This is an e-mail I wrote to a local grassroots leader earlier. It is written in response to the supreme court ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act . As long as I wrote it… may as well go ahead and post it. Sorry for letting a couple grammar errors sneak past. Cross posted from the Pennsyvlania Tenth Amendment Center.
Plain and simple, Washington is never going to fix Washington. Not today, not next week, and not after November. If we’re going to depend on a campaign to get (R)s elected in November to fix this problem, then we’re destined to be disappointed (and enslaved). The simple fact is that everyone in Washington, (R) and (D), now believes that they work for a benign, but totalitarian government. They are determined to use their power “for good”, but they’re not about to give up their power.
Hell… it’s taken the house an entire year just to bring contempt charges against Attorney General Holder for his stonewalling with regards to “Operation Fast and Furious”. And we know that the Senate will do nothing after contempt charges leave the House. It’s a masquerade. Do we really want to trust these people to protect our Liberty? The idea of a limited government with enumerated powers is not even on their radar.
We have burned — two entire years! — waiting for the Supreme Court to betray us. How long do we now wait to be betrayed by the Congress?
Although there are individual exceptions, people in groups will follow their incentives. This is true of politicians, too. The incentives for a Washington congress are to make use of this massive grant of power that the 2010 Congress and the Supreme Court just handed to them. They are not – NOT – going to voluntarily relinquish this power, regardless of whether their names are followed by (D) or (R).
In the 1770s, when faced with a totalitarian British government, our petitions to London for relief fell on deaf ears. Have we had better luck with Washington in recent years? As in 1776, the solution to the problem today lies in Harrisburg and the other state capitals. In the states, the politicians’ incentives align more closely with the people.
In the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, James Madison wrote – “… that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact [US Constitution], the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them….” (http://www.constitution.org/cons/virg1798.htm)
And in the Kentucky Resolutions of the same year, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “…whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force…” (http://www.constitution.org/cons/kent1798.htm)
### Unauthoritative. Void. Of No Force. ###
HB42, already in the Pennsylvania House, is ready to be acted on. It would prevent the federal government from enforcing an individual mandate against Pennsylvania (without a requirement to amend the state Constitution). Also, the Tenth Amendment Center has model legislation which formally declares the entire PPACA to be unconstitutional and therefore void. It is here – http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/legislation/federal-health-care-nullification-act/
This is the path forward. The states can be a powerful ally. If we want to push back against Washington, the way to do it is with Harrisburg beside us. The Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution reserves undelegated powers to the states and to the people. The states and the people should work together to enforce that reservation.
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