The Neo-Con Assault on the Constitution

Lewrockwell.com ^ | April 25, 2002 | Thomas J. DiLorenzo

[Korth]

WorldNetDaily book editor Joel Miller recently authored one of the best common-sense constitutional arguments against the government’s failed “war on drugs” that I’ve seen (“Alan Keyes is Wrong!”, April 23). It was a response to neo-conservative Alan Keyes, who had written in support of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s use of the federal Controlled Substances Act to exert federal dominion over drug regulation by the states. Keyes was addressing Oregon’s “euthanasia laws” that permit the dispensation of lethal drugs, and Miller agreed with him that “killing yourself . . . is not medically legitimate.”

The bigger issue, though, is what constitutional right the federal government has to exert such control over drug regulation – or any kind of regulation for that matter – by the states. As Miller pointed out, Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which delineates the legitimate appropriations of Congress, does not include regulating drugs (or the vast majority of what the federal government does today, for that matter). The Tenth Amendment, moreover, reserves such powers “to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Miller interestingly quotes historian David Musto as having observed that until the late nineteenth century, the federal government laid no claim to such regulatory powers; such things were the responsibilities of the states, or the people. Miller is correct to invoke the Tenth Amendment in his argument, but this Amendment was all but destroyed during the War Between the States, after which federal political hegemony was established. As Dean Sprague wrote in Freedom Under Lincoln, “States Rights, which prior to 1860 had been as important a part of northern political beliefs as southern, were overturned.” This includes, first and foremost, the Tenth Amendment.

Miller also correctly observed that the “progressive era” federal regulatory agencies “were profoundly unconstitutional and un-American” and are “the elder bedmates of the coercive, expansionist politics of modern-day liberalism.” Exactly. This, however, is exactly the position that neo-conservatives like Alan Keyes hold.

There is a method in the neo-con assault on the Constitution: They routinely invoke the part of the Declaration of Independence about “all men are created equal,” but not the rest of the document, as our “national creed,” even if the policies they advance in the name of that creed are in deep conflict with the Constitution itself. For example, in Keyes’s article he bases his argument in support of federal drug regulation on the equality principle of the Declaration. He claims that the Constitution supposedly creates a “federal regime of ordered liberty” by which democratic mobs supposedly “govern themselves in dignity and justice” (I’m not making this up, honest).

To neo-cons like Keyes, the Constitution supposedly prohibits the interpretation of federal law by anyone but the federal government itself because the people of individual states are supposedly incapable of doing so; only “the people of the whole nation” are “competent” to perform this task. But his makes no sense, for there is no such thing as “the people as a whole” acting on this or any other issue. The fact that a small percentage of us votes every four years or so does not imply that we are acting with competence as “a whole people” on this or any other issue. A state referendum on a specific issue, on the other hand, is much more meaningful in terms of citizen participation.

Keyes barely ever makes a speech or writes a column anymore where he does not invoke the Declaration and make a not-too-subtle comparison between himself and Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, he frequently states that his main passion, the pro-life movement of today, is the equivalent of the abolition movement of the nineteenth century. (This comparison is not entirely accurate, however, if one acknowledges Pulitzer Prize winning Lincoln biographer David Donald’s statement that “Lincoln was not an abolitionist”).

The link between Lincoln and neo-con ideology is clear: Lincoln falsely claimed that the Union preceded the states, and was therefore not subject to their sovereignty. The neo-cons make the exact same argument in advancing whatever policy cause they happen to be involved in, whether it is drug regulation, abortion, censoring of television, waging war, etc. This is why so many neo-cons, such as the ones associated with Keyes and the Claremont Institute, are such slavish idol worshippers when it comes to Lincoln. They use his martyred “sainthood” to promote their political agenda through an ever more powerful federal government. That’s why they’re described as “neo-cons” and are not a part of the Old Right tradition: They are comfortable with Big Government, as long as it fights their wars and enacts their social and regulatory programs. This is one reason why there is such a large “Lincoln Cult” among conservative (but mostly left/liberal) academics and think tank employees.

