Below is my column in the Wall Street Journal on the growing counter-constitutional movement in the United States. This assault on the Constitution is being led by law professors who have lost their faith in the defining principles and institutions of our Republic.
Here is the column:
Kamala Harris declared in Tuesday’s debate that a vote for her is a vote “to end the approach that is about attacking the foundations of our democracy ’cause you don’t like the outcome.” She was alluding to the 2021 Capitol riot, but she and her party are also attacking the foundations of our democracy: the Supreme Court and the freedom of speech.
Several candidates for the 2020 presidential nomination, including Ms. Harris, said they were open to the idea of packing the court by expanding the number of seats. Mr. Biden opposed the idea, but a week after he exited the 2024 presidential race, he announced a “bold plan” to “reform” the high court. It would pack the court via term limits and also impose a “binding code of conduct,” aimed at conservative justices.
Ms. Harris quickly endorsed the proposal in a statement, citing a “clear crisis of confidence” in the court owing to “decision after decision overturning long-standing precedent.” She might as well have added “because you don’t like the outcome.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) has already introduced ethics and term-limits legislation and said Ms. Harris’s campaign has told him “that your bills are precisely aligned with what we are talking about.”
The attacks on the court are part of a growing counterconstitutional movement that began in higher education and seems recently to have reached a critical mass in the media and politics. The past few months have seen an explosion of books and articles laying out a new vision of “democracy” unconstrained by constitutional limits on majority power.
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school, is author of “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States,” published last month. In a 2021 Los Angeles Times op-ed, he described conservative justices as “partisan hacks.”
In the New York Times, book critic Jennifer Szalai scoffs at what she calls “Constitution worship.” She writes: “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us; a growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.” She frets that by limiting the power of the majority, the Constitution “can end up fostering the widespread cynicism that helps authoritarianism grow.”
In a 2022 New York Times op-ed, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for liberals to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”
Others have railed against individual rights. In my new book on free speech, I discuss this movement against what many professors deride as “rights talk.” Barbara McQuade of the University of Michigan Law School has called free speech America’s “Achilles’ heel.”
In another Times op-ed, “The First Amendment Is Out of Control,” Columbia law professor Tim Wu, a former Biden White House aide, asserts that free speech “now mostly protects corporate interests” and threatens “essential jobs of the state, such as protecting national security and the safety and privacy of its citizens.”
George Washington University Law’s Mary Ann Franks complains that the First Amendment (and also the Second) is too “aggressively individualistic” and endangers “domestic tranquility” and “general welfare.”
Mainstream Democrats are listening to radical voices. “How much does the current structure benefit us?” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) said in 2021, explaining her support for a court-packing bill. “I don’t think it does.” Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said at the Democratic National Committee’s “LGBTQ+ Kickoff” that “we’ve got to reimagine” democracy “in a way that is more revolutionary than . . . that little piece of paper.” Both AOC and Ms. Robinson later spoke to the convention itself.
The Nation’s Elie Mystal calls the Constitution “trash” and urges the abolition of the U.S. Senate. Rosa Brooks of Georgetown Law School complains that Americans are “slaves” to the Constitution.
Without countermajoritarian protections and institutions, politics would be reduced to raw power. That’s what some have in mind. In an October 2020 interview, Harvard law professor Michael Klarman laid out a plan for Democrats should they win the White House and both congressional chambers. They would enact “democracy-entrenching legislation,” which would ensure that “the Republican Party will never win another election” unless it moved to the left. The problem: “The Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described, and that’s something the Democrats need to fix.”
Trashing the Constitution gives professors and pundits a license to violate norms. The Washington Monthly reports that at a Georgetown conference, Prof. Josh Chafetz suggested that Congress retaliate against conservative justices by refusing to fund law clerks or “cutting off the Supreme Court’s air conditioning budget.” When the audience laughed, Harvard’s Mr. Doerfler snapped back: “It should not be a laugh line. This is a political contest, these are the tools of retaliation available, and they should be completely normalized.”
The cry for radical constitutional change is shortsighted. The constitutional system was designed for bad times, not only good times. It seeks to protect individual rights, minority factions and smaller states from the tyranny of the majority. The result is a system that forces compromise. It doesn’t protect us from political divisions any more than good medical care protects us from cancer. Rather it allows the body politic to survive political afflictions by pushing factions toward negotiation and moderation.
