You'd Think That Amendment Would Be His Favorite. . .

John Derbyshire at National Review Online points out some scrubbing going on at Obama's policy website change.gov:

I dunno if it was me, but the Obama's Change website has undergone some fast changes of its own.

When I commented on Friday about the pretty-much-compulsory-looking "national service" plan proposed there, the site said this:

… developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year …

It currently says this:

… setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free …

Perhaps someone in the Obama camp glanced at the 13th amendment:

"Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. . ."

You Want To Make History? Let's Talk About History

Considering Constitutional scholar and Law Professor Barack Obama's regret over the restrictions placed on the government by the Constitution (a legal document) and its failure (or as I like to put it, "runaway success") to guarantee a right to your neighbor's property, I thought that maybe we should consider what the founders thought on the subject:

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
-Benjamin Franklin

I suppose that means the Republic has been on the down slope since the ratification of the 16th Amendment (which may not be legal). I guess Barry's going to make America great again by destroying the Republic and calling Ben Franklin an old fool.

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

So the author of the Declaration of Independence saw redistribution of wealth as a violation of every man's right to the fruits of his own labor. Oh well, what did he know about freedom and tyranny?

“A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”
-Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

So President Jefferson would see Barry Obama as unwise, unfrugal, and an advocate of "bad government". Remember though, Barry was President of the Harvard Law Review. He surely knows more about good government than Thomas Jefferson.

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”
-Thomas Jefferson

Not according to the Warren Court which wasn't that radical according to Barry.

“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”
-John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787

Harsh words for Barry from another Founding Father. Does Barry seek anarchy and tyranny? All he wants to do is render the legal document that defines the government of our union null, void, and meaningless. Its not like he launched his political career in the house of an avowed anarchist or anything like that.

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
-James Madison, 4 Annals of congress 179 (1794)

Does that put "spreading the wealth" out of the question? What did Madison know anyway. He's only the Father of our Constitution.

“…[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
-James Madison

So whenever someone talks about America's duty to help out the less fortunate in America (those richer than only 90% of the rest of the world) it flies in the face of what James Madison believed the Federal government's purpose was when the Constitution was ratified? Surely they teach this at Harvar- . . . never mind.

“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.”
-Benjamin Franklin

So the best way to help a poor person is not to enable them in their poverty but to motivate them to pull themselves out of it? Well, if that were true, then how did poverty completely end after the Great Society programs?

“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
-Benjamin Franklin

So happiness is not supposed to be benevolently bestowed upon us by the State? Huh, who knew?

I hate to say it Barry, but I think your "change" is the type of thing Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and the Constitution specifically intended to stop. But what do they know? They were only the most famous of the greatest collection of men assembled at one place and time in History. You were President of the Harvard Law Review!

Read more quotes at Conservative Colloquium and The Reference Frame.

So That's What He Means

Finally, we know what Obama means by "change". Obama's own words from a Chicago Public radio interview in 2001:

"But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution. . . (The Constitution) Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted. . . one of the. . .tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change."

Glad we cleared that up eight days before the election. Thank goodness there's still time for the media to apologize to everyone they labeled as "right wing lunatics" for conjecturing that Senator Obama may be a marxist. I'm sure all the big news organizations will lead with this revelation tonight.

Also, should (God forbid) Barry win the election, can we have him hooked up to a lie detector on inauguration day when he swears to "preserve, protect, and defend" the Constitution of the United States?

How Did I Miss This?

Terrific Walter Williams column from July 16th that brings to light new Oklahoma State legislations that seeks to reign in the overbearing and unconstitutional power of the Federal government.

Professor Williams, as bluntly as ever, puts it this way:

"One of the unappreciated casualties of the War of 1861, erroneously called a Civil War, was its contribution to the erosion of constitutional guarantees of state sovereignty. It settled the issue of secession, making it possible for the federal government to increasingly run roughshod over Ninth and 10th Amendment guarantees. A civil war, by the way, is a struggle where two or more parties try to take over the central government. Confederate President Jefferson Davis no more wanted to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington wanted to take over London. Both wars are more properly described as wars of independence."

