Competing governments: Federalism revisited
April 27th, 2009 - 7:18 pm
Randy Barnett described his proposal to place ten Constitutional amendments at the center of the Tea Party movement to Michael Leahy and Glenn Reynolds at Pajamas TV. What seems interesting to me, apart from the proposals themselves, is the reaction they are likely to provoke among those who feel that the centralization of power with the Federal Government is something devoutly to be desired.
There was a posting a few months ago basically highlighting that nobody is allowed to simply opt out of government.
“No man is an island” they claim. No, not when bridges are continually built to me, nor my “island” robbed by taxes and laws I don’t want. As plainly as I did not ask to be born, I also signed no social contract with anyone, nor with any government. The only fair thing is to leave those alone who choose not to vote.
Whatever roads and schools I once used, I didn’t ask for them. I would like for the politicians to send me an itemized bill to settle things fairly, and then kindly bug off.
I wish there was text. I hate watching video, particularly PJTV video.
Every dysfunctional social movement has, at its core, at least one major misconception. Socialism’s is the perfectibility of human beings. Nazism’s was the superiority of the Aryan people. Juche’s is the infallibility of the Kims.
The current brand of American liberalism believes that a public good is any product or service that can be provided by the government. If the government can provide something, the government should provide it.
This is not the economic definition of a public good. By that definition, a good is a public good if, and only if, it meets both of the following criteria:
1. The marginal cost of providing the product or service is low.
2. The marginal cost of excluding someone from the product or service is high.
Goods that meet these criteria must be provided by the government because a private provider could not prevent free riders, therefore has no incentive to produce the goods. Also, because the marginal cost is low, there are significant economies of scale that can make everyone better off if they can be realized.
A classic example of a public good is national defense. If we protect our nation against invasion by a foreign country, and a baby is born, the cost of protecting that additional baby is basically zero. However, the cost of excluding that baby from our security shield is very high.
The fact is that most goods are private goods. There are very few public goods, and even some “traditional” public goods are becoming private goods as technology changes. For instance, roads were once considered a public good, mainly because they didn’t meet the second test (how could you exclude drivers from entering a freeway without slowing down traffic and imposing a very high cost on everyone else?). Now, however, with RFID tags and license plate recognition systems, the cost of keeping people out has dropped dramatically, and probably will continue to drop. This means that roads could eventually become fully privatized.
However, the modern American liberal believes things like health care and education are public goods. But they’re not; it’s pretty cheap and easy to keep people out of hospitals and schools, and the marginal cost of healthcare is pretty high. What they really mean by public goods is that they want the public (ie. the government) to provide them.
It is pretty clear the Framers understood the rarity of public goods, even if they did not have a neat economic definition to go by. That is why they had a set number of enumerated powers which were supposed to limit the scope of the Federal government to only those things that were clearly public goods (national defense, postal service, minting money, diplomacy, etc.). But over the past 80 years, the scope of government has expanded inexorably. Now mortgages are held by some to be goods that must be provided by government. GImme a break.
Barnett is right in that the only way the expanding writ of the Federal Government can be stopped and reversed is by constitutional amendment. Whether the Tea Party movement is the right vehicle for advancing this agenda is open to debate.
But it certainly can’t hurt…
L3
L3, naturally the criteria you named are not even considered. In fact they are detrimental to the public sector retaining political power.
And as for the ideologues who keep voting them in, only symbolism and good intentions matter to them anyway. They are basically social climbers who don’t consider the morning-after results of a bash, or don’t believe that morning will ever come once just the right processes are put into place… as you said, their “-ism” is believed infallible.
