COMMENTARY: We have strayed from the intent of our Constitution

Of all our founders, none was so important as James Madison in constructing and interpreting the highest law of the land; other founders were glad Madison was available, for he had the ability to put the ideal political ideas into words with which the other signers of our Constitution could agree. Not only do we have the document itself (very simple, clear and short), we have the quotations he later wrote as well as the words of other founders in the Federalist papers, a still-widely held publication. All the founder’s quotations would be too extensive for publication here, but we can summarize our present need:

The first principal difference between our Constitution and that of other nations is that the people grant power to the government instead of receiving privileges from the government, the people being the source of all power. The second outstanding idea in our Constitution is that government can only operate within the areas and with the powers delineated, named and/or enumerated by the Constitution. The third distinguishing idea is that the meaning of the Constitution should be fixed and known through its own simple words, to be changed only by the processes prescribed in the Constitution itself. The fourth distinguishing idea is that the Constitution must propose and defend the maximum of freedom or liberty while protecting our equal and unalienable rights, all such rights being individual rights. Fifth: the rights of both property and persons must be effectively guarded. Last, but perhaps most important: that the meaning of “promote the general welfare” cannot be construed to mean “provide” the general welfare (taking from the productive to benefit the unproductive is not a government function).

As you review these simple principles, think how we’ve permitted government to violate them. The federal government now concedes to the people what little freedom remains. Beginning with the most private of properties, our income, government takes what they have deemed appropriate and we get what remains. Further, by the appointment of unelected judges, five out of nine individuals have permitted the intervention of government and its agents into every area of our lives, a power not named in the Constitution. They take from the productive to benefit the non-productive and regulate everything we buy, sell and cultivate. Government intervenes in the market at will to falsely evaluate our means of existence.

The unelected judges legislate from the bench to place government as an obstacle of freedom in any and all activities. Rights are invented for groups instead of individuals, but paid for by others; discrimination against a majority is encouraged in the name of unjustified diversity. Properties we might otherwise own are taken at will for a fraction of their worth for uses we never intended; our supposed living quarters are taxed even as the funds used to purchase these were previously taxed as income; the virtue of thrift is disparaged by the taxing of savings and properties; honest work is disparaged through welfare and subsidy; family and personal virtues are discouraged by rewarding their opposites.

The resolution to these discrepancies with our Constitution is not produced through elections, because our education system does not produce the number and quality of either the elected or the electorate to reform our deviances from what the founders intended.

We require another Constitutional Convention for Constitutional Reform, so that we can recover original intent and thereby disclaim current discrepancies in law and policy. This would be possibly a new revolution; there are some fools who prefer the mess we now have enough to fight original intent.

Jim N. Taylor lives in Harlingen.