The Rag Blog: Harry Targ : Words Still Matter

The Rag Blog: Harry Targ : Words Still Matter

Tin Ear Syndrome

Progressives speak of the discredited ideology of unregulated capitalism and globalization. Its hard to fault them for getting it so wrong. Tin Ear Syndrome has become the hallmark of liberals lately.

What is plainly apparent to those who care to uncover their eyes is the repudiation of liberal concepts. The failure of the liberal class is not a failure of execution, but rather a rejection of liberal goals and ideals.The left would have us believe that those who have succeeded have done so at the expense of those who haven’t. That success , being unevenly attained, must be evil and those who dare to succeed must be torn down. The left would have us believe that we will suffer grievously unless we surrender ourselves to a union, to a political party, an extreme environmental ethos, an extreme social ethos or some other social collective that frees us from responsibility for ourselves.

The left encourages us to take the handouts dangled in front of us via the fiscal insanity of corrupt government masters, that we may all the quicker forget we were ever able to succeed on our own. Liberal class warfare strategies are formulated to appeal to the desire for revenge on those who have more of anything. Revenge seems to be a much harder sell these days.

The rise of the right is underpinned by one simple word. That word is "yet". You haven’t succeeded .. yet, but you can succeed if you try, if you persevere, if you live honorably amongst your neighbors, if you don’t covet when others have and focus on self, if you don’t abide the sirens song from the left telling you were never good enough to succeed because you are the wrong color, the wrong religion or speak with the wrong accent.

The failure of the left is accelerating as Americans realize their message of helplessness and victimhood is just so much social heroin. And like the real drug, you either get off it, or it kills you.

Constitutional Usurpations. US V Butler 1936.

The central problem as I see it, is the loss of power within states, erosion of private property rights, and the usurpation of such power and rights by the federal government. I believe the founders wanted us to be Californians, and Texans, and Oklahomans first and Americans second. It has been the corruption of this scheme that has led directly and indirectly to many of the current problems we find and the confusion that exists.

The “reinterpretation” of the founders intent that I believe has been the most damaging occurred in US v Butler 1936. Not terribly egregious in its own right it led to further and faster erosion of the founders intentions. And to grave problems that the founders warned against but are barely given a second thought today.

Until 1937 the Congress of the United States conducted its business within the boundaries of seventeen enumerated powers granted under Article I Section 8 of the United States Constitution. These powers defined clearly the areas of national purposes over which Congress could enact legislation including the allocation of funds and levying of taxes. Anything not set down in the enumerated powers was considered outside the venue of the national government and therefore reserved to the jurisdiction of the states. Madison had this to say about the general welfare clause "With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

During Franklin Roosevelt's new deal this enumerated approach was attacked in order to permit legislation to meet the needs of the extraordinary times and tragic circumstances that ravaged America. The first of the new deal statutes to reach the Supreme Court for review, arrived in January 1935. In the sixteen months following, the court decided ten major cases or groups of cases involving new deal statutes. In eight instances out of ten the decisions went in favor of the United States Constitution and against the new deal. Eight of the ten pieces of legislation were found to be unconstitutional.
Roosevelt declared war on the Supreme Court.

The New Deal case of US v Butler 1936 laid the foundation that lead to a reinterpretation of the Constitution which permitted Congress to have taxing and spending power not previously permitted. The Butler ruling lead directly to the defeat of a challenge against the Social Security Act of 1935. The corruption of the General Welfare clause is the justification today that permits distribution of federal monies to the poor and needy and the massive deficits required to support that mission. It also allows for federal funding of locallized projects, such as funding for a new building thereby reducing the scope and role of state and local governments in favor of the Federal Government. It also is being used to allow the federal government to operate in spheres clearly outside its jusisdiction. A pay czar that can dictate pay, a car czar that can make ad hoc changes to bankruptcy laws at will, redistribution of wealth through tax policies, and a president that can mandate that citizens purchase a service or face civil and criminal penalties are just examples of what has happened since the general welfare genie left the bottle.

