Many do not know that we live under two political systems: one primarily national in function, the other primarily domestic. It’s called federalism—the two share power and are equal. Neither was to be subservient to the other and each was to have separate duties. Thomas Jefferson explained it best when he said, “The states are not subordinate to the national government but rather the two are coordinate departments of one single and integral whole…. The one is domestic the other the foreign branch of the same government.”
Think of this relationship as an ideal marriage, where neither partner is subservient to the other. The duties in a relationship are gradually assigned to one partner or the other. Neither feels beneath the other, rather they are a team.
Though this was the ideal, the Founders were aware of the nature of all governments to grow. George Washington articulated this when he warned, “Government is like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” In order to ensure that this fire does not spread too far and burn down the home, one builds a fireplace to keep the fire under control. That fireplace is the Constitution, particularly Section 8, which outlines all powers that are given to Congress. Everything Congress did was to be clearly linked to at least one of these enumerated grants of power. The States, who created the Federal Government, retained unto themselves all other powers per Amendments 9 and 10 of the Constitution.
The advantages of federalism are enormous. States become laboratories of experimentation. Californians remember numerous “brownouts” in the nineties because of California’s failed energy policies. Other states viewing this were careful to avoid the same policies. States have the tendency to look at sister states for models and to borrow from them in refining their own programs. These places of experimentation work to everyone’s advantage. What if we had federalized California’s failed energy policy? “Brownouts“ on a national scale.
Had our power crazed Federal Government refrained from their natural inclination to take more power, health care reform could have gone through this experimental process designed by our Founding Fathers. We would then have been able to identify the weaknesses or strengths while they were still geographically isolated. Only three states have tried it: Oregon, Massachusetts, and Hawaii. That was clearly not enough to identify and avoid the “brownouts “ in the area. Instead they took a half-baked idea and made it mandatory for all. Of course, this would have necessitated an enlargement of the enumerated list through Article V, requiring “3/4th of the Several States.” Since more than 60 % of the people did not want this bill, the Constitution would have protected us from the federal government’s ineptitude.
Arm yourself with knowledge. Study and understand the Constitution so you can participate in informed discussion among those with whom you come in contact. Expect your Senators and Congressmen to understand it as well, and bear this in mind when you go to the polls. We must be active now before the fire of government takes over our states, our homes, and our lives.
The nature of all governments is to grow, absorbing decision-making power unto themselves. It happened with the British Parliament and it is now happening with our imperial Congress. The reason the Enumeration Clause is one sentence of 18 paragraphs is that the Founders did not want a piece to be separated and enlarged distorting the whole. So it is with the Commerce Clause.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said it best. “Let me put it this way; there are really only two ways to interpret the Constitution—try to discern as best we can what the framers intended, or make it up.” On making it up he added: “No matter how ingenious, imaginative or artfully put, unless interpretive methodologies are tied to the original intent of the framers, they have no more basis in the Constitution than the latest football scores.”(Wall Street Journal Opinion, Oct. 20, 2008)
Under the original interpretation, commerce among the states did not begin until goods commenced their final movement from their state of origin to that of their destination. Through faulty interpretation, gradually this grant was applied to commerce that did not even cross state boundaries. In the 1942 case, Wilcord vs. Filbourn, commerce was applied to a farmer who did not even move his wheat off his farm or even sell it, under the logic that consuming his own wheat affected interstate commerce. Had he not grown it he would have had to purchase wheat, which would have affected the price thereof. This distortion flawed every other Supreme Court decision with regard to commerce and reversed the Founders’ interpretation by 180 degrees.
Recently in response to the Court overruling California’s state law legalizing medical marijuana, the honorable Justice Clarence Thomas wrote: “If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption…then Congress’ Article I powers…have no meaningful limits. Whether Congress aims at the possession of drugs, guns, or any number of other items, it may continue to appropriate state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce.”
So why won’t this flawed reasoning work for National Healthcare as those Constitutionally ignorant insist? Because this would be the first time a penalty is imposed upon an individual for not engaging in commerce. Even the Congressional Budget Office penned in 1994 when National Healthcare was last proposed, “The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.” If the government can force this commerce it can force any commerce, say electric cars or even the purchase of tomatoes.
