Read and Learn the Constitution!

July 17, 3:31 PMAlbuquerque Conservative ExaminerPaul Gessing

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We all live by rules on a daily basis. The best rules preserve order and treat everyone equally while giving us the freedom to act in ways that don’t harm others. You are probably familiar with the rules of the road. Stop on red, drive on the right side of the road, and signal when you turn or change lanes are just a few that apply to driving. Most of us, while we don’t memorize entire sets of rules at least know enough to get by.

But do you know enough about the Constitution to get by? The Constitution is supposed to be the highest law in the land. Presidents and Members of Congress swear oaths to uphold and defend it and, at least in theory, if any other law violates the Constitution, that law is automatically illegal. Because laws are often passed by Congress that do harm to large numbers of people, this means that the Constitution is there to protect us.

Unfortunately, the Constitution is a piece of paper. It can’t defend itself. We need to be educated and knowledgeable on the Constitution and the protections it holds or it will be ignored and become irrelevant. In fact, I believe this is already happening.

For starters, how well do you know the Bill of Rights? Sure, you probably know about freedom of the press and freedom of religion, but do you know that it begins with “Congress Shall Make No Law?” Right now, Congress has strict limits on freedom of speech as it relates to elections and who is permitted to do certain activities and when. Unfortunately, freedom of speech doesn’t seem to apply in this case.

How about the 4^th amendment? This one protects us from “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Unfortunately, this has not protected Americans from wiretapping, police and internal border checkpoints, and violent home raids by SWAT teams on the flimsiest of evidence or even unreliable tips.   

While the first and fourth amendments are very important, my two favorite are the 9^th and 10^th amendments. Does anyone know what those state? Ironically, unlike all the other amendments, they say basically the same thing. This means that the Founding Fathers must have seen them as being very important.

The gist of the 9^th and 10^th amendments is to explain that the Constitution means what it says and says what it means. That is to say that the Constitution is a document that gives the federal government a few, limited powers and that everything not explicitly given to the federal government in the Constitution should be reserved for the states and the people. Thomas Jefferson in particular called the 10^th amendment the “foundation of the Constitution.”

In practice, this means that because the Constitution does not authorize certain activities, it should not do them. That is:

·        The federal government should not be buying automobile companies;

·        It should not be running our health care;

·        It should not be subsidizing agriculture;

·        It shouldn’t be carrying on a drug war;

·        And it shouldn’t be regulating tobacco (to name just a few well-publicized federal activities).

Proper federal roles include:

·        Handling international relations;

·        Building roads;

·        Preventing states from levying tariffs against each other and treating out-of-state products differently than those produced in-state;

·        Declaring war (a power reserved for Congress, not presidents and which hasn’t been appropriately exercised since 1941).

Needless to say, we have a federal government that goes beyond the basics. After all, Jefferson did write that “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” Clearly, Jefferson worried that the Constitution was not enough to constrain a limited government.

But why did the founding fathers support a limited federal government? The simple answer is that they’d lived under a King whose power was unlimited and they didn’t like it. But they also believed that most government programs and social policies should be enacted at the state level. This could be everything from welfare, to abortion, to whether to outlaw the use of certain substances. After all, the state governments are much closer to the people and, given the dramatic differences between states like California and Wyoming, it is hard to believe that people living in Washington, DC have one answer to the problems experienced in both states.

So, I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the Constitution and what it actually means. This is particularly timely as Congress is now considering the nomination of a Supreme Court justice whose job it will be to interpret the Constitution.