But the alleged supremacy of the federal government over the states is a lie. It was established by the most violent means, a war that killed the equivalent of more than 5 million Americans (standardizing for today’s population), not logic, argumentation, or even legal precedent. It is a lie because:

Each American colony declared sovereignty from Great Britain on its own; After the Revolution each state was individually recognized as sovereign by the defeated British government; The Articles of Confederation said, “each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence”; The states then decided to secede from the Articles and dropped the words “Perpetual Union” from the title; Virginia’s constitutional ratifying convention stated that “the powers granted resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression.” This right was also asserted for all other states; In The Federalist #39 James Madison wrote that ratification of the Constitution would be achieved by the people “not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong,” flatly contradicting the contrary assertions of Keyes and other neo-cons; The Constitution always speaks of “the United States” in the plural, signifying that the individual states were united in forming the federal government as their agent while maintaining their sovereignty over it; The Constitution can only be amended with the authority of the states; Until 1914 U.S. Senators were appointed by state legislatures so that the states could retain a degree of sovereignty over federal “officials,” who now have carte blanche to rule over us as they wish.

Only by endlessly repeating what Emory University philosopher Donald Livingston calls Lincoln’s “spectacular lie” that the federal government created the states (and not the other way around), and that the nation was supposedly founded by “the whole people” and not the people of the states in political conventions can the neo-cons continue to champion the further centralization of governmental power to serve their own political ends, whatever they may be.

Of course, it’s not only the neo-cons who perpetuate this lie. Liberals and other assorted leftists do so as well. The left-wing journalist Garry Wills, for example, praises Lincoln’s “open air sleight of hand” in effectively rewriting the true history of the founding (not unlike so many of the former communist governments rewrote their own histories during the twentieth century) because it enabled us to embrace “egalitarianism” and the massive welfare state in whose name it has been advanced (Lincoln at Gettysburg).

Columbia University law professor George P. Fletcher echoes the neo-con mantra in Our Secret Constitution, where he celebrates the fact that the centralized state that was imposed on the nation by the Lincoln administration has led directly to the adoption of myriad “welfare programs,” “affirmative action measures,” the New Deal, modern workplace regulation, etc. He is quite gleeful in his description of the Gettysburg Address as “the preamble of the second American constitution.” This is not necessarily a written constitution, however, but one that has been imposed by federal policy.

This transformation of American government from one in which federalism, states rights, and the rights of nullification and secession allowed the citizens of the states to retain sovereignty over the federal government to a consolidated, monolithic Leviathan, means that Americans now live under what historian Clinton Rossiter called a “constitutional dictatorship.” He used this phrase in a book of the same name which appropriately featured an entire chapter on the “Lincoln Dictatorship.”

[Reagan Man]

Let me get this straight.

Man oh man. You haven't changed, since our last encounter. You're still as dense as ever. Your like a broken record. You enjoy rehashing the same worn out crap over and over, again and again. Then, when I don't agree with your irrational, illogical and unreasonable assessments, you start throwing in the ad hominem attacks. Indeed, you're holding true to form, once again. You always seem to find it necessary, to send out a clarion call for your fellow extremist and malcontented buddies, to come and support this fringe political ideology you all espouse. I guess that gives you some comfort, knowing there are a few people around, who think like you do. LOL.

As I've told in our past exchanges, I don't look at everything in life, in an absolute fashion, nor do I overreact to everything, as you do. That's why I consider you a reactionary absolutist, with extremist fringe overtones. You prefer to look at the world through a form of tunnel vision. I do not. You may be politically active in Virginia State politics, but you really lack basic common sense. Anyone that can call George W.Bush a neoconservative, is either ignorant of the facts, plain stupid, or is living in a delusional world of their own making. President Bush is the same type of mainstream conservative, that Ronald Reagan was. Bush hasn't surrendered his conservative principles. Those individuals who follow the core traditional values of the national conservative movement, remain strongly in support of President Bush and his policy agenda for America. It is you, who is out of sync with real political conservatism.

