What is the 2010 mid-term election about? However you answer that question determines the way you will vote next Tuesday.
Here’s what this election means to me.
James Madison, while introducing a bill to the first Congress in 1792, referred to the General Welfare clause of the Constitution, saying:
“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.”
Madison was prescient about the corruptibility of Congress, although in those early days of the Republic he could not have envisioned how power would gradually shift from Congress to the Executive. But recently both branches of government have hijacked the liberty of the American people as Madison feared and even more so. Government has purloined the responsibility for education from the states, kicked religion out of the schools and off the town square, limited what local and state police may do to combat crime and illegal immigrants, converted our private health system into a soviet-styled health politburo over the protests of its citizens, launched unsustainable welfare programs, and gone on a reckless spending spree allegedly to stimulate the economy and save privately-owned businesses that in the government’s opinion were “too big to fail.”
The federal government is now intruding on personal matters such as the weight of our kids, imposing taxes on drinks that Big Brother thinks contain “too much” sugar, demanding that restaurants list the fat content in meals, and even sticking its nose into baseball dugouts to limit the use of smokeless tobacco. With ObamaCare the federal government has gone so far as to mandate that everyone buy health insurance – arguably unconstitutionally – and legislated an onerous law compelling businesses to file 1099s on all purchases exceeding $600 per year. Representative Chaka Fattah (D-PA) has floated a bill for a 1% transaction tax on every bank transaction and credit card purchase Americans make, and Representative Peter Fazio (D-OR) floated a similar scheme, imposing a ¼% security transaction tax on every security and commodity transaction. Our noble citizenry has been reduced to political serfs – ordered about and taxed as our political lords and regulatory masters decide.
If we want to board an airline flight we are subject to degrading screening procedures that invade our privacy but uphold political correctness concerning much more suspicious travelers. Airline travelers may be screened in a manner that leaves no doubt of the person’s sex, and in one recent outrage, a 12-year old girl was separated from her parents and subjected to the equivalent of an electronic strip search.
An alarming expropriation of citizen rights and liberties has occurred in the last two years under the most autocratic left-leaning government in the history of the Republic. This same government now tells us that it plans a robust lame duck session of Congress during which it will attempt to pass legislation that would have been political suicide in regular session. In other words, legislators who are voted out of office next Tuesday and can’t be further punished will work with their Democrat colleagues to pass their favored bills notwithstanding the will of the people they supposedly represented. So much for representative government.
The “Hope and Change” election of 2008 was supposed to usher in a new post-partisan Congress and administration. Those who were elected were expected to govern, not rule. But rule they did, and with total disregard, if not distain, for the lack of support from the people who elected them. From the days of John Locke, the social contract that gives the few the right to govern the many has been the consent of the governed. Therefore, the American revolutionaries who sought to justify their secession from the British Empire, declared, among other things: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” I wonder if the political frauds in Washington have a clue what that means, or if they do, have the slightest regard of it.
A recent Rasmussen poll revealed that 61% of Americans believe that the federal government has too much power, and a poll released Thursday showed 65% favored “throwing out the entire Congress and starting again.” Only 21% of adult Americans believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed. Two-thirds – 66% – believe that Americans are overtaxed, and 70% believe the government does not spend their tax money wisely or fairly. This is a damning indictment of a constitutionally-elected government.
In a delightful new book, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, author Pauline Meir describes the national wrangling that went on in the late 1780s, both in the public square and in the Federalist Papers, trying to decide whether to accept the plan of union proposed in the US Constitution. We know from the Federalist Papers that there were people who wanted to set themselves up as rulers rather than as representatives of the people. These people wanted a federal government to be the rationale for their rule and thus wanted more power for the government than the Constitution granted to it.
Jefferson, Madison, and others feared that there would be ongoing tension between a free society and the federal government of the new Republic – a struggle between a central authority that controls virtually every aspect of our lives versus individual liberty protected as the Founders envisioned. Madison in particular understood how government corrupts its office holders. Writing in Federalist Paper 45, he said:
"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."
My how we’ve changed. In the last two years, the federal government has been a totally-owned subsidiary of the 111th Congress – controlled by the Democrat Party and the Obama White House. Collectively they have conspired to make government the final arbiter in most if not all aspects of our lives. They want education, healthcare, energy usage, wages, prices and even private property rights to be distributed as government deems to be fair.
Words bespeak attitudes; therefore, listen to those of the political class:
Speaking at a Boston fundraiser two weeks ago, Obama said, “Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument do not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we’re hardwired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country’s scared.”
