The "Tenthers"
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
When the 112th United States Congress convenes tomorrow, Jan. 5th, and the new members of the House of Representatives are sworn in, House Republicans plan a full reading of the U.S. Constitution, the first time such a thing has ever been done in the Capitol. They also propose that every bill have attached to it the article (or amendment) of the Constitution which justifies the bill.
In the reading, the House Republicans will be led by New Jersey’s own Scott Garret, the congressional representative for the 5th district, which encompasses a large swath of northernmost New Jersey, from the Hudson to the Delaware. According The Bergen Record, Ian Millhiser, a constitutional analyst with the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank, thinks Garrett is nuts.
Millhiser advises Garrett to actually read the Constitution and cites Article 1 of the Constitution as the justification for Congress to raise taxes for anything it deems the interests of the general welfare. What’s more the commerce clause allows Congress to regulate business transactions between the states, though not within a state’s borders.
But then, there’s that pesky Tenth Amendment, which Tea Partiers and their champions, i.e., Garrett cite in arguments against legislation such as Obamacare. “Tenthers” are the derisive name their critics have given them, as though the Tenth Amendment was a figment of their imaginations, limiting the federal government to certain enumerate powers, and nothing more. The Constitution is no conspiracy theory, however.
Millhiser needs to consult his dictionary and find out just what an “amendment” is and why the framers of the Constitution added them. Even at the foundation of our nation, there were proponents of Big Government and defenders of Limited Government.
In 1789, at the convening of the First Congress in New York City, Congress submitted to the then-12 states 12 amendments clarifying certain individual and states’ rights not referred to in the Constitution. They were called “The Bill of Rights.” Virginia delegate George Mason refused to sign the original Constitution as it did not oppose slavery or guarantee individual rights sufficiently.
“The conventions of a number of the States,” the Preamble to the resolution offering the proposed amendments read, “having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added, and as extending the ground of public confidence in the government will best insure the beneficent ends of its institutions, be it resolved that: (etc.)”
An “amendment” does not mean “change” in that you can simply wipe out a law that was previously written, as though you were erasing an embarrassing e-mail. The original law must stand so that history can record what was amended. But clearly, the 12 states were not happy with Article 1, Section 8 (in particular) feeling that it gave too much power to the federal government. In any case, Article 1, Section 10, already enumerates what the states cannot do.
The position of Secretary of Education is a fairly new position, created under Jimmy Carter in 1979. Created with it was the Department of Education. Until that time, the states had the authority to deal with education themselves. With the establishment of this cabinet position, the states’ lost that right. All the school board elections in creation cannot overcome this bureaucratic legerdemain. The right to decide how students would be educated was transferred from community leaders to community activists, political hacks, and bureaucrats. The federal government gained control of the purse strings, the syllabus, and the curriculum. Today, an avowed communist is in charge of the curriculum at my old alma mater.
If we leave the decision to the Liberals, there will be no state powers left. Education, marriage, even the election of Senators (see the 17th Amendment) has been stripped from the States. The Libs won’t be satisfied until we are one massive conglomeration of powerless people at the mercy of their tyrannical form of “government.”
Critics like Millhiser boast that it’s for the federal government to determine what the “general” welfare of the people and the country entails; but they get pretty darned specific and detailed when it comes to things like health care, a 2,000-page bill that the people never had the chance to read until it was passed.
The Liberals have made sure they’ve crossed every t and dotted every i in the words “tyrannize,” “totalitarian,” and “entitlement.” Or is it just my “imagination”?
When the 112th United States Congress convenes tomorrow, Jan. 5th, and the new members of the House of Representatives are sworn in, House Republicans plan a full reading of the U.S. Constitution, the first time such a thing has ever been done in the Capitol. They also propose that every bill have attached to it the article (or amendment) of the Constitution which justifies the bill.
In the reading, the House Republicans will be led by New Jersey’s own Scott Garret, the congressional representative for the 5th district, which encompasses a large swath of northernmost New Jersey, from the Hudson to the Delaware. According The Bergen Record, Ian Millhiser, a constitutional analyst with the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank, thinks Garrett is nuts.
Millhiser advises Garrett to actually read the Constitution and cites Article 1 of the Constitution as the justification for Congress to raise taxes for anything it deems the interests of the general welfare. What’s more the commerce clause allows Congress to regulate business transactions between the states, though not within a state’s borders.
But then, there’s that pesky Tenth Amendment, which Tea Partiers and their champions, i.e., Garrett cite in arguments against legislation such as Obamacare. “Tenthers” are the derisive name their critics have given them, as though the Tenth Amendment was a figment of their imaginations, limiting the federal government to certain enumerate powers, and nothing more. The Constitution is no conspiracy theory, however.
Millhiser needs to consult his dictionary and find out just what an “amendment” is and why the framers of the Constitution added them. Even at the foundation of our nation, there were proponents of Big Government and defenders of Limited Government.
In 1789, at the convening of the First Congress in New York City, Congress submitted to the then-12 states 12 amendments clarifying certain individual and states’ rights not referred to in the Constitution. They were called “The Bill of Rights.” Virginia delegate George Mason refused to sign the original Constitution as it did not oppose slavery or guarantee individual rights sufficiently.
“The conventions of a number of the States,” the Preamble to the resolution offering the proposed amendments read, “having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added, and as extending the ground of public confidence in the government will best insure the beneficent ends of its institutions, be it resolved that: (etc.)”
An “amendment” does not mean “change” in that you can simply wipe out a law that was previously written, as though you were erasing an embarrassing e-mail. The original law must stand so that history can record what was amended. But clearly, the 12 states were not happy with Article 1, Section 8 (in particular) feeling that it gave too much power to the federal government. In any case, Article 1, Section 10, already enumerates what the states cannot do.
The position of Secretary of Education is a fairly new position, created under Jimmy Carter in 1979. Created with it was the Department of Education. Until that time, the states had the authority to deal with education themselves. With the establishment of this cabinet position, the states’ lost that right. All the school board elections in creation cannot overcome this bureaucratic legerdemain. The right to decide how students would be educated was transferred from community leaders to community activists, political hacks, and bureaucrats. The federal government gained control of the purse strings, the syllabus, and the curriculum. Today, an avowed communist is in charge of the curriculum at my old alma mater.
If we leave the decision to the Liberals, there will be no state powers left. Education, marriage, even the election of Senators (see the 17th Amendment) has been stripped from the States. The Libs won’t be satisfied until we are one massive conglomeration of powerless people at the mercy of their tyrannical form of “government.”
Critics like Millhiser boast that it’s for the federal government to determine what the “general” welfare of the people and the country entails; but they get pretty darned specific and detailed when it comes to things like health care, a 2,000-page bill that the people never had the chance to read until it was passed.
The Liberals have made sure they’ve crossed every t and dotted every i in the words “tyrannize,” “totalitarian,” and “entitlement.” Or is it just my “imagination”?
posted by Belle | 7:21 PM
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