Letter to the Editor by Judith Niewiadomski
Tuesday, September 17th was Constitution Day but it was largely ignored–to our peril. If you do not constantly review your rights and its constraints on government and insist that government stay within its bounds, you will be complicit in letting it seize power it has no right to. This is shameful when we are about the celebrate the 250th anniversary not only of our independence, but an event magnifying freedom that changed the world for the better.
Politicians were flying the flags of other nations and gleefully taking grinning pictures of themselves, but not one locally (and few at the federal level) publicly celebrated our genius Constitution, the legal document that forms a government to fulfill its purpose and the principles of the Declaration of Independence: protecting the God-given unalienable rights of the American people.
Politicians, how could you forget? Or perhaps you didn’t forget, you chose to ignore it, because you intend, once elected, to do whatever you want forever, ignoring the law and the rights of the people. You failed in your duty, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. To preserve it, you must study it and understand it. You must live up to it and demand your colleagues do so also. You should be measuring your ideas and proposals by that standard and teaching others to do so.
Our Constitution is the practical structure, the framework to form a government that protects the God-endowed rights of the smallest minority, the individual. Because it was written by men who understood that power is addictive and men easily fall into that lust for power, the Constitution delegates only certain powers to the government, and separates and checks and balances them. The Constitution requires that government officials, elected or not, be public servants, not rulers over the people. The Constitution outlines certain things they are allowed to do–and incorporates a Bill of Rights, putting right in their faces a daily reminder of some of the rights and powers of the people government may not interfere with. Criticize government? Absolutely—that is what the first amendment is for. It’s not up to Hilary or anyone else to decide what you may say. It is up to us to decide what they may do—the Constitution is not self-enforcing.
“ If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” James Madison, Federalist 51.
The Constitution opens with “We the people.” Not we the government, not we the party members. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
To establish justice, there must be a standard that applies to all with no special favors for one party, nor early release, nor more severe punishment for any group. Variation can come in individual cases–not by pandering to groups for political expediency. Free speech is not only for some who agree with what the government promotes and does not criticize them. The Bill of Rights prohibits government from interfering with citizens’ right to speak as they wish–hether it’s to publicly proclaim their religious beliefs, criticize government policies, call the President an idiot, or the mayor a money-grubber.
The only thing the federal government is required to provide is the common defense, which includes securing the borders–both on land and on the sea. To refuse to do so, to allow millions to rush in illegally is dereliction of duty at the least and treason at its worst. Letting millions rush in unvetted, without our permission, also violates the responsibility to insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
Our God-given rights include altering or abolishing a government when it fails to protect our rights. Yet New York state does not allow we the people to recall a corrupt official–which even California does. A handful of local politicians give themselves additional terms, defying, as totalitarians do, citizens having twice passed term limits. Worse, when citizens exercised their right of petition to put term limits on the ballot again, they simply called on their boy to invalidate the petition. Democratic? Only in the fact that these abuses were all done by democrats, exposing what they mean by democracy—that they get to rule regardless of the law, regardless of our founding principles and long established tradition of limited government with temporary citizen legislators and executives.
No man is a means to another man’s end. While we share common needs and desires, we are not a collective. In a collective, as the record of human societies shows time and again, collectives are tools of the government to empower itself and suppress the sacred rights of the individual. The lust for power is a never satisfied addiction. History’s evidence: German Socialist Workers’ party (Nazis for short), Russia under Lenin and Stalin and everyone from Stalin to Putin. Communist China. One hundred seventy-five countries have fewer people than the Chi-coms murdered..
General welfare does NOT mean government gets to take from one group and hand it to another. That is robbery and often bribery in principle if not directly legally accountable. General welfare means federal projects that help everyone–such as interstate highways. Social services were largely handled by religious groups and private organizations—we still see this in the numerous hospitals, nursing homes and schools founded by religious groups. Alexis de Tocqueville noted in his tour of America to find out how a real democracy worked (since the French Revolution was so communistic and murderous) that Americans did not depend on government for everything but formed voluntary organizations to meet needs. Name a disease and you will likely find a private group organizing to fund research and provide information and even facilities. This was one of the qualities De Tocqueville noted in Democracy in America, that made America exceptional.
