10th Amendment

Barack Obama recently described the U.S. Constitution as "an imperfect document ... a document that reflects some deep flaws ... (and) an enormous blind spot." He continued by saying "The Framers had that same blind spot." With all that, he is attempting to justify disregarding the Constitution. Even worse, he has tried to place himself above the Constitution and those "blind Framers" who just couldn't see the “big picture”. Chuck Norris said of that commentary; “After all, he's the constitutional scholar, and the Framers were just, well, the creators of the document!” With Mr. Obama’s apparent total misunderstanding of the meaning of our Constitution, despite his scholarly credentials, it’s no small wonder that he keeps his college records as well hidden as his birth certificate!

What I find particularly infuriating is the federal government (and Mr. Obama’s) continued violation of the 10th Amendment, a part of our Bill of Rights that was ratified in 1791, and that served us so well until the birth of “big government” at the end of the Civil War. That amendment 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." Most people, myself included, get upset when our First Amendment rights (freedom of speech and freedom of religion) are threatened by the loony left, and particularly so when our Second Amendment rights (the right to keep and bear arms) comes under attack by the gun grabbers and the Judiciary. However, the Tenth Amendment is probably the most important of them all, in that it specifically limits the power of the federal government. Thomas Jefferson explained this amendment when he said: "I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition." Unfortunately we’ve forgotten those words over the last hundred and forty-five years, and have allowed the federal government to assume just about any powers they wished. Now, under Mr. Obama, the government seems to want total power over this nation and its entire population, contrary to the rules laid down by our nations founders. Perhaps the framers did have some blind spots, but I’d hazard a guess that they were a whole lot smarter than Mr. Obama and his leftist cronies!

The present bugaboo is the federal attempt to take over the health care industry. (Apparently their appetite was only whetted with the banking and auto industries.) With the counter argument being based on the 10th Amendment, the federal government doesn't have a leg to stand on! Even with waving the flag of “for the common good”, the feds do not have that authority. The several states do, but the federal government doesn’t, and besides, the government has, time and again proven itself incapable of running private business. How many times does it have to be pointed out to Washington that Medicare, and Medicaid, is rapidly going bankrupt under their “expert” direction. They can’t seem to keep the VA system working very efficiently either, and now they want to take over an entire industry that accounts for nearly a sixth of our GNP!? Who, in their right mind, would appoint anyone to manage a business that has a whole string of failures in his dossier?

The Tenth Amendment has become almost powerless (ignored by the feds) at this point in our history, but there are a great many reasons to bring it to the forefront. We must keep in mind that the Founders envisioned a loose confederation of states – not a one-size-fits-all solution for everything that could arise. Why? The simple answer lies in the fact that they had just escaped the tyranny of a king who thought he knew best how to govern everything – including local colonies from across an ocean. Governments and political leaders are best held accountable to the will of the people when government is local, as the people of a state know what is best for them; thus they do not need bureaucrats, ruling from thousands of miles away, governing their lives. Historian Kevin Gutzman said that those who would give us a “living” Constitution are actually giving us a dead one, since such a thing is completely unable to protect us against the encroachments of government power.

Back to Thomas Jefferson, himself a source greater than any living constitutional lawyer, who wrote to Supreme Court Justice William Johnson in 1823: "The States supposed that by their tenth amendment, they had secured themselves against constructive powers. They did not learn from the past, nor were they aware of the slipperiness of the eels of the law. I ask for no straining of words against the General Government, nor yet against the States. I believe the States can best govern our home concerns, and the General Government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore, to see maintained that wholesome distribution of powers established by the constitution for the limitation of both; and never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold as at market."

This abuse of federal power could exist only in a nation that no longer holds its leaders accountable to its laws, and governmental leadership that regards itself as above the people and the Constitution. Yes, it’s definitely time for a change, but not the sort of change that Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi envision.