The Slippery Slope of Government Power: Avoiding Incrementalism and Loose Definitions

The 18th and 21st Amendments are Fantastic! They give us a clear guide to the powers and lack of powers of government.

Of course, the enumerated powers found in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution is another good place to look. But this is more of a kinesthetic approach.

The 18th Amendment was passed to create alcohol prohibition, a power not clearly granted to the government prior. The 21st repealed the 18th.

Think about modern-day federal powers; where did they get all that power?

President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a second Bill of Rights in 1944. 

While I disagree with what he proposed, it is invaluable to recognize that by making such a proposal, it was the clear government did not currently possess the power to implement said proposals. 

Things like:

* "The right to earn enough to provide adequate food, clothing, and recreation;."

* "The right of every family to a decent home;."

* "The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;"...

Before an idea is passed into law, it should be clearly measured against the Constitution and the rule of law. A Constitutional Amendment should not be difficult to pass if the power to enact a popular idea is not found. If the idea is not popular enough to pass a constitutional amendment, the idea's time has not come.

What should never happen is games of loose definitions and incrementalism. We should never fall down the slippery slope of gradually passing laws that could, at one point, never be justified against the Constitution.

Some years ago, I created a FaceBook Page titled 'Amend Constitution to transfer war powers to the President?' 

Notice it is a question. I posed the question because we are currently already functioning in that capacity, but under what authority?

"There are things in the Constitution that have been overtaken by events, by time. Declaration of war is one of them. There are things no longer relevant to a modern society. Why declare war if you don't have to? We are saying to the President, use your judgment. So, to demand that we declare war is to strengthen something to death. You have got a hammerlock on this situation, and it is not called for. Inappropriate, anachronistic, it isn't done anymore."

--Chairman Henry Hyde, 10/3/2002, in a session of House of Representatives, during hearing on H.J. Res. 114, "AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE
AGAINST IRAQ", discussing Ron Paul's motion to declare war.

"If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield."

George Washington's farewell

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