On Friday, November 6th 2009, I called into a conference call hosted by The Federalist Society (I’m a member) which featured speakers such as Peter Urbanowicz and David B. Rivkin, Jr on the topic on National Health-care.
The speakers really knew their stuff but they and the callers who asked questions basically accepted the notion that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter on the Constitution. Listening to them discuss the interstate commerce clause and the Court’s holdings in Wickard and Lopez, made me think to myself, “what’s the point?”
Why even bother talking about the Constitution if 5 politically appointed lawyers can change what the Constitution means in a blink of the eye? This is why the Tenth Amendment Center (TAC) and the State Sovereignty movement are so important.
TAC doesn’t buy into the big lie that we have to sit on our hands and just accept what the feds tell us about the Constitution. Establishment originalists could learn a thing or two from TAC.
Someone needs to have the (effective) power to overrule Congress when it creates an unconstitutional law, right? And we can't leave it up to the majority to do this, because almost always the reason this happens is that the majority wishes to violates the rights of a minority of some kind (whether we're talking about racial minorities, rich people, or whatever).
So how do we enforce the Bill of Rights (and other provisions of the Constitution) against majority/mob rule? Who would you have decide this? The citizens of a particular state? That's just a smaller mob making rules that violate the Constitution.
I'm not saying the Supreme Court necessarily is the right entity to do this. But who is?
The 10th Amendment explicitly speaks of powers prohibited to the states in addition to powers reserved to them. Who decides if a state has exercised a power prohibited to it by the Constitution? Surely not the state. Who, then?
Here is a great article on this subject: http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution…
Viera has written a number of solid articles on the subject – thanks for sharing, Nick!