Category Archives: Constitution

Statists Struggle With States' Rights

Constitution, Federalism, Founding Fathers, States' Rights

From my new, column, which you can now read on Taki’s Magazine (“10th Division”):

“States across the country are rediscovering and reasserting the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution:

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.

Quaint, I know, but to the federal government were delegated only limited and enumerated powers (Article I, Section 8): 17 to be precise. Most everything it does these days is extra-constitutional.

Forced to accept piles of paper from the federales, for “federally mandated increases in spending on Medicaid and education,” some states have realized that the price is too steep. Not only would they have to obey the occupying force; but the states could expect to splinter under the statist burden of a panoply of programs prescribed by the Healer-in-Chief, who would play them like hooked fish.

So, governors and state representatives are invoking that which ought to have been the law of the land: the ingenious Tenth Amendment

Miss the weekly column on WND? Catch it on Taki’s Magazine, every Saturday.

Updated: ‘He One Holy Roller’

Constitution, Democrats, Ethics, Federalism, Individual Rights, Iraq, Law, Morality, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Republicans

Another of my archaic titles (it hails from the Beatles’ “Come Together“).

Speaking at Notre Dame, “America’s leading Roman Catholic university,” President Obama called on the factions warring over abortion to come together and find common grounds.

“So let’s work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term.”

I agree. In their lyrics, the Beatles exhorted, “Come Together Right Now Over Me.” Make it, “Come Together Right Now Over the Constitution.”

There is no warrant in the constitution for or against abortion, adultery, homo-or hetero marriage, etc.

Quaint, I know, but to the federal government were delegated only limited and enumerated powers (Article I, Section 8):

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution states:

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.

Yet pro-life advocates want to force their way on the rest through a constitutional amendment. And pro-choice agitators wish to compel the country—and their countrymen who oppose the procedure—to pay for abortions.

Obama is no constitutional scholar although he is touted as one. But he should know that the Constitution proscribes his meddling and prescribes, via the brilliant Tenth Amendment, a perfectly good solution: Leave it to the states and the individuals concerned (and let them pay out-of pocket).

Would that pro-life types fussed as much over fully formed, innocent human beings (such as those who’ve perished in Iraq) as they do over fetuses. Republicans sure showed their contempt for life in their enthusiasim for the carnage visited on Iraqis.

Come to think of it, the culture of life never seems to extend beyond a claim of dominion over another human being’s body.

Update (May 19): I’ve posted this Iraq notice before, but judging from the letters received, retention is non-existent. So here goes again:

A note to the neoconservatives who frequent this site, and post their ill-formulated fulminations vis-a-vis the war on Iraq: That war is not going to be adjudicated again here, not ever. I chronicled the invasion of Iraq at great length, applying fact and every ounce of reason in my possession to repudiate and denounce that war crime. The case is closed! Neoconservative ideologues stand in the dock for aiding and abetting a war crime. The lazy neoconservative can read my archive on the topic. While I can imagine these ideologues urgently need to make peace with their maker, or consciences, for their role in a crime of such moral and material magnitude, they will not do so on my private property!

Big Man Barack

Africa, Barack Obama, Constitution, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, IMMIGRATION, Intellectualism, Israel, Journalism, Law

To go by the dictionary, and “within the context of political science, big man, big man syndrome, or bigmanism refers to corrupt and autocratic rule of countries by a single person.”

Back in February, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), “a stern constitutional scholar who has always stood up for the legislative branch in its role in checking the power of the White House,” warned about Obama’s executive-branch power grab.

According to Politico, “Byrd complained about Obama’s decision to create White House offices on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change. Byrd said such positions ‘can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.'”

Byrd is an old Southern gentleman after whom Republicans are always chasing for his past indiscretions. George Will follows in Byrd’s footsteps in making a similar point, only later in the game, and leveled at a president he did not support.

“The Obama administration is … careless regarding constitutional values and is acquiring a tincture of lawlessness,” writes Will. After detailing the flouting of contracts, the use of TARP as a slush fund, and the bullying of business, Will concludes:

“The Obama administration’s agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of ‘economic planning’ and ‘social justice’ that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration’s central activity — the political allocation of wealth and opportunity — is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.”