When Benjamin Franklin said the framers had created “a republic, if you can keep it,” he meant that we needed to keep faith in the Constitution. Law professors mistook their own crisis of faith for a constitutional crisis. They have become a sort of priesthood of atheists, keeping their frocks while doffing their faith. The true danger to the American democratic system lies with politicians who would follow their lead and destroy our institutions in pursuit of political advantage.
Mr. Turley a law professor at George Washington University and author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage”
While it’s an almost insurmountable climb to amend the Constitution, it is a supposedly living document open to change when being forced to reckon with unforseen challenges. ..
Consequently, it seems your shilling for the guy who wants to suspend the Constitution to get what he wants personally is the greater danger, Turls.
It has finally happened. Our politicians have forgotten what the Constitution actually does. 55 years of bad education policy, loss of teaching civics, loss of critical thinking skills and one wonders why the greatest document ever created by men is now considered a problem. I hope everyone is happy because this was orchestrated by those that deem themselves smarter. I hope these same people understand whips change hands and memory runs long. Their time will come too.
“[B]y limiting the power of the majority, the Constitution ‘can end up fostering the widespread cynicism that helps authoritarianism grow.’”
The Left is adept at gaslighting.
Under authoritarianism, the individual has a duty to blindly obey government edicts (think Covid). The Constitution, with its brilliant system of checks and balances, in fact protects the individual from authoritarianism — the type the Left pines for: A tyranny of the majority.
The Founders were well aware of the horrors of that tyranny — of what Madison called: “the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” But now we have the Left’s bizarre claim: To protect you from authoritarianism, we need to jettison the document that protects you from authoritarianism.
The Left is chanting: “Hey, hey, ho, ho. The Constitution’s got to go.” To be replaced by what? By mob rule. With Leftists as the Higher Authorities (think Fauci) who have unlimited power over the individual’s life and mind.
Why are cities like NYC filling entire hotels with ‘migrants’? Why are we housing them, feeding them, paying them? Many of them for a year or more? No investigative reporter can enter these hotels being taken over by our own government to house ‘migrants’ that are mostly fighting aged men? What is going on with our own government importing Haitians, flying plane loads of ‘migrants’ into the country and dropping them in Red towns and counties in Ohio and Pennsylvania and elsewhere? What are Democrats doing? What is their evil plan?
“This was all by design America. They are not migrants. They are mercenaries. These are not migrant hotels. These are military command centers. This is not an invasion, this is a military operation and we can prove it!” http://thisistreason.com @RyanMattaMedia
@JJCarrell14
“a republic, if you can keep it,”? Apocryphal at best. You shouldn’t be so sloppy. I know it’s a fun line to use, but you should know better.
The subcretinesque Marxist Dunceocrats are working overtime with their mindless moronic screeds.
Trump thinks it’s okay to cherry pick which parts of the Constitution should be followed and which should be terminated.
Democrats keep telling us that the bill of rights is optional.
What part of the constitution has Trump said should not be followed ?
What part has Trump as president NOT followed ?
Disregarding the constitution is a trait nearly universally democrat.
Trump did call for the termination of all laws, articles, or amendments even in the Constitution because he thinks there was voter fraud in the 2020 election. It doesn’t matter what exactly he would have picked. He called for the termination of laws and the constitution because something did not go his way.
Project 2025 seeks to undermine the constitution’s checks and balances, impose a more authoritarian form of governance, and diminish civil liberties for certain groups not deemed “real Americans.”
Disregarding the Constitution is inherently a Republican want and need.
From the actual Project 2025 webiste:
The Truth About Project 2025
The Left has spent millions fearmongering about Project 2025, because they’re terrified of losing their power. And they should be. Project 2025 offers a menu of solutions to the border crisis, inflation, a stagnant economy, and rampant crime. It shows how we can take on China, fix our schools, and support families. But most importantly, it dismantles the unaccountable Deep State, taking power away from Leftist elites and giving it back to the American people.
The Real Policy Recommendations
Secure the Border
Unleash American Energy
De-Weaponize the Federal Government and Dismantle the Deep State
Improve Education
Want to know more? Read it for yourself.
