A government of the people, by the people, for the people

[Mac1958]

.

We're "governed" by:

1. Career politicians taking advantage of a lousy electoral system
2. Moneyed interests who know how to play that system

If you want real "change":

1. Balanced Budget Amendment
2. Strict, short term limits
3. Publicly-funded elections

Remove the power from those who abuse it the most.

Until then, it's status quo, and you can't *****.

My weekly rant.

.

 

[JakeStarkey]

.

We're "governed" by:

1. Career politicians taking advantage of a lousy electoral system
2. Moneyed interests who know how to play that system

If you want real "change":

1. Balanced Budget Amendment
2. Strict, short term limits
3. Publicly-funded elections

Remove the power from those who abuse it the most.

Until then, it's status quo, and you can't *****.

My weekly rant.

.

Good rant. My only point would be that the BBA must have loopholes for such things as world war or catastrophes that require deficit spending.

 

[Foxfyre]

You seem to have ignored my next sentence, in which I clarified that by government telling you what to do, I mean government enforces whatever rules and laws the people decide. That is, in fact, what government does. Having and enforcing laws is, in fact, telling people what they can or cannot do.

I wonder how many generations have passed in which people wanted to get back to the better times, to the original intent? How many generations in which people declared it was the last chance we had to restore our country to the way it was meant to be? The grass is always greener applies just as well to the past; so many people seem to think it was better 'before'.

We have a government now that thinks it is okay for the federal government - for example - to require the taxpayer or private companies to provide contraceptives free. That was not a decision of the people. That was a corruption of original intent of the Constitution by their elected representatives.

We have a government now that thinks is okay for the federal government to confiscate property from Citizen A, who legally, lawfully, and ethically acquired it, and give it to Citizen B who did absolutely nothing to earn it or deserve it. The reason? Citizen B has less than Citizen A. (And also they can persuade Citizen B to keep voting them into power that way.)

Tell me how that squares with the Founders original intent that we be a people who govern ourselves? That if property is not sacrosanct, then there are no rights at all?

We have a government now that thinks it is okay for federal elected, appointed, and employed people to party hearty in the most lavish manner on the taxpayer's dime.

We have a government now that shrugs off a 16 trillion dollar debt and doesn't care that it will bury us under its sheer weight but are unwilling to do a single thing to turn that around lest it be politically unpopular with those who keep voting them into power, prestige, influence and ability to vastly increase their personal fortunes.

Can you tell me you don't care about any of this? That it should not be a concern? That it will only get worse until it cannot be corrected short of another revolutionary war if we do not get our thinking straight and start turning it around now?

The point is that the government was freely elected. They are our representatives. If we don't like what they are doing, we can vote for someone else or run for office ourselves. Not liking the path government is taking is NOT the same as that government being run against the wishes of the people. There will always be people who disagree with some or even all of what the government of their particular society does. It is impossible to please all of the people all of the time. Unless you are going to claim our representatives were not fairly elected, the people are getting what they want.

If the people of the US want something different from their government, they need to elect different leaders.

Did you read the content of the resolution in the OP? It ends with:

BE IT THEREFORE ACKNOWLEDGED that in order to preserve this great nation as the Founders intended that it be, the people must rise up and condemn and replace those in government who confiscate property that the Constitution does not authorize, that spend the people's money in ways that the Constitution does not authorize, and that obligate future generations with debt that the Constitution does not authorize

 

[JakeStarkey]

Your resolution fails because of the force of historical events, amendments, and the will of the people.

The Constitution does recognize the right of legistlaures to tax, and nothing in the Constitution enforces that We the People have to be the same nation "as the Founders intended that it be", in your opinion. They are not our daddies. We are grown adults able to shape our own futures.

 

[Dubya]

We have a government now that thinks it is okay for the federal government - for example - to require the taxpayer or private companies to provide contraceptives free. That was not a decision of the people. That was a corruption of original intent of the Constitution by their elected representatives.

We have a government now that thinks is okay for the federal government to confiscate property from Citizen A, who legally, lawfully, and ethically acquired it, and give it to Citizen B who did absolutely nothing to earn it or deserve it. The reason? Citizen B has less than Citizen A. (And also they can persuade Citizen B to keep voting them into power that way.)

Tell me how that squares with the Founders original intent that we be a people who govern ourselves? That if property is not sacrosanct, then there are no rights at all?

We have a government now that thinks it is okay for federal elected, appointed, and employed people to party hearty in the most lavish manner on the taxpayer's dime.

