Bill of Rights and government powers (house of representatives, interstate, Congress, health care)

[melinuxfool]

I have a simple question to all people here. Do you believe, in any way, shape, or form, that the Bill of Rights was intended to grant any form of regulatory power to the federal government?

I've often wondered about people taking things out of context and completely changing the intended meaning of one amendment in particular. When you read the preamble (statement of purpose, in case you didn't know) I think it becomes rather clear. The Bill of Rights was about further restricting the government and granted them no additional powers.

=Congress OF THE United States
begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday
the Fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.
THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution
RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.:
ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Anyway... so where then, do people get the absurd notion that the 2nd Amendment gives the government any authority over weapons? The phrase "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state..." is the first half of the 2nd Amendment. It states something obvious, that a well regulated (well organized and trained) militia was and is necessary for the security of a free state, the phrase does not grant the government or any of its branches any sort of regulatory authority.

[jtur88]

Is this just another sneaky attempt to provide gunlovers with another online mutual admiration society?

Respecting the OP, no, the Bill of Rights does not address that question. The Bill of Rights is restrictive, it gives no rights at all. It is not about the rights that that the people have, but about the rights the government does not have. Most people have never read the Preamble to the Bill of Rghts, which I thank you for presenting to us. It is an extraordinarily important piece of the document. Like the Constitution as a whole, the Preamble is the salient part, without which the document cannot be properly understood or interpreted.

But the Bill of Rights is not the entire Constitution. There are three parts to it. 1. The Preamble to the Constitution itself, which sets out the principles that the Constitution is bound to uphold. 2. The body, which details mechanical procedures of governance. 3. The Amendments, which are clearly stated in their own preamble (correctly cited above by the OP) to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers.

If you ever have any questions about what the Constitution means, those are clearly answered in the Preamble:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The Preamble is all you need to know. If the federal government is not working to attain one or more of those five objectives, then it is not working in conformity with the Constitution.

Now back to your loaded OP. The government has the tacit right to do anything that aims to fulfill the objectives set out in the Preamble, and if insuring domestic tranquility can best be done by disarming rogue gangs, then the government is acting in accordance with the Constitution by instituting such measures. Remember, according to your Preamble, the
2nd Amendment is only there to prevent abuse of government powers. Insuring domestic tranquility is not an abuse of powers---it is the whole reason for government in the first place.

[ChrisC]

I see it as a linguistics problem. Language is an inexact form of communication. A given passage, no matter how clearly the writer intended it to be, can be endlessly tweaked and picked at until it is meaningless. Although interesting, the basic theories and premise behind poststructural theory are quite disconcerting. It can be taken to the point that there is no meaning at all in anything.

Of course, those who want to control your life and have the government wipe their **s for them (and you) play with these ideas all the time. Something with otherwise obvious intent is tweaked into the abyss.

[harry chickpea]

The original idea of the Constitution was to make a document that worked better than the Articles of Confederation. During the writing of the document and until the approval, the states were closer to individual countries than at any other time except during the Civil War. As such, after having dealt with England and the excesses of King George, they did not want a restrictive government. Because of that, the rights not exclusively granted in the Constitution to the Federal government were deemed to be under the control of the individual states. Even then, the Constitution was only approved WITHOUT the amendments. The convention of taking the Constitution and Amendments as a single document is erroneous.

Anyone who considers the Constitution and (mislabeled) Bill of Rights to be a viable document today is looking through rose colored glasses. Lincoln ripped the heart out of the concept of a limited Federal government, in favor of a strong, even overbearing central authority. You can go down the Bill of Rights and find blatant examples of current law that violates those rights so outrageously that it is impossible to ignore that the document is dead.

FWIW and as an aside, the preamble obviously addresses the possibility of government sponsored healthcare in the phrase "general welfare." In the past, the government enforced quarantines and has regulated water supplies. Health care is part of general welfare.

What many people find key to the difference in the U.S. attitude (at its best) and that of other countries, doesn't come from the Constitution at all. If comes from the concept of law that was totally foreign to all of the kingdoms of Europe, all of the dictatorships and religious and tribal plays for power throughout the world. It was a radical idea for the time, based in part on French egalitarianism and the deism of the upper class intellectuals such as Jefferson. It sets a standard that special interest groups, power players, churches, and conservatives are STILL constantly trying to remove or seriously abridge. It refutes the idea of the religious elect, the deification of individuals, and the inherited rights of the rich and powerful. That phrase?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

That phrase is so powerful on so many levels that the entirety of it could take a lifetime to fully understand. One key facet is that the Creator gave the enumerated rights, and so therefore they are NOT the purvey of any governmental body. Period.

Everything else that was written from that point forward was to some extent a backtracking from this noble ideal. Today, we have backtracked to the point that the Patriot Act makes the President a de-facto king, that TARP can be enacted to provide largess to the rich against the will of an overwhelming majority of citizens, and that "pre-emptive" wars can be an accepted catch phrase for aggression.

The reality is that we have a government and we have special interest groups that want to strip ALL power form people and either tax it, make money off it, regulate it, or deny it. There will ALWAYS be people and groups and governments that want to do that. Until every citizen gets it through his or her head that they must be stopped, we are on a road to individual padded cells where we work to pay for our minimal upkeep, so that we can support the richest of the rich.

