The Internet is a technological marvel that grants us unfettered access to vast amounts of information, leading many people to conclude that ours is the most enlightened society ever. However, being well-informed does not equate to being educated or even productive. A man can possess vast knowledge yet still be a dangerous fool -- as a matter of fact, a fool becomes ever more dangerous the more information he acquires. This is one aspect of the Internet that often gets lost among all the hosannas about the age we inhabit. Facts do not speak for themselves, and if people lose the ability to derive truth from sterile facts, the Internet may do far more to destroy civilization than to preserve it.
My overarching goal with this site is not so much to convey facts (i.e., current events), but rather to convey the tools with which you can discern truth when confronting such facts, specifically in the spheres of American and global governance. With that in mind, this post will expose some of the fictions that plague the American political mindset today, arming you with some important truths with which to navigate the torrent of facts you regularly encounter.
Fiction Number 1 -- The Federal Government May Do Anything To Me As Long As It Does Not Violate The Bill Of Rights
How sad it is that so many Americans embrace this deadly fiction. The truth is exactly the opposite: the federal government may do nothing to you unless the Constitution authorizes it, given that the federal government is the repository of a specific and limited surrender of power from the States. The Bill Of Rights is a mere reminder of some of the most important limitations on federal power, but it is not an exhaustive list, which the Ninth Amendment makes clear. In short, the burden is on the federal government to prove its power, not on you to prove your rights.
Fiction Number 2 -- The States Must Follow The Same Constitutional Constraints As The Federal Government
This particular fiction often proves even more harmful than the first, since it encourages people to seek the assistance of the federal government when attacking and neutering the ability of each State's citizens to govern themselves in their own way.
To repeat, the federal government is a creation of the States and has only the limited powers that the Constitution delegates to it (e.g., national defense). The States kept the vast reservoir of powers not delegated -- as observed by the Tenth Amendment -- which covers a great deal more territory (e.g., public health, public safety, policing, licensure, etc.).
Here comes the part that most people cannot wrap their minds around, but which is neverthless the inescapable result of the Constitution's design: the Bill Of Rights does not restrain the States. Chief Justice John Marshall himself recognized this when holding that the purpose of the Bill Of Rights was to prohibit the harmful centralization of power in the federal government. State power is by its very nature already decentralized among the several States, who retain the power to do any number of things that the federal government may not, even if it goes against the Bill Of Rights (e.g., restraining harmful speech such as libel and slander; regulating gun ownership; limiting the usage of private property; etc.).
It was not until the twentieth century that the Supreme Court trashed its prior jurisprudence on the Fourteenth Amendment (whose goal was to protect former slaves and their descendants) in order to assert absolute dominion over each State's internal decisionmaking, all under the guise of honoring the Bill Of Rights. What so many champions of this process fail to grasp is that they have become "useful idiots" whom the feds have taken advantage of for the last seventy years to destroy State sovereignty, leaving us with the very centralization of power that the Bill Of Rights sought to avoid.
Fiction Number 3 -- The President As Commander-In-Chief May Send The Military Into Action Whenever He Wishes
Wrong again. Our (or at least, my) ancestors had grown so sick and tired of wars initiated at the behest of a king that they gave the war power to Congress. Once Congress approves military force, the President then steps in to oversee how that force is to be employed. Otherwise stated, "the President shall be Commander in Chief . . . when called into the actual Service of the United States."
Fiction Number 4 -- I Have The Right To Vote For President
No, you really don't. Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution permits each State's legislature to choose its presidential electors however it wishes, whether it be by popular vote or a game of Russian roulette:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress . . . .
Direct elections for president occur only because each State's legislature has decided to allow it, and to be quite honest, this is probably unwise because it fosters the dangerous notion that the President may exercise direct control over us all. Populism is the handmaiden of authoritarianism, and Presidents hewed far more closely to their narrow constitutional role before the people began looking upon them as a directly-elected messiah.
That's all I have time for today, but I'll do my best to deliver more tools with which to pierce the factual fog all around you.
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