To Support and Defend

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's recent commentary on the Constitution has some people questioning her ability to uphold her oath, and with good reason.  "I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012." Instead "I might look at the constitution of South Africa."

A quick glance at the South African Constitution highlights some glaring differences from our own Constitution; differences which also highlight Ginsberg's unabashed political leanings.  South Africa guarantees its people food, water, education, housing and healthcare (among other things).  South African politicians are then charted to achieve these goals using their available resources.

The South African Constitution holds to the idea of "positive rights" which the left embraces and which FDR pushed for without our own government.  The key problem of course is that the government itself has nothing which it hasn't first taken from someone else.  In order to guarantee something to someone, you must first be willing to force someone to provide it, without regard for their personal liberty.

Frederic Bastiat succinctly describes the conflict between our Bill of Rights and FDR's "2nd Bill of Rights":

"The second half of your program will destroy the first."

In fact, it is impossible for me to separate the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally enforced without liberty being legally destroyed, and thus justice being legally trampled underfoot.

Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have said before, is in human greed; the other is in false philanthropy.

In fact, in order to enforce any sort of positive rights, you must first strip one group of their rights in order to satisfy another group, thereby failing the test of universality and putting to lie the idea of Equality before the law.  In doing so, the left clearly presupposes that some people are more equal than others.

Our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution with an eye towards limiting government's potential for abuse, and by safeguarding Liberty they ensured an abundance of prosperity to their decedents.  If however we choose to sacrifice Liberty in order to gain material security, we will lose both.

The Politics of Bribery

"Many states believe there is little choice involved when the federal government has the power to tax citizens in the states, returning that money only if states comply with ever-increasing... mandates."

And that right there is the problem in a nutshell.  The Founding Fathers were clear that the Federal government would only have the power to spend money on the common defense and the general welfare and that it would only be able to raise funds expressly to pay those bills.  "General welfare" meaning for the benefit of all; not the majority, not the special interests, but for all.

Unfortunately, the result has been a government of good intentions, spending money on whatever program will help a politician curry votes.  Ironically if everyone plays beggar-thy-neighbor politics, we all get equally robbed!  The only difference is that people tend to be irresponsible with "free" money, with the predictable result of blossoming Federal spending.

The State governments themselves are even worse about helping themselves to the public trough; they get to fund programs without appearing responsible for the taxes.

The 16th Amendment allowed the Federal government to reach past the States, directly into the pockets of the citizens and then use that money to bribe the States into compliance with any number of unconstitutional mandates claiming it was just using the authority to "tax."  Fortunately more and more States are realizing that there is no such things as a free lunch and that these dollars come at a cost; to our freedom and our sovereignty.  However many people are already hooked, and the withdrawel symptoms won't be painless.  Let's hope we have the fortitude to stick it out; otherwise the States will continue to be puppets of the Feds instead of the check-and-balance they were intended to be.