The real problem with America right now, IMHO, is that lawbreakers are not being punished. There is no accountability. When I was young, it was often said there is no one above the law. Rich or poor, we all were subject to reasonable legal restraint. Now, it seems, almost no one, except those so unfortunate as to belong to the wrong group, are subject to law enforcement. It seems that we are on the verge of anarchy. We are one disaster away from complete breakdown. I think the reason for so many conspiracy theories floating around is that smart people are looking at what is happening and thinking, “You know, if I wanted to destroy the United States of America, the things that are occurring now are how I would do it.” We need strong principled leadership and, instead, we are led by a bunch of spiteful, vindictive children. There are no checks and balances working. Somehow, we the people, have got to put fear of being fired into the hearts of our elected leadership. But, it seems that somehow, the spiteful and vindictive are the majority of the electorate.
As history unfolds around us, I take every opportunity to point out to each progressive that shows the slightest sign of remorse that this is what they voted for. And yes, I realize that now I am being spiteful and vindictive. But the bitter laughter that I glean from this fruitless exercise is somewhat akin to what Lincoln once said, “I laugh because I must not cry. That is all. That is all.”
@John Lynch – regarding video, I agree. Very inefficient mode of gathering info, due primarily to its controlled linearity. Reader/viewer must cede control of his attention to the broadcaster entirely, and completely forego any ability to scan forward to “preview” what he will see next. Versus, text and images on screen/paper, where reader can quickly scan forward and preview the info, even if from untrusted or unverified sources. I have found very few, if any, online video sources to whom I am willing to hand over my attention.
Net videos suck. I never watch them (please do not link to them).
I did some googling and found the following:
Section 1: Congress shall have power to regulate or prohibit any activity between one state and another, or with foreign nations, provided that no regulation or prohibition shall infringe any enumerated or unenumerated right, privilege or immunity recognized by this Constitution.
Section 2: Nothing in this article, or the eighth section of article I, shall be construed to authorize Congress to regulate or prohibit any activity that takes place wholly within a single state, regardless of its effects outside the state or whether it employs instrumentalities therefrom; but Congress may define and punish offenses constituting acts of war or violent insurrection against the United States.
Section 3: The power of Congress to appropriate any funds shall be limited to carrying into execution the powers enumerated by this Constitution and vested in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof; or to satisfy any current obligation of the United States to any person living at the time of the ratification of this article.
Section 4: The 16th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed, effective five years from the date of the ratification of this article.
Section 5: The judicial power of the United States to enforce this article includes but is not limited to the power to nullify any prohibition or unreasonable regulation of a rightful exercise of liberty. The words of this article, and any other provision of this Constitution, shall be interpreted according to their public meaning at the time of their enactment.
@5 Many good leaders have judged that we are not worth leading. A culture that ranges from “dull” at best to patently vile is unworthy of their love and effort.
The remaining non-leaders in high places are simply incapable. Holding them to standards or accountability is like expecting one part-time sales clerk to manage a giant retail store.
Oh what’s the “real” problem, senator? Let me guess- Not enough laws… Not enough revenue…
the curious thing about obama is that his ideology before getting into the presidents office was disestablishmentarian. he was all for giving indians and hawaiians all kinds of sovereignty. hawaiians –ie oahu 1/8th bloods –gave obama all kinds of money in the expectation that he would further independence aims–or at least increase their power to extort.
but since obama has become president hawaiians have begun to celebrate their becoming the 50th state –something that hasn’t been done in quite awhile.
Meanwhile it has been white conservatives who have openly talked about secession.
That’s not likely to happen but current laws requiring racial quotas in hiring & schools will become more untenable as –in the light of Obama’s presidency– those laws look to be as totally racist as they are in fact.
I agree about the use of video. If you want to communicate something, don’t make video the only option, and don’t expect people to fire up a list of ten different things you want to tell them about.
In addition, Pajamas TV is the only web video source that has repeatedly shown itself able to crash my entire browser (Firefox on OSX), so it’s a non-starter for me.
I don’t see what good an amendment will do absent any other reforms. We already have several very good amendments, most of which are being ignored or perverted. If the 1st Amendment was in force, any official attempting to enforce McCain-Feingold would be chucked in jail. If the 4th was in force, Kelo would have ended with racketeering charges against the officials attempting to misuse eminent domain.
