Anybody who has taken the liberty of perusing their state laws, local ordinances, or even homeowners association documents has undoubtedly come across some high-toned, heavy-languaged law that at the very least leaves one scratching their head, if not questioning whether or not it’s even English. As law making goes, the drafters are usually attempting to make the matter as concise and unambiguous as possible to suit the purpose of the law. They take great pains to choose words whose definition and context will both accomplish their legislative goal, and convey the proper intent of the law.
Of course, I may be giving these guys way too much credit, and certainly some are far more adept at this endeavor than others. Yet even the most adept, who arguably the founding fathers of our nation were, are not immune to the wanton avarice of those individuals who seek to distort, contrive, and extract dubious and unintended meanings to suit their purpose.
Little Tommy Jefferson, in all his would-be erudition, recently came across a fine example of this very phenomenon. Most of my small but worthy readership is no doubt familiar with the American legacies of FDR’s New Deal, and LBJ’s Great Society. These periods resulted in unprecedented growth in the federal government, and the birth of Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and other welfare programs. Their Constitutional justification for doing so lie in their interpretation of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution:
The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; (emphasis added)
Now, the one thing about a document so grand in importance and significance as the Constitution is that it was clearly well thought out. The Constitutional Convention labored arduously to bring about a documented system of government that would stand the test of time. Furthermore, they did so with much study and meditation on historical systems of government – their advancements, their downfalls – and writings of historical leaders, philosophers, and political scientists. It was hardly done willy-nilly.
What’s more, they left a significant amount of documentation behind to explain their intentions. One such collection of documents is ‘The Federalist’. In Number 41, James Madison asks the question, “Is the aggregate power of the general government greater than ought to have been vested in it?” The founding fathers were clearly concerned with government growing beyond practicality, and indeed becoming a dangerous and tyrannical power against the people. To that end, it can fairly be said that the Constitution was written to be a minimalist document, allowing only for those things that were thought to procure and preserve the greatest amount of freedom as possible to the people. Its simplicity is truly its genius.
Article I, Section 8 – Powers of Congress sets about clearly enumerating what Congress has the right to do. Theoretically (always a fun word… usually used when the proverbial, uh... poop is about to hit the fan), Congress should not venture beyond these enumerated powers. But, as the saying goes, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”
The very argument FDR and other benevolent Democrats (and some Republicans) used above to usurp vast powers of taxation for the establishment of social programs in the name of the “general Welfare” was addressed by Madison in Number 41:
It has been urged and echoed, that the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States,” amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defence or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.
Madison goes on to argue that such a broad and general interpretation of that language is clearly unfounded given the specificity of the following enumerated powers:
Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.
Ahh Jimmy, tsk tsk tsk… such naiveté. Events and decisions by the Supreme Court in 1937 would go on to procure the legacy of social spending programs to this very day, and has served as a license for government expansion and involvement in many more aspects of our lives.
To be clear, I’m not writing to debate the merits of social programs; in any event, I don’t see them going anywhere. But, what is useful to debate is federal government’s role in such programs. To that end, another poignant quote comes to mind. Gerald Ford, in his Presidential address to Congress on August 12th, 1974, said:
A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.
Prophetic? Maybe. But, perhaps no more so than Madison’s final sentence in Number 41:
How difficult it is for error to escape its own condemnation!
We’ll see Jimmy… we certainly shall see.
1 Comentário:
It seems to me, Little Tommy, that the onus is upon us, as advocates of limited government, to put forth the argument that government run social welfare programs ARE NOT in keeping with the general welfare of the United States. The lessons of numbers and historical outcomes of government expansion fall on the side of limited government and a strong free market. We are fond of referring to our political system as “the great experiment.” If that is indeed what this is, then we must be willing to label the New Deal and Great Society as variables that were used to manipulate the experiment and thus must be subject to scientific scrutiny. If the numbers reflect that these programs rob their users of their liberty while destroying wealth and opportunity for others, then we must declare they are not in keeping with the General Welfare of the United States and therefore must be changed or eliminated, as they are proven to be unconstitutional.
These arguments have major limitations in a practical sense, however. The statist, liberal, or democrat, which ever name you prefer, does not give in to logic and reason. They have something much more powerful…..Emotion. What the left considers “compassion,” I would argue is nothing more than contrived guilt used strategically to label the reasonable man cold and uncaring. Of course the reasonable person is not immune to the power of emotion, and will therefore vote against his or her best interest in order to avoid negative emotions. So masterful the progressive has become at utilizing emotion and social-cognitive constructs that they effectively control the conversation. Media outlets know they have a limited amount of time to put forth arguments in the news. Therefore, they must reach out to the most attention grabbing aspects of our brains…..emotion. Emotion gets our attention. Emotion motivates action. Emotion sells news. Also, the adage, tell a lie often enough and it becomes truth, is a favorite principle of the left. You can see this principal on display in every global warming discussion or conversation about George W. and the war on terror.
We need to fight back using similar tactics. Change the adage to tell the truth often enough and you can transcend any lie. We must continue supporting media outlets that offer the truth and criticize them when political gain appears to be more a goal than truth and the preservation of the society. I have no ready answer to how we move the emotional tone of the conversation in the favor of logical reason, but if our constitution is to hold for the next two hundred years, we must continue to search for an answer.
Keep at it Little Tommy! Together we will change the conversation.
Post a Comment