A Republic, If You Can Keep It
We, the people, talk about The Constitution and the Bill of Rights. What we need to remind ourselves is what a constitution is. It is a contract made by the people with themselves about how they wish to govern themselves; about their rights and restrictions on government.
As one reads the US Constitution you become aware of the many restrictions placed on the rights of government in how they deal with the people. The bill of rights is simply a reiteration of the rights of the people, stating government may not infringe upon these specific rights. The 9th and 10th amendments are more general, reminding us that rights not specifically given to the government remain with the people.
The Magna Carta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta) was one of the earliest constitutions as it was a limitation on the rights of King John of England, as proposed by his feudal barons. The right of habeas corpus, or the right to avoid wrongful imprisonment was first established about the same time. From this beginning followed many others of similar intent, including our own. In each, the purpose of the people is to establish a government, limited in scope and power, under which to live their lives.
The reason we would need a constitution seems obvious: there are many people; greedy, power hungry, authoritarian type people, who would use the legitimacy of government to advance their own ends. So the purpose of a constitution is to limit the power available to those in government.
In addition to limiting the power of government, our constitutions try to ensure the rights of minorities. Not just physical minorities such as races or sexes, but of religious and political minorities. Otherwise we end up with the tyranny of majorities. The amendment limiting Congress’s right to establish a state religion would be one example. There would be no state sanctioned religion.
Unfortunately, those who would abuse the power of government are not daunted by paper restrictions on their desires and so, over the course of 200 some years, have slowly and steadily enlarged their power far beyond the original intent of the constitution. In doing so they have taxed the people and limited the rights of the people instead of the government. They do this many ways, but in every instance try to pretend compliance with the constitution. Representative Nancy Pelosi let slip her contempt of the constitution and the limits it imposes on governments and its actors with her “are you serious” statement when asked where in the constitution the right to mandate health originates.
More often, those who would abuse the power of government write laws or regulations then seek court approval. This is to pretend the courts are the faithful arbiters of the limits our constitutions impose. This is hardly so. If it were true then it wouldn’t matter what judge was placed on a court. Senator Ted Kennedy would have had no problem placing Robert Bork on the Supreme Court as there would be little difference between his opinion and that of Ruth Ginsberg or David Souter. But we all know that is not true. The arguments, the political fighting over which judges to put on the court are a reflection of the fact that judges are not all the same. Some of them don’t care one whit about the constitution and see their position as one of rationalizing where they want to end up with some minor clause in the constitution in order to pretend they have followed the restrictions of the constitution. But this is a lie. It is a lie to the people who are being abused by government. This lie is the reason Senator Harry Reid changed long established Senate rules in order to pack the DC Court of Appeals with justices supportive of Democrat policy.
It is not because the judges will rule according to the Constitution, but because Senator Reid and President Obama expect the new appointees to abuse their position and help maintain the pretense of government abiding by the restrictions of the Constitution. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The purpose of Harry Reid, and the Senators, including North Carolina’s Kay Hagan, who support this move, is to further destroy the limitations written in the Constitution. Their only purpose is to maintain the fiction, which they can try to sell to the people, the court approved their abuse, and so it must be Constitutional.
No, the fact that a court approves does not make something Constitutional, it only means a court approved. And courts consist of people, not all of which are honest and some of whom are greedy, power hungry and authoritarian. So there is no more reason to trust them than any other con artist.
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