The Obama Presence

The Obama Presence
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12/30/09

Book Review: Who Killed the Constitution?

Murder I tell you ... it's murder.



Who Killed the Constitution? The Federal Government vs. American Liberty from World War 1 to Barack Obama. By Thomas E. Woods Jr and Kevin R. C. Gutzman. Three Rivers Press; 202 pages; $10.20. Buy from Amazon.com.

Its death was ingloriously slow that only a few men know to cry. Thomas E. Woods Jr, Senior Fellow of the Mises Institute and Kevin R. C. Gutzman, Professor History Western Connecticut State University, lay out the evidence in a remarkably easy to read book proving once and for all that the United States Constitution is dead. The authors offer no finger pointing at Democrats or Republicans, left or right, they provide twelve "The Dirty Dozen" examples of Supreme Court decisions (Judicial Branch), Presidential abuses (Executive Branch), and Congressional excess (Legislative Branch), that
"bear no resemblance to what the Constitution's ratifiers intended, and in fact run directly counter to the plain text of the Constitution"1. This they argue is the key to understanding that the United States Constitution is dead.

Of course, the American people are occasionally treated to a crumb of liberty. On October 19, 2009,
David W. Ogden, Deputy Attorney General, United States issued a Memorandum stating;

"As a general matter, pursuit of these priorities should not focus
federal resources in your States on individuals whose
actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing
state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.
"

The 2009 memorandum repudiates a Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Raich (2004), whereby the Justices erroneously used the Commerce Clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3) to usurp California State sovereignty and deny Ms. Raich her right to use medical marijuana. Ms. Raich would die from complications of bromyalgia, seizures, nausea, and an inoperable brain tumor without the aid of medical marijuana. No one should be deluded to think that David Ogden is interested in Ms. Raich's medical situation, but his Memorandum is extremely important from a Constitutional perspective. The 2009 Memorandum recognizes California's sovereign right to regulate marijuana for medical purposes -- Federalism. 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."

The Federal government was not granted any powers to regulate medical marijuana by the original framers and ratifiers of the United States Constitution. Likewise, the ratifiers and the framers did not intend for the Commerce Clause to be interpreted by the Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Raich (2004) to limit state sovereignty.

Messrs Woods and Gutzman note that the death of the Constitution is not partisan. The authors point out that John Taylor of Caroline noted,

"the problem is not the character of members of one party or the other, one section of the country or the other, but the effect of power on the human ego, regardless of party or section. People in power exercise all the power they can get, even after they have howled in the wilderness against legislating judges, imperial president, and the death of states' rights." 2

The spectre of the United States Constitution can still be of value. The authors suggest that we call attention to the Constitution and alert our friends, family, and the young people how dramatically their fundamental rights have been betrayed.

This book is fascinating, well written, and academic. It should interest anyone with a keen interest in Constitutional history and good ole fashioned Who Dunnit's.

1 Page 199, Paragraph One
2 Page 201, Last Paragraph

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