We have a government now that shrugs off a 16 trillion dollar debt and doesn't care that it will bury us under its sheer weight but are unwilling to do a single thing to turn that around lest it be politically unpopular with those who keep voting them into power, prestige, influence and ability to vastly increase their personal fortunes.

Can you tell me you don't care about any of this? That it should not be a concern? That it will only get worse until it cannot be corrected short of another revolutionary war if we do not get our thinking straight and start turning it around now?

The point is that the government was freely elected. They are our representatives. If we don't like what they are doing, we can vote for someone else or run for office ourselves. Not liking the path government is taking is NOT the same as that government being run against the wishes of the people. There will always be people who disagree with some or even all of what the government of their particular society does. It is impossible to please all of the people all of the time. Unless you are going to claim our representatives were not fairly elected, the people are getting what they want.

If the people of the US want something different from their government, they need to elect different leaders.

Did you read the content of the resolution in the OP? It ends with:

BE IT THEREFORE ACKNOWLEDGED that in order to preserve this great nation as the Founders intended that it be, the people must rise up and condemn and replace those in government who confiscate property that the Constitution does not authorize, that spend the people's money in ways that the Constitution does not authorize, and that obligate future generations with debt that the Constitution does not authorize

Then rise up! What do you need Viagra?

 

[Foxfyre]

Now then, to those who brought--who usually bring--concepts like NASA or the interstate highway system or the FDA into the discussion, we can always look at any given program as a legitimate function of the federal government, and I think every American should do so.

NASA? Does that promote the general welfare and/or provide the common defense? Of course it does. On both counts. It gave us/gives us capabiility to command space travel, ability to place critical satellites into orbit, and track dangerous objects that may threaten us. Does it require close oversight by our elected officials to keep it within the bounds of its intended functions? Yes it does.

But the intended functions of NASA benefit all of the people, not just the poor or a minority group or an age group or any other demographic. That meets the fundamental original intent of the 'general welfare' and the 'common defense'. But its programs must always be examined in that light and its functions responsive to the willingness of the people to fund it.

The interstate highway program was designed to strengthen ability to provide the common defense and also to promote the general welfare and it has served us well on both counts. It was not designed to benefit any minority group or age group or any other demographic, but rather is to serve us all, rich and poor alike, and it does. That also meets the fundamental original intent of the function of the federal government.

Now compare those programs with:

Providing contraceptions to women.
Providing free cell phones.
Funding lavish trips and parties for federal employees under the guise of 'conferences'
Funding lavish parties at the White House and providing magnificent benefits for elected representatives.
Funding all manner of studies such as shrimp running on a treadmill
$764,825 for a study on how college students use cell phones and social media.
$136,555 for teachers to retrace Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in England
$55,660 on butter packaging awarded to a single dairy.
$606,000 for a study about online dating
$484,000 for a pizza restaurant
$48,700 towards the Second Annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival
$147,138 to build a magic museum
$96,000 on iPads for kindergarteners
$175,587 for a study on the link between cocaine and the mating habits of quail
$130,987 for dragon robots to enhance kindergartners vocabulary skills.

This is just the very tip of the iceburg people.

At what point do you become angry?

 

[candycorn]

If it's hopeless, why haven't you all left yet?

 

[candycorn]

.

We're "governed" by:

1. Career politicians taking advantage of a lousy electoral system
2. Moneyed interests who know how to play that system

If you want real "change":

1. Balanced Budget Amendment
2. Strict, short term limits
3. Publicly-funded elections

Remove the power from those who abuse it the most.

Until then, it's status quo, and you can't *****.

My weekly rant.

.

Can't agree with you on term limits. I agree with age limits though. We have minimum ages...we should have maximum ages. Beyond that, the Federal government should not be able to tell you whom you can or can't vote for.

Also every 10 years, start with a blank sheet of paper for budgeting...

 

[Foxfyre]

Why won't anybody on the left (and quite a few on the right) consider the easiest and most workable solution as a fix? Simply take away their ability to use our money to increase their power, prestige, influence, and personal fortunes and they won't put anything into the budget that doesn't belong there, baseline budgeting will be a thing of the past and all budgets will be balanced, and term limits won't matter because only true public servants rather than career politicians will be willing to serve.

