Limit Government, But Don’t Enfeeble It
In speech after speech I have heard my colleagues in the Tea Party movement speak passionately about the need for limited government. With public enterprises expanding exponentially in the Obama era, this concern is understandable. The Founding Fathers recognized intrusive government as the forerunner of tyranny.
And yet, with some hesitancy, it must be pointed out that limited government — whatever its virtues — must be expandable enough to meet unanticipated necessities that may arise. Government should not be small if it is incapable of doing what must be done. Its size and influence should be calibrated to the conditions that maintain self government.
Limited government is a term of art related to scope, but not power or energy. A government should actively work to preserve liberty. But if, for example, a government taxes excessively in order to promote its programs, it can undermine the liberty it was fashioned to secure.
The Constitution, as the guardian of the liberty, is not an entirely fixed document; it is open to interpretation and amendment by the people. And as a consequence, can be used in latitudinarian circles to expand government authority. Hence each generation has a responsibility to guard against the usurpation of government influence, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan.
However, a government at war is different from a government at peace. Perhaps that explains why the Constitution has “a necessary and proper” clause. One would hope, as the authors of the Federalist Papers did, that what is necessary has precedence in the Constitution and everything that is necessary is also proper.
Alas, that may be a reach. But the presumption is that the Constitution by its very nature, limits government. For one thing, since the Constitution is above ordinary government, it is a check on the potential excesses of legislators. And second, since the Constitution is made by the people, it trumps ordinary law made by the legislature. Moreover, that Constitution can only be altered by recourse to the people.
Governments fashioned in this way are limited because the Constitution itself is the embodiment of human foibles. Federalist 51 notes, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” Avarice counteracts avarice; greed counteracts greed. As a consequence, the Constitution presupposes, with its reliance on the full panoply of human conditions, that human beings are capable of governing themselves rather than being the helpless victims of historical forces.
Well,call me crazy,Herbie…but I really don’t think the US government is in any immediate danger of becoming ‘enfeebled’….not with the current budget….and being at war does NOT justify taking over the health care industry,or imposing carbon dioxide emission regulations by bureaucratic fiat,or the FCC taking control or the internet,or delegating executive branch authority to a myriad of faceless,nameless ‘czars’,or limiting domestic oil drilling and coal mining in the name of some fantasy ‘green’ vision….sorry,Herbie,but you write like some kind of Rip van Winkle who went to sleep while Herbert Hoover was President,and just woke up
What exist in DC now is a soft tyranny that pays lip service to the limits of constitutional governance. I marvel that we still pretend the government is limited in any fashion whatsoever. Patrick Henry was correct in his skepticism and fear that the states would eventually be dictated out of existence under it.
The idea that power hungry politicians and greedy lawyers would be bound by a piece of paper has proven to be a pipe dream.
It does seem like an odd time to remind Tea Partiers of what the Constitution is about. Talk to them again when we get a government somewhere in the general vicinity of the rough ballpark that is on the same planet as the government the Constitution envisions.
THEN warn them about the dangers of an enfeebled government.
Excellent point, TheCableGuy. You don’t talk about saving the furniture of a burning house once the fire passes a certain point, and this fire is way past that point.
The Tea Party are the fire fighters, we are trying to save some semblance of order and governance from the massive fire that has wholly engulfed the Federal Government peaking during the 111th Congress.
It’s not the time for being told “what not to wear” to the post fire meal.
Is Herbert off his medications? Has the Tea Party been so successful now that the government has been reduced to almost nothing, and pure freedom and anarchy are the real threats? Tune in next week for more adventures with, Herb and Hs Herbs!
Good joke, sir, but you missed April 1st by weeks.
The biggest single expense I face is the Federal Income Tax. We have a president who is unilaterally going to war with Libya. On the home front, the EPA is claiming powers not specifically authorized by Congress. They’re dictation toilets and light bulbs.
You’re warning against going too far? I’m arguing it is broken and unfixable and calling for starting over with a Constitutional Convention to severely limit the biggest threat to my life, liberty and happness in the universe.
Golly, I didn’t know my “colleagues” in the Tea Party were familiar with constructions such as “latitudinarian”. With due respect to Mr. London’s impressive academic credentials, when it comes to politics he appears to be a neophyte. Or someone who wants certain types of people to think he’s the kind of fellow one can work with. You know, reasonable.
Wrong. The Constitution is a fixed document. It provides for its own amendment; but is NOT “open to interpretation”. It means what it means, and that meaning is unchanging. That was Judge Bork’s point- rejected by most- and the “most were and are, dead bang wrong!
“Open to interpretation” implies that it can mean just about anything anybody wants it to mean; and is, ergo, essentially meaningless.
Whenever and wherever this manifestation of subjective existentialism rears its serpentine head, from the Garden of Eden to the Bay of Pigs,
betrayal and evil arise.
The Liberal perspective denies the laws of Logic: A thing is what it is; there is no middle ground between contradictories; contradictories cannot be true together; we must consider and follow the evidence. When we cease to be logical, we cease to be good. When we deny the selfevident we deny reality and plunge ourselves into the chaos of fantasy.