Debunking the Lies
Project 2025 is a plan from Trump: FALSE
Government
Terminate the Constitution: FALSE
Give the Government more power over your daily life: FALSE
Gut democratic checks and balances on presidential power: FALSE
Civil Rights
Ban books and curriculum about slavery: FALSE
Continue to pack the Supreme Court and lower courts with right-wing judges: FALSE
End civil rights: FALSE
End DEI protections in government: TRUE
Promote and expedite capital punishment: TRUE
Military & Veterans
Cut military benefits for veterans and service members including housing, TRICARE, retirement, and secondary education: FALSE
Marriage & Family
End no-fault divorce: FALSE
End “marriage equality”: FALSE
Complete ban on abortions without exceptions: FALSE
Ban contraceptives: FALSE
Ban IVF: FALSE
Condemn single mothers while promoting only “traditional families”: FALSE
Outlaw pornography: TRUE
Health Care
End the Affordable Care Act: FALSE
Raise prescription drug prices: FALSE
Education
End free and discounted school lunch programs: FALSE
Use public, taxpayer money for private religious schools: TRUE
Shut down the Department of Education: TRUE
Economy & Workers
Cut Social Security: FALSE
Eliminate unions and worker protections: FALSE
Raise the retirement age: FALSE
Cut Medicare: FALSE
Immigration
Mass deportation of illegal immigrants: TRUE
Energy & Environment
Deregulate big business and the oil industry: MOSTLY TRUE
Increase Arctic Drilling: TRUE
Look at Svelaz, the broken record, repeating his spastic lies from yesterday.
Trump did not “call for” terminating laws and the Constitution.
You called for a “makeover” of the Constitution because you dont like the way things have gone.
Both of you are just whiners, because you know its not going to happen.
You’ve yet to answer. How did he call to do it, and who did he call on?
Oh, Mr. Authority George now changes his story, very authoritatively, from “yes he did, Trump called for terminating the Constitution,” to NOW admitting that Trump said, “…even those in the Constitution.” I saved all of George’s previous posts and arguments UNTIL HE ADMITS HE WAS DEAD WRONG and was spreading false lies and propaganda.
Have you read the Declaration of Independence? It wasn’t limited just to throwing off King George. I would believe one is no good without the other, the chicken or the egg.
George – please take off your blinders and see which party is attacking the constitution – and from multiple vantage points.
No evidence of that.
Isn’t Supreme Court attack just part of the left’s prevailing ‘Cloward-Piven strategy’? It’s hard to imagine ‘all of the people’ will be fooled in the end.
Wacky Walz
What kind of moron would vote for the mentally ill Donald Trump?
Anyone with an IQ above dirt.
😂
Above dirt but below a a slime mold.
Anyone that understands that 15% is less than 28%, anyone that understands that your grocery bill has doubled for the same amount of goods, anyone that understands inflation, anyone that goes to a Walmart and looks at the third world make up of customers, anyone that drives through any downtown and looks at the homeless, anyone that looks at the illegals flooding the border, anyone that enjoys bbq cat legs…Anyone that doesn’t want to be vaporized over the Jews or the Ukraine, take your pick Dick.
Jonathan: I will get back to your column claiming there is an “assault” by the left on the Constitution. But first the latest DJT campaign event. On Monday DJT was in Pennsylvania addressing his favorite and loving audience–the MAGA crowd. Knowing he is way behind Harris in the polls with women voters DJT tried to address their concerns: ” I am your protector. You will no longer have anxiety from all the problems out country has today. You will be be protected, and I will be your protector. Women will be happy, healthy and confident and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion”. Steven Colbert put it best on his late night show: “Oh, that is the perfect way to appeal to any woman”.
How could DJT think he could offer any “protection” to women? A guy who was found liable, not just once, but twice for sexual assault and whose has bragged about sexually assaulting women. And the guy who put 3 supporters on the SC who would help overturn Roe v. Wade. No, DJT can’t help and protect women. He is the problem not the solution for women’s problems!
Trump’s “favorite and loving audience–the MAGA crowd.” A more accurate designation would be the MAGGOT crowd.
Hahaha, that’s just so funny and original. Nobody’s ever thought of that before. You must be a genius, the smartest person ever to have lived! You are probably so smart you have graduated kindergarten and made it to first grade. I’m just so impressed!! 🙄
How well did calling Trump supporters deplorables work for you ?
Enjoy, “The MAGA People”
You do know that Maggots were used as a medical means to prevent infection by removing dead and rotten gangrenous flesh. You should look at the MAGA crowd as providing a similar political function, the dead and rotting cancerous disease of Marxism. It has to be destroyed before it metastasizes into full blown Socialism and then Communism. So you see, MAGGOTS are a very good thing!