 

[candycorn]

Why won't anybody on the left (and quite a few on the right) consider the easiest and most workable solution as a fix? Simply take away their ability to use our money to increase their power, prestige, influence, and personal fortunes and they won't put anything into the budget that doesn't belong there, baseline budgeting will be a thing of the past and all budgets will be balanced, and term limits won't matter because only true public servants rather than career politicians will be willing to serve.

As with most (if not all) of your posts, totally unworkable solutions are proposed and predictions bordering on the moronic are offered.

For example, lets take the B2 bomber. Northrup Grumman (I think was the contractor) was selective in having components built in as many states as possible to increase the likelyhood it wouldn't be cut. According to you, if a representative was to vote not to cut the B2, they would be spending money to increase their personal prestige at the very least. If they owned stock in the company and/or their spin offs and associated things such as real estate by the plants that would increase in value etc... they would be increasing their personal fortunes by decree.

Few things are funnier than watching someone practice political science.

PS: You mis-spelled "iceberg" up there. Maybe the Dragon Robot could be of some use?

 

[Foxfyre]

Why won't anybody on the left (and quite a few on the right) consider the easiest and most workable solution as a fix? Simply take away their ability to use our money to increase their power, prestige, influence, and personal fortunes and they won't put anything into the budget that doesn't belong there, baseline budgeting will be a thing of the past and all budgets will be balanced, and term limits won't matter because only true public servants rather than career politicians will be willing to serve.

As with most (if not all) of your posts, totally unworkable solutions are proposed and predictions bordering on the moronic are offered.

For example, lets take the B2 bomber. Northrup Grumman (I think was the contractor) was selective in having components built in as many states as possible to increase the likelyhood it wouldn't be cut. According to you, if a representative was to vote not to cut the B2, they would be spending money to increase their personal prestige at the very least. If they owned stock in the company and/or their spin offs and associated things such as real estate by the plants that would increase in value etc... they would be increasing their personal fortunes by decree.

Few things are funnier than watching someone practice political science.

PS: You mis-spelled "iceberg" up there. Maybe the Dragon Robot could be of some use?

I probably misspell a lot of words either via not paying attention or not knowing the correct spelling or via typo. Misspell, by the way is not normally a hyphenated word.

But whatever words I misspell, whatever participles I dangle, whatever infinitives I split, or whatever syntax I butcher, it should not be the concern of the federal government to provide me with the means to correct that.

As far as the B2 goes. if the Congress deems that it be built, it should do so as effectively, efficiently, and economically as possible by the lowest qualified bidder or bidders. True public servants would seek that route. Career politicians are far more likely to look for what will advantage them the most personally.

There is no problem with spreading federal projects as evenly across the country as possible, and in fact, that should be government policy to avoid the very kinds of corruption that you describe.

When the federal government is not allowed to provide us with any freebies or benefits, and the tax policy is established to achieve proportional equity, it becomes to the taxpayer's advantage to look for people who will not tax people for any frivolous or self serving purpose and who will spend our money as carefully and wisely as we would.

 

[candycorn]

Why won't anybody on the left (and quite a few on the right) consider the easiest and most workable solution as a fix? Simply take away their ability to use our money to increase their power, prestige, influence, and personal fortunes and they won't put anything into the budget that doesn't belong there, baseline budgeting will be a thing of the past and all budgets will be balanced, and term limits won't matter because only true public servants rather than career politicians will be willing to serve.

As with most (if not all) of your posts, totally unworkable solutions are proposed and predictions bordering on the moronic are offered.

For example, lets take the B2 bomber. Northrup Grumman (I think was the contractor) was selective in having components built in as many states as possible to increase the likelyhood it wouldn't be cut. According to you, if a representative was to vote not to cut the B2, they would be spending money to increase their personal prestige at the very least. If they owned stock in the company and/or their spin offs and associated things such as real estate by the plants that would increase in value etc... they would be increasing their personal fortunes by decree.

Few things are funnier than watching someone practice political science.

PS: You mis-spelled "iceberg" up there. Maybe the Dragon Robot could be of some use?

I probably misspell a lot of words either via not paying attention or not knowing the correct spelling or via typo. Misspell, by the way is not normally a hyphenated word.

But whatever words I misspell, whatever participles I dangle, whatever infinitives I split, or whatever syntax I butcher, it should not be the concern of the federal government to provide me with the means to correct that.

As far as the B2 goes. if the Congress deems that it be built, it should do so as effectively, efficiently, and economically as possible by the lowest qualified bidder or bidders. True public servants would seek that route. Career politicians are far more likely to look for what will advantage them the most personally.

