Posted by
darrel on Monday, June 22, 2009 1:34:36 PM
Coming up on the Fourth of July, are going to be hundreds, maybe even thousands of TEA parties. Americans across the land will be voicing their concern over government abuses. They will be protesting the federal government and how it has taken on powers that are restricting the freedom of all Americans.
Started as a tax protest, the TEA parties have added other government abuses to their list, and that is a good thing; but are we addressing the right governments?
Everyone, well practically everyone, would agree that the federal government has overstepped its constitutional bounds, and taken on some powers that were not granted to them by the Constitution. We can't say we weren't warned. Alexander Hamilton as long ago as 1788 said in Federalist #78 "There is no position that depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people, are superior to the people themselves; that men, acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid."
Our founders were wise enough to allow the states a way out, when such as what Hamilton spoke of actually happened. It is a clever little piece called the tenth amendment, which allows the states to declare that the federal government has no business telling them that they have to do anything they say that is not authorized by the Constitution.
Americans across the land this Independence Day should be directing their attention to the state governments through their elected representatives and governors; telling them that we will no longer allow federal government to interfere in matters that belong only to the states. To date, there are thirty five states who have made some declaration that they will begin enforcing the tenth, to one degree or another. It is up to We the People to build a fire under those in our state governments to follow through. In the fifteen states that have not so declared, it is up to the citizens of those states to see to it that they too, make such a declaration.
We want freedom and liberty; freedom from burdensome taxes and liberty to run our lives the way we deem best, as long as it doesn't harm another individual. We want to be able to start a business if we want to without jumping through a bunch of government hoops, and we want to be free to fail if we don't run that business right; we want to be able to see to it that our children are given a proper education, one that we approve of; we want to stop seeing laws approved by the people overturned by judges who don't seem to be able to understand the Constitution. I could go on, but you get the point.
We're tired of a central government overstepping their authority by buying up businesses, propping up failing banks, and for that matter, telling those banks how and to who they must loan their money. We're fed up with a system where our "representatives" in congress allow their power to be usurped by the president by overreaching use of executive orders and presidential directives. We're tired of partisan politics, period.
We have seen enough of federal bureaucrats keeping us from using our own land as we choose to do, or to be able to build on that land because it might be home to some sort of "endangered" mouse or snail. We don't want appointed bureaucrats doing the job that we elected our representatives to do, and we don't want those representatives doing things they are not authorized by the Constitution to do.
In order to achieve that end, it is the responsibility of the people to see to it that those we elect on the most local levels are responsive to our voices. The states all have governments that are by design, independent from Washington DC, and it is about time that we held their feet to the fire and demanded that they assert their right under the tenth amendment to the Constitution.