Hmm. Let me see if I’ve got this right. This country, which had no problem thinking clearly when it fought a two-front war 75 years ago – I’m talking a multi-million man war, not Iraq and Afghan scale wars – managed to survive the incompetence of the New Deal schemes that prolonged the Great Depression by at least seven years, lived on the bull’s eye during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and broke the back of the Soviet Evil Empire, this same country suddenly can’t think clearly during a protracted recession made worse by a meddling federal government? It sorta’ sounds like the Maximum Leader is saying the average schmuck in this country hasn’t the cognitive apparatus that he possesses to comprehend the current economic challenges – a quagmire made worse by his team of bush leaguers, most of whom have never held a job in the private sector. Obama’s condescending attitude should be an insult to every thoughtful American.
Then there is Representative Phil Hare (D-Ill) who in responding to a question about the constitutionality of ObamaCare during a town hall meeting, said he was "not worried about the Constitution." He then proceeded to turn his foot into a shoe sandwich by saying that the Constitution guaranteed each of us "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Of course, the Constitution says no such thing. The expression "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is found in the Declaration of Independence ratified a dozen years earlier than the Constitution.
Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA), who has no training in law and has never held a job other than as an aide to various congressmen, opined in a debate with his Republican opponent that "the Constitution is wrong" regarding campaign financing. His comments came in his assessment of the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which ruled that parts of McCain-Feingold abridged free speech:
“We have a lousy Supreme Court decision that has opened the floodgates, and so we have to deal within the realm of constitutionality. And a lot of the campaign finance bills that we have passed have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. I think the Constitution is wrong.”
That wilderness of words has to be parsed carefully if its logic is to be understood, but McGovern seems to be saying if the laws of Congress can’t pass constitutional muster then the Constitution must be wrong – not the laws!
Not to be outdone in the category of outrageous statements by elected officials, Representative Pete Stark (D-CA) responded to a constituent's question about ObamaCare by saying, "There are very few constitutional limits that would prevent the federal government from (making) rules that can affect your private life." Adding, "Yes, the federal government can do most anything in this country." The questioner responded, "People like you, sir, are destroying this nation." Her comment won shouts of approval from the audience.
Last year, a reporter asked Nancy Pelosi, "Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?" Pelosi responded: "Are you serious? Are you serious?" Pelosi agrees with fellow Californian Stark that Washington can do most anything it wants.
Congressional ignorance and contempt for our Constitution doesn’t reside only on the Democrat side of the aisle. During a town hall meeting, a constituent asked Representative Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) if he knew what Article I, Section I of the Constitution mandated. He replied that, "Article I, Section I is the right to free speech." In fact, Article I, Section I says, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” It is the First Amendment that says, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech or of the press …”
Now we learn in Friday’s Wall Street Journal that Lawrence Tribe, one of the country's most influential liberal law professors, who taught constitutional law to students including Obama, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan, confidentially recommended that Obama not appoint Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court last year. Criticizing her intellect and warning that her style could "simply add to the firepower" of the court's conservative wing, Tribe said Sotomayor was "not nearly as smart as she seems to think she is, and her reputation for being something of a bully could well make her liberal impulses backfire." Obama ignored the advice and nominated Sotomayor anyway – apparently for her radical politics.
We should be outraged that we are held in such contempt and the Constitution is held in such ignorance by people elected to govern – not rule – us. The people of the United States have become an abstraction that politicians must tolerate every two years in order to be reelected – not the true body politic that legislators are sent to Washington to represent. And Obama, whoever this guy is in his heart of hearts, has made no bones about his chilling intention to transform America into his radical vision – not the vision held in the minds of the Founders and paid for by the blood of soldiers in the first revolution.
Come November 2nd, then, we must keep Madison’s words in our minds and our desire for individual liberty in our hearts. We must vote out those who seek to consolidate more power to the government and elect those who will restore more liberty to the people. We must reject the siren’s call of government entitlements that lead to dependency and pursue instead the more difficult path of self-reliance and individual liberty. How else will our children live free in a society where they are higher than the government and exist without the shackles of an arbitrary authority?
At the beginning of this blog I asked what the election next Tuesday was about. In my opinion this election, perhaps like none other in history, is about an overreaching imperious government that needs a spanking from its parent – the citizens of the United States. This election must send an unmistakable message via the ballot box that the style of governing during the last two years is totally repugnant to free people and will not be tolerated – not now, not ever! The American people must cut off the allowances of this Congress of juvenile delinquents and the White House with their profligate spending. Voters must repudiate micromanagement of their lives. They must grab their Senators and Representatives by the ear and scream loudly enough into it to get past their political tone-deafness: “You are not elite! You are a paid volunteer! If you don’t like that arrangement, I’ll replace you!”
Perhaps they will get the message. If not, in 2012 a two-by-four with a rusty nail will drive the point home.