There is no problem with spreading federal projects as evenly across the country as possible, and in fact, that should be government policy to avoid the very kinds of corruption that you describe.

When the federal government is not allowed to provide us with any freebies or benefits, and the tax policy is established to achieve proportional equity, it becomes to the taxpayer's advantage to look for people who will not tax people for any frivolous or self serving purpose and who will spend our money as carefully and wisely as we would.

So if something is being built in your district or state, should you have to recuse yourself from voting for it? After all, it will bring you prestige if you are the representative that brought home the bacon for the Arizona 2nd or Georgia 4th?

Sure the program may be in the best interest of the world at large and the US specifically but it can be argued effectively both ways.

 

[Foxfyre]

As with most (if not all) of your posts, totally unworkable solutions are proposed and predictions bordering on the moronic are offered.

For example, lets take the B2 bomber. Northrup Grumman (I think was the contractor) was selective in having components built in as many states as possible to increase the likelyhood it wouldn't be cut. According to you, if a representative was to vote not to cut the B2, they would be spending money to increase their personal prestige at the very least. If they owned stock in the company and/or their spin offs and associated things such as real estate by the plants that would increase in value etc... they would be increasing their personal fortunes by decree.

Few things are funnier than watching someone practice political science.

PS: You mis-spelled "iceberg" up there. Maybe the Dragon Robot could be of some use?

I probably misspell a lot of words either via not paying attention or not knowing the correct spelling or via typo. Misspell, by the way is not normally a hyphenated word.

But whatever words I misspell, whatever participles I dangle, whatever infinitives I split, or whatever syntax I butcher, it should not be the concern of the federal government to provide me with the means to correct that.

As far as the B2 goes. if the Congress deems that it be built, it should do so as effectively, efficiently, and economically as possible by the lowest qualified bidder or bidders. True public servants would seek that route. Career politicians are far more likely to look for what will advantage them the most personally.

There is no problem with spreading federal projects as evenly across the country as possible, and in fact, that should be government policy to avoid the very kinds of corruption that you describe.

When the federal government is not allowed to provide us with any freebies or benefits, and the tax policy is established to achieve proportional equity, it becomes to the taxpayer's advantage to look for people who will not tax people for any frivolous or self serving purpose and who will spend our money as carefully and wisely as we would.

So if something is being built in your district or state, should you have to recuse yourself from voting for it? After all, it will bring you prestige if you are the representative that brought home the bacon for the Arizona 2nd or Georgia 4th?

Sure the program may be in the best interest of the world at large and the US specifically but it can be argued effectively both ways.

It doesn't bring you any extra prestige however when other states get other stuff that has to be done. If your state gets the contract for most of the B2, it probably won't be eligible for the next big project. Every effort would be made to spread the opportunities on a per capita basis as much as can be reasonably possible. And that way, your representatives would always need to be conscious of and have concern for getting the biggest bang for the taxpayer's buck regardless of who gets the contract.

 

[Mac1958]

.

The career politicians are playing us for fools, and we're happy to let them.

We deserve what we get.

.

 

[candycorn]

I probably misspell a lot of words either via not paying attention or not knowing the correct spelling or via typo. Misspell, by the way is not normally a hyphenated word.

But whatever words I misspell, whatever participles I dangle, whatever infinitives I split, or whatever syntax I butcher, it should not be the concern of the federal government to provide me with the means to correct that.

As far as the B2 goes. if the Congress deems that it be built, it should do so as effectively, efficiently, and economically as possible by the lowest qualified bidder or bidders. True public servants would seek that route. Career politicians are far more likely to look for what will advantage them the most personally.

There is no problem with spreading federal projects as evenly across the country as possible, and in fact, that should be government policy to avoid the very kinds of corruption that you describe.

When the federal government is not allowed to provide us with any freebies or benefits, and the tax policy is established to achieve proportional equity, it becomes to the taxpayer's advantage to look for people who will not tax people for any frivolous or self serving purpose and who will spend our money as carefully and wisely as we would.

So if something is being built in your district or state, should you have to recuse yourself from voting for it? After all, it will bring you prestige if you are the representative that brought home the bacon for the Arizona 2nd or Georgia 4th?

Sure the program may be in the best interest of the world at large and the US specifically but it can be argued effectively both ways.

