Meet The Tenthers
The Tenthers are the ones who keep citing the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution every time there is a proposed bill they don’t like, claiming the Constitution prohibits it. As Ian Millhiset at The Prospect puts it:
Tentherism, in a nutshell, proclaims that New Deal-era reformers led an unlawful coup against the “True Constitution,” exploiting Depression-born desperation to expand the federal government’s powers beyond recognition. Under the tenther constitution, Barack Obama’s health-care reform is forbidden, as is Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The federal minimum wage is a crime against state sovereignty; the federal ban on workplace discrimination and whites-only lunch counters is an unlawful encroachment on local businesses.
Tenthers divine all this from the brief language of the 10th Amendment, which provides that “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.”
Tenthers like Texas Governor Rick Perry back a “state sovereignty resolution.” Perry says he is “willing and ready for the fight if this administration continues to try to force their very expansive government philosophy down our collective throats.” Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina claims that health care reform violates the 10th Amendment.
Historically, this argument has been used to stop progress, and to not keep hope alive.
The right-wing South justified both secession and the Civil War on the theory that the Constitution is nothing more than a pact between sovereigns that each state is free to leave at will. In the immediate wake of Brown v. Board of Education, 19 senators and 77 representatives endorsed a “Southern Manifesto,” proclaiming — in words echoed by modern-day tenthers — that Brown “encroach[es] on the rights reserved to the States” because the “Constitution does not mention education.” President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spent much of his first term combating a tenther majority on the Supreme Court, which routinely struck down substantial portions of the New Deal.
But in the Constitution’s Article 1 Section 8, the government is given the power to provide for our “general welfare,” and that was affirmed in Helvering v. Davis.
The Constitution gives Congress the 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,” thus empowering the federal government to levy taxes and leverage these revenues to benefit the American people. Tenthers, however, insist that these words don’t actually mean what they say, claiming that spending on things like health care, education, and Social Security is simply not allowed.
If the tenthers had their way, there would be no Medicare, no Social Security, even no public education. How about “Every Child Left Behind”?
I guess the elderly who receives SS and medicare, now there is your death panels. Well we would have a Society of illiterates. We would be one of those third world countries that are trying to arrive at the 21st century.
Maybe I am wrong, but Social Security was set-up to help the elderly when they retire. Medicare was set up to help the elderly who would get sick and they do get sick and end up in hosptials, for serious conditions, such as heart attacks and stokes, and they still need money to live.
atomaino Reply:
August 25th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
wait a minute,,, just because you reach an “age” dooesn’t mean you are unable to work. there are 70 year olds who are able to golf 18 holes 4 days. SS should be reserved for those who are UNABLE TO WORK, ie disabled, children, etc. this mentality “I put in, I get out” isn’t what SS was designed for.
Medicare should be same way… reserved for those unable to work/pay for health care…(again disabled, children).
In conjunction with our founding father’s vision we should have 50 independent “States” under one united armed force. End of ties.
Celticwitch Reply:
August 25th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
I do know that… but what if you make it to 75,80 or 90? I was just being sarcastic, that is all. Just reading to take away Social Security, medicare and public schools… Nothing more, nothing less.
I also know about Social Security Disability, my daughter is on that until a Doctor will operate on her back, no Surgeon will touch her claiming the Sciatic nerve is extremely too close to her spinal cord, one slip and they would slice it. Her deteriorating disk, well there would be a serious of operations, but until then, she is stuck with a small check that has to last her one month.
Actually when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, we were not even States then. You may check on that one and we did even think of 50 states.
Celticwitch Reply:
August 25th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
To add to my post, The Constitution was ratified, September 17, 1787. Delaware became a State after the ratification of the Constitutio, followed by Pennsylvania in Dec, 1787.
average james Reply:
August 25th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Sounds like you are a tenther Atomaino.
Actual reading of the constitutional congress minutes may help to enlighten you to many of the founder’s opposition to a standing army, as well as equal access to services regardless of income level, limitations on the growth of corporate type enties(monopoly controls), a desire to not repeat the ‘lords and earls vs. surfs and peasants fiefdoms(hence our progressive tax code), a desire to create a system that is not a direct democracy(or mob rule), rather a representative republic with built in peaceful revolutions(votes) every so often, a legal system removed from the possibility of mob rule, etc..
You may find, to your chagrin, that muich of what conservatives claim as unconstitutional is exactly what they(the founders) had in mind.
