Whether it is in the name of the war on terror, the current economic crisis, the current environmental crisis in the gulf, or you name it the feds are there to save the day. They will extract extraordinary powers in the name of the common good. Perpetual crisis demands perpetual solutions.
Don't get me wrong. I realize the need for federal power. But only when those powers are specifically granted by the constitution. If the constitution falls short and the states see a need to grant the federal government more power to deal with new and emerging problems, so be it. If they are that pressing and that necessary there should be no problem in getting an amendment passed granting the feds the authority.
The keepers of the constitution, the American people, have themselves to blame. They have allowed their freedom and the risk that comes with it, to be subsidized by the federal government. The constitution has been transformed from a document that once espoused limited government defined by enumerated powers, into a document that grants unlimited federal power as long as it is covered in the cloak of "general welfare", "necessary and proper", and of course the interstate commerce clause.
These terms are removed from the context of the constitution and its intent of limited federal government power. Once these general terms have been stripped of their context in the constitution, they can be liberally defined. Federal power is now only limited to congress's definition of "general welfare", necessary and proper", and its definition what falls under interstate commerce as defined by a simple majority and the executives approval. In lieu of the amendment process. Not to be slighted, the executive branch is joining the fray. The judicial branch as well has fallen prey to the lusts of central government power.
It would be my contention that the states ratified a constitution that does not exist today. The federal government has broken the contract. IMO legally they have the right to part ways and move on. But like a marriage contract that has been violated they can remain in the union if it is in their best interest. Whether it is by fear or choice.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/537967/201006211813/Is-US-Now-On-Slippery-Slope-To-Tyranny-.aspx
Lets evaluate some of Sowells's points in the article.
Anyone want to take a gander at this one?Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.
Anyone think BP should be denied the due process of law before their property is confiscated by the government? Anyone? I know they are publicly perceived shitbags but should they not see their day in court? What about federal regulators who may have shirked their duties? Should they get a pass? Maybe some gulf state will grow a pair and sue the feds for dereliction of duty in that they failed in their regulatory duties to protect the gulf states from this sort of disaster because they were sleeping with BP? Don't hold your breath.And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP's oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated.
But our government is supposed to be "a government of laws and not of men."
If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion — or $50 billion or $100 billion — then so be it.
But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without "due process of law."
Sowell is 100% right. Power is never confined to the particular crisis that gave it its birth. But like a cancer it metastasizes and spreads through the body politic. It destroys the healthy cells and antibodies that the constitution laid forth for our defense against unbridled central government power.With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.
If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don't believe in constitutional government.
And, without constitutional government, freedom cannot endure. There will always be a "crisis" — which, as the president's chief of staff has said, cannot be allowed to "go to waste" as an opportunity to expand the government's power.
That power will of course not be confined to BP or to the particular period of crisis that gave rise to the use of that power, much less to the particular issues
Our federal body is sick. The American people are the only ones that can bring forth the radical treatment needed to cure the cancer that has infected the federal body politic. The constitution was supposed to provide us with immunity from the ills of unlimited government power. It is high time the American people wake up and once again constrain the federal government to those powers strictly enumerated in the constitution, otherwise this cancer will kill the freedoms we hold dear.
