Taking from the Federal Government and the impetus to socialism it brings.

Taking from the Federal Government, and the impetus towards centralization it brings.

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United Sates 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.” The Federal Government was designed to secure our rights and liberties and nothing more.

James Madison made the point in 1794 in the House to object to a welfare proposal saying he could not, “undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Federal Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents” (4 Annals of Congress p.179, 1794). Madison’s point was that Congress did not have the power, no matter how worthy its cause, to grant money for welfare. But, since this time Congressional efforts have exceeded these Constitutional strictures to include FEMA, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Education, Department of the Interiors, Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, Department of Treasury, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Labor, Department of Veteran Affairs, and Department of Transportation. The most significant result arising from the creation of these organizations is they have made the States subservient to the Federal Government through the money and unconstitutional laws enacted around this leviathan.

The money supplied to the States from these Federal institutions has ultimately made every individual more dependent on the Federal Government’s flow of cash. The responsibility for ones self and family has slowly shifted, and handed responsibility to the Federal Government. We no longer take responsibility for our children’s education, nor even for their wellbeing, in many instances. We no longer take responsibility for our security. We no longer take responsibility to rebuild our communities when they are destroyed by natural occurrences. Because of the relentless intrusions by the Federal Government we the people are losing control over our own lives.

In 1887, 100 years after the Constitution was drafted, President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill to buy seeds for Texas farmers suffering from a drought, saying he could “find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution” (The purpose and limits of Government, Pilon, Rodger, 1999). You see, no matter how good the intention may be these subsidies from the government are unconstitutional because the power for the Federal Government to grant these subsidies does not exist in our Constitution. Nor do the States give them the power. Nor do the people within those states give them the power. FEMA, along with almost every “Department” set up by the Federal Government since its inception, exists in direct violation of the Constitution of the United Sates. There are American citizens who believe in expansive government, ignorant of the implications this brings. There are others who use the government to advance their own ends. These examples are why we must constrain the Federal Government by holding it to the strictures of the Constitution of the United Sates. In a truly free society, that thrives on civil liberties it is up to the people of that free society to take care of themselves. For evidence of how well the Federal Government can take care of the people look no further than New Orleans, Louisiana, and the utterly incompetent “disaster-relief” efforts of FEMA, following hurricane Katrina in 2005.

This rise of the welfare state comes out of the ashes of the Civil War with Abraham Lincoln’s version of the “American System” and evolved into the misconception today of “good government”. Our Founding Fathers looked at government as a necessary evil to be feared, and limited, where as “progressives” view government as a way to solve social problems, that government is good, and can help re-engineer our society to improve the well being overall. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a “progressive”, and the New Deal he brokered ushered in a wave of bad policies to fertilize and cultivate this welfare state, and for the next 70 years these bad policies spawned more bad policies to create the leviathan we have today. Rodger Pilon in “The Purpose and Limits of Government” made two points to how this Federal control, and welfare to the states began, and why no one has really fought to stop these “good government” policies. First he points to the General Welfare Clause, from Article I, Section 8 of the Articles of Confederation. As Pilon states, “the centerpiece of the Constitution, again, is the doctrine of enumerated powers, which limits the Federal Government to its authorized ends”. (The purpose and limits of Government, Pilon, Rodger, 1999) Particular or local welfare is not specifically stated in the Constitution so it should be understood that Congress does not have the power to delegate funding for anything other than very general expenses, and the individual states should take care of their own. The Supreme Court in 1938 thought differently, and granted Congress independent power to spend for general, or any particular welfare it deemed necessary. And, power, as we know, has a way of eradicating the human ability for restraint. The second point made by Pilon which was reinterpreted by the same foolish Supreme Court was the Commerce Clause. Pilon points out, “the Founders gave Congress the power to regulate, or make regular commerce among the states and to negate state efforts at restraining trade”. “The Commerce Clause was put in the Articles of Confederation to ensure free trade”. But, as the New Deal was being railroaded through in the name of “good government” this was changed to mean, Congress had the power to regulate everything that affects interstate commerce (The purpose and limits of Government 1999). My how far we have come since those fateful days of the “great” socialist FDR, and because of government regulations, hand outs, and this false ideology of “good government” there is no ground to sacred for the mighty Federal Government to walk on. As Mr. Pilon so eloquently put it, “the modern regulatory state poured through the opening floodgates until today there seems almost no subject too personal or too trivial for federal regulatory attention”. (The purpose and limits of Government, Pilon, Rodger, 1999) Congress is involved in possible federal regulations for steroid use in baseball, it uses the FCC to regulate what you can and can’t watch on television, the Department of Justice along with the DEA tell you what drugs you can and can not take, and the Department of Homeland Security tells you which kind of people you can and can not talk to without finding yourself in a prison in Guantanamo Bay, and soon you will not have too many choices where you can receive medical care. As H.L. Mencken said “the urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it”.

by Sebastian Grey