A doctrine 'most false and unfounded'
Vin Suprynowicz - everybody is making noise about the new military detention authorization included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012, and rightly so, but Vin reminds us that the liberty declared by The Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate each July 4, had a stake driven through its heart only a dozen years later, with the ratification of the US Constitution. As Boston T. Party has reminded us in his "Hologram of Liberty", the problems we face now are because of the Constitution, not despite it. Still, if the Constitution were narrowly interpreted, and rabidly enforced, on every sworn official, it would be a lot better than the government we have today.
If you can’t find written down in the Constitution any specific, articulated power to proscribe or regulate our commerce in cocaine, marijuana, opium or “every terrible instrument of the solider” (Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788) — if you can’t find written down in the Constitution any specifically articulated federal power to dictate how many miles per gallon our cars must achieve, or how big our toilet tanks may be, or what the “minimum wage” shall be, or whether a land owner may drain a swamp or kill any weeds or bugs he pleases on his own property, or what kind of filaments we must use in our light bulbs, or whether private power companies may burn coal to make electricity, or what our state speed limits may be — then the central government HAS no such powers.
What’s that? The Founders tolerated chattel slavery? That was changed by AMENDMENT. When did we pass an AMENDMENT to authorize the “War on Drugs” or a de facto ban on private ownership of machine guns and hand-held missile launchers? If we live under a system where the government has only such powers as are delegated to it by the people, then the people must have delegated to the government the power to possess all the terrible weapons they now routinely use. How could we delegate a right we do not have? How can the servant disarm the master?
Previous Posts:
Quote
Solar Energy Generation in Three Dimensions
Atlas Shrugged, Part I
One Hundred Million Dollar Penny
Statist Delusions: The bill for cradle-to-grave welfare has come due.
Vote for Peace: Spend Consciously
We Have Crossed the Rubicon
Freedom Versus Order? Since When?!
The Semantics of Liberty
Survival Situation -- Action Wins