Friday, April 16, 2010

First Stage, step 2

The first line of defense of 'the governed' in the event their elected officials fail to represent them faithfully is to elect someone else in the next election cycle. In light of the current situation we find ourselves in, the litmus test must not be 'stop doing what they have been doing', but rather UNDO what they've done in our name, that we do not approve of.
Allow me to digress a bit. we all must study our Constitution, and the documents and correspondence regarding it. This is imperative because there are few, if any who have seen our Government function as it was designed to do. This is because the erosion of the Constitutional rule of law has been a slow and corrosive process spanning well over a century. Consider this: prior to the (so called) Civil War (better described as a failed second revolution) 90% of the entire Federal budget was paid for by Tariffs on imported goods. To suggest raising tariffs in this day and age would bring howls of "Protectionist Isolationist" from liberals who would rather use progressive taxation of the citizenry to redistribute wealth, rather than protect American jobs and industry.
The most blatant beginning of the erosion of the Constitutional rule of law came at the outset of the War between the States, when upon the Secession of Virginia, Washington D.C. found itself in a potentially untenable position. In addition to Virginia, and the rest of the 'Southern States' Maryland and Delaware were both States that ascribed to the 'peculiar institution' as the Southerners referred to slavery. If Maryland followed suit, the U.S. Capitol would no longer lie within the borders of the United States. Further if Maryland were prevented from seceding, Delaware would almost certainly be dissuaded for the same reasons (no common border with a non-hostile State) . Solution? Place the majority of the Maryland Legislature under house arrest, and key members of the Baltimore city government, so a Quorum could not be reached to have a vote on the issue. What was the charge? No charges, Habeas Corpus was suspended by President Lincoln (and the Liberals think George BUSH played fast and loose with the Constitution). Also at issue is the definition of 'State'. Let me begin that the United States doesn't have a "Secretary of NATION" we have a "Secretary of STATE". We have come to think of a State as a province. Not true. When King George signed the treaty ending the Revolutionary War, he signed that the war was won by the United States AND the STATE of Massachusetts, the STATE of Virginia, the STATE of New York etc, etc... A STATE then, is a sovereign nation unto itself, and the United States was and is a group of Sovereign entities that have DELEGATED a certain amount of their sovereignty to a central Government. There are prices and responsibilities that go BOTH ways once the Constitution was ratified, and that both sides (mostly the Federal Government) proceeded to ignore. The States agreed to maintain their own legal codes within the framework of the Bill of Rights (i.e: they agreed they could not pass laws restricting freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, right to keep and bear arms) and the Federal government agreed to stay out of those matters that were the purview of the individual States authority. "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."
-- James Madison, Federal No. 45, January 26, 1788 (This is WHY it's important to balance the Constitution against what ELSE it's authors said, more on this later)
The Federal government has always used "the common good" as the justification for it's overstepping of it's Constitutional mandate. What DID our founding Fathers say about this?
"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1817
"We must confine ourselves to the powers described in the Constitution, and the moment we pass it, we take an arbitrary stride towards a despotic Government."
-- James Jackson, First Congress, 1st Annals of Congress, 489
"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."
-- James Madison, 4 Annals of congress 179 (1794)
James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, elaborated upon this limitation in a letter to James Robertson:
With respect to the two words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. If the words obtained so readily a place in the "Articles of Confederation," and received so little notice in their admission into the present Constitution, and retained for so long a time a silent place in both, the fairest explanation is, that the words, in the alternative of meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken for granted.
"I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. [To approve the measure] would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded."
-- President Franklin Pierce's 1854 veto of a measure to help the mentally ill.
"I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit."
-- President Grover Cleveland vetoing a bill for charity relief (18 Congressional Record 1875 [1877]
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one...."
-- James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792
"Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."
--James Madison
"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare.... [G]iving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"Our tenet ever was that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated, and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money. "
-- Thomas Jefferson letter to Albert Gallatin, 1817

See a pattern developing? The current crop of tyrants use "the common good" as the justification for everything they do. Freedom must include the freedom to suffer the consequences of bad decisions as well as enjoying the reward of good ones. For those of the liberal persuasion, this is called a 'learning process'. You either learn the hard way, or learn by watching someone else fall flat on their face. BUT, we have the right (nay, responsibility) of picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves off and proceeding with the new lessons learned kept in mind. Now compare what we've just studied, with the current Federal Government.

At this point, please go to: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am10 and bookmark it (there will be a test later, about the second Tuesday in November)

-- Is there anything in the Constitution granting the government authority to see to any retirement plan?

-- Is there anything in the Constitution specifically granting authority to provide medical care?

--What is the mandate for the government to legislate carbon emissions, or dictate what safety equipment be installed on automobiles?

If you as a consumer, wish to have seat belts, you'll buy a car that has them, or air bags or any other contrivance automotive engineers can come up with. If you are a cheap jerk who values your money over your family, you'll buy some striped down model with no safety equipment. This is all a part of the Darwinian process that the liberal elite insists is more valid than the Word of God isn't it? Then why circumvent it? All of this leads us to what happens when the public redress of grievences falls on deaf ears among our elected representatives?

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