Constitution shredded
Why do they take the oath to uphold the Constitution? This article from the Heritage Foundation explains the thoughts of the founders, and shows how the Obama and Bush administration lit a match to the Constitution.
The Morning Bell
FRIDAY, AUG 14, 2009
Is Obamacare Consistent With Our First Principles?
During one of Sen. Arlen Specter’s (D-PA) early health care townhalls in Lebanon, Pennsylvania; mother of two Katy Abrams told the audience: “I don’t believe this is just about health care. It’s not about TARP. It’s not about left and right. This is about the systematic dismantling of this country. I’m only 35 years-old. I’ve never been interested in politics. You have awakened the sleeping giant.” Abrams is dead on. Our federal government has, unfortunately, long been drifting away from the limited government principles first envisioned by our founders. But over the past eleven months, that drift has turned into an all out sprint towards an undemocratic, technocratic, leviathan state … a type of government that our Constitution was specifically designed to prevent.
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As Abrams points out, both political parties have been complicit in the rapid deterioration of our founding principles. It was after all President Bush who pushed for and signed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 which created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). When the Bush administration submitted their legislation to Congress we warned: “From a constitutional standpoint, the current versions of the legislation are different in scope, and especially in kind, from almost any federal legislation that has come before.” Specifically we identified: (1) Congress’s enumerated power—or lack thereof—to intervene with private markets in the manner contemplated, (2) the lack of meaningful standards to guide the extremely broad grant of discretion to the Treasury secretary (the “legislative delegation” problem), (3) limitations on judicial review over the exercise of that almost limitless discretion, and (4) related separation of powers concerns.
The only thing that truly surprised us after the legislation’s passage was just how quickly our worst fears were realized. The TARP plan, as sold to Congress, was never even implemented and, instead, it quickly devolved into a political slush fund. Because of the broad delegations of authority in the bill, the American people were left with no real avenue to check the federal government’s unprecedented interference in the U.S. economy. When Members of Congress voted for the bill in October 2008, could any of them honestly say they thought they had just voted to bailout General Motors and Chrysler?
The proposed health care legislation is just as bad, if not worse, than TARP. Sec. 142 of H.R. 3200 grants the new Orwellian titled “Health Choices Commissioner” broad lawmaking authority including the power to set standards for every Americans health insurance plan, to determine which of your current insurance plans do or do not meet that standard, and then to punish plans that do not meet that standard. Even worse is what is not yet in the bill, but is desperately wanted by the Obama administration. A super-empowered Medicare Payment Advisory Commission that is specifically designed to “save money in an apolitical, technocratic way.” The entire purpose of this part of Obamacare would be to take medical decisions away from patients and vest it in a panel of experts specifically designed to be completely unaccountable to the American people. Is this what the Framers of the Constitution had in mind?
When the Constitution was being ratified, James Madison, writing as Publius, sought to allay fears that the new national government would turn into a Leviathan. In the 45th Federalist Paper he emphasized that adoption of the Constitution would create a government of enumerated, and therefore strictly limited, powers. Madison said: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined… [and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce….” Federal tax collectors, Madison assured everyone, “will be principally on the seacoast, and not very numerous.” Exactly six months after publication of this essay, New York became the 11th state to ratify the Constitution. Is turning over one-sixth of our nation’s economy over to Obama’s super-MedPAC panel in any way consistent with this vision?
IT IS INDEED TRUE. I can proove it to ANY of you. Just try to contact some of our so called ‘agencies” such as the IRS[srry i offened your ears] Or other agents of the government. You will be met with deciet, silence, various tactics. The old saying “silence is golden” takes on new meaning. The sad thing is the one way to beat them is to be willing to lose all.I do not advocate disrest, but i do advocate fairness, and our governmnet stepping back to thier rightfull plce as our servants, not our masters, i will go to my death feeling this way. It has been said so many times, when the people fear the government, it is tyranny, when the goverment fears the people it is freedom. many of our youth will wake up someday in a world far different than the one we live in. And, they will look back at us as heroes. And they will ask themselves, why did we not listen to these old men, these men who knew real freedom. It is happenning right now at a terrifing pace. basically, you have one right, the right to remain silent.We here in maui know we are surrounded by people who are agianst what we say, i quess they are not going to mind the fact soon they will have no freedom of movement, no freedom of speach. I quess they wont mind being told what to do, when to do it, and threatened with imprisionment if they disobey. Anyone whop thikns im off base on this think twice. Its all true. I will site just one recent change at our airports, now you will be reqired to tell your date of birth, along with being subjected to a body search. The government awaits our demise, [my generation] so none will be left to remember the true freedoms we had. We are on that track right now. Yes, it IS hard to think of these things young people, yes it takes guts and bravery to fight it. Im not saying by violence, im saying get ready to vote in the next election and demnd the canadate will follow the constitution. Yep, yall know me, i could go on for hours.They keep you so busy looking in another direction you fail to see the real threat.