Federal debt now equals GNP. That means that we cannot pay our bills. We MUST, NOW, stop borrowing to spend and divest ourselves of that awful debt. NOW! If we don’t, our economy will collapse and the cabal of International Bankers, the Rothschilds, et al, will tell us what we have and don’t have and even when we may blow our noses.
Con men like the Weeping Bartender fool only the fools when they run their little scams with “historic savings” amounting to far less that one percent of the debt owed. And, in the process, agreeing to subsidize the butchering of millions of innocent, unborn babies while infesting our military with homosexual perverts.
Nothing, not even big bucks, is more holy to the Left than the slaughter of the unborn. This is their sacrifice to their master, Satan, on the altar of constitutional interpretation. There is no “right”, express or implied, in the Constitution, to murder ones unborn child. We all know that. Every single sane, literate person knows that. Every single Justice who voted to permit abortion in Roe vs. Wade knew that. Every single practicioner of and participant in that genocide knows that. They will still know it while they spend eternity in Hell.
No good person can be complicit in such evil. Which means that the GOP is just as rotten as the demonrats.
Amen, Brother!
I was with you most of the way till you went off the rails on Homo’s and free choice for abortions.
I am not gay but I will defend them from the likes of you. And abortion is a personal choice in my opinion and you are entitled to you own.
I refer to what I think is an old adage, that being…
I want the democrats out of my wallet and the republicans out of my bedroom.
People seem to forget what the US Constitution provides to us a nation, which is to always err on the side of freedom when there is a conflict of opinions. It also protects the individual from attempts to force one persons idea of morality upon another.
What this means is that just because you may get 51 votes out of 100 means nothing if you should not have been voting on that issue to begin with! Convince me or leave me alone, but don’t you dare try to force me!
“People seem to forget what the US Constitution provides to us a nation, which is to always err on the side of freedom when there is a conflict of opinions. It also protects the individual from attempts to force one persons idea of morality upon another.”
This is false. Legality or illegality stems from society’s determination of what is moral or not. Murder is bad. Stealing is bad. We make it illegal.
Sodomy and other blue laws used to exist. Laws against incest and bestiality and other perversions still do exist. We have softened our stance on some perverse things over time, mostly because enforcement is worse than the problem. The cure is worse than the disease.
Still, it is all about determining what is moral (legal) or illegal (immoral). The line in a free society is about whether an immoral action does harm to others. Does gay marriage actually undermine society? Do gays in the military really undermine combat effectiveness? These are legitimate questions worthy of discussion.
To say we should not take them up because you personally do not think they are wrong is an attempt to silence the other side. This is always the reaction from those who share our FisCon views, but who do not share our social views. They do not even want to discuss the moral issues. They want us to shut up and sit down.
Well, if you want our help in solving the FisCon problem, you have to help us get what we want, too. We’ll never have enough numbers to get the job done, if we do not work together. To get fiscal sanity requires us SoCons’ support. THAT is the reality. Just give us what we want in this area, because it is not going to hurt you to keep marriage between straights only, the exact way it is right now, for example.
As a Conservative, I feel the moral issue is the reason we have the fiscal issue. “Our form of government was made for a moral people. It is wholly unsuitable for any other.” You may not see it that way, but you cannot demand that we stay silent on this and still expect us to work with you on the things we both care about. You cannot refuse to vote for our candidates, because of the social issues, and expect to have enough representatives who are fiscally responsible.
What are you gonna do, vote for the other guy? Well, yeah, because that is exactly what socially-liberal FisCons have been doing. It is how the Leftists have won again and again. Now if you are really for these things specifically, then do what you gotta do. Don’t expect things to change, though. However, if you are only opposing in general, and are actually personally ambivalent about the individual social issues, then you better work with us. It ain’t gonna kill you.
Hopefully, future debates will not be about how big the government should be, but rather how small it should be. We will never get there, though, if we are torn apart by the social issues. One of us has to give, and it shall NOT be ME. You have to decide if you can live with some of the policies we demand.
Would I be willing to see the country go down the tubes fiscally, if I do not get my way on the social issues? Yes. It is both or nothing to me. I do not aspire to a fiscally-solvent, immoral nation. Actually, I do not even believe such a thing is possible. It is a fantasy.
So, how much do YOU care about these things? I care very much indeed. How committed are you to opposing me?
Marc, Well so far the courts have reached the same opinion as me regarding freedom of choice. And I don’t think you’ve made a good argument as to why the statement I made that you quoted regarding the Constitutional protections afforded to we the people is in any way false.
You talked about your version of morality a lot, and there I did not ask you to be silent at all. I even expressed that you are entitled to your opinion just as I.
Maybe I should elaborate a bit, you can disagree with someone else’s lifstyle all you want. You can even personally shun them if you want, but our laws prohibit you from persecuting them for it. And pardon me if what I see in your outrage over this issue is you want to do just that, persecute them. Not only do you seem to want that but you seem to also want the force of law to back you up in that persecution. That is what you are not allowed to do under our Constitution.
It’s kinda like the difference between democracy and a Constitutional Republic, which was one of the other points I tried to make. 51 votes out of 100 means nothing if the vote should not have been held to begin with.
Here’s an old example that pretty much sums up a raw democracy; 9 wolves and sheep sitting around deciding what to have for dinner.