[markg91359]

The Bill of Rights does not grant the federal government regulatory powers. It doesn't need too. Those powers already exist in the main body of the Constitution. The federal government has the power to regulate most economic activity in the USA by means of the Article I; Section 3 of the Constitution or the "commerce clause". Other provisions in the main body of the Constitution grant the federal government regulatory powers as well. Congress is granted the power to lay and collect taxes. Its given the power to coin money and "regulate the value thereof". The Supreme Court held early on that simply because a power is not expressed in clear language in the Constitution does not mean it doesn't exist. The "necessary and proper" clause in the Constitution has been interpreted to allow Congress to adopt legislation that contains the means necessary to effect legitimate governmental ends. For example, if Congress has the power to create a national bank, it also has the power to pass punishing those who rob the bank.

I refuse to get into an argument over the Second Amendment. But, in a nutshell that's the answer to your question.

[melinuxfool]

Originally Posted by markg91359

The Bill of Rights does not grant the federal government regulatory powers. It doesn't need too. Those powers already exist in the main body of the Constitution. The federal government has the power to regulate most economic activity in the USA by means of the Article I; Section 3 of the Constitution or the "commerce clause". Other provisions in the main body of the Constitution grant the federal government regulatory powers as well. Congress is granted the power to lay and collect taxes. Its given the power to coin money and "regulate the value thereof". The Supreme Court held early on that simply because a power is not expressed in clear language in the Constitution does not mean it doesn't exist. The "necessary and proper" clause in the Constitution has been interpreted to allow Congress to adopt legislation that contains the means necessary to effect legitimate governmental ends. For example, if Congress has the power to create a national bank, it also has the power to pass punishing those who rob the bank.

I refuse to get into an argument over the Second Amendment. But, in a nutshell that's the answer to your question.

I think you mean Article 1, Section 8. Section 3 only deals with the Senate and how it is to be made up.

The commerce clause granted the government the power to regulate foreign trade and interstate commerce, across state lines. Which is why a few states, I think Montana is one, but am not positive, are passing state sovereignty legislation with regard to firearms in particular. I believe Montana's version was something to the effect of declaring federal firearms legislation null and void within its borders as long as the gun was manufactured within Montana and remained in Montana.

If congress has powers that aren't enumerated, why isn't there something to that effect in the constitution? The necessary and proper clause authorizes them to enact legislation to execute the specific powers listed. However, with regard to our rights, the 9th Amendment recognizes that just because a right is not enumerated it does not indicate the absence of that right. The 10th Amendment appears to be the opposite of that for the government.

If I'm wrong, and I'm sure I am according to the high and mighty Supreme Court, who seems to care more about their own agenda than what the constitution actually says in plain English, what then, is the purpose of the 10th Amendment? If a power is not delegated to the United States (the federal government), it is not theirs to exercise, it belongs either to the states or the people.

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.

That seems rather obvious to me. After all, I am reading English here, my native language. It's not as if the constitution was written in Anglo Saxon or some other dead language.

[Thaskateguy]

I'm surprised there hasn't been a Spanish version mandated by now.

[hortysir]

Originally Posted by markg91359

The Bill of Rights does not grant the federal government regulatory powers. It doesn't need too. Those powers already exist in the main body of the Constitution. The federal government has the power to regulate most economic activity in the USA by means of the Article I; Section 3 of the Constitution or the "commerce clause". Other provisions in the main body of the Constitution grant the federal government regulatory powers as well. Congress is granted the power to lay and collect taxes. Its given the power to coin money and "regulate the value thereof". The Supreme Court held early on that simply because a power is not expressed in clear language in the Constitution does not mean it doesn't exist. The "necessary and proper" clause in the Constitution has been interpreted to allow Congress to adopt legislation that contains the means necessary to effect legitimate governmental ends. For example, if Congress has the power to create a national bank, it also has the power to pass punishing those who rob the bank.

I refuse to get into an argument over the Second Amendment. But, in a nutshell that's the answer to your question.

1st post!!!
The word "regulate", in olde English of which it was written, was intended to mean "to make regular".
In other words, allow to flow freely.
It was never meant to imply "restrict"



"Of course that's just my opinion. I could be wrong" ~~~Dennis Miller

[jtur88]

Originally Posted by hortysir

1st post!!!
The word "regulate", in olde English of which it was written, was intended to mean "to make regular".
In other words, allow to flow freely.
It was never meant to imply "restrict"

You've been reading to many regurgitated gun-nut blogs. According to dictionary.com's entry, all four definitions mean to apply some form of adjustment, and have meant that since 1620.

reg⋅u⋅late

–verb (used with object), -lat⋅ed, -lat⋅ing.
1. to control or direct by a rule, principle, method, etc.: to regulate household expenses.
2. to adjust to some standard or requirement, as amount, degree, etc.: to regulate the temperature.
3. to adjust so as to ensure accuracy of operation: to regulate a watch.
4. to put in good order: to regulate the digestion.
Origin:
1620–30; < LL rēgulātus (ptp. of rēgulāre). See regula, -ate 1

[Thaskateguy]

Regulate means to "control" in today's world.