The following is an excerpt from Gallup News.
“A 54% majority of Americans say the federal government has too much power, while 39% say it has about the right amount of power and 6% say too little.
“These figures have generally been stable throughout the Donald Trump and Joe Biden presidential administrations."
“Since 2005, no less than 50% of Americans have said they believe the federal government is too powerful, with some of those readings reaching 60%.”
I no longer identify as conservative. When I consume news about the government's latest intentions my primary concern is, does “the latest thing” protect our liberty or decrease it? The former instance is a rarity these days, and the latter is the result of the government arrogating more and more power to itself while ignoring the Constitution or explaining it away.
I now prefer to identify as a constitutionalist. It’s sometimes a lonely place, but I’m otherwise comfy. One benefit of my newfound identity is that when today’s conservatives bark at the Left’s latest outrage before moving aside to let it pass into law, my hands are clean.
That government is best which governs least
The familiar saying, "That government is best which governs least" is often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but that’s apparently doubtful. No one, however, could rightly say that this axiom doesn’t distill his political philosophy, not to mention the rest of the Founding Fathers.
I can say without fear of contradiction that Jefferson would take a razor, if not an axe, to governments at all levels today both to protect our liberty and decrease governmental power by strict enforcement of the Constitution upon elected officials and bureaucrats.
Just government derives its power from the consent of the governed. There is only so much power to go around, so to accumulate power, governments take power from the people, usually without their informed consent.
A quick mental exercise to gauge the amount of power that the people have today is to consider the size and scope of government at all levels and ask, “Where did they get the power to do all of that?” The answer is, “Well, if not from the Constitution, then from us.”
Yes, from us. Look at the unprecedented power that the federal government has accrued in the past 120 years or the last 21. If I watch some thief remove items from my garage late one night and do nothing to stop him, then I am effectively giving my stuff away. This is where the government got its immense power. We didn’t stop them from taking power from us at implied gunpoint. If they have it, we gave it to them by letting them take it for fear of the consequences of resisting.
We could have amended the Constitution at any time so that e.g. it would be constitutional for the government to force us to save for retirement. We didn’t, but the government did it anyway, then raided our Social Security accounts.
We could have made it constitutional by amending the Constitution to empower the federal government to pay for millions of people’s healthcare, food, clothing, shelter, education, scientific research, business subsidies, and so on, but we didn't.
We could have amended the Constitution to effect these and other novelties we now suffer under, but we didn’t, so the government just took authority and imposed its new powers on us, to the point that these and other unconstitutional programs are bleeding us dry financially and stripping us of freedoms we once thought were sacrosanct. We could go on like this for hundreds of pages.
A recent example
Let’s consider one recent and seemingly insignificant example of this swindle in action. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently declared that pro-life taxpayers will now pay the travel expenses of pregnant service members to abortion-friendly states so that they can offer their children on the altar of “military readiness.” https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/20/pentagon-will-pay-for-service-members-to-travel-for-abortions-00062782
Does the Constitution allow this transfer of wealth to the Pentagon to murder babies? Did we consent to this? Were we even asked about it? Did our “conservative” representatives express outrage about it, let alone vote against it? Multiply this about one thousand times to see just how outraged we should be.
The thing is, we weren’t consulted. It’s a sin of omission; but so is our acquiescence. Our consent is the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and we never consented to any terms outside of them. Yes, we watched them empty our garage but we did nothing because we were ignorant and afraid. We are also eyewitnesses to the theft, and we’re here to get our stuff back.
If something the federal government wants to do is not explicitly stated in the Constitution, it is prohibited per Article X of the Bill of Rights. If the government wants to do something that the Constitution doesn’t authorize, it should be amended following Article V, either by Congress or the states. Otherwise, power reserved to We the People, or to the states, has been stolen from the people or the states. There are no two ways about it, and it’s time to set things right.
Term limits, curtailing federal overreach, and returning the Constitution to its once lofty citadel as our safeguard against tyranny are all indeed possible, but no one is coming to save us. We must stop watching this horror movie through our fingers and get to work to make this happen. We believe in the rule of law, not the whims of man.
What do you believe in?
Our organization, Convention of States, is dedicated to amending the Constitution to end the ongoing massive theft of power from the people to Washington, D.C. The state legislatures have the authority to call for a Convention of States, thanks to Article V, to return the federal government to its original tethers, and we aim to succeed in this effort.
We’ll keep fighting for you until you join us, then we’ll fight together.