Such a broad interpretation of the commerce clause virtually destroys the 10th amendment to the Constitution. With power hungry governments each flaw legitimizes yet a more serious one, destroying federalism and our ability to ever get our freedom back. If national healthcare is allowed to stand it will be the one decision wherein future generations can specifically date the end of not just health freedom but all freedom. The word “commerce” has wrongly been interpreted by the Supreme Court to cover “every species of movement of persons or things, whether for profit or not; every species of communications, every species of transmission of intelligence, whether for commercial purposes or otherwise.” Put simply, every person that moves. No government can be trusted with that kind of power.
From the video: Police power in force-A glimpse of America’s future under the Obama Administration
Tea Party patriot at the end: “It breaks my heart”
**Another video,** The tea party patriots sing ‘America the Beautiful’ as they are told where they can stand on a sidewalk.
Just imagine, If George W. Bush called in riot police at a location where he was speaking, and the protesters were a pro-abortion group, a pro-gay group or Code Pink, would that make the news?….
Barack Obama is the best thing that has happened to America in the last 100 years. Truly, he is the savior of America’s future. He is the best thing ever.
Despite the fact that he has some of the lowest approval ratings among recent presidents, history will see Barack Obama as the source of America’s resurrection. Barack Obama has plunged the country into levels of debt that we could not have previously imagined; his efforts to nationalize health care have been met with fierce resistance nationwide; TARP bailouts and stimulus spending have shown little positive effect on the national economy; unemployment is unacceptably high and looks to remain that way for most of a decade; legacy entitlement programs have ballooned to unsustainable levels, and there is a seething anger in the populace.
That’s why Barack Obama is such a good thing for America.
Obama is the symbol of a creeping liberalism that has infected our society like a cancer for the last 100 years. Just as Hitler is the face of fascism, Obama will go down in history as the face of unchecked liberalism. The cancer metastasized to the point where it could no longer be ignored.
Average Americans who have quietly gone about their lives, earning a paycheck, contributing to their favorite charities, going to high school football games on Friday night, spending their weekends at the beach or on hunting trips — they’ve gotten off the fence. They’ve woken up. There is a level of political activism in this country that we haven’t seen since the American Revolution, and Barack Obama has been the catalyst that has sparked a restructuring of the American political and social consciousness.
Think of the crap we’ve slowly learned to tolerate over the past 50 years as liberalism sought to re-structure the America that was the symbol of freedom and liberty to all the people of the world. Immigration laws were ignored on the basis of compassion. Welfare policies encouraged irresponsibility, the fracturing of families, and a cycle of generations of dependency. Debt was regarded as a tonic to lubricate the economy. Our children left school having been taught that they are exceptional and special, while great numbers of them cannot perform basic functions of mathematics and literacy. Legislators decided that people could not be trusted to defend their own homes, and stripped citizens of their rights to own firearms. Productive members of society have been penalized with a heavy burden of taxes in order to support legions of do-nothings who loll around, reveling in their addictions, obesity, indolence, ignorance and “disabilities.” Criminals have been arrested and re-arrested, coddled and set free to pillage the citizenry yet again. Lawyers routinely extort fortunes from doctors, contractors and business people with dubious torts.
We slowly learned to tolerate these outrages, shaking our heads in disbelief, and we went on with our lives.
But Barack Obama has ripped the lid off a seething cauldron of dissatisfaction and unrest.
In the time of Barack Obama, Black Panther members stand outside polling places in black commando uniforms, slapping truncheons into their palms. ACORN — a taxpayer-supported organization — is given a role in taking the census, even after its members were caught on tape offering advice to set up child prostitution rings. A former Communist is given a paid government position in the White House as an advisor to the president. Auto companies are taken over by the government, and the auto workers’ union — whose contracts are completely insupportable in any economic sense — is rewarded with a stake in the company. Government bails out Wall Street investment bankers and insurance companies, who pay their executives outrageous bonuses as thanks for the public support. Terrorists are read their Miranda rights and given free lawyers. And, despite overwhelming public disapproval, Barack Obama has pushed forward with a health care plan that would re-structure one-sixth of the American economy.
I don’t know about you, but the other day I was at the courthouse doing some business, and I stepped into the court clerk’s office and changed my voter affiliation from “Independent” to “Republican.” I am under no illusion that the Republican party is perfect, but at least they’re starting to awaken to the fact that we cannot sustain massive levels of debt; we cannot afford to hand out billions of dollars in corporate subsidies; we have to somehow trim our massive entitlement programs; we can no longer be the world’s policeman and dole out billions in aid to countries whose citizens seek to harm us.