Update III: Swine Flu Part II: Pandemic Threat Raised

Classical Liberalism, Constitution, Democrats, Government, Healthcare, Homeland Security

JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE US-MEXICAN BORDER. Breitbart: “Suddenly faced with a new and unforeseen threat, people entering the country who said they felt unwell were questioned about their symptoms. But there were no reports of anyone refused entry.”

THE SWINE STILL AWOL Although Secretary Napolitano has advised Americans not to travel to Mexico, the Homeland Security’s headless head lady has instructed border agents to lay off entrants from Mexico; do only passive surveillance now.

“Right now,” she said, “we don’t think the facts warrant a more active testing or screening of passengers coming in from Mexico. … All persons entering the United States from a location of human infection of swine flu will be processed through all appropriate CBP protocols. Right now those are passive. That means that they’re looking for people who — and asking about, are you sick, have you been sick, and the like; and if so, then they can be referred over for further examination.”

Meantime, world-wide, “thermal scanners and upgraded checks for flu-like symptoms” have been implemented at airport checkpoints.

MSNBC: “Ira Longini, professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Washington in Seattle, talks about using ‘social distancing’ to reduce transmission of swine flu.” But worries that the window of opportunity is closing.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but “social distancing” would include precisely the measures this administration (following in the the footsteps of the last band of bastards) refuses to take: Put some distance between residents of flu “Ground Zero” (Mexico) and the US.

(Swine Flu Part I.)

Update I: Writes the indefatigable Brenda Walker of VDARE.COM:

“I don’t think Washington would shut down the Mexican border for any reason. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of American citizens are killed yearly by illegal alien Mexicans and those victims are considered by elites to be the acceptable cost of the globalized economy. Nothing changed in immigration policy after 9/11 when 3,000 died in an hour. So don’t expect a few germs to alter the Potemkin village that stands for national security these days. DHS is not even testing travelers from Mexico for the virus even though the government has declared a public health emergency.”

Update II (April 29): Those anarchists who think laissez faire is best in the case of the Mexican Flu will be disappointed. The WHO has raised the pandemic threat to 5, “meaning the world is at imminent risk of a pandemic from H1N1 swine flu,” said Dr. Margaret Chan.

This also means that the US can no longer just wave through entrants from Ground Zero.

In my household there is a little less snickering at the resident Howard Hughes: me. For years I’ve practiced rituals my family has scoffed, even mocked. Having grown up in a water-poor country where fruit and veg. are irrigated with “recycled” water (Israel), I wash produce down to the individual berry, and dry it, with the hope that mechanical manipulation helps remove filth.

With me in my handbag are alcohol impregnated “wet ones”; I prefer these to bottled gel, because you can’t sterilize handles, bars and door knobs with the latter. My keyboard has recently been replaced since vigorous cleaning had caused the letters to fade. I’ve been barred from our very old TV remote, after Sean managed to salvage it.

You get the drift.

Still, Scherie G. makes exactly the point that needs making. Not everyone entering the US is equal, however much our egalitarians would like that to be the case. Americans are so naive, they fail to even begin to imagine the kind of hygiene, health, and eating habits mass migration brings to their country.

As an immigrant to this country, I was screened for TB, HIV, Hepatitis B., and other infectious diseases. Can I honestly say that the host population had no right to know whether I carried these dread diseases?

Anyone who has not crossed over into the intellectual abyss that is anarchy will recognize that, yes, the host population has a right to be protected from an assault on their persons.

What infuriates me is the fact that such screening is practiced on a biased sample: one which is law abiding, tax-paying, and relatively well-off and healthy.

The number of communicable diseases—some really grotesques, such as brain worms, dengue fever, and leprosy—that have entered the US because of unselective immigration is appalling.

“Each illegal with Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis coughs and infects 10 to 30 people, who will not show symptoms immediately. Latent disease explodes later,” reports WND.

So the idea that once one carrier enters the country, then the other million need not be stopped is worse than stupid. The greater the number of infected entering the country, the greater and wider-spread the harm.

Update III: DHS does not have to solve the problem of the flu; all it has to do is its duty: defend this country’s borders. Not sure why this simple thing is so hard to grasp. It must be the affliction that accompanies those congenital, left-liberal, anarcho-instincts.