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Obama / Congress cannot lawfully exercise non-existent federal government powers

Posted on 11/04/2008 10:11:00 PM PST by Amendment10

Sadly, most of the country failed Constitution 101 tonight, IMHO.

I don't know what Obama actually knows about the Constitution, but the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution to limit the powers of the federal government. And the truth of the matter is that many of Obama's campaign promises are based on non-existent federal government powers. In fact, Obama's ideas are in contempt of the following constitutional statutes, in my opinion. (Republicans are guilty of this too.)

Article I, Section 8, Clause 18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

10th Amendment: 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.

Take Obama's ideas for national health care, for example. Reflecting on the Founder's division of federal and state powers as evidenced by the 10th Amendment, Thomas Jefferson had noted that the Founders had trusted the states, not the federal govenment, with the care of the people.

"Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our persons (emphasis added), our property, our reputation and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801. ME 10:262 http://tinyurl.com/onx4j

So when Obama and the Democratic Congress lay taxes to establish a federal health care program without explicit constitutional authorization to do so, what they are really doing is carrying on the mainly Democratic tradition of unlawfully exercising non-existent federal government powers. And the people are impotent to do anything about it simply because they don't know their own Constitution.

Democratic perversions of the Constitution have been going on since the 1930s when constitutional flunky FDR ignored 10th A. protected state powers to establish his New Deal federal spending programs. But sadly, the people have evidently remained detached from the intentions of the Founders as reflected by the Constitution. So they don't put their foot down when the federal government exercises powers which the Article V majority have never delegated to it via the Constitution, particularly where constitutionally unauthorized spending is concerned.

Yes, the Article V majority can always amend the Constitution to authorize the federal government to lay taxes to administer national health care, for example. But until such a time, government administered health care is a state power issue, not the business of the federal government.

Again, the problem is that the people have unthinkingly been letting constitutionally clueless DC politicians subvert the will of the Article V majority with politically correct perversions of the Constitution since the time of FDR. The people need to wise up to the fact that the federal government is illegally operating outside its constitutional restraints, put their foot down, and put the federal "gorilla" (government) back into its cage.

The bottom line is, given that the people can learn from their mistakes, there's nothing stopping the people from using the Constitution to clean up the federal government.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: constitution; federal; limited; power
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1 posted on 11/04/2008 10:11:01 PM PST by Amendment10
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To: Amendment10
I think after tonight you can pretty much hang a roll of them constitutions next to the commode
2 posted on 11/04/2008 10:13:07 PM PST by April Lexington (I'm voting for McCain in 2008 and Jefferson Davis in 2012)
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To: Amendment10

“Sadly, most of the country failed Constitution 101...”

They don’t even know what the document is let alone show up for the test.


3 posted on 11/04/2008 10:13:34 PM PST by Boucheau (A wise & frugal gov't...shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. T. Jefferson)
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To: Amendment10

90% of the Federal Government is unconstitutional. You think a silly backbencher amendment is going to stop them?

Hell, Bush signed CFR!


4 posted on 11/04/2008 10:13:37 PM PST by Crazieman (Comrades! I welcome you to the United Socialist States of Amerika!)
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To: Amendment10
Yes, the Reserved Powers Clause is buried beneath a mountain of unconstitutional federal programs.

there's nothing stopping the people from using the Constitution to clean up the federal government.

Well, we kind of thought Sarah Palin would help us do that. Without any elected representatives to help, how can this be accomplished?

5 posted on 11/04/2008 10:15:41 PM PST by Elvina (The average IQ in America is 100. Half are operating in the double-digits --as seen tonight.)
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To: Amendment10

How quaint your reference to the Constitution. That scrap of paper is utterly irrelevant.


6 posted on 11/04/2008 10:16:06 PM PST by Royal Wulff
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To: Amendment10

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution reads: …


7 posted on 11/04/2008 10:16:46 PM PST by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: Amendment10

You’re talking about a president elect and congress that don’t care a spit about the Constitution other then the clauses that got them elected in the first place. And even then they really don’t care because Hussein hasn’t proven he is even legally able to hold the office.


8 posted on 11/04/2008 10:18:54 PM PST by Domandred (McWhathisname / Palin - 2008)
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To: Amendment10
Obama / Congress cannot lawfully exercise non-existent federal government powers

But they'll do it anyways.

9 posted on 11/04/2008 10:18:57 PM PST by lowbridge
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To: Amendment10

Ah heck you don’t think that Constitution thingy is going to stand in the way of executive orders, do you?


10 posted on 11/04/2008 10:20:24 PM PST by PistolPaknMama (Al-Queda can recruit on college campuses but the US military can't! --FReeper airborne)
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To: Amendment10
Constitution...

freedom of speech... going

gun rights....going

POTUS, can run for 3rd term... yep

11 posted on 11/04/2008 10:20:43 PM PST by PeanutbutterandJellybean
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To: Amendment10

You’d have to do a complete legal review of all court cases dealing with this. Perhaps the “general welfare” term has been interpreted to mean something that’s not readily apparent to you know.

