This is the view of the primary author of the Constitution, James Madison, and many others. You assume that if one reads Hamilton's opinion, one must automatically agree. Not necessarily.
The purpose of the Constitution was to limit the power of the Federal government. While it needed to be increased and strengthened over what was in the Articles of Confederation, the Founders were very afraid of the kind of tyranny they had thrown off. They clearly intended to limit Federal power.
The Tenth Amendment makes this extremely clear: "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."
This is reinforced by Amendment 9: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
American government has grown almost totally because of the threat of warfare.
While wars have been major contributors to the growth of government, this is not really historically accurate. The government has grown in this past century cnsistently without regard to war or peace.
Only after two more world wars had it reached any significant size. The external threat after WWII kept it larger than before.
Given that there are major external threats of a nature unconsidered by the founders and that life is much different than when households were 20 miles apart we will have a government much bigger than that generally acceptable to the far Right. There is no way to go back to simpler times.
This comes dangerously close to the doctrine of the "living Constitution." The Constitution is the rulebook for the country. When you watch sports, would you want the officials deciding in the middle of the game to change the rules "to make it fair"? Of course not. You can't just change the rules without following the procedures.
A "living Constitution" is no Constitution at all.
Liddy's book's title is mere rhetoric and has little bearing on what was reality. It is not true that people had fewer rights impinged upon by money making activities.
People had a lot more freedom to earn a living, to conduct their lives the way they wanted, to eductate their children, and so forth 50 years ago and 100 years ago. There is no way to deny that.
It is true that they could not do anything about it when comibinations of wealth and power decided to do what ever they wanted.
But they couldn't just do whatever they wanted. For one thing, there was competition. No monopoly ever existed without government protection. For another thing, no one disputes the government's right to prevent fraud and to enforce contracts (although there may be different perspectives on how to do so most effectively.) And unions arose to pressure business to do certain things to the advantage of workers (and originally to keep blacks out of the labor force, BTW.) These factors, plus the "Invisible Hand" of consumers, work together to keep business abuses in check.
However bad these were, they are not nearly as dangerous or as harmful as the violations of our liberty that come from Big Government.
Laws to prevent such things were demanded and enacted - to protect rights.
You're kidding. That may have been the stated intention, but I don't believe it. These laws were enacted to keep teh people down, increase the power of the politicians, and make people dependent on the politicians so the politicians -- most of whom, unlike the early days of the Republic, couldn't get a real job if they had to -- could stay in their cushy jobs forever.
The RATmedia hates the GOP because it is too conservative.
I posted earlier a number of issues on which it isn't. Add amnesty for illegal immigrants to that list. The Republican Party may not be out-and-out Socialist like the Dimmycraps, but it is not functionally conservative.
The New York Conservative Party has had no significant influence since Buckley's victory and only by allying with the GOP could he have had any.
Actually, I know something about the Conservative Party. It rarely elects people on its own, although it does so sometimes. The Mayor of Buffalo was elected on teh Conservative Party ticket alone 7 years after Sen. Buckley's victory. The Conservative Party can exercise a measure of control over the New York Republican Party (which needs it) by conferring or withholding its endorsement, thus pulling the NY GOP to the right. That is a good thing.
Libertarians are not to the right of the GOP just the opposite.
I'm not a Liberatarian, but this really depends on how you define "right." If "right" is toward limited government, then the Libertarians are indeed to the right of the GOP. I will say for the Libertarians that they are committed to limited government, and I can't say that for the Republicans.
If, OTOH, you define "right" in moral/social-issue terms, then the Libertarians are to the Republicans' left. Social issues are where I have the most problems with them. Economically, we're very close.
And one things libertarians have done (thanks to Rand) is to bring back the moral argument for capitalism. The practical argument for the superiority of the free market is strong enough, but the moral argument for the superiority of the market is just as strong. Both make our case.
LIke it or not the "General Welfare" clause gives the feds immense undefined (purposely) powers.
See my comments abouve about the "living Constitution." Using this argument is effectively an argument for unlimited government power. Anything any politician wants to do can be attributed to the "general welfare." I'm sure you didn't mean to imply that the power of the Federal government is unlimited, or virtually so.
This is why a right to secede, as we did to the British Empire, is important. As Dr. Walter Williams points out, if the states can't secede, they have lost their ultimate enforcement mechanism and the Federal government can do anything it wants to them.
To quote Madison, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...." And he should know; he wrote it.
Congress is clearly given the power to regulate federal elections and if the limits on contributions enacted earlier are constitutional (as the Court said) then I don't see how the recent CFR law is not.
The Court has said that money is speech. The First Amendment protects speech. The provision barring any advertisement by an outside group mentioning any candidate's name within 30 days of an election is clearly unconstitutional, as it restricts the speech not of politicians or the media, but of citizens.
The precedent of Buckley v. Valeo will get this bill tossed, IMO.