What we need is to divide up power again. I know that is what Barnett is trying to do, sending a bunch back to the States, but the 9th and 10th Amendments already do that. It’s sort of like the old joke about Amendment N+1 : “We really mean it about the other ones.”
What I think we need is to really divide up power. Put power to raise revenue in one place and power to spent it in another, with completely different electorates. Maybe the House passes the budget – no Senate approval needed, but the Senate is the body that sets tax policy. The Senate is elected by employers (must be the primary source of income for at least one person, etc.), the House by employees (everyone who earns the bulk of their income from the private sector but doesn’t qualify for the Senate electorate). Regulatory power is reserved to a body elected by people who earn the bulk of their income from investments. Maybe those are stupid divisions, so we come up with something else. Three houses, each elected by different age groups. The Assembly by 20-40 year olds, the House by those 41-60, and the Senate by 61+. Assembly sets spending policy, House sets tax policy, Senate sets regulatory policy, two bodies together can veto legislation passed by the third.
Or else just repeal the 16th Amendment, remove Federal authority to raise revenue and make the Feds dependant of the States kicking in some cash. Allow a specified Federal tariff on imports which goes 80% to the military, with the remainder as a General Fund.
I don’t know exactly what, every proposal will have pros and cons (but, ha, ha, at least we know where the cons are with the current system, mostly on Capitol Hill). But something to scatter power again and build competing power centers, rather than the joint fleecing operation we have now.
But just adding some more rules on top of the ones they already ignore will not fix the problem. Might as well pass a law making crime illegal.
There is a very good essay by Robert Hawes on the right of the states to nullify federal laws that the state considers unconstitutional intrusions by the feds (probably most of the laws that the federal government passes today). Here is the link:
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=57
Hawes wrote this piece in 2007, but it has been republished online by the Campaign for Liberty.
Nullification has been around since the beginning of our country and Hawes gives a really good historical summary. If various states began seriously exercising this right under the 10th Amendment, we could perhaps see some progress in rolling back the monster that our federal government has become.
One thing that particularly struck me during the discussion on the video was all the talk of all the organization and the activism and the gathering together of huge numbers of people needed to finally get the attention of lawmakers.
Wow, all this organization and coordination and just plain old nitty-gritty EFFORT and we’re still talking about just getting their friggin’ attention.
While I’m completely supportive of it and I love this whole Bill of Federalism idea, it’s a little deflating to think about how this real grassroots uprising of huge numbers of people all over the country seems to illustrate so clearly the utter unresponsiveness of our elected representatives. It kind of rubs your nose in what you already know: they don’t represent us so much as they’re beholden to special interests.
The agglomeration of special interests, taken together, steamrolls right over tea party people, who in fact are only the people that make the country work (as Rush says), getting up and going to work every day, providing something of value that someone wants and at the same time providing for their families; people who, if they can be said to have any special interest at all, are only interested in preserving, or should I say restoring, our form of government as a constitutional republic.
Why should that be so hard to do?
That it IS so hard to do makes me wonder if we’re too late. At some point, there got to be too many tax eaters.
And this reminds me of something else. The other day I tuned in to part of Rush’s show on our local station that carries all the conservative programming – Glenn Beck, Rush, Sean Hannity – and well over half the commercial breaks were ads like this:
A highschool girl tells how her coach at school “handed us an application and helped us fill it out” – for student aid – “because he knew we wouldn’t do it ourselves!” After giggling about that, we’re told to find out more at college.gov cause there’s $100 billion available. Then the Eagle’s Glenn Frey comes on to say you need to know the new rules for border crossings and you can learn about your document options at getyouhome.gov. Then Patty Duke comes on to tell you how easy it is to apply for social security at ss.gov. Then one of our state corporation commissioners comes on to make sure that poor people know about Lifeline Phone Services and that you could qualify for home phone service for as little as $1 a month. Then Suze Ormond comes on to tell about an obviously crazy woman who wrote her and said she’d withdrawn all her money out of the bank and stuffed it under her mattress… forgot the rest of that message but it was yet another dot-gov thing. On and on it went, one big government ad after another.