Without a strong foundation of limits democracy by itself is nothing short of tyranny. It appears that some epeople still don’t know the difference.
“And abortion is a personal choice”
Yup. Deciding to murder is usually a personal choce.
Unless you’re in a gang or something.
Dave,
Convince me or leave me alone, but spare me the snark!
‘The Constitution is a fixed document. It provides for its own amendment; but is NOT “open to interpretation”. It means what it means…’
That of course depends on who’s deciding what it means.
‘Former Conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger on the Second Amendment
In 1991, Warren E. Burger, the conservative chief justice of the Supreme Court, was interviewed on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour about the meaning of the Second Amendment’s “right to keep and bear arms.” Burger answered that the Second Amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud—I repeat the word ‘fraud’—on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.” In a speech in 1992, Burger declared that “the Second Amendment doesn’t guarantee the right to have firearms at all.” In his view, the purpose of the Second Amendment was “to ensure that the ‘state armies’—’the militia’—would be maintained for the defense of the state.”‘
‘Burger answered that the Second Amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud—I repeat the word ‘fraud’—on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”’
I’d say the SCOTUS of the United States was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the American public.
I doubt that there is any chance of the Federal Government becoming enfeebled in the life times of those reading your article today.
With the likes of Obama, Schumer, Reid, Pelosi and all the other avowed communists in government it will take over 100 years to undo their powergrab and their never ending efforts to destroy our culture and our exceptionalism.
The defined objective of all in this country who care about our remaining a soverign nation should be a simple two point program:
1. The legitimate purpose of government is to protect the rights of its citizens.
2. People have a right to be left alone and live their own lives as long as they do not do so in a way that infringes on others’ right to do the same.
Make that the profile of what government should be and maybe by 2111 we will be free of some overweight bureaucrat telling me what I should eat!
G. Hugh Bodell
Author & Publisher
Is this an article from the Onion? Our government is about as enfeebled as the Wehrmacht. In fact it is a malignant, metastasizing entity which shows no sign being brought under control. It is gobbling up the private sector at an alarming rate. Meanwhile just the federal deficit for 2011 is $2 trillion (not $1.4 trillion as some would have it)!
Do you seriously think our government wants to maintain our “liberty”?
In the last week, Pelosi and Read have come further out of the closet as full fledged Nazi’s.
Pelosi here:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/13/pelosi-elections-shouldnt-matter/?test=latestnews
Reid here:
http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm/Harry_omits_under_God_.html?ref=314
I won’t listen to Obama, but, I can’t wait to see what he mispronounces and omits from his recitation of the tele-prompter in todays episode of his ‘magical mystery tour’.
Don’t you get the feeling that the National Guard will be enacted to govern the 2012 elections?
These thugs are making Russia’s Communism look like a kindergarten parlor game.
Oh sure, don’t enfeeble it. How’s that working out for ya so far?
Lucky for us we have wise leaders like the witch, little lenin, biteme, reaper reid, dickie durban, little chuckie, drooling barney, maximum maxime, charlie angles and about 500 others to make sure things don’t get out of hand. We can trust them to do the right thing.
Excellent points made by Mr. London. The commenters thus far are intelligent and apparently mean well, but may not sufficiently understand the important difference between the Size and Scope of government and the degree of its Ability to govern. These are two entirely separate ‘limits’.
For example, does a government need a vast bureaucratic army of internal secret police who have free reign to spy on citizens without legitimate legal reason and court order? Probably not. However, any useful government does require the authority and ability to arrest actual law-breakers.
Right now the U.S. government (by which I mean government at all levels, the important distinction between State and Federal having been made largely irrelevant) has its vast bureaucratic army, but is not able to actually keep law breakers off the streets. The U.S. government approaches limitlessness in the scope of its authority and displays corresponding increases in size. However, this exact same government is almost incapable of actually governing – that is, implementing and enforcing Laws. This is clearly evidenced by the fact of millions of illegal immigrants inside the borders. Regardless of one’s feelings regarding the matter of immigration, a government which was actually capable of governing would either (a) enforce immigration laws, or (b) strike such laws it will not enforce from the books. Instead USG has a vast ocean of almost insurmountable immigration legalese and a corresponding bureaucracy (size and scope) yet is clearly incapable of actually enforcing the existing laws (degree of ability.) This is only one of countless examples of almost limitless scope of governing authority, paired with almost complete inability to actually govern.
It is vitally important to remember that there is actually a purpose to organized government, especially in a Republic – it is to enforce the Law. As stated in Federalist 51, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” The point, clearly is that men are not angels. Thus in order to protect life and liberty in human society, effective government is vital.
In fact all this is entirely in keeping with the oft-stated goals of Tea Partiers. Strong, effective government – but severely limited in scope – is what the Founders envisioned. Progressives are conversely opposed to effective government but view the realm of governing authority as boundless. In this manner the Progressive hopes to garner personal power and prestige (boundless authority) without assuming any real responsibility (which is entailed by the power to achieve real results, such as law enforcement.)
Thus “limit government, but don’t enfeeble it” may well make an excellent bumper sticker. A government strong in capable authority but severely limited in scope – supported and ultimately regulated by a moral, involved citizenry – is the best hope for a society which seeks to protect and preserve liberty, which is always best served by the rule of Law (as opposed to the rule of men.) In the words of King Arthur, “Not might makes right – might FOR right.”