Literally millions of Americans have had enough. They’re organizing, they’re studying the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, they’re reading history and case law, they’re showing up at rallies and meetings, and a slew of conservative candidates are throwing their hats into the ring. Is there a revolution brewing? Yes, in the sense that there is a keen awareness that our priorities and sensibilities must be radically re-structured. Will it be a violent revolution? No. It will be done through the interpretation of the original document that has guided us for 220 years — the Constitution. Just as the pendulum swung to embrace political correctness and liberalism, there will be a backlash, a complete repudiation of a hundred years of nonsense. A hundred years from now, history will perceive the year 2010 as the time when America got back on the right track. And for that, we can thank Barack Hussein Obama.
Gary Hubbell is a hunter, rancher, and former hunting and fly-fishing guide. Gary works as a Colorado ranch real estate broker. He can be reached through his website,aspenranchrealestate.com .
In his attempt to salvage any possibility of keeping democrats in power come November, Obama is scrambling around the country in support of the democratic candidates (since that worked so well with Martha Coakley). In this video, he is appealing to the “first-time” voters of 2008 who helped elect him. He specifically asks that “Young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women…stand together once again” at the polls in order to keep his administration in power at “all levels of government”. It is interesting to hear straight from the horse’s mouth that White and Asian men, plus old people need not participate in the new ObamaNation election process. Apparently in his new America, the only thing these people are good for is providing a group that the media can constantly accuse of racism.
What Mr. President does not realize is that he has already “connected” with thousands who have not usually been involved in politics- but not in the way that will get and keep his friends in office. Regular Americans have awakened since he took office and have been forced to engage in the political process because they have felt pushed against a wall by this administration. The Tea Parties are an evidence of this fact. They have given a voice to the everyday American who no longer wants Obama’s brand of “Hope and Change”.
He goes on to celebrate all of the things his administration has ” accomplished” (i.e. health care reform, and the recovery act). Then 50 seconds in he makes the most important statement of the video:
“Despite everything we’ve done, our work isn’t finished.”
Yes, we know that you will continue destroying this country. As if that is not enough reason to get you involved in the “political process”, he goes on to make the case for us why YOU AND I need to run to the polls this November: because despite the fact that this administration continues to ignore us (except when they ridicule us) OUR VOICE MATTERS! Their work isn’t finished, so neither is ours. Thank you, Obama, for convincing me more so than ever of my responsibility to vote.
As the federal government grows and becomes ever more intrusive on our liberties, more people then ever before are looking to the Constitution to save us. Of particular interest is the list of the things the federal government is entitled to do, identified in Section 8.
During this time in history, the colonies had just rejected Parliament’s attempt to gain more power over them; in fact the cause of the American Revolution was excessive government. As a result, the states knew they needed to handcuff the federal government so that unrestrained government could never happen again. In the Constitutional Convention they decided to only forfeit specific powers to the federal government, and those powers were things that the states agreed that they could not reasonably do themselves. All areas not mentioned were to remain with the states.
There are many less well-known facts to keep in mind as you review Section 8. Convention delegates curiously placed every power in one sentence with 18 paragraphs. This strange construction was to make it even more difficult for future power grabbers to isolate and enhance a power. Everything had to be considered in the context of the one sentence.
The Founders gave the federal government only four areas of power: taxes, paying the debts, providing for the general welfare (that’s not the same as providing the general welfare), and providing for the common defense. That is it. All four powers are identified before the first semi colon. Everything that follows are simply qualifiers of these four.
The Founders did not dare to leave the phrase “general welfare” for future power grabbers, as there is no telling what they could do with this vague concept if left undefined. They understood that it is the nature of all governments to grow. As a result, clauses 2-9 list 14 powers that comprise “general welfare.” Five deal with borrowing money, regulating its value, and dealing with counterfeiting. The other nine powers include naturalization, bankruptcies, establishing post offices, protecting inventors and authors, establishing “tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court” and “regulating commerce with foreign nations and among the several states.”
National health care is not anywhere near the 14 powers detailing general welfare. For this reason national health care is unconstitutional. If national healthcare can be prostituted from this list anything can, thus ending any pretense of a government with limited powers. We might as well have a sentence that Congress can make any rules they like.
This section is hated by big government advocates who do everything they can to explain it away. They are betting on the likelihood that you and I won’t read and understand this section nor hold them accountable to it. They cleverly disguise their policies to try and force them to fit into these categories, and whether they actually do or not is irrelevant to them. For this reason your liberty is under fire. Read Article I Section 8 and keep it marked for frequent reference. Send this column to your friends and neighbors. Hold your leaders accountable at the polls. Be on the side of freedom in this fight against tyranny.