During the Founding period of our history, the two most popular writers were John Locke, from whom we developed much of the philosophy articulated in our Declaration of Independence and Baron de Montesquieu, whose practical knowledge of government became a key part of the structure of our Constitution. But Locke’s principles were derived from the Bible, in which only God could be king, lawgiver and judge. Believers even in Biblical times separated those functions. (Isaiah 33:22 ) For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us.” The Bible was the most widely read book in early America, virtually every home had one, especially in New England, which had the highest literacy rate in the world at that time. God could be all three but no man on earth could be trusted with that much power—though monarchs and those who crave to rule over all constantly aim to grab more power to themselves. We have men who don’t pay for their own cars and gas making rules that raise the cost for the rest of us–and then tax us more lest they feel the slightest bit of discomfort. They build their wealth.on our backs—as though we were serfs. We have a governor trying to tell the crafters of the best pizza in the world that they cannot use gas or wood ovens that contribute greatly to making their legendary product. The Governor has no right to do so–but has a duty to protect their rights. We would have fewer of these problems if American citizens put more time into studying the Constitution and requiring that public officials adhere to it. You cannot claim rights that you don’t know about, or don’t understand well enough to apply to everyday situations. God gave you rights, but governments constantly them them away.
Montesquieu’s most important and best known principle was “power must check power.” In the negotiations of the Constitutional Convention and with the genius of James Madison, our Founders developed separation of delegated powers in the federal government and the federalist system to decentralize powers and functions to make government more accountable to the people. But the people must do their job. Recall that the Covid death rates were lower even in higher population states like Florida that stayed open and did not destroy people’s businesses and close schools as others did –in some cases for more than a year. The principle of federalism enables us to see what works without forcing the whole nation to suffer under damaging policies—which is why federal powers are limited. Things that may be necessary, temporarily in New York City, are often completely unnecessary in the rest of the state. Governors in several states made mandates that even their state constitutions did not give them—and way too many people badgered their neighbors or even strangers in a store to comply with mandates now proven to be useless.
So how did it get to the point where government is telling us how to cook, what kind of cars we must have, how efficient our toilets can be, how we get our electricity? Nothing in the Constitution allows this. How did they usurp the power? Because you let them. Instead of watching over the power hungry, you let them run wild. You let them be your rulers instead of your servants. Maybe you were one of those who wanted government to take by force what others earned and give it to you – and then wondered why things cost more and are harder to get. Maybe you just didn’t bother to learn how the Constitution of the greatest, freest, wealthiest and most powerful nation in history is supposed to function to protect our rights, property, and freedom.
Let’s look at the 9th and 10th amendments.
Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
That is, we the people have more rights than the federal government is specifically warned not to touch.
Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
In other words, if the federal government is not specifically told in the Constitution that it may do something, that power belongs to the people or the states. Hence, the people in each state now get to vote on their abortion laws—but in New York, the people were not allowed to vote on it. The Democrat legislature made the decision and did not allow us to choose. Other states debated proposals and put it on the ballot. Your right to drive the car that best suits you, choose the heating method that works best for you and cook your food the way you please is incorporated in those amendments.
Nowhere is government–at any level given the right to intrude into your home life unless you are committing a crime. Dump any pubic official that presumes to do so.
Get a copy of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and read some every day. (You can get them free from many places like Hillsdale College and the Bill of Rights Institute, and sometimes from your Congressman. But they’re not expensive.) Make notes. Write down questions. Read the Federalist Papers (high level reading) starting with Federalist 51. Read The Founders’ Constitution. Rise up to your duty as a self-governing citizen. If you don’t, politicians will continue to grab more of the power that rightfully belongs to you and me and run more and more of our lives. Many of them have little job experience and are not experts in anything. No one else is an expert on your life, certainly not a bunch of politicians in DC or Albany nor even in City Hall. The more you understand the Constitution, the more you can keep government from violating your rights in the first place. Put the time and effort in—it’s a lot less stressful and expensive than having to sue all the way to the Supreme Court.
Get extra copies and make your politicians show you how what they’re doing fits with the Constitution. No one can keep track of everything so recruit your friends and neighbors to do the same. Take back YOUR power before you have none.
Judith Niewiadomski