Enjoy your misery
What polls is Trump “way behind” in ? RCP has Trump up in Swing states by 0.7%. And behind Nationwide by the smallest margin since the DNC convention.
Several Polls have Trump at 50% in AZ and 49% in GA and NC, I beleive RCP has Harris up by 0.1% in PA.
Atleast one poll has Trump winning in VA – that is not likely to happen, but we are slowly seeing polls creep back towards where they were AFTER Biden’s disasterous debate.
Harris has had one dud interview after another.
Pew has just released its party affiliation data which is NOT a presidential poll, but it has been less than 1% off in predicting the popular voter in every election since 2008. Voters are identifying as republican by 2% more than they are identifying as democrats – that has not happened since 2004
Further if we correct polls for their errors in prior elections – Trump is up nationwide between 2 and 5%.
Leaks from BOTH the Trump and the Harris campaigns are claiming Harris is in trouble.
That is likely why she is doing interviews – that are clopping, and not helping, and why she is after another debate.
The very fact that you and the Harris campaign are ranting about abortion – proves how desparate you are.
There is a single demographic in which the abortion issue has been working for Democrats – single white women.
It is not working elsewhere – it is certainly not working with Hispanics, it is not working with Catholics.
As always you keep fixating on outliear polls.
Vote NO to Kamala’s Project 2025:
Citizenship for 20 million illegals.
Ban gas-powered cars.
Replace police with social workers.
Ban fracking.
Transgender surgeries for minors.
Taxpayer-funded reparations.
Pack the US Supreme Court.
Government and Big Tech Censorship.
Cashless bail for violent criminals.
Federal takeover of all elections.
Tax dollars funding abortions.
Enforce racist affirmative action.
Mandate vaccinations.
Require Government approval to buy a gun.
The first 5 Amendments to the US Constitution is the “Golden Rule” without religious connections. They are simple, straight forward and thereby very elegant statements of human freedoms it supports. We have created 250yrs of cultural commonsense law most have never connected to it. Those who miss these basic concepts fail to comprehend that free speech, rights to self-defense and protections go personal property are timeless and never need updating. The Left have constantly assailed these as outdated because they simply do not understand how fundamental they are to human well-being. It is a flaw in the Progressive/Left personality that misses these elements which form the glue of American culture. George Washington saw this in his time and it has continued since. Today, it is this personality that has assumed power in every American institution including political system, unions, every government agency and every institution and non-profit that seeks to establish and force societal standards on the population.
These people are eugenicists. They believe people can be molded to their liking and controlled by them. Some may go along, but most think for themselves. They are not the “Blank Slates” the elites believe them to be. Most of us expect a significant change this Presidential election.
“The Left have constantly assailed these as outdated because they simply do not understand how fundamental they are to human well-being. It is a flaw in the Progressive/Left personality that misses these elements which form the glue of American culture.”
Again, we have a statement that articulates a common, naive, well-meaning, but very dangerous, misconception: that the Left (or whatever else you might choose to call them) are themselves victims, who merely fail to comprehend the implications of their preferences, and the consequences should those preferences be realized. That might be true of a few, but most of them (including all of their leaders) are all too aware of the damage that they seek to do to themselves, along with the rest of us. They hate themselves, so they cannot help but hate you, me, or anyone anywhere with a sense of self-worth and a positive outlook. What they seek is no more or less than to drown US in THEIR misery. We all need to wake up; to be very aware of that, and to take any and all steps necessary to thwart their evil ambitions.
LIGHTEREDKNOT says;
US POSTA SERVICE EMPLOYEEs endorse Kam Harris> Is that not a Federal Gov’t supported agency and this endorsement is forbidden?
Any citizen who receives a pay or retirement check from the taxpayers must never be allowed to vote; indeed, public assistance and Social Security benefits are unconstitutional per Article 1, Section 8.
That should be the second qualification for voting imposed by states per the Constitution.
The first should be the age of 21, the point at which men have obtained sufficient education and experience to make a rational solemn decision.
No, a union is NOT a government supported agency, and it is not only allowed to endorse candidates, but the constitution protects its RIGHT to do so.
For that matter, the USPS is not a government agency, and is entitled to endorse candidates.
A union is a criminal organization, the only leverage of which is violence.