Since when did the Tea Party become an anarchist movement. No one I’ve heard is talking about no government. Just return to traditional government functions. No government should be involved in my retirement or health care payments (though as there are those relying on it at the moment, they must continue, with a generational transition away from it) but something along the lines of ensuring that MegaFoodCorporation isn’t putting opium into my food, absolutely. As well as ensuring that if I buy a pound of bread, I get a pound.
Well put. Perhaps what Mr. London was trying to say, which you touch on, is that there is no political will in government to enforce laws already on the books. No funding or direction for enforcement. Illegal immigration comes to mind. Forcing employers to adhere to federal law (Everify) would solve a number of problems quite quickly:
Unemployment would go down.
Economic opportunity would become available to the black underclass.
There would be more money circulating in the US economy.
Tax revenue would increase.
Democrats would slash their wrists.
TLDR
especially after the faux compliment—”oh we mean well but we just dont understand…”
what you morons dont understand is the brilliance of the constitution
/end thread
I just want to point out the sheer ignorant stupidity of daxypoo’s comment.
“Too Long, Didn’t Read”
– But you’re going to respond anyways, aintcha poodlehead?
“Especially after the faux compliment”
– Apparently even though you didn’t read it, you feel qualified to determine that what I wrote was not what I meant.
– Which apparently made you feel bad? You poor dear.
“What you morons…”
– Ah, name-calling. Perhaps to demonstrate the superior intelligence of your argument?
“…don’t understand is the brilliance of the constitution”
This response actually highlights an important distinction for all of us. A written constitution is just a document. There is nothing special about it. It is not strictly necessary even to write such things down. The true constitution of a government is unwritten means by which it actually works, day to day, year by year. If there is brilliance in such method, it is the brilliance of the people – the citizenry – who implemented it and who continue to effect it as best we can. A written document without a citizenry which upholds it is meaningless.
“/ end thread”
- Yes, the adults are here now, you may be excused.
wrong
the brilliance is EXACTLY what is written; it is not a method ffs
our government, if it existed within the limits of what is clearly written, would be exactly the size it needed to be
Politics always lurch one way or the other way. People who want government shrunk want the parts they don’t care for shrunk, but it usually comes down to one side trying to starve the beast and the other side trying to make sure that the part of the beast which dies first is the part the starvers want to die last. It is this dance of flawed human beings, which the Constitution has done a decent job of providing music for; the Patrick Henry vs. James Madison counterpoint.
White Tiger rejects the line, “open to interpretation” and apparently posits some absolute realm of correct interpretation, but alas, one which is going to be perceived/carried out by some subset of the flawed human beings. Isn’t it really more about sounding absolute being a virtue, because sounding wishy-washy is a sin. Is the trick to “sound absolute” but still be reasonable? Ronald Reagan, let’s say.
Well, yes, Dwight. In this I agree with you. Folks always want someone else to bear the sacrifice, pay the price. However, a moral people are NOT like that. They are willing to pay the price themselves.
It is no accident that military folks, especially combat troops, are Conservatives. They are moral people. They volunteer to put themselves at risk. They are willing to pay the price.
This cannot be said of the dependent class. Not only do they not want to sacrifice, they often give no thought whatsoever to the problem. They are getting theirs.
The actually self-sacrificing folks are on the Right, not the Left. The Left is full of the gimme-gimme crowd. Yes, many on the Right merely pay lip-service, but those who give the full measure are here on the Right.
So they will not protest cuts in the military as much as the “dependent classes” will protest domestic cuts?
It is true that an individual soldier will not protest the way an individual union member will, but overall, for many reasons which you would know better than I do, the military is still at least as difficult to cut as any of the rest of the budget. Conservatives want a SOME OTHER part of the beast starved.
Anyway, that’s why I believe in small, but across-the-board and REAL cuts along with small tax increases, probably not across the board but for the top 1%. Otherwise, the issue is not balancing the budget, but wielding political agendas…business as usual. Everything is negotiable, but I think that is the basic principle from which you have to start.
As for the MORAL people point, one has the Adams line about the Constitution working only for a MORAL people, but you also have the other central “truth” that the Constitution knows that people are often self-centered and immoral and takes that into account.
Which is it?
You know D-White, that Preparation D that you have been using lately has mellowed you somewhat. The Thin Manly disguised illustration of conservatives as misguided children in the least, or inter-galactic status quo apple cart upsetters when in D-White blathering Ping Pong Tongue control mode, has been mitigated by the realization of Relativistic Tweed Core Morality. Someone a few years ago said this –
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
It’s possible that you are channeling this? Is dogma dogma, or is dogma whatever dogma you can dogma up? Heisenburg could be proud! But then again, you do appear to have an agenda. It’s just that playing Federalist Tweedly Winks in your Special Home Faculty Lounge smacks of a certain Mr. President. I mean, should he decide to send a couple of pallets of recycled toilet paper to Libya or California? Can D-White decide on white or beige curtains? Anyway, remember that the bus is moving out of the station, and Mr. President is driving, and you are on the “pavement thinkin’ about the government”.