Whether I disagree with President Bush about CFR, is now a moot point. The USSC will soon hear the arguments set forth by anti-CFR lawsuits, that have been filed over it being unconstitutional. They will most definitely shoot down those portions of the legislation that infringes on our guaranteed right to free speech. I'm confident of that, as is 75% of FReepers who answered the poll question. And Republicans will not be prevented from getting elected and being in the majority in 2002 and 2004. Stop being so paranoid. A little optimism goes a long way in the real world of American politics.

Actually, it is painflully apparent that I know a great deal more about politics, power and the presidency than you do!

According to whose standards? Yours? That's a joke.

When you think of something relevent to say, I'll be around. Until then, have at it.

[Reagan Man]

Your explanation is clear, to the point, and 100% correct. I might add that, contrary to his statement, I am not myself making up definitions out of hand. I have heard neo-cons refered to as such in various articles, even though they were never on the left at all in their earlier lives.

You're in good company. You're as dense as rightwing2.

Neoconservative has one meaning and only one meaning. You can't change the definitive definition of neoconservative, just because it fits a certain catch phrase, used by political pundits from Chris Matthews to Pat Buchanan. Just because some political writers choose to create their own definitions for certain words and use those definitions, out of context, doesn't make it correct, or acceptable.

I support Israel and PM Sharon, that doesn't make me a neoconservative. Neo = new! I've been a Reagan conservative for nearly thirty years now. I'm not a new to the conservative movement. It's time you applied some common sense to this argument. The truth is staring you right in front of your face.

[Korth]

To better understand WhiskeytoomuchPapa, you have to understand that, according to him, he learned his values and principles from the T.V. show Star Trek. Honest to God, that is what he bragged about!!

So how does he reconcile his support for the actions of the north against the south with the prime directive of non-interference in the affairs of other peoples as discussed many times on Star Trek?

[Korth]

The DemocRats incrementalized us to death for 35/40 years and now people like you expect everything to be fixed overnight.

I do not claim to speak for anyone else, but I certainly do not expect everything to be fixed overnight. But what we see is more erosion of our traditional american freedoms by Bush and the republicans in congress. Things are certainly not getting better when the 'incrementalism' eroding our liberties is still going on under republicans as it has for decades under democrats.Everybodies' idol RR couldn't stop it, Bush Sr. couldn't stop it, yet you expect GW to fix things in his first year and a half in office.

During the 90s, I read several times that Reagan and his advisors had made a conscience decision to concentrate their energies on defeating communism rather than trying to divide their efforts between domestic issues and foreign policy. The elder Bush made no effort at all to try to stop the steady erosion of our traditional american freedoms, he did a great deal to further the process along.

[Sandy]

Here you go, from Neoconservatism.com (probably a more reliable source than a dictionary which defines liberalism as "a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties"):

neoconservatism: a political perspective which is committed to cultural traditionalism, democratic capitalism, and a foreign policy promoting freedom and American interests around the world

[Yardstick]

*Meaty thread bump*

[Reagan Man]

So you've found the neoconservative website. Congrats. But so what.

A web log devoted to advancing the political perspective known as neoconservatism, as articulated by Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and others.

As I already stated, Irving Kristol is the father of the neoconservative movement in America. He was also a self-professed liberal intellectual before he became a neoconservative. Let's be honest, being a neoconservative, isn't all bad. Truth is, you can't be a neo-con, unless you were a former liberal. Neo-cons and traditional conservatives, are in agreement on many issues. Just not on all issues.

Here's an interesting article on neoconservatism.

**************************************************************************************

What “Neoconservative Agenda”?
Neocons are the newly fashionable targets of media derision.

By Neil Seeman, a senior policy analyst at the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank.
March 6, 2002 9:10 a.m.

The Left has been slinging around the "neoconservative agenda" epithet for years. Nothing new here. It's one of those gems you might find littered in fascinating periodicals with names like the Journal of Canadian Studies.