Unions may not trespass on private or public property, block public streets, slash tires, break windshields, assault new hires, etc., and worse.
Private property enterprise owners may hire, fire, pay, and direct workers.
Governmental taxpayer-funded organizations have no constitutional power to negotiate with unions.
Americans are free to start a business or accept employment.
Americans are not free to takeover private property or usurp the power of property owners.
Minimum wages and price controls are unconstitutional.
“The United States Postal Service, also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent AGENCY of the executive branch of the United States FEDERAL GOVERNMENT responsible for providing postal service in the United States, its insular areas and associated states. It is one of a few GOVERNMENT AGENCIES explicitly authorized by the Constitution of the United States.” [CAPS MINE]
Wikipedia says that your bowels are overflowing onto this .page jacka$$
LIGHTEREDKNOT says: How is not a forbiden foreign Federal Political Contribution to Dem party? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy flew into a key U.S. swing state this week on a taxpayer-funded aircraft after publicly criticizing former President Donald Trump and Republican Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
Zelenskey touched down in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Sunday in a U.S. Air Force C-17A aircraft and toured a local munitions factory that has been producing armaments for Ukraine amid the country’s ongoing war against Russia. During his visit, Zelenskey met with high-level Democratic Pennsylvania officials such as Gov. Josh Shapiro, Sen. Bob Casey and Rep. Matt Cartwright and expressed his gratitude “for their support.”
Prior to his trip to the U.S., Zelenskey spoke to The New Yorker and claimed Trump doesn’t “really know how to stop the war.”
“Trump makes political statements in his election campaign. He says he wants the war to stop. Well, we do, too…. My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how,” Zelenskey told The New Yorker in the interview published Sunday, noting that he was appreciative that Trump has expressed his support. “With this war, oftentimes, the deeper you look at it the less you understand. I’ve seen many leaders who were convinced they knew how to end it tomorrow, and as they waded deeper into it, they realized it’s not that simple
It’s an official visit by a friendly head of state. NOT a political contribution. And he made no political statements while on this trip. Before and after the trip he’s entitled to say whatever he likes.
We were told by Democrats that some tiny number of Facebook adds posted by a company in Russia affiliated with Putin was election interferance.
Yet you are saying that so long as he is not in the US Zelensky can offer hsi views on US elections – and that is NOT election interferance ?
There is only one entity that is forbidden from speaking with regard to US elections – the US government.
…and in news of the Secret Service.
“Armed Man Came within Inches of Barack Obama Sitting in Back Seat of Vehicle in Stunning Secret Service Breach”
–by Cristina Laila Sep. 25, 2024 4:20 pm
“Barack Obama coming inches away from an armed stranger in a Hollywood alleyway is the latest stunning lapse of Secret Service security — an absolutely shocking scene that played out last weekend … TMZ has learned.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/09/armed-man-came-within-inches-barack-obama-sitting/
Oh what tangled webs we weave…
Gosh I hope he’s okay, wouldn’t want anything to happen to him before he is held accountable.
If Barack Obama became incapacitated, then who would be the real president?
Valerie Jarret or Susan Rice
And that’s the communist truth.
In other news Useful Idiot Speaker Mike Johnson and his merry band of craven cowards have passed an emergency funding bill without the SAVE Act:
House passes stopgap to avert a government shutdown, 341-82
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/hold-house-passes-continuing-resolution-xx-xx-averting-government-shutdown
Disgusting!
Not enough people demanding; Shut down the border, or shut down the government!
You act as if you believe they would do anything their constituents told them to do anyway?! Besides a shutdown would kink up their cashflow…
/s
The left likes to criticize the rest of us for calling them extreme
This nonsense is extreme
This is possibly more dangerous than socialism or communism
We do not have an appropriate derogatory name for this nonsense
The argument as framed by these people is absurd on its face
The constitution can be changed we have done it before
If you do not like the first or 2nd amendment
Fine
Do the work and amend the constitution
Idiotic nonsense suggesting we toss it and start over
With what ?