You do know that 2012 is so important to Mr. President and his friend.
Mr. London:
It is the government that has largely enfeebled itself. If taxpayers saw that they were getting value for their dollars, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and government would be sized and empowered exactly right.
We have government programs, ostensibly to address certain perceived problems that address these problems by making them permanent.
A program for housing the public? We get more homeless.
A program for public eductaion? Rising rates of illiteracy and drop-outs.
Sex education? We have a bumper crop of bastards.
A program for the poor? We get more poor.
A program for illegal immigration? We attract more wetbacks.
A jobs program? See: “Porkulus”.
Don’t waste your breath preaching to the TEA Party, aim your screed at the government…demand that they do what they were instituted for, which is, essentially to make themselves largely superfluous and unnecessary.
good post.
The reason, of course, is that the real purpose of any government program is never the stated purpose. The real purpose is to accrue more power to the already powerful people in government. This is obvious to anybody who cares to see.
And even if a government program was setup with good intentions, a very rare event, the government is always the LEAST effective means to get anything done. This also, is very easy to prove, and should be immediately obvious to anybody who cares to see.
@Bilgeman,
I differ only with the statement, “government has enfeebled itself”. Let’s be honest with ourselves here. Ultimately all governing authority rests with the citizenry. Only by voluntarily ceding some of our inherent rights do we empower government to act on our behalf. ‘The government’ is a creature of ‘We the People’ and does only what ultimately we allow it to do. I will not advocate any form of revolution, but it is imperative that we all recognize that it is us (not necessarily the individual commenters here, but “the populace” who have allowed the present state of affairs to come to pass. “The government” is made up of people, who are drawn from the citizenry – it is WE who, like it or not, bear the ultimate responsibility.
Only when we, the people, resume our responsibility for implementing good government will we get the government we say we desire. Good government is not based in a constitutional document but on a moral, individually responsible citizenry. The great benefit of sites like this one is to stimulate, educate, and organize such responsible citizens.
” Let’s be honest with ourselves here. Ultimately all governing authority rests with the citizenry. Only by voluntarily ceding some of our inherent rights do we empower government to act on our behalf.”
Yes, you’re correct. I will claim my shame in not exercising proper supervisory authority over our public servants.
I plead though that I am a strong believer in “give a man a job and then leave him alone to do it, then judge him by his results”, so my “management style” of coming back around and seeing how many widgets the government has managed to NOT make is where I am coming from here.
Just like any of the rest of us, at the end of the work-day, someone calculates whether we have earned the privilege of coming back in the morning for another chance at making money by what we have accomplished, how we accomplished it, and how much we cost the employer to keep us around.
In the Fed’s case, just because we the employers have been out sick or taking a long lunch has been no excuse to fart the entire day away on Facebook.
The TEA Party’s existence indicates that this is the Time of Reckoning.
The U.S. is like most Latin American countries, a de facto socialist totalitarian model in which the executive branch makes up rules as it goes along and has the power to enforce only those rules it deems important that previous administrations made. Those organizations and corporations that pay the elitists in Washington get favors, and anyone opposing the politicians in power pay higher taxes and get more regulation.
In 200 years we have morphed from our libertarian beginnings into a nanny state that is fast running out of other people’s money. This author seems to have believed the leftist media’s propaganda about the Tea Party movement which is threatening the old elitist order with its common sense realization that we are at the end of the fiscal road.
I have concluded that the government is actually a quasi-business but instead of products that it sells to willing buyers, it has fines, fees and taxes that it imposes at will on groups which lack protection and have the ability to pay. These monies are used to pay salaries and benefits for government workers and benefits for protected groups who can be relied upon to vote correctly. What little is left goes to a few public works projects but even those may not be properly designed and built.
All the talk about caring for the poor, the disadvantaged and so on is just window dressing to make the fines, fees and taxes seem acceptable to those who still think the government is working for the overall good.
There is no competition so there is no check on whether the fines, fees and taxes are reasonable (i.e. the minimum that will inhibit the behavior). Instead there is only coercion. Pay up or face years of litigation and harassment.
I agree totally. The Federal government should operate within certain carefully defined spheres, but within those spheres, it should be very powerful. Supreme, even.
BUT MOSTLY LIMITED!!
Mr. London, you sound like a false prophet! The aim of the TEA Party is to specifically enfeeble the federal government. That government now stands in the same relationship to the US citizens as King George III to our own revolutionaries. Pedal you liberal notions to the liberals! NO SALE Here!!!
You meant “Peddle”, not Pedal.
Mr. London has hit the nail on the head. Far too many Tea Partyers and Libertarians don’t understand the Constitution or outright reject it. The Constitution does not enfeeble the central government, which after all was a serious problem under the Articles of Confederations. The Constitution gives the federal government strong powers in a limited arena. It is what binds the states together into a single entity. The goal of the Tea Party should be not to enfeeble the central government but it put back in its box where it belongs.
Modern libertarians actually are anti-constitutionalists who seek to return to the era of the articles. There is a school of libertarianism that believes that Articles of Confederation were just find and it was a cabal of quasi monarchists led by Hamilton who foisted the Constitution on the country. In all things modern liberatians mimic the far left in its antipathy to constitutional government.
