and think it's funny
And know they're always in the clear.

Over here, over here,
Don't resist they insist over here.
IRS is comin', your books they'll summon
For audit, lookin' up your rear.

Over here, over here,
ATF comin' in over here.
With their guns a blazin', with tanks they're razin'
That house, those kids they're gonna sear.

Over here, over here,
DEA fightin' drugs over here.
Bill of Rights in tatters, not that it matters
To folks with cable and a beer.
For it's over, I know it's over,
For my kids I'll weep, 'cause it's over over here.

(Permission granted to use if credit given to author, Dick “Mr. Sunshine” Bachert)

Joe Average does good to be able to spell the word constitution, let alone have a rational thought about its meaning and purpose.

Most constitutionalists or libertarians of similar bent that I have come across have at best a comic book quality of understanding of the Constitution. They like to puff and preen over their allegedly vast "true-believer" knowledge, but in truth they all mangle and force that grand document into narrow, cramped pigeonholes of their own biases and prejudices.

People who fairly understand the Constitution are very rare indeed.

There was a bill once which required the federal government to cite the Constitutional justification for all laws. It failed, of course.

Good point. This is about the same question the United States Supreme Court asked the Florida Supreme Court regarding the recounts. I think it went someting like - What Florida law(s) did you refer to when making your decision? Not one of the eight morons could answer it.

It is only interstate if it crosses from the jurisdiction of one state to another (thus the term "interstate"). Agriculture in all its aspects should not be enveloped by the commerce clause simply because some product might cross state lines. Do you really contend that the intrusion by the government has enabled better markets or products?

According to their writings, the founders included the interstate commerce clause in the Constitution to allow the federal government to keep the states from engaging in trade wars. They never intended the federal government to have controlling authority over anything that could be bought or sold.

The interpretation of the commerce clause that is used today was developed by FDR, and was the basis for enabling Congress to implement the New Deal. Every federal law that is passed and every bureaucracy that is created under this theory of the commerce clause is a validation of FDR and his policies and doctrines.

I have repeatedly asked and not one of you have given a real concrete example. You asked me for an example and I gave you one, genetically altered seeds.

It's because you questions were faulty. For example, you asked :

When, where, how and why am I wrong about a need for many national policies on agriculture?

The question is not, or should not be, if a national policy on agriculture is needed. It's whether or not it's constitutional. Even if I agreed 100% about the need for a Federal Department of Agriculture to regulate anything, and everything, to do with agriculture, that doesn't mean it's therefor constitutional. Proving the NEED for a federal agency is only a good argument for attempting to pass a constitutional amendment that would grant the power to tax the citizenry in order to provide funding for the federal agency that you insist is so needed. If that Amendment passed, that federal power would be every bit as constitutional as the Army, Navy, or to coin money.

Want to answer any of the questions I asked you? Or will you just go on insisting that if you think it's a good idea, it's therefor constitutional?

FDR's novel theory on the meaning of the commerce clause was little more than a means to an end. The desired end was to grant the federal government powers and authority that it had not previously wielded without being burdened with have to get a constitutional amendment to authorize it. Regardless of ends it was used for, the fact remains that supporting this policy means supporting creative semantics as an acceptable substitute for public debate, vote and ratification of amendment. If that's conservative, then we should be really impressed with Clinton's defense strategy of arguing over the definition of "is".

When they were employed by the airlines, your argument would not have washed, because the Constitution only limits the government, not a private entity like an airline. But now that they're officially feral employees, I do believe that you are correct.

No you're wrong, even pre federalization of airport security these clowns were enforcing federal regulations even with previously less intrusive warrantless searches. No government agency can legitimately authorize anyone else to engage in activity they have no authority to engage in. For example you can loan out your car to a friend but you have no legitimate authority to loan out your neighbors' car.

One example in the field I work in, just to shoot you down:

Where does it say in the Contsitution or in the enabling acts of the FDA that the FDA has right to approve or disapprove medical equipment? This is a right that the beaurocrats of the FDA have take upon themselves.

Most of the violations of our Constitution are not only violations of that document, they are violations of the acts that established the government agency making the rules that are the violations.

We have an out of control, self feeding, metastasizing government that functions with NO concept of the Constitution.

By the way, the type of extra-Constitutional growth of government described above has occured under both Democrats and Republicans, without visible distinction. Only the Libertarians clearly see what is happening.

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