Here is an example of why we have a Constitution that explicitly limits the power of the Federal government and within that Constitution a Bill of Rights that both explains those limits and explicitly reserves the infinity of remaining rights and powers to the people and to the states.
This example, though, is by one of those state governments, the government of Maryland which also says it’s legal for approved gangs to commit trespass and terrorize children inside their own homes. State Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller (D, Dist 27) said this in all seriousness:
We’ve allowed them to manufacture. We’ve allowed them to sell, and we’ve cut back on their paperwork.
Notice that: government has allowed. Because government will make these decisions, because what a manufacturer—or anyone—can do is only what a government will permit.
Never mind that the Maryland Constitution says this in Article I of its Declaration of Rights:
That all Government of right originates from the People, is founded in compact only, and instituted solely for the good of the whole….
In other words, government works for the people, and what government can do is what the people will permit, not the other way around.
Oh, wait, this is just Progressives disregarding yet another Constitution that’s more than 100 years old, confusing, and not binding on anything.
Don’t be too sure. We were once a Blue state, and the pendulum can swing back. Jefferson had it right: Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Eric Hines
Scary. I haven’t heard of something like this happening in Texas and suspect we won’t anytime in the near future.