Extra Constitutionalism

First, let’s remember that our constitution does not enumerate the rights of the citizens. Rather it restricts the ambitions of an overreaching, meddling and odious federal government. So when dim wits at Ivy League schools, even the presidents of those schools, claim that are inviting a murderous tyrant to speak in the name of free speech guaranteed in the Constitution, they have gotten it wrong. And because they should know better, I suspect that they have gotten it willfully wrong.

Here’s the First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Where exactly do these 45 words tell Lee Bollinger that he must allow – in his words – an astonishingly uneducated cruel and petty dictator to address his university? It doesn’t. It simply restricts the lame brain dopes we send to congress from telling Bollinger that can’t make an ass of himself by giving a platform, megaphone and legitimacy to said uneducated cruel and petty dictator. So, it wasn't Mahmoud exerising his right to "free speech" on display at Columbia. It was Bollinger exercising his right to be a preening ass.

Next let’s address the “general welfare.” There are no two words in our Constitution that have caused more government mischief and misunderstanding among our citizens than those words found in the preamble of the Constitution:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, 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."

Many, including some who should know better, think or advocate that the words “general welfare” open the doors for the congress to make all sorts of laws like the S-C-H-I-P, because it’s authorized under the “general welfare” clause. This is C-R-A-P.

The father of the Constitution, James Madison made clear the intent of those words in Federalist No. 41 and even more clearly in these citations:

"Whenever, therefore, money has been raised by the General Authority, and is to be applied to a particular measure, a question arises whether the particular measure be within the enumerated authorities vested in Congress. If it be, the money requisite for it may be applied to it; if it be not, no such application can be made."
James Madison, Report on Resolutions, in 6 WRITINGS OF JAMES MADISON, quoted in Roger Pilon, Freedom, Responsibility, and the Constitution: On Recovering Our Founding Principles, 68 Notre Dame L. Rev. 507, 530.


"[O]ur tenet ever was, and, indeed, it is almost the only landmark which now divides the federalists from the republicans, that Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money."
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin (June 16, 1817), in 10 WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON at 90, 91 (Paul Leicester Ford ed., 1899) quoted in Roger Pilon, Freedom, Responsibility, and the Constitution: On Recovering Our Founding Principles, 68 Notre Dame L. Rev. 507, 530.

So, the “general welfare” was not intended to be some open ended catch-all allowing unfettered government monkey business in a document that otherwise restricts such activities. The “general welfare” clause can only be applied to powers already specifically enumerated in the Constitution.

So when the weasel-like Harry Reid takes to the Senate floor and decries the amount of money being spent on the war he voted to authorize while complaining about the amount of money the congress is asking for government health care coverage for 25 year old “children”, 400% OVER the poverty line, he’s comparing apples to oranges. Providing for the “common defense” (ie the war) is without question covered in the Constitution. Providing government health insurance for 25 year old “children”, 400% OVER the poverty line is NOT.

Last. Dolts in the Democrat led congress have attached a provision on the defense bill declaring crimes against gay and transgender (whatever the hell that is) people a hate crime. Forget about the fact that these dopes can’t tell black from white let alone discern if there is hate in anyone’s mind. This is extra Constitutional mumbo jumbo that flies in the face of the equal protection provision of the Fourteenth Amendment.

So if you’re a white kid arguably exercising your First Amendment right by callously placing a noose in a tree, you are a hater and deserving of extra punishment. But, if you’re some poor white kid beaten unconscious by six black kids that is not a hate crime because the white kid is not a protected class deserving of extra-equal protection.

The worst part of all of this is that the people who swear an oath to uphold the Constitution are the very people apparently ignorant of what’s contained in that document. We should probably worry more about America being brought down from within by the shlubs we elect to congress than by Islamo-terror-fascists. Well, at least worry equally as much.