The musings of some academics who have no idea how there nonsense will work in reality
And in what world do they think that if we destroy individuality favoring conformity
That it is their values that will be what we must conform to
We have spent centuries debating and trying what they are arguing for
It does not work
It leads to copious bloodshed
To us loyal Americans who support the Nation, it indeed is ridiculous nonsense on the face of it, but to them and to the Marxist agenda it is an important piece of a much larger plan. America’s death by a thousand cuts. Their aim is to pursue any and every means to cripple, wound, and bring down the America they hate and want to transform into a autocracy of one party rule. If they can bankrupt America, all the better. If they can corrupt the jurisprudence, one more cut. If they can cripple the military with poor morale, dissension, and disrespect for ranks and lack of uniformity, so much the better, if they can sow discontent among the population and incite riots over imagined wrongs, while stymieing the Police and demand their de-funding, count that as just one more link in the chain they’ve broken. And since America has such a firm hold on individualism and capitalism, they have updated their old mantra of class warfare, and modernized it with racial warfare and economic law fare.
To us, it is nonsense. To them, it is just one more piece off the chessboard.
Legislation imposing term limits and a binding code of ethics would lead to a Scotus decision invalidating both measures since they are both unconstitutional. They would be gifts to conservatives just like the invalid gun control laws blue states keep passing. The leftist politicians know this but they don’t care. Their objective is not to pass legislation that will survive a court challenge. It is to win short term political brownie points with their left wing base. Then they can get further brownie points later on when their unconstitutional legislation is struck down, by denouncing the court. None of this had anything to do with serving the public. It is a cynical political game played for personal power and aggrandizement.
On a separate note: the Constitution is a danger to the United States? What deranged person (let alone law professor) would say such a thing? That’s like saying “my health is a danger to my survival.” It is self contradictory or just plain absurd on its face.
Booth v United States makes term limits via statute constitutional. I’m sure you’re familiar?
No, it doesn’t.
Uninformed troll here.
yes, you are
* well, the pun-ish meant is not discerned but by few.
What these professors don’t do is play the chess game forward? What if they changed the constitution and republicans were in the majority?
So what do you think the hiring committees exoectations were when they hired Weather Underground domestic terrorists; communists like Angela Davis; convicted murderer Kathy Bowdin; virtually any and all who teach a “Studies” course; and MANY others?
I believe they wanted a cultural revolution in America’s values, norms, and worldview without calling it a revolution. And that’s exactly what they got.
What do you think? They have Hanoi Jane knocking on doors for them, they had Bill Ayers ghost writing books for the Kenyan Marxist and suckling the government tax teat as a professor. Do you think they are in on it?
Time for some setting straight a long line of misguided abuses.
Jonathan Turley is making false and misleading statements when he claims that “law professors who have lost their faith in the defining principles and institutions of our Republic.” Those so-called “law professors” have NEVER had any faith or respect for the US Constitution.
They HATE the Constitution and they always have. And they are only fake-“law professors.” They real law and religion is MARXISM. The are simply depraved, degenerate, and disgusting Marxists–though they usually like to go by the label Dunceocrat.
The are simply operatives for Leftist Indotrination Entities (aka “LIEs), which used to be called colleges and universities.
Double dip: this mentality could only come from generations that grew up so peacefully and prosperously they naturally imagine everything could be free or provided by a parental figure (even if that is the federal government). We are dealing with a variety of levels here, and the parents haven’t exactly helped. All of this misguided rage should be pointed squarely at said parents that lied to their kids for the entire duration of their upbringings, IMO. People STILL scoff at this, but it is what it is. We created this, and we are going to have deal with that creation for the rest of our lives. It will be exhausting.
“everything could be free or provided by a parental figure (even if that is the federal government).”
– James
__________
Congress has no power to tax for or fund “everything.”
Article 1, Section 8, Congress has the power to tax for and fund ONLY debt, defense, and “general Welfare,” or ALL or the WHOLE WELL PROCEED, meaning basic infrastructure used by ALL or the WHOLE, such as roads, water, electricity, post office, internet, airports, sea ports, sewer, rubbish collection, etc.
Medicare and Social Security address merely 18.7% of the population and are completely unconstitutional, as but one example.
Congress has the power to regulate only the value of money, commerce among the states, and land and naval Forces.
Are you going to argue that the space program was unconstitutional and ill-advised? That kind of taxpayer investment did benefit the entire country — by fueling a technology and education boom that fed back into our global economic security and standard of living. How could the Founders possibly anticipate something like Sputnik? Apollo? The vague term “general welfare” was their way of anticipating the future without knowing it.
