Saturday, September 9, 2017

Limited Government under The Rule of Law and "Common Sense"?

You can get a good picture of someone's understanding of Constitutional Originalism by listening closely to what they want to do with constitutional powers.

Something is not Constitutional simply because you want it or like it. Conversely, something is not unconstitutional simply because you don't want it or don't like it.

Constitutionality or unconstitutionality is based solely in the text of the Constitution, its enumerated powers for each branch (Art I, II, and III), it's structural and process mechanisms, etc...).

I see so many folks just simply throw "constitutional" or "unconstitutional" into their positions simply because they like or don't like something. If the Constitution is silent on an issue that means the 10th amendment is controlling and therefore your state, city, municipality is free to do it whether you like it or not. If you have an issue with what your state is doing, make sure you understand that your recourse (redress) is in your state legislature.
When you hear someone say "the Constitution does not authorize X, but does not forbid it either", that is huge red flag to a completely erroneous view of the framers intent for the Rule of Law that they created when they carved out powers to create the national government.

The Constitution was not designed with prohibitions in mind, "prohibitions" are implied once one understands the the primary design. It was designed to create and LIMIT the federal government. This fact is abundantly clear to any novice reading of the framers and their debates during the Philadelphia convention of 1787. To take a position that something is not "prohibited" in the federal Constitution and therefore permissible is to follow the liberal interpretational view of a "Living Constitution". The Constitution is not open for doing what is "not prohibited". Logically this would mean a blank check. Madison explained this clearly in his Federalist #41 expose of the General Welfare clause in Article I, Sect 8. The essence of  the starting point for any look at enumerated powers is this most basic understanding of the purpose and intent of the text of the Constitution.

This kind of thinking, the idea that we get to do things that are not enumerated just because one thinks they know what's best for any given situation is PRECISELY what has gotten us into the morass of debt spending that we see today.

Our constitution was not designed to be interpreted to expand powers by using our "common sense. It is to be interpreted as it is written, a document creating a central government of limited powers. Period. Although the idea of using "common sense" to expand powers sounds good to some...the logical question that honest people have to ask is who's "common sense"? The progressives would tell you that they are using their "common sense". Who then is the arbiter of "common sense"? The answer is no ones because that opens the document up to the whims of men and completely eviscerates the intent for limited powers under a rule of law.

If someone thinks they have the lock on "common sense" when it comes to interpreting powers under the Constitution let them use the rigorous process created to address deficiencies in those powers....the constitutional amendment process. They don't get to do it on their own.

For those that take the Romans 13 command to "obey the governing authority" seriously (which should be all who claim Christ). Realize that the Romans 13 governing authority in our nation is the United States Constitution. It is the highest law of the land. Also realize the folly of taking matters into one's own hands when someone determines that they know better and that "common sense" tells you that we can do something that is not enumerated as a power under that governing authority. Any action outside of enumerated powers simply because one thinks that it's "common sense" violates this bedrock constitutional principle.

Lastly, this ought to also cause the Christ claimer to recoil because of the warning given in Judges 21:25 where "everyone did what was right in his own eyes." The incredible design of our founding document reveals that it was intentionally designed to prevent "everyone doing what is right in their own eyes". This is another one of the evidences of why the Biblical Worldview leads us to an originalist interpretational viewpoint of the United States Constitution.

Reject any thinking from this perspective if you claim to be a Constitutionalist and if you claim to respect the rule of law, the Romans 13 "governing authority", and the Biblical Worldview of limited civil government.

This is PRECISELY the kind of thinking that has us untethered and adrift from the United States Constitution.

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