No pun intended.
Here’s what this election means to me.
James Madison, while introducing a bill to the first Congress in 1792, referred to the General Welfare clause of the Constitution, saying:
“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.”
Madison was prescient about the corruptibility of Congress, although in those early days of the Republic he could not have envisioned how power would gradually shift from Congress to the Executive. But recently both branches of government have hijacked the liberty of the American people as Madison feared and even more so. Government has purloined the responsibility for education from the states, kicked religion out of the schools and off the town square, limited what local and state police may do to combat crime and illegal immigrants, converted our private health system into a soviet-styled health politburo over the protests of its citizens, launched unsustainable welfare programs, and gone on a reckless spending spree allegedly to stimulate the economy and save privately-owned businesses that in the government’s opinion were “too big to fail.”
The federal government is now intruding on personal matters such as the weight of our kids, imposing taxes on drinks that Big Brother thinks contain “too much” sugar, demanding that restaurants list the fat content in meals, and even sticking its nose into baseball dugouts to limit the use of smokeless tobacco. With ObamaCare the federal government has gone so far as to mandate that everyone buy health insurance – arguably unconstitutionally – and legislated an onerous law compelling businesses to file 1099s on all purchases exceeding $600 per year. Representative Chaka Fattah (D-PA) has floated a bill for a 1% transaction tax on every bank transaction and credit card purchase Americans make, and Representative Peter Fazio (D-OR) floated a similar scheme, imposing a ¼% security transaction tax on every security and commodity transaction. Our noble citizenry has been reduced to political serfs – ordered about and taxed as our political lords and regulatory masters decide.
If we want to board an airline flight we are subject to degrading screening procedures that invade our privacy but uphold political correctness concerning much more suspicious travelers. Airline travelers may be screened in a manner that leaves no doubt of the person’s sex, and in one recent outrage, a 12-year old girl was separated from her parents and subjected to the equivalent of an electronic strip search.
An alarming expropriation of citizen rights and liberties has occurred in the last two years under the most autocratic left-leaning government in the history of the Republic. This same government now tells us that it plans a robust lame duck session of Congress during which it will attempt to pass legislation that would have been political suicide in regular session. In other words, legislators who are voted out of office next Tuesday and can’t be further punished will work with their Democrat colleagues to pass their favored bills notwithstanding the will of the people they supposedly represented. So much for representative government.
The “Hope and Change” election of 2008 was supposed to usher in a new post-partisan Congress and administration. Those who were elected were expected to govern, not rule. But rule they did, and with total disregard, if not distain, for the lack of support from the people who elected them. From the days of John Locke, the social contract that gives the few the right to govern the many has been the consent of the governed. Therefore, the American revolutionaries who sought to justify their secession from the British Empire, declared, among other things: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” I wonder if the political frauds in Washington have a clue what that means, or if they do, have the slightest regard of it.
A recent Rasmussen poll revealed that 61% of Americans believe that the federal government has too much power, and a poll released Thursday showed 65% favored “throwing out the entire Congress and starting again.” Only 21% of adult Americans believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed. Two-thirds – 66% – believe that Americans are overtaxed, and 70% believe the government does not spend their tax money wisely or fairly. This is a damning indictment of a constitutionally-elected government.
In a delightful new book, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, author Pauline Meir describes the national wrangling that went on in the late 1780s, both in the public square and in the Federalist Papers, trying to decide whether to accept the plan of union proposed in the US Constitution. We know from the Federalist Papers that there were people who wanted to set themselves up as rulers rather than as representatives of the people. These people wanted a federal government to be the rationale for their rule and thus wanted more power for the government than the Constitution granted to it.
Jefferson, Madison, and others feared that there would be ongoing tension between a free society and the federal government of the new Republic – a struggle between a central authority that controls virtually every aspect of our lives versus individual liberty protected as the Founders envisioned. Madison in particular understood how government corrupts its office holders. Writing in Federalist Paper 45, he said:
"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."
My how we’ve changed. In the last two years, the federal government has been a totally-owned subsidiary of the 111th Congress – controlled by the Democrat Party and the Obama White House. Collectively they have conspired to make government the final arbiter in most if not all aspects of our lives. They want education, healthcare, energy usage, wages, prices and even private property rights to be distributed as government deems to be fair.
Words bespeak attitudes; therefore, listen to those of the political class:
Speaking at a Boston fundraiser two weeks ago, Obama said, “Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument do not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we’re hardwired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country’s scared.”
