November 8, 2009 – From the day we enter this world, kicking and screaming, events begin to shape us into who and what we will become as adults. Some events, such as our education, we have no control over. Other times, however, we are faced with decisions which can drastically alter the course of our lives. And as Albert Camus once said, “Life is a sum of all your choices.”

Eventually the time will come in a persons life when they will become responsible for raising a child of their own. If they are a good parent they will look back to the events that have occurred in their own lives to try and impart the lessons they learned from them to their child.

When a parent uses examples from their life to help guide a child in its formative years, they are relying upon events from their own personal history. For what is history but a record of past events. History can be something as simple as a person’s journal, or it can be something far more encompassing, such as the rise and fall of an empire.

As parents, we understand the importance of using our own personal history, our past experiences, in teaching our children. Why is it as citizens we refuse to rely upon history when it comes to understanding the role of government in our lives?

Our government exists because of events that transpired in our nations HISTORY. Abuses of power by the King of England led our nations founders to seek independence from the crown, and eventually establish a system of government based upon individual liberty and the rights of the people whom it governed.

These founders, men like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and a host of others, were men who gathered together at a critical point in our nations history to give birth to the system of government laid out in our Constitution.

Never before, and probably never again, has such a group of men come together at one point in time to put their minds together for such a task. For sporting fans it is akin to those rare moments in history when a team comes together that just works as one and achieves greatness.

I am sure sporting aficionados remember the 82-87 Boston Celtics, or the San Francisco 40ers in the early 80’s. Those where times when a group of men came together who just combined their talents to achieve greatness.

Such was the case with our nations founders. Take Thomas Jefferson as an example. Jefferson was extremely well educated, knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects.

Jefferson was fluent in five languages and able to read two others. He was tutored extensively in history and philosophy. Jefferson was so smart that when President John F. Kennedy hosted 49 Nobel Prize winners to the White House, he stated, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

I wonder, can those same credentials be claimed by those who now allow sit in the seats of power in our nations capital? Yet we consider them to be all knowing when it comes to the problems that face us as a nation.

Why do the vast majority of people refuse to look back in our nation’s history to the thoughts of those who created our system of government for the answers to the problems our country faces?

Just yesterday the House of Representatives passed, by a vote of 220-215, their version of a health care reform bill. Under the House’s version of health care reform you could be penalized for failure to purchase acceptable health insurance by $25,000 and one year jail time. Look for yourself in Section 7203 if you feel so inclined.

Now your government, the one of limited, specifically enumerated powers, is in the process of making it a crime for you if you do not have health insurance. I would kindly ask you to show me where in the Constitution does it give the authority to the federal government to enact any kind of health care reform?

Our legislators claim that they have that power due to two clauses found in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.

First they claim that the General Welfare Clause, which states, “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States…” grants them authority to do all that is required for the general welfare of the people.

Secondly, they claim the Necessary and Proper clause, which states, “To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.” grant them the power to do all that is necessary to provide for the general welfare of the people.

Not so! The Constitution is a contract between the people, through their state legislatures, with the federal government. It grants the federal government certain specific powers, each clearly defined within the Constitution.

Say you wanted to add a room to your home. You hire a contractor to do the work. In the process a contract is entered between you, and the contractor, describing the work to be done.

It is understood that the contractor would need to be authorized to buy materials to complete the job, thing such as lumber, nails, sheetrock, and paint. This is the necessary and proper clause of your contract. However your contract does not allow your contractor to install Dish Network in the addition, nor to do anything not specifically written down in the contract.

The same goes for our government. They have stepped far beyond the boundaries imposed upon them by the Constitution. James Madison warned us what would happen if we allowed this to occur, “If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress… Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.”

We no longer have servants in our nations capital who adhere to their Constitutionally mandated powers. We have masters who dictate to us what we can and cannot do.

We have allowed this to happen. Just as children who ignore the lessons learned by their parents, we have failed to heed the advice given us by our nation’s founders. Philosopher, poet, and novelist George Santayana is probably best known for his Law of Repetitive Consequences, which states, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”

Once we were a nation governed by a tyrant until the people grew tired of being oppressed and rose up in rebellion. History is repeating itself, but the question remains, are there enough people who are tired of this oppression to reverse the course our nation finds itself upon?

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”

It all boils down to choice. Is history going to record that we chose to be free, or to live as slaves? The answer my friends is entirely up to you.

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?“

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com. Visit Neal’s Blog at http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal