The Question of Our Time: Does the Federal Government have any Limits?
Aug 3rd, 2010 by David Anderson
Radical Democrat Congressman Peter Stark-CA was asked a simple question by one of his constituents. What limits would remain on the federal government if Congress could get away with passing a bill as destructive of individual rights as Obamacare? Congressman Stark gave an answer which even shocked his constituency. “I think that there are very few constitutional limits that would prevent the federal government from rules that could affect your private life.” When the town hall booed him, he doubled down, “the federal government, yes, can do most anything in this country.”.
This is why my 7 friends and I do what we do. We are concerned that this type of attitude within our government is a clear and present threat to our liberty. We not only writers, but all of are involved to one degree or another in our communities. We see a need to bring balance back to our political system. If we do not, there will not only be very few limits on what the federal government can do that “could affect your private life”, in reality you will have no private life.
Is this far fetched? You have a government that wants to tell people where they can build a church or mosque. You have a government that wants to tell people where they can pray or not. You have a government that tells people what medicine they can get from their doctor even though they have fully informed consent and approved medicines have failed them. You have a federal government that wants to tell you what to do with your own money on the Internet. You have a government that wants to tell your children what they can or cannot eat. You have a government that wants to tell pharmacies what type of services they will offer in spite of an individuals conscience regarding abortion pills. You have a government which is trying once again to regulate backyard ditches a navigable water ways.
So you are not convinced. How about an EPA which is trying to regulate every aspect of our lives through warping the clean air act to regulate carbon dioxide? Such regulation will affect the homes we build, the light bulbs we use, the cars we drive, the barbecue grills we use, air travel, the factories that produce our goods, the trucks that transport them, the air conditioning for our homes, the price of virtually everything we use will all be under federal scrutiny. The worse part is there is almost no one saying any of the regulations would make a meaningful difference in the problem they are being shaped to solve.
Federal apologists seem to miss that point. There is a law of diminishing marginal returns that applies to government programs as well as economics. Except for anarchists, we all recognize the need for government. Government is important. In our system, we cede predetermined areas of authority from ourselves to our agent (government) to act on our behalf. This allows a combined effort to provide for the common defense and enhance the general welfare of all citizens.
The general welfare means just that. It does not mean picking winners and losers. It does not mean taking from one to give to another. It means protecting standards which improve the entire community. In Federalist No. 41 of the Federalist Papers and in Federalist 84, Madison and Hamilton augured that the expressed powers were the general welfare and the federal government had no other powers. In other words, even someone who had a relatively broad view of the federal government like Hamilton looked like Sharon Angle, Madison looked like Ron Paul. The anti-federalists like Patrick Henry and George Mason made the Libertarians look like big government types. Yet some in the media calls those who favor returning a constitutional balance to government extremists. Some in the political and blog worlds call them nuts and worse. They refuse to engage in a debate on specifics because they fear the logic of the founders.
Would we be better off if we took back the extra powers that we ceded and joined together voluntarily to better our lives according to our own consciences? Would there be a struggle over the rights of gay partners to get benefits if gays had the right to set up their own retirement accounts in lieu of government controlled ones and bequeath them to whomever they wanted? What would be the motivation for needing to redefine society as long as you can define your own lives? Why do we need government deciding what medical treatment is worth paying for? Would we still not have what is today third world medicine and leaches if the founders had such a system? What will we be depriving humanity of in future if we let the government bureaucrats nickle and dime away our potential for advancement? What innovations will not be produced in the United States of America because of needless regulations such a year long study to determine the emissions effect of a boat to set up a test tower for the off shore wind farms?
A wise man once said that a government powerful enough to give you anything you want is powerful enough to take anything you have. I would add my own corrolary. A people who accept a government with no limits, will eventually have to accept a life with no liberty.
Yes, they are enumerated in our Constitution.
You know, that old list of “negative rights” (as our so-called Constitutional Law PROFESSOR-in-Chief loves to say), written by dead, slave-owning, white aristocrats.
“You have a government that wants to tell people where they can build a church or mosque.”
No, just you fear mongers at your sacred ground.
“You have a government that wants to tell people where they can pray or not.”
As do you holy rolling types and my mother-in-law at every damned dinner
” You have a government that tells people what medicine they can get from their doctor even though they have fully informed consent and approved medicines have failed them.”
Good point, but not as good as Bush’s Medicare prescription drug benefit which will cost more than $1.2 trillion in the coming decade
“You have a government that wants to tell your children what they can or cannot eat.”
Who’s needs a healthy populace, anyway? Got a smoke?
” You have a government that wants to tell pharmacies what type of services they will offer in spite of an individuals conscience regarding abortion pills.”
Wrong one boyo. You got jesus freaks denying me a service based on their own prejudice.
“You have a government which is trying once again to regulate backyard ditches a navigable water ways.”
Yeah! I’m with you on that! (what the heck is he talking about?)
Can we play some more?
If the founders came back from the dead, they would be armed and dangerous when they saw what is happening.
The question is simple: does the Federal Government under Obama, Reid and Pelosi have any brains?
Does the Federal Government have any limits? Depends on what’s up. The way it’s set up the executive and legislative branches doe there thing and if anybody complains, the Supreme Court settles it. Helping to plug an oil well in the Gulf? Not in the Constitution. Favoring gin over marijuana? Not in the Constitution. Mandating how far a garage door opener can transmit? Not in the Constitution. Demanding to see proof of citizenship or be arrested? We shall see. Making sure every American has health insurance? Priceless.
One thing for sure the Constitution was not passed down on a stone tablet from God. It was written by our ancestors. Being the Light Of the Age that they were, they left plenty of wiggle room. It’s government, not a religion. It’s not a sin to interpret the Constitution.