I admire all the salt-of-the-earth tea partiers and even often am inspired by this whole movement but are we just tilting at windmills?
and well over half the commercial breaks were ads like this…yet another dot-gov thing. On and on it went, one big government ad after another.
Bingo. I’ve been thinking about this lately. A year ago, it seemed that every other ad on talk radio was a mortgage ad. I wondered what would happen to the shows as that industry imploded.
Then I began to realize that as the economy imploded, other advertising would dry up. I’m pretty sure GM used to be the largest single ad buyer in the country. I’m pretty sure they aren’t any more, or won’t be soon. They already got their instructions from Chariman Obama to dump NASCAR. I’m assuming we won’t be seeing Howie Long saying much about GM trucks this fall when the NFL gets back in gear.
The government has all the money these days. Now, strictly speaking, they don’t need to advertise. It’s not like people can opt out and decide to go with a different, say, border crossing provider. But even if they don’t need to advertise, they can advertise. And if they’re the ones with the big ad dollars, I wonder how well advertising supported conservative media will do?
Hmmm. Better go buy that PJTV subscription.
JMH, what are they trying to do, subliminally influence talk radio listeners? Anyway, a lot of cognitive dissonance between the programming content and the supporting ads. Maybe next we’ll see unblockable government pop-up ads at BC, rather than outright censoring. It’s virtually everywhere now. Watching “24″ on TV you now, during commercials, have to suffer through (if you don’t record) various cast members prating on earnestly about global warming. Government insinuates itself into the very fabric of everyday life. We’re positively saturated with it. Is it just me or has this omnipresence intensified of late?
Oh, I remembered the point of the Suze Ormond ad. Suze says, more or less, put your money back in the bank, you crazy lady, because you can trust in fdic. It’s 100% safe. If you’re still not convinced, learn more at fdic.gov.
@5. programmer
I think that the failure to punish lawbreakers is an outgrowth of the primary feature of the Socialist Movement; the underlying assumption that no one can be held to be responsible, that we are all (well, almost all) a bunch of witless children to be directed through our lives by the enlightened. These enlightened are, of course, our social betters and have the very best intentions for our futures and who will watch over us to ensure that we are made uniformly happy and productive.
But don’t ever question them. Some pigs really are more equal than others.
Ditto here, to the commenters about nixing PJTV, and video in general. I avoid it like the plague on the internet.
I definitely want to read this kind of material, vs. watching it, for a host of reasons. I don’t understand the push to video, and I think it’s the wrong target audience. It’s a “dumbing down,” trend. And no links.
I think the idea of a package of Amendments is a good one.
It kept the progressive movement together, and they finally got what they wanted with 16-19 (I assume there were others that didn’t pass).
The beauty of it is that a Constitutional Amendment is a “big idea” which, if passed and ratified, can inscribe permanent and large changes in national life. People will rally to things that can actually work in ways that “voting for the local Republican turd” can’t do.
“…those who feel that the centralization of power with the Federal Government is something devoutly to be desired.”
There are numerous reasons for this, including basic ideology, but based on my time in the fever swamps of the Potomac (where swine flu is not common but Pork Flu is endemic) it mainly due to one thing.
The people who want something done do not want to have to make the case. They don’t want to have to convince their next door neighbor, the city council, the county commission, the local school board, the houses of state legislators, the legions of pundits, their Congressional delegation and the rest of the Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch, the appropriate Federal Department and, inevitably, the vast army of lawyers that can negate all of the above.
They want to convince one guy in Washingon DC and have him do all the work. This is true of the heads of major corporations, large unions, harried housewives, Second Lieutenants at Podunk AFB, and the guy flipping burgers at the fast food restaurant who wants another 25 cents an hour – and Edit Childs of Greenwood, SC. They want strong, invasive Federal Government that will fix their problems and ensure that their dreams come true. But they only want that Deus Ex Machina for one itty bitty reason, their own, and when it comes to it they don’t want the crap that comes along with it any more than anyone else.
