USA - The 10th Amendment...

[The Mucking MaDMAn]

Does anyone actually know the 10th amendment off hand? It amazes me so much how much the US government has abused its power and trasformed itself exactly into what our founding fathers feared. I'm sure the 10th amendment was gone over very little in High School, it was not until I heard a MAPS discussion with Alexander Shulgin that i finally comprehended its importance. The 10th Amendment states

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.


Our country has just completely walked over this valuable amendment. That was put by our forefathers to specifically limit the powers of our federal government. The 10th amendment is why alcohol prohibition needed an Amendment to the Constitution to be valid... Altho drug prohibition doesn't get an amendment... It gets fucking scheduling, some bullshit made up in the 1970's that is completely unfucking constitutional and a complete shit on all of our founding fathers and the basis of liberty itself. We're still seeking freedom after 230 years...

Thomas Jefferson:
God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

[Riconoen {UGC}]

The constitution means jack shit in this country now. An armed insurrection would be very good for this country, That's what the second amendment (another inmportant one no matter what the lefties may say) was made for.

[Woodman]

In my opinion, the 10th hasn't meant shit since the end of the American Civil War.

There is a large, ever-increasing, number of Morons who are taught that the Civil War was about slavery. Many of these people grow up to be socio-political imbeciles; mentally malleable enough to be laid across the anvil of political ambition, and made serve the cause of anyone with higher than room-temperature I/Q.

These "useful idiots" will become more abundant as the US educational system moves further away from civic education that is historically accurate in favor of embracing policies that are politically correct, and as I see it, this is all critical to devaluing the sovereignty of the US, and shifting individual perception toward a "One-World" government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

In political jargon, the term "useful idiot" was used to describe Soviet sympathizers in western countries (particularly in the United States) and the alleged attitude of the Soviet government towards them. The implication was that the person in question was naïve, foolish, or in willful denial, and that he or she was being cynically used by the Soviet Union, or another Communist state. The term is still in use and used more broadly to describe someone who is perceived to be manipulated by political movement, terrorist group, or hostile government, whether or not the group is Communist in nature.

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[Riconoen {UGC}]

Indeed woodman, slavery was only one aspect of the civil war. the main reason was states rights. (I think correct me if I'm wrong on this im not an historian.)

[darawk]

The 10th amendment was gone over quite thoroughly in high school for me. Unfortunately the 10th amendment is rendered virtually meaningless by the extremely broad interpreation of the "commerce clause" by the courts ever since FDR's "New Deal" court-manipulation scheme.

[The Mucking MaDMAn]

I think your right in the main reason was state rights Rico. But I think the main right they were fighting for, and the specific right that the federal government was trying to prohibit was to own slaves. So basically the federal government took away states rights after the south abused them? I really think that state rights vanished further down the road. Further research on wikipedia states that the fall of states rights after the war started when the federal income tax was imposed in 1913. When the Great Depression hit Roosevelt implemented many relief, recover, and reform programs which gave the federal governent a lot more power. This followed by WWII turns America into the great imperialistic nation we have today...

[zera]

Originally Posted by The Mucking MaDMAn

I think your right in the main reason was state rights Rico. But I think the main right they were fighting for, and the specific right that the federal government was trying to prohibit was to own slaves. So basically the federal government took away states rights after the south abused them? I really think that state rights vanished further down the road. Further research on wikipedia states that the fall of states rights after the war started when the federal income tax was imposed in 1913. When the Great Depression hit Roosevelt implemented many relief, recover, and reform programs which gave the federal governent a lot more power. This followed by WWII turns America into the great imperialistic nation we have today...

The at least in the initial phases when Fort Sumter was attacked had far more to do with a broad, high tariff Lincoln wanted to initiate. The industrialized North wanted the tariff essentially to shut off its foreign competition, essentially corporate welfare, the South which already had a successful export economy didn't want to start paying twice as much for all the shit they had to import.

The real turning point when the 10th amendment got shit in on was when the Supreme Court decided that the "general welfare clause" in the Constitution meant Congress could do whatever they feel like. Basically they say anything and everything has to do with interstate commerce in one way or another, there was one successful case brought in the 90s, when the Supreme Court said that some Federal law mandating a gun free zone around schools went to far. This was I believe the only successful case since the 1930s to successfully limit federal power based on the 10th amendment. Most scholars thought things were going the other way, but the recent medical marijuana case, where the Supreme Court said the Federal government has a right to tell states they can't make medical marijuana legal, basically totally reverses all of that.