Concordia res Parvae Crescunt
by Steve Palmer
When in doubt, don’t. These timeless words of wisdom were passed to my wife from her Grandmother and they are 
now being passed along to our son.
This is a concept with many real life applications, even for those of us who are no longer eight years old. When I build a fence around my house with a gate in the front, this says to the potential guest that he may enter my property through the gate, but not elsewhere. Someone found crossing the fence at a different location would be considered a trespasser. When we want to make the same point with a bit more emphasis, we might put barbed wire atop the fence. Come in through the gate, or don’t come in.
In the world of Internet networking, this concept is known as “Default Deny”. Individual rules are created to allow everything that is needed for the people who use the network. The last (or first) rule in the firewall says that anything which is not allowed should be prevented.
If only our federal government could be counted on to follow rules as well as my eight year old son does, all would be good. In order to secure our Liberty the way a homeowner might secure his home, the founders put the Tenth Amendment into the constitution to act as our fence.
“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“.
Using those words, the founders said to the federal government, “When in doubt, don’t”. The main body of the Constitution establishes the front gate by which Congress was invited to act on our behalf. Most of the delegated powers are listed in Article I, section 8. When the Congress establishes laws on these matters, it is acting as an invited guest.  However, when the Congress establishes laws on matters which have not been delegated to it, it is climbing over the Tenth Amendment fence, erected to secure our Liberties. At those times, the Congress is trespassing against the states and against the people.
Unfortunately, our representatives in Congress seem less able to accept their proper limits than my eight year old. This leaves us with a dilemma. When Congress authorizes the executive branch to issue self-written search warrants, what do we do? When Congress determines that smoking marijuana that was legally grown, sold and used in the state of California is a federal matter, what do we do? When an 82 year old farmer in Worcestor, Pennsylvania becomes a federal target for growing wheat on his own farm to feed his own hens, what do we do? Seat belt laws, speed limits, the size of our toilets and the type of our lightbulbs… the list is endless.
We have tried, repeatedly to remind them through the voting booth, “When in doubt, don’t”. They tell us they’re listening; they heard us this time and they’re going to change, but they never do. How long do we keep repeating the same actions and expecting different results? If “vote the bums out” was an effective strategy, it would have worked by now. It is time for a new strategy centered around the people and the states, the partners inside the long neglected Tenth Amendment fence.
We need to work with our neighbors and our state and local representatives to speak with one voice… Dear Uncle Sam, When you visit, please come in through the front gate and under the welcome sign. If the baggage you are carrying doesn’t fit through that Constitutional entryway, then I and my state are sorry to inform you that you’ll just have to stay the hell out. Oh, and if you’re not sure, then just remember “When in doubt, don’t”.
Steve Palmer is the State Chapter Coordinator for the Pennsylvania Tenth Amendment Center.
Copyright © 2010 by TenthAmendmentCenter.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given
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It is not appreciated when someone takes the time to write a thoughtful response that furthers the discussion on the topic only to have it "deleted by the administrator." This is especially true given the obvious spam in the comments above.
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I love this articles use of the Default/Deny concept for firewalls, because that is what we have with this President is a Trojan horse making explicit use of the irrelevant happenstance of his "race" - a cudgel constantly used by any of the lemmings on the left against anyone who argues against the patently, blatantly leftist anti-American agenda, even when the issue at hand has nothing to do with race, that is, ninety-nine percent of the time.
[This brings up an interesting hypocrisy in leftists' thinking, their collectivist worldview but intrinsicist, subjectivist assumptions about each person's (are well allowed to think in terms of the "person's"?) thinking (what I mean is that each person can only think according to one's race, class, etc.). Leftists love to whip out the word "reductivist" on the opponents of socialism, but they are the most prototypical reductivist thinkers imaginable. Am I rambling? OK, I'll get to my point.]
If one has a Constitution that establishes a political system, and presumably limits what the government can do with the economic system and with the civil society, then indeed it would be prudent to safeguard it from subverters, of both the ideological and tyrannical, demagogic type (yes, I am talking about Obama, lefties). This is the only way to have freedom and justice co-exist. However, the current statists deny such Constitutional restraints, and are spreading their power like a virus throughout the states. The government is thoroughly corrupt; and the firewalls between the branches all but completely compromised. We cannot even be sure that the Supreme Court will wield its implied power of judicial review to preserve liberty, instead of buttressing the clearly unconstitutional expansion of state power to comprehend the ultimate decision over each person's life, liberty, and property.
You guys just like all the money the government collects, the services it provides (defense, social security, 50% of all healthcare, roads, farm price supports, food safety, auto safety, etc., etc.), but you don't want to pay a dime for it. Grow up.
That's very interesting.
Tell me, is it theoretically possible to object to an unconstitutional power grab by the federal government, without at the same time loving everything it does and needing to grow up?
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
"Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof"
"Pursuance thereof" = 'Pursuant thereto" = "Pursuant to the US Constitution"
Thus, any law not made pursuant to the strictures of the US Constitution is not constitutional and is not supreme; it's void, like most of what Congress does.
If this were not the case, there would be no limit on federal power and no point to 99% of the Constitution. Do you really think that's the result the Drafters and ratifiers were after? Is that what YOU want?
Do not pass go, do not collect, just get the hell out!
Apologies to the Monopoly board game.
board game or not, the sentiment sure is right!
"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."
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