Washington had this to say about this usurpation of state’s rights by the federal government. "Let there be no change [in the Constitution] by usurpation. For though this, in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed." In layman’s terms, the road to hell is paved with good intentions

I believe in the Madisonian interpretation in which states are the proper venue for providing for the poor and needy. Justice Roberts, writing in 1951, said in effect: "We voted against the Constitution to save the Court." His exact words were:
Looking back it is difficult to see how the Court could have resisted the popular urge ... an insistence by the Court on holding Federal power to what seemed its appropriate orbit when the Constitution was adopted might have resulted in even more radical changes to our dual structure than those which have gradually accomplished through the extension of limited jurisdiction conferred on the federal government.

Of course, the phrase "extension of limited jurisdiction" must be interpreted from a frame of reference of 1951. Today Social Security and Medicare alone make up 34% of the federal budget and that does not include other means tested entitlements such as various forms of welfare programs which are another ~ 6%.

An article by Robert Greenslade best sums up my feelings on the matter:

To assert that Congress has the subjective authority to declare what constitutes the general welfare when the Constitution established a federal government of limited enumerated powers was intelligently dishonest to say the least. If the Court had not been looking for a way to unconstitutionally expand federal power under the guise of judicial review, it could have resolved this question by simply resorting to Federalist Essay No. 45 where Madison distinguished the external powers granted to the federal
government from the domestic powers reserved to the States

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part; be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger, those of the State governments in times of peace and security."

As stated by Madison, the powers of the federal government do not extend to the life, liberty or property of the American people. Thus, under the system of government established by the Founders, Congress could not have the subjective authority to declare what constitutes the general welfare because the federal government does not have general legislative authority over internal or domestic affairs.

Congress is Usurping Power
Irrespective of which interpretation the reader accepts as correct, there is one fact that cannot be disputed---Congress is blatantly usurping power under this provision in order to expand and consolidate its control over the American people. In fact, Congress is so driven by power that it cannot even stay within the constraints of the expanded interpretation espoused by Hamilton and adopted by the Supreme Court.

If the reader will recall, Hamilton asserted that there were strict limitations to Congress' power to tax and appropriate money under the general welfare provision. First, the appropriation must be applied to the whole [general] and cannot be local or particular. This constitutional restriction alone wipes out the majority of the taxes Congress imposes each year because the money is then appropriated to fund congressional pet projects that are local or particular in nature. Second, Congress cannot use the power of appropriation to do things not authorized by the Constitution, "either expressly or by fair implication."

It is a cardinal principle of constitutional law that Congress cannot, under the pretext of executing a delegated power, pass laws for the accomplishment of objects not entrusted to the federal government. Congress has completely ignored all of the limitations on its power.

Wake-up America---the reprobates in Congress are stealing you blind and bankrupting the nation all in the name of the general welfare and the Supreme Court has made it almost impossible to stop them.

* http://constitutionalawareness.org/genwelf.html

Guaranteed Money Maker, Dont Miss Out!!!!

Anyone ever hear about the "guaranteed can’t miss" investment where you will get outstanding profits, and its guaranteed and risk free. Yeah right, if it sounds too good to be true ….

Today’s version of that scam is called Healthcare Reform. Every reform bill so far says it will pay for the huge costs of reform by delivering $415B to $550B in savings through eliminating "waste fraud and abuse in Medicare". Hmmmm, It seems from Carter to Bush we have known about this waste, fraud and abuse, and yet here we are in 2009 with hundreds of billions of dollars still being wasted.

I wonder how we can magically stop this waste just by passing a healthcare bill? Why didn’t some congressman become a hero and stop the waste a long time ago? And how come none of the bills actually says exactly where the waste is and how it can be stopped? Looks like Obama and the Democrats are trying their version of the "guaranteed can't miss" scam on us taxpayers!

"What is wrong with giving people a choice?"

So said Sen. Rockefeller (D-WV) in an impassioned argument for a public option in the senate finance committee healthcare bill on 9/29/2009. The reality is that Sen.’s Rockefeller and Schumer, and the other Democrats so impassioned about providing Americans with "choice and competition", are lying.

Where is this love of "choice and competition" in education? Both are staunchly against vouchers or providing any choice to Americans in where their kids can go to school. Where is their love of choice when it comes to Social Security? They are both on the record as opposing giving workers a choice in how to invest the wages that are forcibly withheld from their paychecks. Nope, Schumer and Rockefeller are lying.

They demand that a captive public be forced to use government run solutions for education and social security that deliver abysmal results at outrageous costs. Their plan is the same for healthcare. The last thing they want is consumer choice. They are desperate to find a way to hold Americans hostage to a government run healthcare system.