Chuck Norris re: Constitution

[armedandsafe]

Obama vs. the 10th Amendment
by Chuck Norris (more by this author)
Posted 03/02/2010 ET
Updated 03/02/2010 ET


Not surprisingly, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released last Friday revealed that 56 percent of Americans think the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to their rights and freedoms.

Particularly apropos here is the feds' health care violation of the 10th Amendment, which is part of our Bill of Rights and was ratified Dec. 15, 1791. The amendment says, "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."

Thomas Jefferson explained the pre-eminence of this amendment in 1791: "I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."

The point is that based on the 10th Amendment, when it comes to legislating and controlling our health care, the federal government doesn't have a constitutional leg to stand on. And even its past violations of the 10th Amendment by implementing government health care services have proved to break more national legs than they have to mend them. The proof is in the pudding. How many times does it have to be pointed out to Washington? Medicare is going bankrupt. Medicaid is going bankrupt. Case closed.

The government is inept to run America's health care system. And now it wants to expand its programs (its health care business) to oversee what equates to one-sixth of the gross national product? What rational board anywhere in the world would rightly appoint a CEO who had a string of miserable business failures and major corporate bankruptcies in his dossier?

I agree with Dr. Scott W. Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor at Stanford University Medical Center, and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who put it best in their article a few months back, titled "Alternatives to government health takeover." They said this: "We think it's critical that power shifts to the American consumer and away from government, employers and insurers, as evidence shows medical care prices come down when patients pay directly. Government should offer tax relief, such as refundable tax credits, to encourage private health insurance purchasing -- especially for low-income families. Similar ideas, like those in the Patients' Choice Act ... are important for Americans to consider. We would do well also to consider creative ideas such as changing federal payments to state-based medicaid plans to individual vouchers or expanding health savings accounts, as has been done in South Carolina."

Returning the onus of solving health care issues to families, local communities and states would not only return a balance of power to our federal government but also help with America's economic recovery and build up communities at the same time.

The abuse of federal political power to intervene in areas such as Americans' private health care could exist only in a nation that no longer holds its leaders accountable to its constitution and that has governmental leadership that regards itself as above its people and its constitution. Sadly, I was listening to an interview the other day in which President Barack Obama described the U.S. Constitution as "an imperfect document ... a document that reflects some deep flaws ... (and) an enormous blind spot." He also said, "The Framers had that same blind spot."

In so doing, the president established a rationale and justification for disregarding the Constitution. Even worse, he placed himself above the Constitution and those "blind Framers," who just couldn't see the big picture as he does today. After all, he's the constitutional scholar, and the Framers were just, well, the creators of the document!

Our 44th president would do well to learn from America's third president, Thomas Jefferson, himself a source greater than any living constitutional lawyer. Imagine Jefferson sitting there at the health care summit, a ripe sage at roughly 80 years of age. After listening to all the clamoring of both Republicans and Democrats, he politely but sternly utters these words, which he also wrote to Supreme Court Justice William Johnson in 1823: "The States supposed that by their tenth amendment, they had secured themselves against constructive powers. They (did not learn from the past), nor (were they) aware of the slipperiness of the eels of the law. I ask for no straining of words against the General Government, nor yet against the States. I believe the States can best govern our home concerns, and the General Government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore, to see maintained that wholesome distribution of powers established by the constitution for the limitation of both; and never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold as at market."

It couldn't be any clearer or wiser than that.

I encourage you to go to http://www.TenthAmendmentCenter.com and learn more about your 10th Amendment rights, and then fight for those rights by holding all your representatives accountable to them.

'Nuff said!

Pops

[graehaven]

I'm sure he loves being called "Chick" Norris too.

[armedandsafe]

OOOOOOPS! Thank you, sir.

Pops

[petesusn]

Absolutely pops, "nuff said!