Hire a lawyer to do the research.


12 posted on 11/04/2008 10:21:10 PM PST by Technical Editor
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To: Amendment10
Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are existence proofs that both of your arguments can be trampled down:
  1. Abortion is protected by the federal government exercising the nonexistent power of enforcing the right to privacy. A right that is not called out in the Constitution or it's Amendments.
  2. Social Security and Medicare are enormous federal programs that provide care for the people.

13 posted on 11/04/2008 10:22:41 PM PST by 5thGenTexan
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To: Amendment10

Barry X will “break free” from the “constraints” of the Constitution. It was written by a bunch of dead white guys anyway.


14 posted on 11/04/2008 10:23:16 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Amendment10
Unfortunately, they've got that 16th ammendment thing going on for them.

 
NUMBER: 1798
AUTHOR: Daniel Webster (1782–1852)
QUOTATION: The power to tax is the power to destroy.
ATTRIBUTION: This quotation comes from the words of DANIEL WEBSTER and those of JOHN MARSHALL in the Supreme Court case, McCulloch v. Maryland.

  Webster, in arguing the case, said: “An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy,” 17 U.S. 327 (1819).

  In his decision, Chief Justice Marshall said: “That the power of taxing it [the bank] by the States may be exercised so as to destroy it, is too obvious to be denied” (p. 427), and “That the power to tax involves the power to destroy … [is] not to be denied” (p. 431).

15 posted on 11/04/2008 10:28:07 PM PST by smokingfrog ( God doesn't wear a wristwatch.)
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To: Amendment10

Look, even Thomas Jefferson in his Sixth Annual Message or State of the Union speech called for a specific Constitutional Amendment to create a Department of Education,

“I suppose an amendment to the Constitution, by consent of the States, necessary, because the objects now recommended are not among those enumerated in the Constitution, and to which it permits the public moneys to be applied.

The present consideration of a national establishment for education particularly is rendered proper by this circumstance also, that if Congress, approving the proposition...”

Today he`d be laughed at as some kinda kook nutjob and locked up.


16 posted on 11/04/2008 10:32:08 PM PST by Para-Ord.45
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To: Amendment10
And the truth of the matter is that many of Obama's campaign promises are based on non-existent federal government powers.

Never stopped 'em before.

17 posted on 11/04/2008 10:33:22 PM PST by Still Thinking (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)
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To: Amendment10

Obama knows the original intent (limited enumerated federal powers and negative rights) of the founders quite well and better than most, if not all, the members of Congress.

He disagrees with that original intent, and sees it as a “tragic flaw”.


18 posted on 11/04/2008 10:42:20 PM PST by secretagent
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To: Amendment10

Are you a rich and philanthropic lawyer, and will you be there to defend us when we adopt an MLK approach and refuse to obey laws which clearly violate that constitutional clause (the 10th Amendment)? Gosh I hope so!

Half the stuff commonly thought to be the law today violates the 10th Amendment, but no one listens, and all who disobey those fake laws are tarred and feathered on the evening news (the stocks of our time) just as badly as real lawbreakers.

It will do no good for us to sit and write there in the Birmingham Jail unless someone is willing to sue in a visible and public manner on our behalf to get us out.

I have in my possession a copy of one letter I wrote Texas Gov. George Bush asking him to observe the 10th amendment and not to throw in with a pack of other governors who were advocating that the federal government begin to take certain actions prohibited under the tenth amendment.

It did no good and did not persuade him. He joined the idiots. Instead I received the Governor’s letter of reply in which he states, in essence, that since he likes illegal idea he and his cronies are advocating, he just gonna ignore the tenth and do what he wants. So it’s no surprise to me what we got for a president, a populist guy, a nice guy I personally like, a guy good on a few conservative issues, but a guy who refused to follow the Texas Party Platform at all, and one who undercut us on basic principles all the time.

McCain? Same. He never really heard of the 10th amendment either. Or the 9th.

So if even the common everyday RINOs we so often are stuck with are CLUELESS about observing the restrictions in the US Constitution, why would anyone think we can force the democrats to observe them? Not likely!

I write the above, though, mainly to show the difficulty of the task. I actually think that we SHOULD still try to force our government to address the issue—although we should have very high expectations of their cooperation. We will have to force both sides of the isle, though. And we need to nominate and elect NO RINOS and only those who really will stick to our constitution, limited government, and Orthodox Americanism.


19 posted on 11/04/2008 10:43:17 PM PST by Weirdad (A Free Republic, not a "democracy" (mob rule))
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To: Amendment10

5 Supreme Court justices in the bag and the Constitution need not apply.


20 posted on 11/04/2008 10:43:28 PM PST by Master of Obvious (Guaranteed)
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