Constitutional Conservatives

Those who believe that the US Constitution (as written) is the law of the land are Constitutional Conservatives.

 

Unlike Liberals, they believe that the role of the Courts is to interpret the Constitution as written and the role of the Congress is to remove unconstitutional departments, agencies and programs to comply with the 10^th Amendment.

 

Liberals have sabotaged the Law Schools where many view the Constitution as a “living document” subject to wide interpretation by the Courts.  These Court Opinions are called “case law”. That means that Courts can use “case law” to set the US Constitution adrift. We now have laws that are based on the errors made by Courts and not based on the actual language in the US Constitution. 

 

The Courts and the Congress have been consistent in their failure to challenge laws that are clearly unconstitutional. Congress continues to act like those activities they have added that are not in the US Constitution (as written) should continue to be regarded as valid law.  Congress refuses to write Amendments and send them to the States for ratification, because they know these Amendments will not be ratified.

 

We have an Anchor Baby law to grant US citizenship to babies who are born in the US, even if their parents are citizens of other countries.  Interpreting the meaning of “born” was the problem. Constitution Conservatives would correct this to include only those whose parents are already US citizens or have been granted a legal path to US citizenship. Congress needs to correct this.

 

We have legalized abortion based on the creative interpretation by the Court of the word “Life”. Our Constitution guarantees the right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” The court determined that the right to life did not apply to the unborn. The Court has said that Congress needs to define “Life” in include the unborn.

 

The US federal government now owns and controls 30% of the US land mass despite the fact that the US Constitution (as written) forbids the federal government from owning land except for land needed to operate the government and the military. When Congress began to seize land in the 1870s, they neglected to write the Amendment that would allow them to expand their power to own land beyond what was needed.  They didn’t do this, because they didn’t want to risk that the Amendment would not be ratified by the States.

 

The US federal government has added powers that do not exist in the US Constitution (as written).  The “enumerated powers” need to be legally expanded by having Congress write an Amendment that delineates added powers and then submit it to the States for ratification. The current list of enumerated powers does not include education, commerce, energy, environment, securities exchange, food and drug, healthcare, pensions, welfare, mortgage lending, student loan lending and many other programs, agencies and departments. The current Constitution states that those items not authorized in the enumerated powers go to “the States and the People”.

 

Congress can choose what powers they really want added to the enumerated powers and write Amendments to legitimize their keeping those. If the states ratify this, Congress can continue to keep these.

 

Ratification requires approval of 2/3rds of the States before the Amendment can be added. There are 50 states and it would take a YES vote from 33 states to pass.

 

All of these unconstitutional laws were unconstitutionally passed to satisfy whatever political pressure Liberals were applying at the time.

 

In anticipation of making this course correction, Congress should begin to prepare the states to assume these responsibilities.  There are early signs that this may be happening. The Departments that are shifting responsibilities to the states include Interior, Education and Healthcare. This involves giving federal land back to the states, expanding more local control over curriculum and having states administer federal programs. This should include the reduction of federal grants.

 

Common sense would suggest that many federal programs may be reduced to information hubs for states to run their own programs and citizens to take back control over nanny-state programs.

 

Voters will need to become steely-eyed consumers of government services. Cities, Counties and States will need to begin to limit what they do and get out of what they can. Each level of government needs to own up to paying for its own stuff without getting federal grants.

 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader