The Bill of Rights and Govt Power
I was looking at the conservative blog "Classical Values," specifically this post and came across this tidbit:
Quote:
However, it has to be recognized that [the terrorist watch list] was generated for use during the war on terror, and that there is no constitutional right to fly on a plane. It's an extraordinary measure passed for an extraordinary time.
Conservatism has an awful dearth of scholarly or intellectual voices in it. The evolution of conservative stances (and I think its fair to call them stances rather than ideology, because conservatism tends to be a mishmash of some degree of classical economic liberalism (though much less so today) and statism in regards to certain "hot button" social issues) has fascinated me of late. For example, few people know the evolution of economic policy in the conservative wing of the Republican party.
To put it in small summary: After FDR, Conservatives vowed to roll back The New Deal. After LBJ, they vowed to roll back The Great Society welfare state. After Clinton they vowed to have "smaller government." None of these tasks were ever really accomplished. So the "crisis" facing conservatism today is one that Conservatism goes through in every successive generation. Past performances lead me to believe that the party will shrug, adopt more socialist/fascist policies and continue on.
Anyway, the quote interests me because it harkens back to one of the strongest arguments given against the adoption of the bill of rights.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander Hamilton
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?
Essentially, the argument was: the government, under the constitution, has only the powers specifically granted to it. Nothing else. The bill of rights implies that it has the power to reach into our lives and regulate all sorts of things, to which those amendments are the exception. But that very view is uncontroversial today, even in what passes for Conservative intellectual circles.
I, personally, do not believe that a more cleverly worded constitution, or one lacking in the BOR would have resulted in a freer America today. Politics is an effect, not a cause; the cause is the philosophic ideas dominant in a culture. But, for anyone with an interest in constituional history or law, it certainly is noteworthy that Alexander Hamilton's words have proven prophetic. There is a good-selling book in there for a scholar who will chart the evolution of constitutional law from a document that regiments and restricts what government can do to a small list of things, to a (small) list of activities that people can expect only a minimum of government interference from, with the rest of the sphere of human activity open to regulation or outright banning on a whim.
