A brief comment on our federal government

In another forum, I made the following comment in response to a good comment on the Obama administration ignoring the Constitution, the Congress, the Courts, and general checks and balances.

The federal government sure has become a tyranny and become most illegitimate.  Americans need to be reminded that government loses its claim on legitimacy when it violates the sovereign rights of the individual to life, liberty, property, the ownership of one's own body, mind, and labor, and when it thwarts that individual's pursuit of happiness.  It was to prevent just this return to the usual condition of man as a suppressed servant of government that the Constitution gave the federal government so little power and tried to tie that limited power up in an inconvenient knot of checks and balances.

Unfortunately, the government has spent the last 125 years slowly untying the knots.  Each of the branches of the federal government have settled into patterns of behavior which maximize their power within a sphere of action while forfeiting their role as a check or balance to the other branches.  Then the check of state power has been dismantled by eliminating their appointments of Senators and by the unlimited bribing power of the federal government due to its control of the money printing presses.  That bribing power has been on rampant display on the issue of state exchanges for ObamaCare health insurance. It has also been used shamelessly to bribe the states to accede to federal controls on the K-12 education curriculum.  The federal curriculum controls are clearly designed to promote a bigger federal government.

Ruling Against Arizona Immigration Law Would Set Broad Precedent Against State Assistance to Federal Law Enforcement

U. S. District Judge Susan Bolton asked Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler, "Why can't Arizona be as inhospitable as they wish to people who have entered or remained in the United States?"  I assume in the context it was clear she was talking about those here illegally.  The Obama Justice Department is arguing that the Arizona law be declared unconstitutional because it is preempted by federal law because immigration enforcement is an exclusive federal prerogative.  The judge seems critical of this preemption argument in her questioning.  She is being asked to grant a preliminary injunction against the Arizona law to keep it from taking effect while the federal challenge in the courts proceeds.

The Arizona law, SB1070, empowers police to question those they have a "reasonable suspicion" are illegal immigrants and send them to federal authorities for possible deportation.  The government argues that the supremacy clause of the Constitution requires that the Arizona law be ruled unconstitutional.  The fact that the Arizona law in no way contradicts the federal law apparently does not matter to the federal government.  The fact that the Arizona law simply has Arizona police asking the federal authorities to check to see if the person is here illegally and if they are not, they will be delivered to the federal authorities who will decide whether to deport them or not, does not matter.  Clearly, the Arizona law and Arizona police are not taking over the critical decisions of fact or interfering with the decision to deport or not.  They are simply assisting the federal decision makers.

Kneedler also argued that the Arizona law is an interference in foreign policy because it is making foreign governments mad.  Since when do foreign governments get to decide when U.S. laws will be enforced inside the U.S.? 

Kneedler also complained that federal agencies may be overwhelmed with immigration status checks and deportation requests.  The federal government is making the case that they wish to enforce federal law selectively.  That is, for person A, it will be enforced, but not for person B.  Does this mean the personal income tax should be enforced selectively also?  Perhaps the anti-trust laws should be enforced selectively?  Actually, they are.  Should the prohibition against laws abridging freedom of speech be selective?  Clearly the Democrat Congress thinks they should be.  Should the federal laws against murdering Federal judges or Congressmen be enforced selectively?  Ooopps, maybe not that one.

It is a bad principle of law when laws are not enforced equally against all lawbreakers.  If a law is a valid attempt to protect the equal, sovereign rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as all laws are in a legitimate government, then it must be equally enforced.  If it cannot be equally enforced, then it should not be law.

The Arizona law is clearly constitutional.  But, if it is determined by the courts that the law is unconstitutional, this will have a silver lining.  Basically, the finding would set the precedent that state cooperation with federal authorities to enforce federal laws is itself an interference with federal preemption!  Given that most federal laws, unlike immigration law, are unconstitutional because they are not based on powers given to the federal government, which are few and mostly pertain to foreign powers, and that many such laws are actually interferences with the state police power or the rights retained by individuals, it would be a great thing if the states and local governments could use the precedent of the overthrow of the Arizona law as justification for not assisting the federal government in any enforcement of federal law.  Federal authorities would then clearly have the books loaded with laws they could not enforce, except very selectively and infrequently.  That may result in the People understanding that these laws should not be on the books and need in most cases to be repealed.  It may result in many police powers being returned to the states and many rights violations by the federal government being ended.

How did these many federal infringements come about?  Teddy Roosevelt.  He was the first President who believed and even said that if he thought something should be done, he would do it if the Constitution did not explicitly tell him he could not do it.  Since the Constitution was written under the philosophy that the federal government had few powers and they were each carefully enumerated, there was no effort to create a list of the infinite number of powers an illegitimate government or a megalomaniac President might claim, but which were denied to them.  By inverting the purpose of the Constitution, Teddy Roosevelt gave himself a clean slate to become the tyrant he wished to become.  He observed that he saw no problem with a huge concentration of power in the hands of one leader.  Neither did Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, or Obama.

Ohio Senate Passes Resolution Asserting 10th Amendment Rights

The Tenth Amendment Center reports that the Ohio Senate passed a resolution on 29 September 2009 by a vote of 19 - 12 to

claim sovereignty over certain powers pursuant to the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, to notify Congress to limit and end certain mandates, and to insist that federal legislation contravening the Tenth Amendment be prohibited or repealed.

If the Ohio House of Representatives also passes the resolution, Ohio will become the 8th state to have passed such a resolution in 2009. Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Tennessee have already passed such resolutions in 2009. These state sovereignty resolutions are a first step toward forcing the federal government to obey the limits on its powers given in the Constitution.

Charles Key, the author of the Oklahoma sovereignty resolution, says these resolutions are akin to the cease and desist notice a landlord gives a non-paying tenant. Before you eject the tenant, you serve notice. Key says there is a definite plan to follow up on this notice with further action.

The Tenth Amendment Center notes that there have already been a number of state nullification efforts. Among them:

• A rebellion against Bush's Real ID, which has rendered that law virtually null and void.
• 13 states have passed marijuana laws opposing federal law.
• 2 states have passed laws nullifying some federal gun regulations.
• Up to 10 states may vote on state constitutional amendments banning national health care.