When Self-Appointed Interpreters of the Law go Astray

Denying nullification is denying limited government

We on our team often discuss the encroachment of the federal (not “national”) government into areas not delegated to them under the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the Land. This encroachment is the root of most social upheavals in our society today. Fixing it would go a very long way toward ending our current division, enforcing legitimate policies and ending the enforcement of illegitimate policies now wrecking the republic.

The lack of civics education, and the magnitude of anti- American idiocy amongst our dimmest and worst – our teacher cohort, oft-documented as the lowest-caliber & IQ of the academic population of any college with an EdSchool –  is the problem, and it is difficult to see this problem fixed without a thorough  overhaul of how we educate K-12 “educators.” (Remember when we called them “teachers,” and they could?)

The problem has percolated throughout society to the point at which a professional website expostulating on law, lawliberty.org, has completely lost its way in providing information and opinion regarding legal issues in America today.

A recent column on nullification, for example, is completely incorrect. It informs, in fact, the opposite of how the federal government was designed to work and relegates to the states no authority to challenge the Feds, in complete and total contradiction of the spirit and letter of the Constitution.

The columnist seems to be treating two types of laws as one. We have federal laws and SCOTUS holdings within the bounds of the Constitution, and we have “national” “laws” and holdings outside the bounds of the Constitution. By writing against nullification of the latter, he insists that we allow usurpation and flagrant unconstitutional “laws” and holdings of the latter without regress at the state level.

This is a mistake that takes his entire column into question. His doing so results in treating our federal government as a national government - which it is not.

Laws and holdings - and entire departments, for that matter - outside the limits placed on the federal government are not constitutional by definition.

Any and every law outside the enumerated powers must be ignored and should be nullified by the several states, regardless - and including - holdings of SCOTUS as being illegitimate for the simple reason these are not within the authority the states delegated to the federal government.

The enumerated powers limit all three branches of the federal government: legislative (Congress), executive (Presidency) and judicial (federal courts including SCOTUS). Not ignoring unconstitutional actions and laws is the opposite of governing under a constitution: doing so surrenders to the federal government powers not delegated to them. It allows our over-arching feds to keep expanding their rule without being allowed by the People to expand their authority. This is authoritarianism, not self-government under law. 

For those now reaching for the Supremacy Clause, it applies only to contests regarding the enumerated powers. If the supremacy clause meant the federal government could legislate and hold on any and every subject without reference to the enumerated powers and Bill of Rights, we would not have a “government of limited powers,” and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments would be irrelevant, and so would not have been included by the Founders.

The federal government simply lacks any authority for those laws. The idea of not nullifying them flies in the face a limited government and pushes to irrelevance the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. 

Keeping the - inferior - federal government in its enumerated box is the primary role of the governors of the - superior - states. And all of them refuse it. THAT is why so much social turmoil exists in America. None of the below are subject to federal legislation or federal judicial enforcement: 

·     Marriage 

·     Abortion

·     Bathrooms 

·     Sports

·     Education 

·     Housing 

·     Healthcare 

·     Energy 

·     General police powers

·     Foreign aid

·     Etc. 

All three branches of the Feds are constrained by the enumerated powers. If people don’t like those constraints they are welcome to attempt amending the constitution. That is the only way to alter limits within the law. 

But the idea states cannot use nullification as redress for unconstitutional laws is just plain wrong; the idea nullifies, if you will, Constitutional government.