Michael Wolfe

What power do the states have to stop the onslaught of unconstitutional measures being handed down by the “progressive” majority? The answer lies in the 10th amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The federal government is exercising powers that do not belong to it. The authority to force citizens to purchase insurance, to decree that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and writing laws to “regulate” it does not exist at the federal level. The clear list of enumerated powers do not give these incredible powers to the federal government.

Since these powers are unconstitutional, the federal government does not have authority to force the states to enforce these illegal acts. A state by exercising its 1oth amendment rights, can reject enforcing these laws and decrees. There is no room in the constitution for decrees. Proper and legal legislation is written by congress, not by an executive agency like the EPA. Further, legal legislation does not extend government powers beyond those written into the Constitution. The founding fathers made it difficult to expand government on purpose, because they experience first hand the abuses of a government with near unlimited power.

By expanding the powers of government without constitutional authority, the present and previous administrations have practically destroyed the defenses that have protected us from naked tyranny. Only by rebuilding the walls of states’ rights can we start to turn back the tide of tyranny before the elections later this year. Because the laws are illegal, the states can ignore unfunded mandates, forcing their citizens to pay health care taxes or buy insurance, or forcing their residents to buy carbon credits or pay carbon taxes (assuming the “Cap and Tax” Bill makes it through the senate.

In addition, the 9th Amendment says this:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The founding fathers, having intimate knowledge of the abuses of the power of the government to compel its subjects to purchase goods and services, intentionally declined to give the federal government such a power. It is absurd to think that they would have ever authored a document granting such immense powers to the federal government. If they had wanted such powers in federal hands, they never would have rebelled.

Therefore, it makes reasonable sense for the states to step in to protect the constitutional rights of their citizens, the 9th amendment giving added ammunition to the use of the individual states as bulwarks against an unruly expanding government that seeks to reinterpret (distort) the Constitution to deny even the enumerated rights of the people (such as the distortion that the 2nd amendment is a “collective” right even as the other rights, such as freedom of speech, are seen [rightly and literally so] as individual rights).

Constitution-minded state governments in conjunction with constitution minded individuals and congressman are the perfect remedy for bureaucrats run amok.

Originally published on TheJeffersonDemocrat.com