Barnett’s discussion from the WSJ is here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124044199838345461.html
Somehow, we the people, have got to put fear of being (fired) jailed into the hearts of our elected leadership. Programmer @ 5; Ed. Herb
Again with Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism.
What the progressive knows is that we are in need of good leadership that they only can provide.
There is such a huge disconnect between us out here and them up there that it can never be bridged.
Barnett says that the pressure on the Congress to call a Constitutional Convention will force them to pass a amendment for ratification by the states. That bypasses the fear of an uncontrolled convention. A convention would be dominated by the fascists (the real ones). God only knows what that would do.
Boortz has been touting a sales and use tax as a single source of revenue for the Federal Government, abolishing all other taxes. Its a seductive idea. A bit radical, bur interesting. It would clarify a lot of things. It would certainly devolve power from DC and impoverish a large number of special pleaders.
The tea party thing may be the result of a tipping point in the presence of the Govt into all of our lives. It certainly has the usual crowd upset. Just watch CNN.
I agree with JMH that changing the structure of government – really creating opposing incentives – will get us the most bang for our buck. The Commerce Clause and the 10th Amendment are there, but they’re unenforceable because it’s no one’s job in Washington, DC to enforce them.
The worst Constitutional Amendment (that hasn’t been repealed) was probably the 17th Amendment. It used to be the job of the Senate to represent the States as States, rather than the People. The “People” don’t care (mostly) whether their problems are fixed by the Feds or the local authorities, but Senators understood that they worked for the Governors back home, not some electorate.
Barnett’s Amendments 1, 2, 3, 9, 10 all rely on the same Supreme Court that has failed to enforce the 9th and 10th Amendments; the same Supreme Court that usurped Constitutional interpretation for itself in Marbury v Madison. In other words it depends on men being as angels rather than as men; BAD DESIGN.
Only Amendments 4 and 8 actually provide any structural improvement to the Constitution.
As for Amendments 5 and 6, I really don’t get the problem with the Estate or Income Taxes. It’s just a way to raise revenue. Would an Excise Tax of 30% really be that much better? Maybe at the margins, but it wouldn’t solve the central problem of excessive spending. I might prefer a revenue system based on Land Value or Consumption for economic reasons, but it doesn’t seem to be a matter of Constitutional concern.
Amendment 7 could increase the Pork problem, since the elected official only has a limited time to “cash in” on his term of “service.” You must change the incentives of the people in Congress if you want to really change anything.
A constitutional convention would be a risky adventure. It would be far easier to spend the effort to have our existing Constitution interpreted and enforced correctly, as in its originalist form.
Many of our problems today stem from a constant withering and shredding of constitutional liberties and protections by the left. There is no guarantee that any new amendments would not be shredded in similar fashion.
Our Constitution is a wonderful document; it has been our bedrock of strength and liberty. A return to the proper interpretation of federalism, the takings clause and property rights, gun rights, religious freedom or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, and the equal protection clause would do wonders for this society.
A new Constitutional Convention would be a great opportunity for monkey wrenching by the left and a chance to enslave us all for good.
It’s not that lawbreakers aren’t being punished, the definition of lawbreakers has been redefined.
You are a lawbreaker if you oppose socialism.
Video sucks as a communications medium. It takes a half hour for a news program to convey the amount of information contained in one column on the front page of a WSJ-type newspaper.
Would anyone with lots of time on their hands please be kind enough to summarize the ten points in text format for those of us without time to walnut-pick them out?
Thanks in advance.
Sign me on to the anti-video party. If PJTV is looking for an experienced transcriptionist to reduce all that bandwidth to text, I’ll be happy to submit my resume.
Charles @ 9:” the curious thing about obama is that his ideology before getting into the presidents office was disestablishmentarian. he was all for giving indians and hawaiians all kinds of sovereignty.” At the risk of sounding simplistic, was he disestablishmentarian or a controversialist in search of a good crisis?