I have to assume that you’ve never read the Constitution, or your comprehension of English is severely challenged.
There are two possible interpretations for this rather windy essay:
1. The legislation and enforcement powers of the federal government must be adequate to the duties assigned to it;
2. Whatever a particular generation deems “necessary” in its time is therefore within the scope of legitimate federal power, and we should acquiesce to it.
The first interpretation is a “That goes without saying” sort of thesis. So why take a thousand words to say it? The second interpretation is anti-Constitutional in the extreme, inasmuch as it waves away the rather elaborate and difficult amendment process deliberately written into the Constitution for necessities the Founders did not envision.
I expect better from Dr. London, and we normally get it. Ah, well. I suppose everyone’s entitled to an off day.
Don’t enfeeble government;destroy it! The articles of confederation are fine.Who needs union with virulent libtard states like California and, NY ? Who needs to live with a supreme court 1 vote away from destroying the rights to associate freely, engage in political speech, or own guns? No one! Who needs to have their income taxed extortionately to buy the votes of illegal aliens and the welfare-dependent rabble? Not me!Finally ,who needs to suffer government enforced reverse racism? Not those who believe in freedom. The USA will not survive the coming cataclysm brought on by unpayable debt,and an economic system fatally enfeebled by globalization anyway;let’s prepare for a new political/social organization based on shared values,and libtard exclusion.The modern Western state is a virulent fraud, and a tool for globalizing crony plutocrats, welfare-dependecy fostering demagogues,and oppressive bureaucrats.Let’s end it!
Yeah d, the Articles of Confederation were just fine. Just because several states were on the verge of war over boundries and interstate commerce, the nation could not raise funds to defend itself and the national currency was worthless doesn’t mean that the Articles weren’t working.
Even most of the “ant-Federalists” who opposed the Constitution knew that the Articles of Confederation were NOT working.
The constitution, on the other hand, has worked really well didn’t it,ANONYMOUS? I especially like the way it created a judiciary that has turned into the dictatorial anti-white,anti democratic shock force of American stalinism.I’m also impressed by how well the constitution prevented the war of 1812,the war of aggression against Mexico, the civil war, the Indian Wars(really massacres),the spanish-american war, Vietnam,etc.How about its efectiveness in preventing such government scams as the theft that is social security? I could go on and on, but I think readers get the picture. The constitution has failed; and we need a radically limited form of government;we’ll get it too:There is no way we can avoid a debt-caused cataclysm/civil war;it’s time to start thinking about the new truly representative poltical institutions that will govern the survivors,and a variant of a strong-centralized state (that caused the problem in the first place) shuld not be among them.
The Founders never thought that the Constitution would keep us out of wars; they were more concerned that other powers could pick off the states one-by-one if there was not a stronger Federal government. The Constitution has “permitted” us to become the super-power of the world, but it does not change the fact that life is expensive, messy, and often bloody.
With a large standing army, a democratic republic of 300 million people is going to have a big government. I’m not sure what fairy tale world you imagine, as I can’t see any country out there who does any better than we do, but what the hell, let’s have a civil war and I’m sure things will get better.
DWIGHT: It would be really useful of you looked at the context of my remarks before commenting on them;that way you could actually understand them before you write. A previous poster implied that thanks to the constitution, wars (between states) had been prevented.That is speculation.What isn’t,is that thanks to centralized government,with its ability to mobilize resources, the US engaged in the same depressing course of imperial wars and massacres as Rome,Great Britain,Russia, and other Western-style governments. A strong central government is like a loaded gun which predatory and psychopathic elites periodically pick up and use to engage in imperial massacres and looting abroad,or economic looting at home. All this has led to our becoming an empire and mass society,and welfare state of 300 million,which is now terminally broke and in retreat. I may live in a fairy tale world, but I’m neither naive enough,nor simple as to believe that we live in what you call a “democratic republic”. We live in an increasingly authoritarian, economically, moribund, socially and culturally pathological welfare state ,ruled by a globalist plutocracy, and a judiciary which routinely abrogates the popular will.As for the benefits of civil wars:try asking an African American about whether things got better for them after ours. The Western nation state model is a failure;and is collapsing before our very eyes.Try poening yours.
Good grief, have you been reading too much Noam Chomsky?
I just don’t know what your alternate reality would be; a large chunk of the western hemispshere composed of many countries, sort of like the European Union, with larger countries like California, Texas, New York, and then possibly conglomerations of states into one country, maybe New England, let’s say.
Once you start backing off from the 250 years of history that you have, and fantasize about some other course, you are pretty much…out there.
Look Moron if you want to be technical the event that destroyed the Constitutional constraints on the Federal government it was the 17th amendment allowing for the popular election of senators. The Senate was designed to represent state governments not the people of the state in Washington. By converting Senators to statewide representatives the Senate lost its primary function as a check against the encroachment of the central government upon the States.
