Lame Duck Senator, Harry Reid who was welcomed by a throng of “more than 100 close supporters” in Searchlight, Nevada claims that Tea Partiers have no idea what they’re upset about:
“But he expressed confusion about what the Tea Party movement wants when its members call for more liberty and freedom and cite the Constitution in denouncing what they see as an expansion of the federal government, including with health care reform.”
“‘The people who are really upset don’t really know why they’re upset,’ Reid said.”
“‘What do they mean?’ Reid said he wonders when they call for more liberty and freedom.”
Reid is understanably confused about the concepts of liberty and freedom. He should have gone to the anti-Reid rally which drew 10,000–someone there could have explained this libery and freedom business to hapless Harry.
“‘I’m not a big poll guy,’ Reid said, dismissing surveys with a wave of his hand. ‘Everyone who knows me knows I have never paid attention to polls. The only poll that matters is the one on Election Day.”‘ Uh huh.
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Obama, Reid and Pelosi have foolishly based Obamacare on the USSC’s perversions of the General Welfare and Commerce Clauses. More specifically, activist justices in the 1930s and 40s wrongly ignored Jefferson’s writings about the General Welfare and Commerce Clauses, IMO, when testing the limits of Congress’s power. And Reid seems to be ignoring these writings too.
First, here’s Jefferson’s common-sense clarification of the General Welfare Clause.
“1. To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, “to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.” For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.
It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.” –Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson’s Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791
Note that Jefferson clearly indicated that good intentions on Congress’s part are no substitute for enumerated powers when it comes to making legislation.
Here’s an excerpt from Jefferson’s writings on the Commerce Clause.
“For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State, (that is to say of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes.” –Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson’s Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791
With terms like “does not extend” and “exclusively,” Jefferson made it clear that Congress has no authority to interfere with intrastate commerce.
So what part of no doesn’t Reid understand?
The bottom line is this. “Leaders” like Reid are wrongly ignoring their Article V requirement to petition the states to amend the Constitution for new powers for Congress, instead relying on the USSC’s perversions of the General Welfare and Commerce Clauses to unconstitutionally make new powers for themselves.
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[...] Lame Duck Senator Harry Reid, der in Searchlight wurde begrüßt von einer Schar von "mehr als 100 Unterstützer schließen", behauptet, dass Nevada Tea Partygänger über habe keine Ahnung, was sie aufgeregt sind: "Aber er äußerte Verwirrung darüber, was die Bewegung will Tea Party wenn ihre Mitglieder Ruf nach mehr Freiheit und Freiheit und Zitieren der Verfassung zu denunzieren, was [. . . ] URL des Original-Artikel http://joytiz.com/2010/reid-voters-are-stupid/ [...]