Amen on the problem with video.
Re new constitutional amendments: The problem is largely the 17th, which robs the states of their representation. Rather than layer on additional amendments to try to fix the problem, lets repeal the 17th. But I share the concern about the mischief possible from a constitutional convention. Does anybody have any idea how the delegates to an Article V convention would be chosen?
@12 Contrarian: Thanks for the link. Do you suppose these blossoming state sovereignty laws have been encouraged by this?
I think the Framers intention was that the states would select delegates to future constitutional conventions. With the rise of the Leviathan state (the Feds), we easily forget the role that state sovereignty is supposed to play in our (con)federal system. This is why the nationalists (progressives) were pushing the 17th amendment in the first place–to undermine the position of the states as independent sovereign entities. The Framers intended the Senate to be a house of equal representation of the states, not the people.
In addition to repealing the 17th amendment, we should repeal the 16th amendment too. This is the income tax amendment, another big goal of the progressives. It gave the feds an independent source of income and, as they say, the rest is history. We need to starve the beast!
The Founders must be rolling over in their graves today.
Our hallowed Dear Leader has just nationalized GM and Chrysler.
In the case of GM, the Obama-Commies-Feds gets 51% for a $15bil. investment, the unions get 39% for their I believe $7-8 billion investment and the bondholders get 10% for their $28 billion investment.
Hey, that’s great. How bout that takings clause. Our Constitutional scholar President sure knows to enforce that living-breathing Constitution thing.
In the case of Chrysler, bondholders again get 10% with the unions getting over 50%. Feds the rest.
Sure makes you want to go out and buy some bonds, huh?
I’m never going to buy a Chrysler or GM again! No money for the Obama-Commies.
Barnett has modified his initial proposal into a Bill of Federalism:
http://federalismamendment.com/
He’s soliciting comments at that site.
I took the liberty to transcribe the PDF at the site above into plain text:
http://www.medary.com/article.php/20090428020345264
I’m with those who prefer reading to watching for assimilating complex information.
This for me has been the first ray of hope since Obama was elected . . . maybe the unintended consequence of his election will be the eventual re-dedication of the Republic to the Federal ideals of it’s founding. It’s perhaps only a slender reed to hold onto as the storm of statism rages on, but at least it’s something positive to work towards. We effectively have no Constitution at all right now. It’s time to do something about that.
Karen Yvonne:
Perhaps a bit OT, but since you brought up the subject of ads that encourage all the wrong ideas, I had to mention a particular ad campaign that we Californians have to put up with periodically, usually in periods of peak-power usage.
It’s a series of ads called “Power to the People”, and features a soundtrack with John Lennon singing the song of the same name. It’s basically a reminder to turn off your lights and be mindful of your energy usage when demand is highest (in the Mid-Summer for instance).
You know your state is truly through-the-looking-glass when it spends billions trying to convince you you’re “empowered”: that is, free NOT TO USE the energy they CAN’T provide you with.
Imagine (heh, like Lennon himself) if they’d spent the money for these ads on building something that actually produces energy, like a nuclear power plant or more-efficient oil platforms off Santa Barbara.
cellec, amen, your example is so perfect. BTW, apologies for straying OT a bit but one does have to wonder about the potential of tea partiers’ effectiveness in the face of the all-pervasive nature of government which has succeeded in brainwashing so many. It’s become so much the normal state of affairs that it’s seen as being right (to the uncritical anyway). If it’s normal, it’s right.
Getting back to Randy Barnett, he does answer a lot of the objections to a con-con that BCers have brought up. In fact, iirc, he even stated that he didn’t seriously expect such a thing to ever take place. His idea seemed to be that, if the people make enough noise about it, and take steps to convene a convention, then that alone will scare the pols enough to listen up and change their ways. He said, in so many words, that if even ONE of the proposals he outlined in his 10 amendments was taken up and acted on legislatively, then that in itself would be a stunning success. Which, to me, made us sound a little like beggars. Consent of the governed? No, just the same ole beggars who this time think they may have found a club to hold over politicians’ heads in the hope they’ll throw us a few crumbs.