It doesn't bring you any extra prestige however when other states get other stuff that has to be done. If your state gets the contract for most of the B2, it probably won't be eligible for the next big project. Every effort would be made to spread the opportunities on a per capita basis as much as can be reasonably possible. And that way, your representatives would always need to be conscious of and have concern for getting the biggest bang for the taxpayer's buck regardless of who gets the contract.

Sure it brings prestige. When I lived in Houston, every politician was happy to announce how they supported NASA even though we have wasted billions in Space doing all sorts of kookie expirments that have little or nothing to do with embetterment of life on earth.

So if Lockheed in Ft. Worth gets a contract for X, they are out of the running for a contract for Y? What if they merged with Boeing between X and Y? Will Boeing be out of the running then? What about Lockheed's office in Jacksonville? Should they just change their name/open up a subsidiary to get around this?

Much better to just start with a blank sheet of paper and when you have a program that costs over a certain amount--pick the amount but I say $1,000,000 bucks, it has to be voted on by Congress. If you're the VA and want to build a $38M hospital and you have that figured into your budget...Congress has to vote on it. If you're the DOT and you want to buy $18M worth of orange traffic cones or install a new radar for $2.5 M, sorry, Congress has to approve that expenditure. DHS wants $3M worth of paper clips....Congress.

It's not exactly neat, tidy, unintrusive or business as usual but we're so far in debt, we need to be watching every penny until we right the ship.

 

[Foxfyre]

So if something is being built in your district or state, should you have to recuse yourself from voting for it? After all, it will bring you prestige if you are the representative that brought home the bacon for the Arizona 2nd or Georgia 4th?

Sure the program may be in the best interest of the world at large and the US specifically but it can be argued effectively both ways.

It doesn't bring you any extra prestige however when other states get other stuff that has to be done. If your state gets the contract for most of the B2, it probably won't be eligible for the next big project. Every effort would be made to spread the opportunities on a per capita basis as much as can be reasonably possible. And that way, your representatives would always need to be conscious of and have concern for getting the biggest bang for the taxpayer's buck regardless of who gets the contract.

Sure it brings prestige. When I lived in Houston, every politician was happy to announce how they supported NASA even though we have wasted billions in Space doing all sorts of kookie expirments that have little or nothing to do with embetterment of life on earth.

So if Lockheed in Ft. Worth gets a contract for X, they are out of the running for a contract for Y? What if they merged with Boeing between X and Y? Will Boeing be out of the running then? What about Lockheed's office in Jacksonville? Should they just change their name/open up a subsidiary to get around this?

Much better to just start with a blank sheet of paper and when you have a program that costs over a certain amount--pick the amount but I say $1,000,000 bucks, it has to be voted on by Congress. If you're the VA and want to build a $38M hospital and you have that figured into your budget...Congress has to vote on it. If you're the DOT and you want to buy $18M worth of orange traffic cones or install a new radar for $2.5 M, sorry, Congress has to approve that expenditure. DHS wants $3M worth of paper clips....Congress.

It's not exactly neat, tidy, unintrusive or business as usual but we're so far in debt, we need to be watching every penny until we right the ship.

Congress already does approve such expenditures via the annual budget. Or it is supposed to. But with baseline budgeting, there really are no controls and there is zero incentive for the government to save money on anything.

We absolutely need to know what is the situation that exists. If you can't identify and understand the problem there is no hope to fix it.

But we have to stop thinking what what exists is the way it has to be. We have to do better and we have to do better very soon or we could lose everything that has made this country the great nation that it has been.

 

[Foxfyre]

Another member started an interesting thread re the content of fourth grade science curriculum which naturally morphed into a broader concept of government powers and concepts. Rather than derail that thread by discussing those broader powers, he suggested a new thread, and I suggested we move that part of the discussion here as this thread was specifically focused on the powers of the federal government.

And in reading over this thread, I was newly impressed by the thought some of you have put into that, and also, because the thread was moving very quickly in the first hours, I didn't properly respond to some of those thoughtful comments. Not to slight any of the others, but I initially want to revisit these four:

When the Supreme Court decided that providing for the general welfare in ways other than described in Article 1, Sections 8 was an independent power, the limitations on the Federal Government were essentially removed. Only way to change that now is an Article 5 convention where the States could reign in the Feds. I don't see that happening in my life time.

An Article 5 constitutional convention would be too dangerous to the freedoms that we have left. What we need is a constitutional amendment that reinstates the restraints, that our Constitution put on the federal government, that were removed by a corrupt court.

We need several of these amendments, but start with the most crucial, and that is one putting the federal government back into its cage.

