Nullification by the United States : Unconstitutional?

States are getting fed up. Their rights are being mowed down by the federal government. One at a time, each in its own way, the states are standing up to government abuse, saying to the feds: "You are meddling where you have no right to be. I am reclaiming my authority; keep your hands out of my business.

They have every possible right to do so; in fact, they have the responsibility to stand up to illegality.

The Constitution puts states or individual citizens in charge of most everything --- their land, children, health, and checking accounts; their safety, religious activities, and education. These rights are woven into every clause of our national birth certificate. Fearful of misunderstanding, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, reiterated and locked our rights in place. The last of those ten amendments reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States (the federal government) by the  Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people." In other words, "If we didn't specifically give you, the federal government, the authority to do that, you can't do it."

Some, even those who profess constitutional scholarship, miss the point. The deride the states, saying the supremacy clause in the Constitution puts federal laws superior to state laws. This is true, unless (drum roll, please) the laws passed by the federal government are illegal. Illegal federal laws - those that violate the 10th Amendment to the Constitution - do not stand supreme over the states. They have no right to exist as laws precisely because they violate the law. If this were not so, our law would say that only states were required to abide by law; the federal government was exempt from it. What a farce that would be - a federal government thrashing about wildly, snatching anything it wished, like a spoiled child taking from everyone. (Hmmm --- this sounds familiar.)

The Constitution gives only 6 powers to the executive branch of government and 20 powers to Congress. Anything beyond those 26 powers comes from a federal government elbowing its way into the party to hog all the power and glory. And what a hot fest it has been! The president now has thousands of duties over 200 major bureaucracies. Our no prolific Congress passes volumes of laws and regulations, the overwhelming majority of which it has no authority to pass.

Americans, unfortunately, have tolerated this far too long. We have rolled our eyes, complained profusely, and written an occasional letter to our congressional representatives. Little has changed.

Now it's getting serious. The health care bill will impose highway robbery on most of us. The right to own weapons to protect ourselves is under attack, as are our rights to self-determined worship. The IRS is corrupt and irresponsible, and our privacy has been decimated by subversive federal government. Environmental laws block our access to public lands and dictate use of personal property. The economy is headed off the cliff and no one seems able to prevent the coming train wreck. The schools are preparatory hotbeds of socialism, turning us into "sheeple". New federal scandals erupt weekly. The 6000 year old pattern of marriage and its protection of our children is being waylaid, and those who have studied the proposed immigration bill tell us it could finish us off.

One would think it's high time the states stood up to the federal bully.

- Pam