Your laundry list of things the Constitution didn’t prevent shows a level of historical ignorance and lack of understanding of human nature that prevents one from engaging in rational argument with you. You want to why the Constitution didn’t prevent the War of 1812? It happened because neither Britain nor France fell under the jurisdiction of the Constitution. They had other fish to fry and we were in the way. Unless you believe we should have ended commerce with the rest of world (we tried that with the Embargo and Non Intercourse Acts and ended up bankrupting the Federal government without preventing the conflict) then confrontation between the United States and either warring party was bound to create the conditions for war. The reason we ended up fighting the war was the refusal to fund defense (the Navy) by the anti-Federalist like you) that could have provided a deterrent to the impressment of US sailors and the seizure of US flagged vessels by the Royal Navy.
TDINGBAT: You either did not read the post to which I was replying, or understood my reply if you did.My point was that a strong central governmnent will periodically be captured by the dominant elite to push whatever (usually criminal) goals it believes will enrich it and increase its power. A case in point is the war of 1812 which you inaccurately characterize as a conflict over impressment. What about the “war hawks” mister historian?Those elites who thought it would be just dandy to invade and loot Canada,as their successors did to Mexico 20 years later,and Cuba and the Phillipines after 1898? Your pedantic little history lesson is irrelevant and your uncritical faith in the modern nation-state nothing more than childish “magical thinking”. nothing
TDINGBAT:RE TYPOs: That’s Mis understood! on the second line of my comment.Also “nothing (last word should have been deleted)
Circumstances now do not appear to be amenable to surgical reductions in government. There is too large a constituency for the various aspects that powerful and expansive government can grant to expect that any given constituency would agree to a meaningful reduction in their benefits.
Reminds me of the example of a game of checkers where someone, a vested interest or constituency, puts a thumb down on one checker and tells the player (the government), “move any checker except this one”. Another bystander, another vested interest or constituency, does the same and repeats the message. Eventually, there are all thumbs and no moves.
It might be that the only way to fix things is to upset the game, throw all the checkers on the ground, and then set things back up while throwing away a lot of checkers. In one sense, everyone gets chopped, even things that everyone might agree should be retained may get severely trimmed, then setup the arrangement again.
It is not necessarily desirable to do things that way but it might be the one of the only ways to collectively get it done.
Who in Congress approved taxpayers backstopping TALF?
This is not acceptable.
The Real Housewives of Wall
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-real-housewives-of-wall-street-look-whos-cashing-in-on-the-bailout-20110411?page=1
Most of the time, the weaker the government is, the better off you are.
Not all the time, though.
It would have been pretty hard to hold the country together in 1861-65, and put an end to slavery without a pretty powerful government.
And, that’s something we needed to do, IMO.
It is truly disappointing that the Prez of Hudson would offer such sophistry as, “… what is necessary has precedence in the Constitution and everything that is necessary is also proper.” Government having the power to decide what is “necessary” also thusly has power which is unlimited. Precisely our imminent clear and present danger.
There is a bit from that Founding Era that perfectly describes the American attitude towards government:
Government is a necessary evil, a punisher and it has no other function and cannot by design as it is to secure the safety of society that we grant government the use of some power that would be to horrific to society if left in the hands of the individual. These are negative things we hand to government to do, so we can oversee them in common. There is not good of government beyond equal application of the law.
When government is given the ability to hand out favors, to ‘help’ it is then given the carrot and the stick to apply to the individual and society as a whole. Bad enough the stick of punishment, that can be applied equally to all wrong doers. The disproportionate carrot of given to favorites, be they rich or poor, distorts the very reason and purpose of government to the detriment of society and a Nation as a whole.
Government is never ‘feeble’ as it has the worst powers we can imagine handed to it: it is ever a beast ready to break its chains and come after those it would normally protect. It is by those chains of accountability, of limitation, that we secure our liberty from government. That is why we do not trust it to grow strong, as that makes us weak and unable to resist it when it can marshal the power of the economy and military against civil society. Government must be checked, balanced, and restrained at all turns so that it does the few things that it must do to secure our borders and protect us from our fellow citizens who act in uncivilized ways. When you ask for more, you give up your positive liberty to the Punisher… you get what you deserve in doing so.
Maybe we should just wait for the ‘feeble’ government to collapse under its weight because social conservatives are willing to hold the entire country hostage because they want everyone to live by their moral standards… and will see this country burn if we don’t. Same for the Liberals, they will hold this country hostage until we live by THEIR morals and will see this country burn if we don’t.
Democrats and Republicans are passing the hostage back and forth and trading body parts with each other so that each of them can look at their clans and claim they’ve gotten their way.
Well the problem is this, our whole government was built from a charter that exclaimed that “All men are created equal, and endowed by their creator (not God, not Allah, not Nature, not Gaia but each individuals personal creator) with certain unalienable rights, among these are LIFE, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS”
Unalienable means not to be separated, given away, or taken away. I cannot give you my life, and you cannot take it. No law can separate my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness from me… but you conservatives and liberals have willingly forgotten this for your own selfish holier than thou morals and beliefs that you must FORCE on everyone else.
Do any of you conservatives see the absolute hypocrisy in your claims that it is WE who must give in to your moral will and and abide by your moral standards. It is you who demands that we GIVE you our Life (taxes), Liberty (choices) and pursuit of happiness (personal choices) that are supposed to be unalienable. Do any liberals (I doubt you are hear reading this, but if you are) see the hypocrisy of demanding your unalienable right to marry who you want, or to kill as many babies as you want because you are pro-choice, yet you do not see a conflict in using government force, coercion and violence to make your neighbors support moral causes you believe just and humane? What is the matter with you people who think that our Lives, our Liberty and our Property are yours to divide among you? When did we lose our unalienable rights to the looters?