[user]

I've got news for you. The Constitution was abrogated a long, long time ago. Marbury v. Madison is celebrated for having established the principle of judicial review. But that's not what it did, and that principle was part of the Common Law a long time before that case. What that case did was to assert federal pre-eminency over the Constitution. The "Civil War" was over the Constitution, not slavery (who gets to decide what constitutes "property" within a state?), and cemented federal control over the document which created the United States. The United States won, and the states lost; the United States now only pays lip service to the Constitution as a sacred ritual but it now exists by virtue of its power, not authority. The Constitution means whatever the United States says it means. We've already lost that battle.

If the United States were held to the confines of its Constitutional authority, there would be no Department of Education, no Health and Human Services, no Housing and Urban Development, no "National Guard", and no federal law enforcement.

Here's another wrinkle to ponder: if the U.S.Sup.Ct. decides that the Second Amendment applies to the states, that's another nail in the coffin of the Tenth Amendment. The whole point of "selective incorporation" is what they call "substantive due process". Seems like a contradiction, doesn't it? It's either "substance" or it's "process" - and all the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees is that you will get the procedure that is appropriate for your case, not that you will have any particular set of rights under your state's constitution. Substantive due process and the application of the Bill of Rights to the states is a way of (1) undermining the ability of the people of any particular state to run their state the way they see fit; and (2) undermining the principle that the United States is strictly bound by the Bill of Rights.

As to the Second Amendment, in particular, if there be incorporation, then it will be subject to the scheme of "reasonable regulation" discussed in Heller. Well, the Second Amendment doesn't say, "subject to reasonable regulation"; it says, "shall not be infringed." That clearly envisions parallel governmental structures, one of which is absolutely prohibited from making any restrictions at all upon the right to own, possess, and use firearms. Not only that, but since it's expressed in an amendment, which by definition supercedes anything to the contrary contained within the body of the document, the Second Amendment also constrains Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce. On the other hand, the people of a particular state may regulate themselves any way they see fit. That's why I do not travel or do business in certain states; I think Maryland and New York have a perfect right to have all the gun control they want to, but I don't go to those states, and I don't do business directly with anyone who's located there.

I would much rather see the U.S.Sup.Ct. decide that the Second Amendment is NOT incorporated, for the reason that all "selective incorporation" on the basis of "substantive due process" is in violation of the Tenth Amendment.

Oh, and if you want to cut the cost of the federal government and reduce taxes, just require that they stay within the circle of authority defined by the Constitution. But you won't do it, because you, the people of the United States, have become dependant on federal programs and dollars. The United States has no authority to do social security, medicaid, or medicare, school lunches, educational grants, or to pay for road construction within a state.

The federal government is doing all sorts of things it has no business doing; but it is NOT coining money, or defending the borders against invasion (I'm thinking of the colonization effort from the South), the specific things it was created to do.

I'm with Nancy Reagan on this one: "Just say, 'NO!"

[carver]

user, you are dead on! Now that Obozo has nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court we should really see some perversions of our Constitution. We were studying the 10th Amendment last night at a Tea Party sponsored Constitutional Class. We are fortunate that we have a lawyer teaching the class, Royal Alexander (you can goggle him). This was one of things I commented on during the class. I feel that most people don't know how much damage has been done, and they don't realize how long it has been going on. Mostly because they know little, or nothing, about our Constitution. I admit that I didn't either until a few years ago, my shame. Liberals and progressives believe that the Constitution is a living, breathing document that should evolve with the times. They want Supreme Court justices to be flexible in interpreting the Constitution and adapting 18th-century language to 21st-century applications. Watch what happens now!

[45nut]

What user and carver said. I fear we may be too far down the road to change things back with the ballot box.

[Gun Geezer]

I see little difference between political parties. They care only about getting elected and staying in office. Those who are waiting in the wings will do or say anything that will get them votes, so where's the difference? Politics, like medicine has become a field of specialization. To be electable a candidate must fit a mold, sort of like a used car salesman and just about as trustworthy. I really believe we are too far gone to change things at the ballot box. Public Servants no more serve the public than a fox can guard a hen house. After the revolution all our elected officials must run on the platform of having no experience or prior dealings in politics.

[Marlin T]

OUTSTANDING thread everybody, thanks.