And to think, this man is a U.S. senator. Mark Warner (D-naturally) of Virginia was holding a town hall meeting in Fredericksburg the other day when a constituent - who is a high school government teacher by the way - asked Senator Warner a very simple question: Under what specific article and section of the Constitution does the government have the power to run our health care system?
Watch the good senator make a fool of himself as he stupidly brings up other unconstitutional government programs to prop up his argument, and then proceeds to forget for whom the Constitution was written:
You might want to reacquaint yourself with the 10th Amendment regarding your telephone argument, Senator.
Good Day to You, Sir
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson
8 comments:
I don't like the idea of a poorly run government health care system either. However:
"To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
There's were it says it.
And McCulloch vs. Maryland backs it up.
Careful about using Supreme Court decisions to back up your argument. Dred Scott v. Sandford said that slavery was a-ok.
Secondly, I have gone round and round about the elastic clause with other people. The part of that clause to which you need to pay attention is where the clause says "...carrying into execution the foregoing powers..." The foregoing powers are the powers of Congress that are specifically listed in Article I Section 8. Health care is not listed among those foregoing powers.
So you may say that there's where it says it, but I have to disagree with you. It doesn't say it.
McCulloch v. Maryland was nothing but a power grab by John Marshall, who was a huge proponent of increased federal power.
The constitution is a document of negative authority. It tells Congress what it can do, and what it cannot do. Everything else is left to the STATES! Therefore, if the state wants to institute a health care system, it can: with the approval of the citizens of that state. Warner even admitted that there is NO authority in the Constitution for the FEDERAL government to provide health care.
Anonymous,
That is correct. Of course, I don't know if I would want a state-controlled health care system any more than a federal one; the difference is that I can always move out of the state. I can't so easily move out of the country.
Your right, we can go around and around about the Elastic Clause, and the idea of federal power. I think it is a much broader implied power. You don't. We won't get anywhere debating that.
I think Marshall was quite brilliant, and that the federal government has its place in our system. I also think that the court interprets that reach quite well historically.
And Dred Scott was overturned. So was Plessy.
Scott was overturned by the 13th Amendment, not the Supreme Court. Plessy was overturned by the Court, so why not McCulloch?
I just fail to see how you can read into the so-called elastic clause what you do. Marshall was indeed brilliant; the problem is that he was brilliant at deciding cases in ways to undermine the autonomy of the states and help bring about the federal leviathan with which we now find ourselves facing. The place you find for the federal government currently reaches much further into my life than I want it to and more than for what it was intended. Do you really think the power of the federal government right now is what the writers of the Constitution in 1787 had in mind?
See, I don't see the federal government as overwhelmingly interfering, although I would like them more out a lot of things.
The Founders realized that a federal government was necessary, and Lincoln realized that it was important enough to fight a war over. I don't see the United States as an evil entity that looks to take out personal liberties, mainly because I've watched it evolve in the over direction.
Oh, and I don't think the Founders had a damn clue about what 220 years was to bring to the United States. Thankfully, the foundation of the country is allowed to adjust the ever changing landscape, while still keeping its intent.
The founders knew they didn't have a clue about the future; that's why they included Article V (the amendment process) in the Constitution. If the federal government wants to take over our health care system, then by all means 2/3 of the Congress should agree to it then send it to the states for 3/4 to approve. But no, it's so much easier to take the so-called elastic clause and use it go beyond the bounds of what the Constitution limits the federal government from doing.
You may think that right now the federal government doesn't encroach upon our long-held liberties (I disagree), however, their continued expansion of their power lays the groundwork for one day doing just that.
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