[...] you haven’t already been scared out of your complacency, read this excellent piece from David Anderson over at DelawarePolitics.net! Radical Democrat Congressman Peter Stark-CA was [...]
Protecting life and property is in the Constitution so giving technical support to plug the leak (the government didn’t do it a private company plugged it) is perfectly fine. Governing the waterways of the ocean is clearly a federal function. That is why the Constitution speaks about a Navy and other aspects of it.
I do agree that it was met to have wiggle room. I just disagree that it was met to be functionally abandoned and interpreted in the direct opposite manner that it was intended. Instead of wiggling in the same jacket, we are stripping and running naked through the street.
The Constitution limits the power of Congress in Article I., Section 8. The powers granted are specific.
The Judiciary decided that the preliminary ‘General Welfare’ clause tacitly sanctioned unlimited power. This was the beginning of the end of limited government; for once unscrupulous men seize a power not granted, they will always seek more power- indefinitely. This is the sad state of affairs in the United States today- the government has been hijacked.
Liberal jurists attempt to ascertain the ‘intent’ of the Founders, rather than read the clear language of the Constitution itself. Going back to Art. I., Sec. 8., read James Madison’s Federalist #41 (actually, the last three or four paragraphs), and see what the ‘Father of the Constitution’ had to say about the intent of the ‘General Welfare’ clause. Merely Google ‘Madison’s Federalist 41.’ Be forewarned- the clear thinking of Madison will not cast today’s know-nothing, politican-sloganeers in a very positive light.
Quite simply, our leviathan government is patently illegal- unless you believe that a pinhead liberal jurist has the veracity as per ‘intent’ that Madison himself lacks.
David you know very well we have tens of thousands of highly paid professionals from the Supreme Court on down whose job it is to interpret the Constitution. Nothing we are doing today is much different than we have been doing for centuries. As a matter of fact most of the really really big interpretations were settled years ago. That’s how blacks got to eat in restaurants. Seems there were some misinterpretations that needed to be reinterpreted.
The most radical usurpation of Legislative power I have witnessed in my lifetime is Citizens United where the overwhelming will of Congress was brushed aside like loose dog chow. Regardless of how you feel about corporations being the prime force behind candidates, I am amazed more people didn’t see this a a bold new kind of Supreme Court activism.
Cherry-picker; I’m glad you value the nonsense of some forgotten, activist judge over the clear reasoning of Madison.
Just today, the will of the people of the State of California was undone by a ‘liberal’ pinhead judge. Socialist-Democrats are celebrating; that may be short-lived, because the American people are against Obamacare, against Obamanomics, against BO’s ‘immigration policy’ and against forcing gay marriage down the throats of a state that rejected it in a referendum. Don’t take my word for it; read the polls.
A hell of a lot of Socialist-Democrats running this November will pay the price.
Today’s USA Today/Gallup BO approval; 41% (and falling).
And don’t bother to compare BO’s numbers with Reagan’s. First, Obama’s no Reagan. Second, Reagan’s policies worked; BO’s can’t.
Watch and learn.
Citizen’s United actually represented some of the finest legal jurisprudence. It looked at the facts of the case. A group of people–American Citizens wanted to air a movie they put together on a Presidential candidate. This pure freedom of speech was blocked by the government. The Constitution forbids this type of interference in political and religious speech. The Court overturned the law as applied in these circumstances.
It is hard to envision any other outcome. The fact that the citizens who gave $25 a shot on average pulled together in a corporate organization does not invalidate their speech or their right to say it. Why should a billionaire like Soros be able to say anything he likes, but a million people like me be banned or highly regulated because I can’t do it alone?
A group of people–American Citizens wanted to air a movie they put together on a Presidential candidate. This pure freedom of speech was blocked by the government.
You are deliberately mis-stating the facts of the case. Citizens United was free to put their anti-Hillary video on YouTube or hand it out on the streets. Nobody was blocking them from distributing their speech.
What the law prevented them from doing was making an in-kind contribution by purchasing air time for their video near election time, which was deemed to be electioneering.
Money is property – it is not speech.
Thanks alpha. I am not totally up on the details of Citizens United except when I hear giant corporations unions or whoever can use unlimited amounts of money for political ads and don’t have to say who they are – that sounds not good to me. Especially in smaller elections. Some small town or country were a candidate for the zoning council can raise $1000 bucks all of the sudden is up against huge developers who can come in from outside and spend a million without even having to say who they are? That’s what I get from this. I hope that is not correct.
Rick, I hope you agree certain “rights” for each person are embedded in the Constitution like equal protection. That is not something we “vote on”. We don’t have a referendum deciding right to assemble. The California decision says that. If we could referendum everything there’s no need for a Constitution. Let’s just vote to see if blacks should go into any restaurant. Same with gay people hooking up. It’s a right, not some privilege granted by the majority.
In other words, Citizens United was free to distribute it except where it would be most likely to be seen.
No, they were free to distribute, just not to spend money on electioneering. There are lots of limits on electioneering already. Like you can’t campaign too close to a polling place on election day. The campaign law on the Citizen United commercials was like that.
“Thanks alpha. I am not totally up on the details of Citizens United except when I hear giant corporations unions or whoever can use unlimited amounts of money for political ads and don’t have to say who they are – that sounds not good to me.”
Wow you are really a storehouse of misinformation. Where do you get your news? MSNBC?
Rick, I hope you agree certain “rights” for each person are embedded in the Constitution like equal protection.
Of course; but not the ‘right’ to marriage. Civil unions- sure; but marriage requires a husband and a wife.