The Constitution: The 10th Amendment

There is a lot of talk about the 10th Amendment to the Constitution these
days. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure why there would be so much conversation given its clarity. For those of you who may not have read it lately, here is the full text: “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.”

So here comes the new health care law. If I understand it correctly this was a mandated requirement that people buy a product, from a private vendor, in which the product was approved by the Federal Government. There is no need to rehash the process which led to the passing of this law. We all remember the late Christmas Eve meetings, the trading of favors and the “passing of the bill, so we will know what is in it” process. There is no need to rehash the fact that Congress made no secret of the fact that they had not read the bill which had been cobbled together by unknown, non-elected people.  There is certainly no need to recall that a clear majority of citizens were against ruining the greatest health care system in the history of the world. No, there is no need to rehash any of this, it just happened. Everybody knew it would go to the Supreme Court and be subject to review. We trusted in our “safety valve.”

So we now have the decision of the court. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the prevailing opinion and ruled the Health Care Law Constitutional because it was a tax. Congress did not pass health care as a tax.  We heard the President on television flatly denying it was a tax. Democrats, to this day, deny it is a tax. It was clearly stated during the debates that it was not a tax. So, how did the Chief Justice arrive at this decision? Simple, he decided not to follow the Constitution. The Chief Justice rewrote the law to fit into his narrative. It does not matter why. The Court did not even question the idea the government could make a citizen purchase a product. So now it is clear, we don’t have a safety valve with the Supreme Court, we have another political body.

We now have the Federal Government suing a state for enforcing immigration laws.  Our economy is in poor condition. Our taxes will soon be increasing.  The best health care system in the world is being destroyed. Cities are starting to go bankrupt. All this is pretty bad, but the most important thing happening is we are allowing our government, a government we pay for, to walk away from our Constitution—a Constitution designed to protect us from an intrusive Federal Government.

There is a way out of this. Ben Franklin said we would have a Republic so long as we could handle it. There are an increasing number of people voting who lack historical perspective. It is incumbent on all of us to get out and vote our beliefs. You can bet those who would see our Constitution dismantled will be voting. 

Do not be deceived into believing this is about Political Parties. This is about our future and it depends on all of us regardless of our political beliefs. If you take time to read the history of the world before and during the history of the United States you will have empirical proof ours is the best government system in history. The world would be a much more violent, abusive and oppressive place without the United States and its Constitution.

We need to start obeying the Constitution. Our elective officials need to obey the Constitution and our courts need to faithfully serve the Constitution. The 10th Amendment would be a great place to start.