Gee, I thought every elected federal representative takes an oath to uphold; not the president, not the flag, not the country; but the constitution. We could use more Constitutionalism in D.C.
Yes, or as leftwing as they like. With a free people left to decide through self-governance.
By the way, there would be no United States or Constitution without the Bill of Rights which the states insisted on to curb the power of the federal government. The Tenth Amendment that reserved those powers not directly enumerated to the federal government as belonging to the states and the people was crucial to ratification.
Now we act like it doesn't exist except in the mind of "scary wingnut's."
Now haven't you heard, it's not a mandate it's a tax and of course governments can tax.
This was nicely bookended, I have to say, in terms of where you're not seeing the forest, Indy. The taxing power is Constitutional, and Roberts making the HC mandate a "tax" made it as Constitutional as SS and Medicare. I didn't agree with it but I've long been 'over it'. It's the law, we carry on.
And yet where Ron Paul and his Constitutionalist argument takes this - is he argues that it is not a power granted in the Constitution...and yet it IS a tax for a service rendered for the "welfare" of the country. And all of that is IN the Constitution and very much upheld as constitutional.
But Ron Paul's ideology is not really strict Constitutionalism. It's using the Constitution as a crutch to argue for specific policy. Maybe I should have put it in quotes. "Constitutionalism" = Ron Paul's Libertarianism. Whereas strict Constitutionalism would have very little to say about policy and is probably a term that might only apply to certain legal stances, not policy. I am not entirely sure about the semantics of that.
There is a much longer answer that I should toss out there maybe tomorrow. A post where I shred Ron Paul's "libertarianism" and expose it for what it is. It's not principled regarding ALL liberty granted to us by God or the Constitution. It's ideological regarding specific liberty (policy)...and when the Constitution can be used as political rhetoric, he'll use it. And he'll get a bunch of flag-wearing and waving 'patriots' to agree with him. And then when it comes to something like Social Security - suddenly he doesn't agree with the taxing power (re: "welfare") which is very much in the Constitution. Again, only using it as a crutch when it suits his political argument.
So anyhow...
You agree that people get to decide on our own governance. And yet every other post of yours is bitching about using the taxing power for "fairness". We can use the taxing power how we see fit. That's basically the deal. You may not like it. I may not like it. But we choose that direction in elections.
We, the people, TELL the Federal Government what to do. We ARE the government. It's only when people disagree with the current policy that suddenly Govt is too big. And yet ALL of them, Republicans, Democrats alike, participate in deficit spending. And a Govt that is anything but small. I've said it before myself - "it's too big" (or whatever), but I've continued to explore, and read, and remain curious about more empirical truths - while carrying no ideology towards the raw economics. It becomes clearer to me all the time.
We have the size of Govt we have because that is what the people, almost ALL of them, want - even if they say they don't - it's only because of their own ignorance they don't realize they want the big Govt.
I'll just close with this - as pretty much a civil libertarian, there is a big difference, to me, between Big Govt (spending us into dire straits) and intrusive Govt, which was why I was against the HC mandate. One Govt just needs to decide to fund itself or scale back. The other is actually, truly scary.