I do not think it means what you think it means...
If there is one thing that bugs me about politics more than anything else, it is that people don't seem to understand what the Constitution is, what is says, and who it even pertains to. I hear people say stuff all of the time like "freedom of speech, so I can say whatever I want". Well, no, you can't. Not if there are state or local laws against certain types of speech, like cussin' or what-have-you.
I'll try to keep this short, because entire college courses are taught on this subject. The United States Constitution is an agreement by the states as to what the Federal Government can and cannot do. Period. It does not limit the states and it most certainly does not limit the people. It spells out exactly what powers the federal government has and specifically what it cannot do (especially in the Bill of Rights) and leaves any other powers, even if they aren't mentioned, to the states and to the people. It is, in a nutshell, the procedure by which the federal government operates, and most importantly that which restricts what they can do to us.
So, by the U.S. Constitution, Congress shall make no law...against speech, against owning weapons, forcing the quartering of soldiers, etc, etc, etc. The constitution does not prohibit states from doing so though. States have their own constitutions that layout rights and powers. A state could be pretty authoritarian if they wanted to, but they would not be a popular place to live. This might explain the mass exodus from California, for example.
But, as the federal government is chock full of lawyers, they always find a way around the Constitution. Instead of making laws to control people, they pass regulations. Regulations are basically suggested guidelines and not laws. See, the Constitution does not give the federal government the right to classify a depression in your backyard that fills with water every time it rains as a protected wetland. So they use the EPA to make that a regulation and then tell states that "we suggest this, and if you do not adopt it within your laws, we will cut funding from something".
Tricky Dicks, eh? Which further supports my insistence that the only way to get the federal government back under control by the people is by taking away their ability to directly tax people and businesses.
Because the federal government gets their power from tax dollars, not the Constitution which was written expressly to limit their power.
I'll call that beautiful.
ReplyDeleteYour post is sad, though, because the solution is not possible. They won't give up their $ power. So what can we do?
Love it. Good reasoning and I like where you're headed.
ReplyDeleteQuick question (that's not meant as snark, by the way): How do you feel about those Amendments that have been "incorporated to the States" what-have-you, which is why they say local schools can't do this or that because "Congress shall make no laws..." has been interpreted as "nobody working for any government body can express an opinion on..." ?
Lawyerese is what it is. They use the transitive property when it suits them and ignore it when it doesn't. A public school in a state operates by state laws and thus isn't held accountable by the Constitution where it says that the federal government, "Congress", shall make no law concerning religion...but the transitive property says that since state schools accept federal tax dollars, they cannot put a copy of the Ten Commandments on a wall. Which is totally inane. A local school system can do whatever it wants, whether it takes tax dollars from the federal government or not. It is a stretch to say that taking tax money constitutes congress making a law to respect one religion over another. By the same logic, the federal government should not be able to give tax money to a state for any purpose, nor should it be able to regulate how that money is even spent. It is called separation of powers, and that is expressly dealt with in the Constitution. The thing would never have been ratified in the first place if the states weren't able to insure that they had absolute control over how things were run within their borders.
DeleteProblem is, we kept electing lawyers to office who are experts on twisting words until they break. If you really want change in Washington, never vote for a lawyer again.