How is the size of the government unconstitutional?

[American]

Why do you assume that it's always "leftwing naysayers" disputing the FF's? And please, don't respond with some sort of generalization. If it's based on anecdotal evidence, I'll take that.

Maybe because if you dispute the founders regarding the Constitution, you can't be a rightwinger BY DEFINITION. That doesn't leave too many people.

 

[repeter]

Maybe because if you dispute the founders regarding the Constitution, you can't be a rightwinger BY DEFINITION. That doesn't leave too many people.

Would you consider libertarians right-wingers? Because I can think of at least one who disputes what the FF's said, stood for, and believed in.

 

[LesGovt]

Would you consider libertarians right-wingers? Because I can think of at least one who disputes what the FF's said, stood for, and believed in.

While I am sure that American can answer on his or her own, please allow me to give it a stab. All conservatives do not always agree on any given topic. Libertarians tend to be conservative on fiscal issues, but liberal on social issues. With libertarians being somewhat of a mixed bag, I would certainly think that they are not rightwing and that they would dispute some things that the Founding Fathers believed in.

 

[American]

Would you consider libertarians right-wingers? Because I can think of at least one who disputes what the FF's said, stood for, and believed in.

I consider the purist libertarians to be like anti-federalists. Then you go off the chart right to the anarcho-potheads.

You also have conservative libertarians, who are the type I tend to have more in common with.

 

[Misterveritis]

I hear about it so often. The Constitution gives the government such and such enumerated powers, and now they're doing all sorts of crap that is nowhere in the Constitution.

The people who say such things are right. We have moved beyond the Constitution such that much of what government does finds no actual basis in the Constitution.

News flash: It IS in the Constitution! It's the necessary and proper clause! The federal government has the power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

Note the reference to the foregoing powers. That phrase means the Congress has the authority to create the laws that are needed to fulfill their Constitutional role in carrying out those enumerated powers. Statists have, for a very long time, interpreted this to mean way more. But that way leads to tyranny as we are already experiencing.

Furthermore, the federal government has the power to regulate interstate and international commerce. That enumerated power is pretty vague and broad. It allows the federal government to do virtually anything, as long as the activity affects commerce.

The Framers intended this to encourage a level playing field between the states. It was intended to encourage commerce, not to regulate every facet of our lives. In my opinion this is the most damaging thing the statists have done to us. We need to undo it. The one term Marxist president Obama may very well have aroused sufficient spirit in the American voter to repeal Obama's takeover of the health industry and to begin undoing the great damage the inappropriate use of the Commerce Clause has had in our nation's history.

 

[Girl Interrupted]

How does the necessary and proper clause give the gov't the authority to do anything other than enforce the powers it has already been given? How are all those federal departments like the department of education and a very large number of laws that have been passed supported by the constitution?

I agree with this.