Although I don’t expect the state sovereignty movement to get a fair hearing over at Daily Kos, the total historical ignorance and vacuous credulity of some liberals never ceases to amaze me.

A recent post, which purports to offer intellectual firepower capable of refuting the arguments of “tenthers,” essentially states that “Everything the federal government does is constitutional because the federal government says so.”

Observe:

Obviously Medicare, Social Security, and the Air Force (yes, I’ve had tenthers tell me the Air Force is unconstitutional) are legal because we’ve had them for decades without being struck down by the Supreme Court.

Obviously. Except that the Constitution explicitly did not grant the federal government authority to do anything beyond its enumerated powers, and what was necessary and proper to exercise its enumerated powers. That would by definition render both Medicare and Social Security (the Air Force being a red herring) unconstitutional.

Apparently Daily Kos believes that, because the Supreme Court has found constitutional limitations on federal power to be politically inexpedient, those limits are moot. As if committing a crime often enough makes it legal.

I pity anyone whose life is lived in such contemptible obsequiousness to arbitrary power.

So what rights are granted under the Tenth Amendment? Well, [the states are] given the right to exist and form their own laws.

How arrogant! After all, it was the people of the states themselves that formed the federal government by ratifying the Constitution; their right to exist and make laws could not possibly have been surrendered by such action.

Unfortunately for the writers and readers at Daily Kos and the Huffington Post, the U.S. Supreme Court has never been legally able to bind the states with its decrees. In our federalist system, the power to decide the limits of federal authority has always necessarily resided with the states themselves.

When presented with these facts, those who scoff at state (and individual) sovereignty often resort to claiming the question of ultimate authority was answered by Lincoln through four years of hideous fratricide.

But citing the subjugation of principled logic through force of arms is hardly a definitive legal high ground; it only further demonstrates intellectual weakness.

So next time, when you hear a tenther jackass pretending that they know something about the Constitution, feel free to not just call them stupid, but to tell them why they’re stupid.

Don’t worry, we always do.

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