The Tenth Amendment Rendered Meaningless

If the governors of these United States don’t start stepping up to the plate in a more aggressive manner, the Tenth Amendment to the United States will be rendered meaningless. The constitution is already on life support, and the Tenth Amendment is the critical arguing point in this battle between centralized tyranny and local independence.

I shudder when I hear governors groveling at the altar of the federal government as Governor Elect Nikki Haley of South Carolina recently did when she asked the president to “allow South Carolina to opt out” of the healthcare bill. This is not constitutional leadership. We need our governors to start studying the history of this nation and start employing the same arguments that were made then, resulting in the Bill of Rights including the Tenth Amendment.

I get perplexed when I read our history and compare the political fights we are having today. It is appalling how weak our state governments have become compared to their domination at the founding of our country. Where did we go wrong? I believe the first fundamental principle we have allowed to slip is our understanding of history and our founding. Along the way politics, civics, and history have taken a back seat to pragmatism, and a casual undermining of our true history.

We have allowed big government advocates to paint big government as a compassionate institution that is there to help people. We have allowed the constitution and its fundamental principles to be undermined by tortured arguments by Supreme Court justices and power hungry presidents, as they mangled the original intent without a true debate of the ramifications these changes would have for future generations. We have allowed blind emotion to drive decisions that have destroyed millions of American lives with government dependency, and the only result; a few liberals feel good about themselves. We have forgotten how to argue on principle and have accepted short term gratification over standing on principle to achieve more difficult but sounder and moral results.

The Supreme Court has been allowed to become too powerful when the founders intent for the court was simply to determine the constitutionality of laws created by congress. It was never intended to be a body that created laws for the nation. It is an equal branch of government that has been used too often to provide cover for weak kneed politicians that don’t want to do the hard work they are constitutionally required to do. The states have become too complacent to bad federal law and have relegated their responsibility to provide for the states, rendering the Tenth Amendment meaningless.

When coal mine expansion in the state of West Virginia is being held up by a federal bureaucracy that is protecting bugs over jobs, and governors accept this as normal, the Tenth Amendment is rendered meaningless. When the federal government believes that a smelt is more important than the farmer in California, and the governor accepts this as normal, the Tenth Amendment is rendered meaningless. When our government is passing bills to force our kids to eat certain foods, and the governors accept this as normal, the Tenth Amendment is rendered meaningless. When the federal government continues to make decisions affecting state budgets beyond the scope of its constitutional authority, and governors accept this as normal, the Tenth Amendment is rendered meaningless.

History proves that the Tenth Amendment was critical in the passing of the United States Constitution, and without it the states would have never ratified the document. The arguments for and against ratification were passionate and revolved around a desperate fear that a central government would one day dominate and limit the freedoms that individuals had sacrificed their lives to ensure. Today we have a central government that people fear is stealing their individual liberty and ability to pursue happiness. The Tenth Amendment is not meaningless, it is the pivotal amendment to return the federal government to a limited role and to protect the liberties our founders fought so hard to achieve