Posts Tagged → US Constitution
GOP to open House session with… gasp… Constitution reading
The new GOP-controlled House of Representatives is certainly planning to start off on the right foot. Word out of Washington is that when the new Congress is sworn in and takes power, the first order of business will be to read into the record the founding document of this country: the U.S. Constitution.
That is both a Ron Paul wet dream come true, and a much-needed change of attitude in Washington, which for far too many years has imposed its will without regard tot he Constitution at all. Among the other reforms the GOP is planning to bring as they establish the new rules of the road for this Congress is that each bill brought before the House must cite the Constitutional grounds for its proposal.
Now, if congressmen and congresswomen actually live up to these principles, it could make for a refreshingly freedom-based makeover of the Federal government… at least in the House of Representatives. Many people have argued the US government hasn’t lived by the Constitution for decades now. If this goes beyond symbolism into the substance of conducting House business day-by-day, it’s a much-needed reform. It’d be like handing a bunch of long stem roses to the American people.
However, there is a huge potential backfire risk. If they promise all this, but once House business gets rolling they return to government as usual, then their tenure in control of the US House could be short-tern indeed.
The Constitution on trial!
Check your life insurance policies, folks, the battle is on!
This week, just before the Thanksgiving holiday, the US Supreme Court agreed to review a Second Amendment case. At issue are the District of Columbia’s anti-gun ownership laws, the strictest in the nation. Yet it puts the highest court in the land at the center of judging the constitutionality of the U.S. Constitution itself, if gun opponents have their way.
Now, thanks to Bush appointees, most suspect that at worst, the Second Amendment will be protected by a 5-4 vote, but don’t be so sure just yet. Keep in mind that the Roberts court is the same one that decided to damage personal property rights and trivialize the real meaning of eminent domain a couple years ago, in essence ruling that private homes could be condemned to make way for shopping malls and parking lots, even in times of peace. In other words, the Roberts court has gotten in wrong before.
As I’ve often said, I don’t own a gun; but I value the freedom of knowing that I have the option. Gun ownership is an individual right because the key phrase is, “the right of the people.” It’s only used a handful of times and in every other instance, whatever rights are enumerated thereafter have been deemed individual, not collective, rights.
Watch out if the high court decided otherwise because if the Supremes can, by fiat, make the Second Amendment null and void, anyone who values freedoms like speech, religion and assembly, to name a few, better beware, because those could be overtuned next!