That said, most economists make a sharp distinction between taxpayer money going into capital investment (roads, bridges, basic science, education — things giving long-term payback) vs. spending on individual consumption (food, housing, entertainment) having no long-term payback. Health-care has elements of both human capital investment (adults who are contributing to the economy and raising children and their children vs. the elderly infirm (who consume 50% of all health-care spending!).
These are political priority decisions — not Constitutional matters. It’s up to the House to make wise investment decisions.
Or, we could de-orbit all our GPS, weather prediction, and communication satellites, because you think they aren’t allowable ways the federal govt. can spend money, as forseen 250 years ago.
You know Pb is the element lead in the periodic table? A very dense material that can deflect gamma rays and if ingested can cause a diminished mental condition associated with Democratic retardation.
It’s not governments job to fund everything you mention. Private companies would do the job, do it better and do it for less. You missed the entire point, government is not supposed to be a business.
Musk Space X
Why does it have to be A or B? SpaceX is doing great work, but it never would’ve been possible without NASA (taxpayers) getting over the initial feasibility challenges of rocketry and manned-space-exploration. So, when you look at how very difficult science/tech gets off the ground, the hybrid model we’ve been employing for space makes perfect sense. The basic science has to be shouldered by the taxpayers, because private capital will not take on the risks. But, at some point when private capital assesses the risks as manageable, there should be a shift from public –> private funding.
The development of fusion energy is following this same hybrid model.
“SpaceX is doing great work, but it never would’ve been possible without NASA (taxpayers) getting over the initial feasibility challenges of rocketry and manned-space-exploration. “
@ Pbinca: You have no way of knowing that.
Further, space exploration was denied to private firms. As soon as the rules changed we saw the development of private firms and now when the astronauts cannot be rescued by the major powers including the US, Russia and China, it is Space X that will do the job.
” The basic science has to be shouldered by the taxpayers, because private capital will not take on the risks.”
Again you have no way of knowing that. If there are buckets of cash available, private capital will first take the buckets.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)?
How’s that?
The parts ACTUALLY associated with defense are legitimate govnerment expenditures.
Though I would note that even there – it is actually Private businesses that build our defense infrastructure.
Is NASA unconstitutional – Yes.
The “space program” as a while – no – national defense is a legitimate role for governmnt.
Today we are seeing national space programs entirely suplanted by private space programs – while there are still stupid vestiges of NASA and the FAA meddling, more and more it is clear that there never was a need for a government space program.
As to “economists” – meaning LEFT WING economists claims about roads and bridges – that is absurd illogical nonsense.
Prior to the brooklyn bridge every major bridge in the US was a PRIVATE investment.
The Brooklynn bridge started as private -but this was “Boss Tweeds” NY – Do you really want to argue that the “investment” of the most correupt government in NYC history was a necescity for the Brooklynn bridge ?
The FACT is that anything that is ACTUALLY a good investment will happen entirely privatedly – unless govenrment forces it out.
Why ? For exactly the reason that your economists claim govenrment should do those things – because they are good investments.
I do not care if you put solar panels on your roof, build wind farms, buy electric cars – but you should get no subsidy from the govenrment.
The american people should not subsidize your choices.
If your solar panels, wind far or electric cars turn out to be a good investment – you should benefit.
Regardless, Coase’s law states that with minimal friction, and strong property rights free exchange will always outperform any other way of “investing”.
Weather satelites do not predict the weather – they merely provide data.
The reinsurance industry would be perfectly happy to pay to put up all the necessary weather satellites – without any govenrment assistance.
They have tried to put up satellites in the past – but government has thwarted them.
GPS is pretty trivial to do privately – Musks STarlink is a much more complex network.
Most communications satelites are already privately owned.
While you are correct that government spending on consumption is a really bad idea and that government investment is less bad.
But govenrment investment is by defintion never good.
There are only two possibilities regarding govenrment long term investment:
That investment has not been undertaken privately because it is a bad investment.
That investment has not been undertaken privately because govenrment will not allow competition.
Healthcare is NOT a mixed bag. The health insurance industry has been studying this for 6 decades. They have NEVER found that health insurance has resulted in health benefits.
The purpose of health insurance is to reduce FIINANCIAL risk.
Insurance is supposed to be risk based analysis, existing conditions are not risk based, it is a given. Insurance should be based on blind pools of those with existing conditions or aged. Each company wishing to sell in each State has to take a percentage of the blind pool that would spread the cost across all companies proportionally. They know more about your health than you do now days, they know everything.
Excellent