Before 9/11, anti-GMO terrorists (and surly assistant professors at Canadian universities) loved to rile free-marketeers with the neocon slam — as in, "Your tall skinny latté's got 'neoconservative agenda' written all over it, man."

After 9/11, terms like "neoconservative agenda" and "neoconservative" have acquired a new frisson in the anti-war lexicon.

As is his wont, Pat Buchanan fired the first fusillade. In an op-ed for USA Today entitled, "Whose War is This?," he let fly at the "neoconservative media," the "neoconservative line," and the "neoconservative movement":

The war Netanyahu and the neocons want, with the United States and Israel fighting all of the radical Islamic states, is the war bin Laden wants, the war his murderers hoped to ignite when they sent those airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

As the possibility that President Bush might expand the war on terrorism gains momentum, so too does the histrionics of the anti-war anti-neocons. Herewith Hardball's Chris Matthews, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Who's writing this script? Who hijacked our war?
The answer: a coterie of "neo-conservative" thinkers led by Weekly Standard publisher William Kristol and deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
Out of the ashes of Sept. 11, they and their rightist associates have found what they've long wanted: an American government heading toward war in the Middle East. They have diverted the hunt for bin Laden much as the Crusades of a millennium ago were diverted from saving the Holy Land to idiotic conquests of Belgrade, Constantinople and any number of targets along the way.Kristol and Wolfowitz have wanted this for a long time.

Odd that. Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan. Two peas in a pod.

Neocons are the newly fashionable targets of media derision. Middle East News Online calls neoconservatives "consistent: they always opt for war, the bigger the better." The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says they "believe America as a righteous country ought to impose its will on rogue nations throughout the world." Columnist Don Feder says they're prone to "anti-Islamic triumphalist warmongering." For neoconservatives, opined the International Herald Tribune "acts of undeclared war are what win respect for the United States and demonstrate its 'credibility.'"

And yet, statistically, the notion that a cabal of neoconservative, fiercely pro-Israel ideologists is singly driving the war's expansion doesn't compute.

An International Herald Tribune/Pew Research Center poll of U.S. opinion leaders in politics, media, business, culture, and government reports that 50 percent would support a U.S. attack against regimes, such as Iraq or Somalia, if they were found to support terrorism. That's a quantum leap beyond the combined staff at every right-leaning periodical and every Reaganite think tank.

Sorry folks: There's no vast right-wing conspiracy here.

Curiously, though, the anti-war, anti-neocon cant continues. Neocons are "Washington's War Party"; the neocons are implacable and blood thirsty; and so on and so forth.

Not so long ago, neoconservatives were a few estranged liberals, mugged by reality. Now they're everywhere, mugging America's entire political agenda? I don't think so.

[Sandy]

There's a thread-in-progress on the exact topic: What is a Neo-Conservative?

[Reagan Man]

Interesting thread. If you scrolled through it, you would see, there is many different variations of what a neocon actually is. But one thing is consistent throughout, neocons are former liberals, who have embraced certain aspects of political conservatism. I'm not generally fond of neo-cons. I detest their overzealous foreign policy agenda and their desire for an activist role for the Republican Party, in Washington DC politics. They don't seem to have a great concern about the fraud, waste and abuse that exists throughout the federal budget and in every government department, program and agency.

I just don't like attacks against neocons, being overplayed and portrayed as an attack on all conservative-republicans. I believe this is done by the liberal media and many on the far right, and is detrimental to the Republican Party's ability to fashion and promote a unified front, against the Democratic Party and its liberal base. Such fractional politics is undermining conservative efforts to hold onto power in Wash-DC. Many on the political rightwing, better wakeup and smell the coffee, before its too late.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Rarely has any of the defenders of slaveocracy gotten a fact right that I have seen on this forum so I might have to examine this engagement to see what did happen.

Whatever it was I am sure it compares precisely with one of the most significant battles in the history of the world.

An engagement which at its most significant redirected Union forces away from an entirely irrelevent theater of the War surely compares to the most famous in history which if lost by the Spartans could have changed the face of the Western world.