Still and all, I WAS impressed with Barnett’s ideas.
Unsk @31, so true, so true, what you said. Private capital, public ownership. This sort of thing should be shocking everybody. Well, at least the tea partiers are expressing outrage and shock, God bless them.
“I don’t understand the push to video, and I think it’s the wrong target audience. ”
The appeal is that a bunch of people in pajamas can fairly easily get their message out without having to have a staff write it up and transcribe it down. All they have to do is stand in front of a camera, say what they want to say, and then send it winging off into the etheric.
Writing it down so we don’t have read every single word and can skim through would require a lot more effort on the part of people who have real jobs in the real world and not a lot of time left over to make it easier for their audience.
I understand that. I nevertheless resent having to take *my* time to sit through a whole video which I could read in a fraction of the time.
Karen Yvonne @ 15: “Is it just me or has this omnipresence intensified of late?”
No, it’s not you. The intrusion of the government has become omnipresent. Here is what I think has or is happening.
The 0bamanation is in our faces all the time. A major TV announcement every week. Attacks on public figures like Rush to distract us. This swine flu thing is not even out of the statistical noise for heaven’s sake. What is the survival rate after infection? Pretty high I bet. 80-100 people dead in a country of 110 million. 36,000 die of the flu or complications due to the flu in the US every year. That is an average of 98.63 deaths A DAY! TEOTWAWKI must be around the corner. Or not.
Every time you see The 0bamanation come on TV and ask for our support of this or that program he wants to implement look on the back pages of your local paper to see what they are really up to. Some of it is pretty obvious. For example, the cartel wars in Mexico rage and spill over the border but the narrative is that 90% of the seized guns come from US guns shops? BS. You cannot buy an AR-15 (M-16 look-alike) in this country since last fall without prepurchase and a minimum 6 month wait. Who is buying them? Us bitter clingers and right wing terrorist wannabes (according to Napolitano)? Actually, sport shooters who do it for the fun of it. The same goes for ammo. Supplies are hard to come by. .380ACP is rare.
So far The 0bamanation has:
Nationalized the major banks
Nationalized two of the three major automakers
Attempting to nationalize health care
Destroyed about half of the wealth of the nation directly due to it’s policies. We will all be equal now – equally broke.
Has killed or is killing major weapons programs crucial to the security of the Republic – F-22, C-17 airlifter, advanced tanker program and missile defense systems to name just the ones I know of.
Specter today did more than change parties. Someone must have paid him well. Soros? He effectively handed the Dhimmicraps the nation and killed the two party system, I believe. Is this treasonous? I think so.
And some want to whine about whether PJM publishes videos? Don’t like ‘em? Don’t watch ‘em. See? Easy. Problem solved.
Either text or video is okay with me, it’s all communication. But I can understand a preference for text if your computer is crashing all the time. Barnett’s proposal (with lots of readers’ comments) can be read at federalismamendment.com
Robohobo, I hear you. I didn’t think it possible for Republicans in Congress to be weakened further but thanks to Specter, it’s one-party rule all the way now. The need for states to step up, assert and exercise their constitutional powers has gone critical.
Need a little levity by now? “Obama Man”
In addition, Pajamas TV is the only web video source that has repeatedly shown itself able to crash my entire browser (Firefox on OSX), so it’s a non-starter for me.
It only hangs up the PJTV page I’m looking at. So I guess I should be thankful.
“the same Supreme Court that usurped Constitutional interpretation for itself in Marbury v Madison.”
So – is the Constitution Judicially enforceable or not? If it is which judiciary should be charged with that enforcement? The French or the Italian? Since by your lights the American Judiciary is off the table.
The doctrine of “positivism” –that ‘legal’ is what the legal governmenrt says it is, is at the opposite end of the spectrum from so-called “natural law” which animates the Founder’s writings.