By Walter E. Williams
Here's a question that I've asked in the past that needs to be revisited.
Unless one wishes to obfuscate, it has a simple yes or no answer. If one group
of people prefers strong government control and management of people's lives
while another group prefers liberty and desires to be left alone, should they be
required to enter into conflict with one another and risk bloodshed and loss of
life in order to impose their preferences on the other group? Yes or no. My
answer is no; they should be able to peaceably part company and go their
separate ways.
The problem our nation faces is very much like a marriage in which one
partner has an established pattern of ignoring and breaking the marital vows.
Moreover, the offending partner has no intention to mend his ways. Of course,
the marriage can remain intact while one party tries to impose his will on the
other and engages in the deviousness of one-upsmanship and retaliation. Rather
than domination or submission by one party, or domestic violence, a more
peaceable alternative is separation.
I believe our nation is at a point where there are enough irreconcilable
differences between those Americans who want to control other Americans and
those Americans who want to be left alone that separation is the only peaceable
alternative. Just as in a marriage where vows are broken, our rights guaranteed
by the U.S. Constitution have been grossly violated by a government instituted
to protect them. These constitutional violations have increased independent of
whether there's been a Democrat-controlled Washington or a Republican-controlled
Washington.
There is no evidence that Americans who are responsible for and support
constitutional abrogation have any intention of mending their ways. You say,
"Williams, what do you mean by constitutional abrogation?" Let's look at the
magnitude of the violations.
Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution lists the activities for which
Congress is authorized to tax and spend. Nowhere on that list is there authority
for Congress to tax and spend for: Medicare, Social Security, public education,
farm subsidies, bank and business bailouts, food stamps and thousands of other
activities that account for roughly two-thirds of the federal budget. Neither is
there authority for congressional mandates to citizens about what type of health
insurance they must purchase, how states and people may use their land, the
speed at which they can drive, whether a library has wheelchair ramps, and the
gallons of water used per toilet flush. The list of congressional violations of
both the letter and spirit of the Constitution is virtually without end. Our
derelict Supreme Court has given Congress sanction to do just about anything for
which they can muster a majority vote.
James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, explained in
Federalist Paper No. 45: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to
the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the
State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised
principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign
commerce. ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the
objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and
liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and
prosperity of the State." Our founder's constitutional vision of limited federal
government has been consigned to the dustbin of history.
Americans have several options. We can like sheep submit to those who have
contempt for liberty and our Constitution. We can resist, fight and risk
bloodshed and death in an attempt to force America's tyrants to respect our
liberties and Constitution. A superior alternative is to find a way to peaceably
separate into states whose citizens respect liberty and the Constitution. My
personal preference is a restoration of the constitutional values of limited
government that made us a great nation.
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