Wonderfully put. The slow erosion of our Constitution began with the War Between the States in 1861 and the States really no longer have any recourse to check the growing power of the Federal government. Professor Williams continues:

"Oklahomans are trying to recover some of their lost state sovereignty by House Joint Resolution 1089, introduced by State Rep. Charles Key.

"The resolution's language, in part, reads: "Whereas, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: '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.'; and Whereas, the Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and whereas, the scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and Whereas, today, in 2008, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government. 'Now, therefore, be it resolved by the House of Representatives and the Senate of the 2nd session of the 51st Oklahoma Legislature: that the State of Oklahoma hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States. That this serve as Notice and Demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.'"

The Federal Government was created to be an advocate of the States, to provide for the common defense of the States, to represent the States to other nations diplomatically, and to regulate interstate and foreign commerce. These are powers specifically granted to the Federal government in the Constitution. All other rights, whatever they may be, are reserved to the States and the people by the 10th Amendment, which the Supreme Court conveniently forgot about during and after the War Between the States. Professor Williams goes on to quote James Madison in Federalist Paper 45, and Thomas Jefferson:

"The powers delegated … 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, [such] 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, liberties, and properties of the people." Thomas Jefferson emphasized that the states are not "subordinate" to the national government, but rather the two are "coordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. "The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government."

The States were never envisioned as the provincial administrative units under the authority of the Federal government that they have become today. This is the essence of conservatism, to get back to the original intent of the Constitution, which was drafted to protect the liberty of the States, and thereby the lives, liberty, and property of the citizens.

Basic Principles of Conservatism

At its core, Conservatism is based on the ideas of the founding fathers, perhaps the greatest group of men ever gathered together in the history of the world. Freedom derived from the Creator, a decentralized federal government with specific enumerated powers, and individual liberty protected from the tyranny of the majority. No matter what differences conservatives have with one another, we share these basic principles in common. (Note however there are certainly atheist conservatives, most notably Ayn Rand.)

The first point, "freedom", does not only include those specifically listed in the Bill of Rights. Speech, religion, the right to assemble, these are all important freedoms, but as the 9th Amendment States, they are not the only ones. Conservatives believe in the concept of "economic freedom". Every man (or woman) should be free to make as much (or as little) as their faculties allow. When Jefferson wrote "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal", he was talking about the basic rights that all men are endowed with. Equality in birth, not equality in outcome. With freedom comes responsibility, and each man should be responsible for himself. A man has no right to infringe upon his neighbor's economic freedom in order to further his own.

In order to protect this concept of freedom, the founders (through the Constitution) imposed strict limits upon the Federal government. Conservatism seeks to bring the ever growing Federal government back into this Constitutional framework. States were not always the provincial administrative units they are now. They were once sovereign and free. For the purpose of common defense they entered into the Articles of Confederation. When this union proved too weak, the founders drafted the Constitution, and the individual States ratified it. However, while this created a more solid and defined Federal system, with a stronger central government, the present size and power of the Federal government was NEVER envisioned by the founders. I dare say it was the very thing they most feared.

Conservatives seek to restore the original balance of the Federal system and are thus advocates of States Rights. Local governments are far more responsive the the people and act as a check on a tyrannical trending central government. The founders understood this better than we ever can, and Conservatism seeks to restore the original powers of the State, at the expense of the Federal government.

The Constitution once limited the government. As strict constructionists, Conservatives wish to return to the original intent. The Constitution is not a "living, breathing" document that evolves over time. It is a legal document that created a Republic unable to infringe upon individual liberty. Now that it is seemingly ignored, the majority is free to infringe upon the liberties of the individual, just as the Federal government is free to infringe upon the rights of the State. So at its core Conservatism is an ideology of limited government and originalism.

This is certainly not all there is to Conservatism, books have been written about Conservatism and its stance on far more issues than I have elaborated on. This is just the basic structure of the Conservative philosophy and ideology. This is the America the founders envisioned, and men like William F Buckley, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan sought to restore.