[justshutupandtakeit]

A "culture" devoted to terror and misery and ignorance for the vast majority of its people is worthy of any "slur" I can come up with. I as happily "slur" the Murderous Minions of Mad Mo and the Islamaniacs as the Slaveocracy and all the foolish defending it.

As one apparently willing to swallow the outrageous and easily seen through lies necessary to Defend Slaveocracy I must advise you to stay out of situations where fast talkin men prey on the honor of gullible young things.

[metesky]

But what we see is more erosion of our traditional american freedoms by Bush and the republicans in congress.

Making more laws is the only way little tyrants can justify their otherwise meaningless lives. It makes them feel important and screams loudly to their constituent sheep, "Look at me, I'm trying to improve your life. Where would you be without ME."

See the upcoming grab at the funeral industry, coming about because of one criminal family in Geogia.

Re: Reagan and Bush I. You are correct on both counts. Reagen from benign neglect, Bush I because he was a gub'mint man most of his life.

[davidjquackenbush]

Sorry if you have already pointed out most of DiLorenzo's fallacies, errors of fact, and baseless assertions in this article. I just found this thread, and haven't the time right now to read it. I just want to point out that this:

For example, in Keyes’s article he bases his argument in support of federal drug regulation on the equality principle of the Declaration.

is typical DiLorenzo incapacity to read. The article by Keyes has no defense of the Constitutionality of federal drug regulation law. It is about the propriety of the Attorney General basing his obligatory interpretation of existing federal law (unless we want him to simply pass his own judgment on the constitutionality of each federal law) on state referenda or on some more national principle, particularly when the verdict of the state referendum contradicts the most fundamental principle of federal law. Keyes' opinion on the constitutionality of federal drug law is simply absent from this article.

There are plenty of other, more obvious, errors in the article. But seeing this one depends on having read the Keyes article -- because as usual you can't trust DiLorenzo to honestly report the views of those he disagrees with.

[tpaine]

You say:

" ---- the verdict of the state referendum contradicts the most fundamental principle of federal law."

The Oregon assisted suicide referendum contradicts the most fundamental principle of which federal law? -- And, - is this same law based on any constitutional fundamentals?

[GOPcapitalist]

Whatever it was I am sure it compares precisely with one of the most significant battles in the history of the world. An engagement which at its most significant redirected Union forces away from an entirely irrelevent theater of the War

Those of us down here in Texas would have to respectfully disagree with you on that. If you knew your history, you would also know that Texas ports were among the last to remain in confederate hands and accordingly drew a good ammount of yankee attention. Union assaults were made on Corpus Christi and Galveston, not to mention the Sabine campaign. The reason you cast Texas as an "irrelevant" theater stems primarily from the fact that, despite many yankee efforts to advance into it, the confederates successfully impeded them at the coast. At the time of the war, Texas became a major frustration for Butler and the yankees in general following New Orleans...even to the point that they lied to the northern newspapers and claimed to have taken Corpus when they had not done so because conceding their frustrations would have been embarassing for a state they thought they could overrun.

surely compares to the most famous in history which if lost by the Spartans could have changed the face of the Western world.

In military odds, definately. I have already ventured to say that the odds against the Texan confederates at Sabine were greater than those against the Spartans, making their feat all the more significant.

And though NO battle in the entire war between the states could reasonably be compared in results to a saving point of the western world, Sabine Pass could easily be said to have had a similar effect on the history of the state of Texas itself.

[davidjquackenbush]

The Oregon assisted suicide referendum contradicts the most fundamental principle of which federal law? -- And, - is this same law based on any constitutional fundamentals?

Of all federal law -- because the Declaration states the principles which justify the existence of the federal government. The Declaration is the "constitutional fundamentals." Without the principles of the Declaration underlying the Constitution the Constitution is just an agreement a bunch of dead white guys reached two centuries ago, with no moral or legal authority over anybody. And the Declaration makes securing the unalienable (unable to be given away) right to life a central part of the very purpose of government, including federal government. Whatever debate we may have about the constitutionality of federal regulation of drugs, while there is such a law on the books, a federal officer cannot accept that prescribing suicidal drugs is legitimate medical practice, or legitimate at all, without repudiating the Declaration.