Hmm. Let me see if I’ve got this right. This country, which had no problem thinking clearly when it fought a two-front war 75 years ago – I’m talking a multi-million man war, not Iraq and Afghan scale wars – managed to survive the incompetence of the New Deal schemes that prolonged the Great Depression by at least seven years, lived on the bull’s eye during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and broke the back of the Soviet Evil Empire, this same country suddenly can’t think clearly during a protracted recession made worse by a meddling federal government? It sorta’ sounds like the Maximum Leader is saying the average schmuck in this country hasn’t the cognitive apparatus that he possesses to comprehend the current economic challenges – a quagmire made worse by his team of bush leaguers, most of whom have never held a job in the private sector. Obama’s condescending attitude should be an insult to every thoughtful American.
Then there is Representative Phil Hare (D-Ill) who in responding to a question about the constitutionality of ObamaCare during a town hall meeting, said he was "not worried about the Constitution." He then proceeded to turn his foot into a shoe sandwich by saying that the Constitution guaranteed each of us "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Of course, the Constitution says no such thing. The expression "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is found in the Declaration of Independence ratified a dozen years earlier than the Constitution.
Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA), who has no training in law and has never held a job other than as an aide to various congressmen, opined in a debate with his Republican opponent that "the Constitution is wrong" regarding campaign financing. His comments came in his assessment of the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which ruled that parts of McCain-Feingold abridged free speech:
“We have a lousy Supreme Court decision that has opened the floodgates, and so we have to deal within the realm of constitutionality. And a lot of the campaign finance bills that we have passed have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. I think the Constitution is wrong.”
That wilderness of words has to be parsed carefully if its logic is to be understood, but McGovern seems to be saying if the laws of Congress can’t pass constitutional muster then the Constitution must be wrong – not the laws!
Not to be outdone in the category of outrageous statements by elected officials, Representative Pete Stark (D-CA) responded to a constituent's question about ObamaCare by saying, "There are very few constitutional limits that would prevent the federal government from (making) rules that can affect your private life." Adding, "Yes, the federal government can do most anything in this country." The questioner responded, "People like you, sir, are destroying this nation." Her comment won shouts of approval from the audience.
Last year, a reporter asked Nancy Pelosi, "Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?" Pelosi responded: "Are you serious? Are you serious?" Pelosi agrees with fellow Californian Stark that Washington can do most anything it wants.
Congressional ignorance and contempt for our Constitution doesn’t reside only on the Democrat side of the aisle. During a town hall meeting, a constituent asked Representative Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) if he knew what Article I, Section I of the Constitution mandated. He replied that, "Article I, Section I is the right to free speech." In fact, Article I, Section I says, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” It is the First Amendment that says, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech or of the press …”
Now we learn in Friday’s Wall Street Journal that Lawrence Tribe, one of the country's most influential liberal law professors, who taught constitutional law to students including Obama, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan, confidentially recommended that Obama not appoint Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court last year. Criticizing her intellect and warning that her style could "simply add to the firepower" of the court's conservative wing, Tribe said Sotomayor was "not nearly as smart as she seems to think she is, and her reputation for being something of a bully could well make her liberal impulses backfire." Obama ignored the advice and nominated Sotomayor anyway – apparently for her radical politics.
We should be outraged that we are held in such contempt and the Constitution is held in such ignorance by people elected to govern – not rule – us. The people of the United States have become an abstraction that politicians must tolerate every two years in order to be reelected – not the true body politic that legislators are sent to Washington to represent. And Obama, whoever this guy is in his heart of hearts, has made no bones about his chilling intention to transform America into his radical vision – not the vision held in the minds of the Founders and paid for by the blood of soldiers in the first revolution.
Come November 2nd, then, we must keep Madison’s words in our minds and our desire for individual liberty in our hearts. We must vote out those who seek to consolidate more power to the government and elect those who will restore more liberty to the people. We must reject the siren’s call of government entitlements that lead to dependency and pursue instead the more difficult path of self-reliance and individual liberty. How else will our children live free in a society where they are higher than the government and exist without the shackles of an arbitrary authority?
At the beginning of this blog I asked what the election next Tuesday was about. In my opinion this election, perhaps like none other in history, is about an overreaching imperious government that needs a spanking from its parent – the citizens of the United States. This election must send an unmistakable message via the ballot box that the style of governing during the last two years is totally repugnant to free people and will not be tolerated – not now, not ever! The American people must cut off the allowances of this Congress of juvenile delinquents and the White House with their profligate spending. Voters must repudiate micromanagement of their lives. They must grab their Senators and Representatives by the ear and scream loudly enough into it to get past their political tone-deafness: “You are not elite! You are a paid volunteer! If you don’t like that arrangement, I’ll replace you!”
Perhaps they will get the message. If not, in 2012 a two-by-four with a rusty nail will drive the point home.
No pun intended.
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