While OKTexas recognized that an addition or additions to the Constitution will be necessary to rein in a runaway federal government, I agree with Erand that a constitutional convention would be dangerous as those in government would have opportunity to more easily take away additional freedoms. We need a constitutional amendment forcing the federal government to restore those freedoms it has taken from us and continues to erode.

When you say "freedom loving people", what exactly do you have in mind?

Those people who want to govern themselves instead of having an authoritarian central government telling them who they have to be, what they must embrace or tolerate, who presumes to provide for some, and who presumes to confiscate property of others for things the Constitution never intended the federal government to do.

Still being pretty vague. You would prefer we have no military, for example? You need a central government for that. What precisely is it you want the government to stop doing and which government are you talking about. I know that I live under three distinct governments and my daughter, who lives in he city, lives under four.

Again this thread is devoted to the federal government. In my view the people have full right to elect whatever sort of government they want at the state and local levels and the federal government should have little or no say in that. The federal government's role should be to secure our rights and otherwise restricted to what allows the states to function efficiently as one nation and prevent the states from doing economic, environmental, or sociopolitical violence to each other.

So you agree with the court that the feds can assume powers not specifically granted. You do realize you're contradicting yourself.

The Constitution grants the federal government the ability to provide the common defense, promote the general welfare--which as the Founders saw it was everybody's welfare equally and not special groups--and to preserve (protect) the blessings of liberty which the Founders defned as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The Preamble describes the purpose of the Constitution. The whole of the Constitution is intended to meet that purpose:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

So you agree with the court that the feds can assume powers not specifically granted. You do realize you're contradicting yourself.

No I don't agree with the court that the federal government can assume powers not specifically granted. Again, the Preamble describes the purpose of the Constitution and what the whole of the Constitution is intended to accomplish. The court that interprets it any other way is, in my opinion, in dangerous error.

Teddy Roosevelt didn't start this idea, it was started with Hamilton and our first president, Washington and concerned the bank, tariffs, and a host of issues. Hamilton said the government must have the means adequate to its ends. Where, for example, was it written that government must help business, but laws were passed in the Washington adminisration doing just that. Then the Marshall Court, beginning with the second president, Adams, deciding the Supreme Court had the power to decide what the constitution meant, but nowhere was this deciding power given to the Court in the constitution. They just decided it on their very own. Even Jefferson the strict interpreter of the constitution bought Louisiana clearly not authorized by the constitution. And on and on.

First, the Constitution does give the deciding power to the SC. I refer you to Article 3, Section 2.

What you are saying is that the founding fathers, the men who wrote and enacted the Constitution, did not agree with your interpretation.

No, I am saying that the writers of the constitution failed to designate in the constitution that the Supreme Court was to decide the constitutionality of laws, acts of the congress, states or the executive. The wording for that power is simply not in the constitution. The Court under Marshall decided that in the most famous court case, Marbury v. Madison.

And it is precisely because the human beings who are appointed to the high court are as susceptible to error as any other human beings--they are not little gods to be deemed infallible in their opinions--that we need to amend the Constitution to make it much more difficult to misinterpret what the federal government is and is not authorized to do.

 

[Foxfyre]

And related to the concept that prompted me to resurrect this thread, do we want the federal government dictating what will and will not be included in that Fourth Grade science curriculum? Or anything else to do with education? Do you want members of Congress to be able to use your money to coerce the states or local school boards to teach this, don't teach that, on penalty of losing that funding?

Does anybody else see that as a misuse/abuse of powers as the Founders' would have seen it?

 

[bripat9643]

When the Supreme Court decided that providing for the general welfare in ways other than described in Article 1, Sections 8 was an independent power, the limitations on the Federal Government were essentially removed. Only way to change that now is an Article 5 convention where the States could reign in the Feds. I don't see that happening in my life time.

If a bunch of politicians got together to rewrite the Constitution, the last thing they would do is reign in the Federal government. More than likely the result would a be a Soviet style constitution where every conceivable entitlement would become a right and government power would be unlimited.

 

[bripat9643]

Do you think you could get two thirds of both houses of congress to propose an amendment to limit their own power? If you do I got some sea side property in Kansas you might want to buy. Article 5 convention is risky, but so is the path we are on.

With the Congresss we have now? No way in hell would they do that. But if the people rise up and put people in Congress who think like freedom loving people do, then yes, it could happen.

When you say "freedom loving people", what exactly do you have in mind?

Not you.