I know that this guy is a Fox news contributor/guest host and whatnot, and I’m sure you guys will rip him apart for his views, but doesn’t it bother anybody here that politicians of both parties simply do not have any respect for the laws that are supposed to form the foundation of our society have been so routinely set aside?
The thing that now bothers me the most about this country is not that we enact any specific policy, it’s that the process the government uses seems to simply ignore the rights of the people and the limits imposed by the constitution.
I don’t care much who wins the election at this point. Neither candidate is going to turn back the clock on this. I truly believe that within the next 50-100 years our children will be living in a country that is substantially less free than it is today because every single policy change, whether conservative or liberal in nature, always seems to have the effect of granting the government more power and the people less power.
The man who has abused the Constitution the most and made a mad grab for power in recent history is Bush. It’s peculiar that this kind of thinking comes out now when Obama is in such a strong position. I’m sure should McCain win, this conciliatory thinking will go out the window the next day. Where was this article 4 years ago?
Oh yes, “the last century of constitutional law is wrong and the government actually doesn’t have the power to intervene in the economy at all” is certainly a non-partisan opinion.
I agree with you which I why I completely changed my opinion of Bush. I’m sure that you’re right, and that if the situation were different we’d get a different Op-Ed entirely, but I’m not going to change my opinion. I’m sick and tired of the government seizing more and more power.
As a general rule yes, it concerns me when those in power find ways around either the letter or the spirit or both of the law. Especially the Constitution.
That being said, I think the US badly needs to hold a new Constitutional Convention and rewrite the darned thing. It is hopelessly out of date, and sadly lacking in useful approaches to contemporary issues. That’s why we get into arguments about “a right to privacy” or what the freaking 2nd Amendment really means or the death penalty applies to minors or the mentally handicapped.
Scrap the thing and start over. Keep the useful rhetoric (the Preamble is quite nice, for example, though the references to a diety (I’m thinking of the word “blessings” here) would have to go), and redo the rest.
That was a better article than I ever expected to see from a Fox News employee.
Mr. Napolitano, who served on the bench of the Superior Court of New Jersey between 1987 and 1995, is the senior judicial analyst at the Fox News Channel. His latest book is “A Nation of Sheep” (Nelson, 2007).
At what point would you actually say “Uh oh. The government has too much control over our lives?”
How far does it have to go before you start worrying? So far it seems like you’re fine right up until they start doing weekly inspections of everybody’s house to make sure no laws are being broken.
At least this is an honest approach to the problem. Personally I wouldn’t trust any public officeholder in the entire country to actually accomplish this but you’re probably right about it needing to happen.
The constitution isn’t a magical document. It was created in such a time and place, that I doubt the writers could have predicted the governing needs of modern society. The core structure of division of powers and responsibilities is generally fine, but when deciding if and how to change it or the law, we should look at it like a set of principles not an infallible document written by God-Men.
People may disagree with the government’s analysis of who “deserves” a bailout, but if you grant the government the power, their exercise of judgment is not an Equal Protection problem.
Does anyone find it ironic to hear cries of “but, but, but, EQUAL PROTECTION!” here? Justice Scallia thinks that “equal protection” means that people of all sexual orientations equally share in the rights to marry… provided they marry someone of the opposite gender. I don’t think conservative thinkers are going to get on board with this broad a view of the clause.
To be fair, he also takes potshots at Bush administration policies, like suspending habeas corpus and warrantless spying. It’s a “true” conservative opinion (“Big Government is unconstitutional and has been all along!”), not a right-wing polemic (“Everything the GOP has ever done has been right and anyone who disagrees is a traitor!”).
Which may be why it’s showing up in the WSJ and not on Fox News. How long before this guy gets canned for speaking out (however obliquely) against El Presidente?
I might have more to say about this later after reading it carefully and such (I’m just cruising the net right now during a break between classes and research), but the first paragraph of the article is immediately suspect:
First of all, it’s parroting a McCain talking point. I know this because the talking point and the article both intentionally misquote what Obama really said in that interview. I had read a fact check on the talking point in question yesterday; I couldn’t find the original, but I did find an AP factcheck that gets the same point across.