Whatever you conservatives or liberals believe, you cannot continue down this path without destroying the country that protected your freedom to worship and to live according to your moral code if you believe that you can FORCE your neighbors to live by that same code through threat of violence.
George Washington’s definition of government was without nuance and right to the point where he said “Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. Government is force; like fire it is a dangerous servant — and a fearful master.” He was warning us that if we don’t keep it small, it will consume us. We cannot hope to control government once it has left the fire pit and become a wildfire. Once it gets to that point, the best hope you have is to dig a fire line, and hope it burns itself out.
This government must go, there is no room for negotiation any longer. What we are now arguing about is how tight should our chains of bondage be… not whether or not we should have them at all.
Frederic Bastiat wrote that life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. Our rights to life, liberty and property precede our Constitution and the Constitution was just a promise to defend these preexisting rights. It is my contention that many conservatives and liberals today deny these unalienable rights so they may FORCE everyone else to live by their idea of what is moral and just. Unless we revert back to the very most basic tenants, and abolish these thousands of laws, ordinance, rules and directives, we can never hope to truly realize the amazing country some of our founding fathers worked tirelessly to create.
Can anyone tell me — aside from national defense — what useful purpose our Federal Government serves?
(1) This guy is either clueless or is a ‘liberal’ stooge. Here is why:
(2) Governments are self-empowering institutions. The last thing they need is “empowering” from the citizenry.
(3) A citizen (or groups thereof) are always in dire need of protection from the Government.
(4) Constitution was designed precisely to prevent (2) and provide (3). This was done by precisely spelling out what the government can and can NOT do to the citizen(s), and what power it various branches have over other branches.
(5) Constitution is meta-law. Over and above that, it is a statement of PRINCIPLES. It is NOT meant to be an “open document” as in anyone can come and ‘interpret’ it the way they find it convenient. If that was the intention of the Founders, they would have composed what is known as “post-modern poem”, instead. Even amending the Constitution is made EXTREMELY difficult, even though they recognized that they are not God, and hence the Constitution might need amendments.
(6) The tragedy is that the Founders left a HUGE loophole in the Constitution. It can not defend itself. Like all law, this meta-law, the overarching, supreme law of the land, has to be ENFORCED in order to be meaningful. The Constitution gave power of adjudication of Constitutionality of various government actions to the Judiciary. So far so good. But it made the judiciary a PASSIVE agent—it can not declare something unconstitional unless and until someone who is AFFECTED by that thing comes forward and actually sues the government. Also, it gave the power to ENFORCE these judgements to the Executive Branch. Therein lies the reason for its demise that you see today. Forget about history, just look at a thousand unconstitutional things the Left is busy doing today through white house and senate (and congress before nov 2010). Several times the judiciary has emphatically declared some of its actions unconstitutional—but the power to enforce those decisions is with the Justice Department—OBAMA’s justice department. So obama/Left can flout the Constitution without having to pay the price — a treason trial, with sentence to be carried out summarily.
(7) The Constitution urgently needs SEVERAL amendments ensuring absolute prevention of the scene from (6) above, and in general, prevent the gradual decay of its own sway over past 100 years or so. SEVERAL such mechanism can be envisaged, and should be debated by men of the caliber of the Founders.
First and foremost — no branch of the government should be allowed to POLICE themselves. In particular, Justice Department should not have any authority over alleged unconstitutional acts of the Executive branch.
Secondly, Judiciary should be given powers to rule on constitutional matters ACTIVELY, without someone having to sue for a decision. Indeed, judiciary should be MANDATED to look at a bill, or proposed regulation for its constitutionality BEFORE the bill becomes a law, or the regulation gets on the federal register. Anybody in charge of proposing a law or regulation which is found unconstitutional should be tried for treason. That would make those proposers examine what they are proposing for its constitutionality before they even dare to propose such things.
Finally, there should be a fourth branch of government—Constitutional Police. It’s sole job would be to carry out enforcement of judicial decisions on Constitutionality. This chiefs of this branch should be elected in a hybrid manner — partially by direct national vote, and partially by votes of States, the latter in the way the Senate was originally designed to be elected. (BTW, the 17th ammendment changed that—this amendment should be revoked, because it is inconsistent with the rest of the Constitution. It flies in the face of FEDERAL form of government, as opposed to CENTRAL from of government. I.e. it usurps a large chunk of State Powers and gives those to the Federal Government.)
Because unconstitutional actions of the Federal Government can and do affect both the citizenry, AND individual states. These are just rather simple-minded proposals by an amateur—then again, the original Constitution was drafted by an assembly of amateurs, and boy, what a brilliant bunch of amateurs they were.
Of course, other far out scenarios can also be envisaged. For example, one can employ ‘free market’ principle of competition, and, say, two parallel ‘governments’ policing each other, with the voters having a choice which one to keep and which one to boot. The assumption is that the voters will, in the long run, choose governments less inclined to grow in power, rather than more.
Remember, without proper protection, a constitution is not worth the paper it is printed on.