Perhaps turn off Fox and/or AM radio and read about this nation’s founding, the original documents.
Kregg Reply:
August 26th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Ato said: SS should be reserved for those who are UNABLE TO WORK, ie disabled, children, etc. this mentality “I put in, I get out” isn’t what SS was designed for.
K: Why? SS was designed as an enforced retirement savings for those who WORKED and PAID in to it. It has been burdened by paying out to people who have never paid into it and is now in danger of going bankrupt.
August 25th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I believe Judge Andrew Napolitano is a tenther! Along with believing in the “natural law” whatever that might be =:0
Drk H Reply:
August 25th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Natural law is the basis underwhich the constitution was concieved, starting back with Cicero, Locke, Blackstone. The understanding that we have rights that are above the goverment’s right to take these away from us, freedom of speech, self-defense, property.
Kregg Reply:
August 26th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Entropy said: Along with believing in the “natural law” whatever that might be =:0
K: In a general way, “natural law” is a description of ‘the way things are’. Unchangeable by man, they are a description of what naturally exists or happens – like the natural law of entropy.
August 25th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Certainly the “preambleists” can’t be far behind.
August 25th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Wait this might work to save the planet! No more money for roads, highways, and airports.They’ll crumble in no time. Rich people won’t be flyin all over the place to ease their pain cause there won’t be air traffic controlers And peace will break out no more money for war. And I’ll finally not get hassled smokin my weed,no more police. No libraries, mail. Maybe now you’ll get off your material merry go round and realize the world does NOT revolve around your crazy, destructive, polluting, cancer causing, self centered way of life.
what do you say tenthers? LET’S DO IT
August 25th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
So please define the line between common good, and those rights not defined in the constitution shall be those of the state. Was the original intent of the constitution set up with checks and balances for just this reason? The best goverment comes from the local level? The founders number one fear was how to keep a rein on big goverment, the federal goverment. So in that light of their original intent how can anything but defense & treaties be considered the scope of the federal goverment. We used to have senators elected by the state legislatures to protect the rights of the states, which we abriged with the 17th amendment to elect senators by popular vote. Maybe that was not such a good idea after all?
And any time we cite the supremes we should always remember their wonderfull decision on Dredd v Scott.
atomaino Reply:
August 25th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
RIGHT ON!
Drk H Reply:
August 25th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
And prining money. I forgot that one. But when I read the constitution, I understand the common good to be limited to those three items. All the rest should be up to the states. That is why the states with UHC should do that if they believe in it, same as many of the original states had state run religion at the time the constitution was ratified. State run religion died of it’s on accord as the states saw what worked better in their neighbor states without the involvment of the BIG BAD FED having to correct it.
atomaino Reply:
August 25th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Drk, I was all with you until we got to printing money (unless the money is backed by gold, silver, something other then paper) but you’re right on the money. If the majority of a state want something, (gay marrage, straight marrage, slavery, whatever as long as the constution is not violated) then by all means go right ahead! NO ONE SHOULD RESIDE IN WASHINGTION D.C. as a RESIDENT! it is not a state.
Drk H Reply:
August 25th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Also just because we fought a civil war to erradicate something truly horrific such as slavery, does not make all the arguments used for secession necessarily wrong. It was a states right but they wanted to use it to keep a terrible institution in place. If the federal goverment will not restrain itself from encroaching on those powers set out to other branches and goverments, then the states have not only the right, but the duty to enforce their rights as well. Power vs. Power is the concept, since no individual would be powerful enough to stand up to a corrupt goverment, then the founders believed using the checks and balances between state and federal to reign each other in. And thats what I believe, Federal gov’t has not just now crossed the line, but passed the line along time ago, and it is time to reign it back in.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
These people read the Constitution and then go burn every other book that was ever written, even history books addressing the patriotic past of this nation.
Like all things there is some truth in all their noise but in the end these people never say the critical words:
Federalism & Marble-cake
States and feds share powers and rights.
The federal branch is supposed to checked by the other two branches of govt. Thanks to the un-American President George W. Bush we don’t have this system intact and these same people SUPPORTED that so to me they are a bunch of right wing liars, like so many others…
August 26th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
[...] on the country. Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) is a tenther, as are Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas embraces tenther claims that the federal minimum [...]
August 28th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
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August 29th, 2009 at 8:35 am