SmallGovTimes.com

By: Steve Adcock | Published on 07/02/05    

I am the kind of person that gives credit where credit is due, even if I happen to vehemently disagree with the entity involved.

The United States government is a prime example of my willingness to give credit, even though I cringe while doing so. The government has taken a simple concept, constructed hundreds of years ago and penned in a document called the Constitution, and somehow gave itself seemingly unwavering power to control the American people in virtually every facet of our lives. This does not happen by accident. It needs to be planned and carefully executed, and the government did just that. It executed its plan so successfully, and has grown so big, that it is a 1000lb governmental snowball barreling down a snowy mountain side, not to be stopped.

The Constitution was designed to obligate the government to protect our most basic human rights, such as the ability to speak our minds, express our feelings (non-violently, of course), practice religion and be defended in a court of law. It gives people the right to be secure in their homes and legally obtained possessions.
The recent Supreme Court case that gives the government the right to seize private property for the use of private interests, in violation of both the 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution, illustrate plainly how much the government gets away with. It seems as if the Supreme Court justices, who were appointed by the government, are returning the favor with an authorization to destroy a person?s right to be secure in his or her home.

Further, the government found it reasonable to establish and enforce blatantly race-based legislation for companies to abide by. Affirmative action, the government?s unconstitutional way to control race in the marketplace, places judgments on the American people based solely on the color of their skin, hardly a responsibility that the government needs under its belt. A truly free society rejects race as a means of classification, and a freedom loving government opposes laws that establish just those classifications. These are just a couple examples of social issues, but our unconstitutional government does not stop merely at these kinds of issues. In fact, fiscal matters seem far worse than social because they affect all of us, regardless of race, sex or creed.

Americans have to deal with 60,000 pages of tax laws built around the government?s monumental redistribution of wealth system. The system taxes people disproportionately based exclusively on monetary success and artfully creates a society of dependence, from those less successful, on the government. As more people depend on the government, the more ammunition the government has to reject the principles of the Constitution and mount an expensive bureaucracy of extreme proportions.

Perhaps the most egregious example of unconstitutional behavior from our government is Social Security. This social program is a government run plan that forces people to contribute to a so-called ?personal retirement fund?. The government manages that fund, decides how much we must contribute and determines when we are entitled to that money back. This is a mandatory program. If we die before the benefits are paid to us, that money is not given to our families. No, the government keeps it. That is right ? it is gone. Forever. Not only is Social Security unconstitutional, it is immoral. It places an unnecessary demand on the American people for the benefit of the federal government. It is wrong and it needs to be stopped. Unfortunately, large, unconstitutional government bureaucracies do not stop here.

The Department of Education, one of the biggest unconstitutional undertakings of the federal government, was established by Jimmy Carter during his unfortunate administration. Ronald Reagan promised to abolish the department but fell back on the promise, partly because of incessant pressure for socialist Congress people. In 1996, part of the GOP party platform read as follows, ?Our formula is as simple as it is sweeping: The federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in the workplace. That is why we will abolish the Department of Education, end federal meddling in our schools, and promote family choice at all levels of learning.?

What happened? Has the GOP given up on abolishing this unconstitutional social education program? Is any political party interested in giving parents true choice in their child?s education? Free public education is one of the founding principles of communism (seriously ? read the tenth plank of the ?Communist Manifesto?), not Republicanism (we are a Republic, not a Democracy).

Government run schools are indoctrination centers. They are funded by the government, to the tune of over $63 billion in 2005, and taught by paid representatives of the government (teachers). Our children deserve more than government funded indoctrination into a world of socialism. How could the government go from operating under a strict limit of powers as enumerated in the Constitution to enabling itself to control education? Every politician from the big two political parties claims that spending more money on the Department of Education is the solution to poor academic performance, but little, if any, academic improvement results from an increase in federal government spending on education. The solution is not money ? the solution is Constitutional. Take a deep breath, smell the air, because unconstitutionality of the government even includes the environment.

The government is a huge polluter. Through the Department of Energy, they pollute more than our power plants do and even our much dreaded oil companies. In the same breath, the government has taken on the unconstitutional responsibility to establish and maintain legislation to protect the environment through the Environmental Protection Agency, or the EPA. The EPA sucks up more than $7 billion a year, all of it unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment, which provides power to the states and people that are not specifically provided to the federal government. Nowhere in the Constitution does it give the right to the federal government to govern the protection of the tree outside your window, or the fish in our nation?s streams and lakes. Yet again, the government has assumed an unconstitutional responsibility that it has no business doing, and it costs the American people money.

The Internet revolutionized the way we live our lives. At the touch of a button, anyone can communicate instantly with other person on the other side of the world. But with this ingenious technology comes further unconstitutional government intrusion in the freedoms of speech and expression. Bill Clinton signed a bill entitled ?Communications Decency Act?, which attempts to regulate the content that can be posted on the Internet. Free speech advocates successfully overturned some portions of the bill, but not others. Does the federal government have the Constitutional right to regulate the Internet? No, of course not.

The U.S. government has spent hundreds of years disobeying the Constitution, and it is getting worse. The Constitution is no longer the guiding document of the government ? as Thomas Jefferson once said, ?The Constitution...is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.? Apply that to the government as well.

Original URL:
http://www.smallgovtimes.com/story/05jul02.government.unconstitutional/index.html