I think that empirically files this article under “partisan” rather than “about the constitution.” But if I feel motivated I’ll give it a thorough read later and comment anyway.
That’s a pretty interesting interpretation. If I take it all the way, does this mean that I can’t pay individual government employees because that is paying an individual and not the general welfare?
Of course not. None of our federal legislation is phrased in terms of, “let’s pass a law to give person X, Y, for reasons unrelated to general welfare.” Money is spent to support general welfare will frequently have to be spent on specific initiatives and paid out to specific individuals. While I agree that we don’t always do the best job of that and sometimes legislation isn’t targeting the general welfare as well as it should, but that’s a problem of specific instances of legislation, not a fundamental problem with the system.
It is literally impossible to only spend money in ways that affect all people equally and it should be clear that this isn’t the proper interpretation. People will always be affected in slightly different manners owing to their different contexts and circumstances. Instead legislation which spends tax money must always attempt to increase the general welfare but may do so with targetted spending which impacts specific parts of the market differently.
The mandate for a free market is manufactured from tortured interpretation and not clear and evident as the author would like to indicate.
P.S. I agree that Bush has grown the power of the executive branch to a dangerous extent and that it’s bad for the country whether the executive branch is run by a Democrat or a Republican. I think it’s a very important issue to address. However, while bringing this point up may get the author of the piece a few brownie points, it’s only tangentially related to his creative reinterpretation of the Constitution and it’s “mandate” of a free market.
Uh, where I come from, we call that a bribe and you’d go to jail for trying it.
It is literally impossible to only spend money in ways that affect all people equally and it should be clear that this isn’t the proper interpretation.
It is also literally impossible to do anything other than math perfectly. The point isn’t that the implementation has to be perfectly equitable, it’s that the government should design all legislation with equity in mind. Unfortunately, some in government seem to have confused equity in the sense of equality with equity in the sense of stocks and corporate ownership.
The mandate for a free market is manufactured from tortured interpretation and not clear and evident as the author would like to indicate.
I’ve checked over the Constitution, and I see no language indicating that the economy should be controlled by the federal government, or even that the federal government has the right to legislate on any exchange of goods interior to a state. Therefore I conclude the opposite.
Funny how politicians become constitutionalists again once they are nearly out of power.
I’ve always found this argument pretty ludicrous overall. Hey, we should elect 100 senators and 435 congressmen, but they AREN’T ALLOWED TO DO ANYTHING. Brilliant! There’s a reason why the Articles of Confederation failed, you know.
Huh, so the Federal government isn’t allowed to pay the president a salary because that’s a bribe? I don’t get it.
The point isn’t that the implementation has to be perfectly equitable, it’s that the government should design all legislation with equity in mind.
Which is basically what I just said.
Unfortunately, some in government seem to have confused equity in the sense of equality with equity in the sense of stocks and corporate ownership.
Is this just a one-liner or did you have a point? The government is buying up equity because a lot of people think that’s the best way to aid the “general welfare” at present. You may disagree, and that is reasonable, but there’s still a pretty firm basis for the act that isn’t running contrary to the Constitution.
I’ve checked over the Constitution, and I see no language indicating that the economy should be controlled by the federal government, or even that the federal government has the right to legislate on any exchange of goods interior to a state. Therefore I conclude the opposite.
No such thing as perfect math, either, really. Math just defines “provable” in a consistent way. I’ve seen plenty of proofs that were correct but were far from perfect. Unless you conflate the terms such that “provably correct” and “perfect” are synonyms, of course. Don’t recall ever hearing that done back when I was serious about math. Quite the opposite.
If your argument cites presidents as far back as John Adams doing the things you rail against, I think the takeaway message is that we can handle it just fine. If you seriously think the US went off the rails in 1797, I really don’t know how to give you what you want.
This is not to say that it’s OK just because it happened near the founding of the country (I assume he’s referring to the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were promptly struck down and are used to this day as an example of how not to uphold American values), but that we can adapt to meet the slightly different circumstances we find ourselves in now, as a post-industrial superpower, without discarding the still-relevant elements of a document designed to govern an agrarian backwater.