[tpaine]

You seem to think YOUR beliefs about life, - death , -- & liberty, -- trump mine.

I asked you if the Oregon assisted suicide referendum contradicts the most fundamental principle of ANY federal law? -- And, - is this supposed 'law' based on any constitutional fundamentals?

Your answer was a backpedaled, moralistic no, just as I expected.

Life & liberty, as mentioned in the declartion, - are not religious concepts, they are political principles.

[davidjquackenbush]

You seem to think YOUR beliefs about life, - death , -- & liberty, -- trump mine.

Nope. I think the American beliefs on life, death and liberty, on which the national union was explicitly and formally based at the beginning, in what Jefferson and Madison called "the fundamental act of union of these states,", i.e. the Declaration, DOES trump your beliefs about those matters.

I asked you if the Oregon assisted suicide referendum contradicts the most fundamental principle of ANY federal law? -- And, - is this supposed 'law' based on any constitutional fundamentals?

Perhaps the notion of "principle" is unclear to you . The principles of a thing are distinct from the thing. Principles are that from which a thing comes, or upon which a thing is based. My answer to you, and the point of the Keyes column, was that Ashcroft was justified in looking to the principles of ALL federal law -- the foundation of all federal law. The Declaration expresses that foundation. Without some such foundation, there is no basis that I am aware of that obliges me to even obey federal law. When an officer of the executive branch finds himself obliged to pass judgment on the particular matters about which a federal law obliges him to pass judgment, the formal and official criteria to which he must look are not the opinions of one out of fifty states, but of the national principles that illuminate the meaning and purpose of all federal law.

Your answer was a backpedaled, moralistic no, just as I expected.

Life & liberty, as mentioned in the declartion, - are not religious concepts, they are political principles.

I don't know what kind of ACLU "gotcha" you think this is, but I find it incoherent. The Declaration is the fundamental act of union of the American republic. It grounds our rights, and the meaning and purpose of government, in the equality and rights which the CREATOR endowed all men with. That is not a religious statement. That is the formal statement of public and civic justice on which our regime is based. You may disagree with the Declaration. But claiming that the Declaration does not commit America to recognizing the authority of Nature and of Nature's God is an act of your private and arbitrary will. The Declaration, a political document, is quite explicit, and you can call its invocation of the Creator and of the laws of nature's God "political" or "religious" as it pleases you, they are in the document, in the central passages, and it is incoherent without them.

[rightwing2]

"Neo-con" is not exactly a term of endearment. It is generally used to refer to someone who claims to adhere to Conservative ideaology yet moves leftward on various (usually social and/or foreign policy) issues.

neocons = portfolio patriots

conservative values are jetisoned to improve the bottom line.

A neo-con advocates big and ever growing government to implement their socially conservative political agenda.

Traditional conservatives advocate limited government. This is almost never the case with the neo-con. A neo-con just loves BIG government, so long as it is doing his bidding.

Reagan Man, here are three excellent definitions of neoconservatism to educate your thick skull on the meaning of the term according to its usage today. You, no doubt, in your pre-evolutionary mental state will go back to your religious devotion to a dictionary, no less, and your defense of President Bush's neoconservative policies and indefensible appeasements of the left with his Republican Party betraying signature of the campaign finance bill, support for amnesty of 2 million illegal aliens and, acceleration of Clinton's appeasement policy for the Butchers of Beijing and destruction of 75% of our strategic nuclear deterrent. I guess RINOs like you never get it, do they? You should seriously consider changing your user name to ANTI-REAGAN MAN since you stand unalterably opposed to much of the conservative principles which Reagan so proudly stood for!

[varina davis]

I'm not all that young and I'm certainly not gullible. And, I learned long ago to stay clear of dangerous situations. That said, I find most of your statements curious, given your academic background. Don't let what you learned in school interfere with your education :-)