Remission of Regulatory Burden

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Remission of Regulatory Burden

In God we Trust

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            The revelation that the Constitution is not taught in the majority of law schools should leave us all incredulous.

            The 10^th Amendment alone (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) is a study of expansive rights reserved to the people. It should constitute a year of mandatory study. It forms a cornerstone of our system, and, yet, it is relegated to the “oh, yea, sure” archives.

            In its state of dominion, the federal government has largely rendered the 10^th Amendment inert with its interpretation of Article 1, Section 8, and Clause 3 which is commonly referred to as the Commerce Clause. In original form, the clause gave Congress the power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes”. In its evolution from originality to current form, it, more often than not, is the usurped extralegal tool of authority over the activities of the states and the citizenry. It essentially trumps the 10^th Amendment duly ratified under the auspices of the Constitution and bundled with the rest of the first ten amendments (which we should know as the Bill of Rights). A current best example is to try to find the authority of the federal government to pass and enforce Obamacare in an original reading of the Constitution.

            It can’t be done.

            The only way the Commerce Clause can be the guiding authority granting the federal government the right to pass and enforce such legislation is through the maze of case law that now constitutes the basis of the interpretation of the Constitution and the resulting instructional foundation of law taught today. The interpretation of other clauses is similarly corrupted. In reality, this has long been a meandering process of reinvention that has rendered the Constitution mute and exhausted. The genius of the original words is lost.

For all intents and purposes in the manner in which it is now referenced, the Constitution is a relic of the “oh, yea, sure’ archives.

            Moral release

            It is time to apply biblical principles to our state of regulatory exhaustion. The current Congress is the case in point. In their infinite wisdom, this Congress is allowing unelected bureaucrats to install about 59 new regulations for every law that they pass. Notwithstanding the cost of the legislation itself, the cost of these regulations is costing us $1.885 trillion per year.

            There is no end to this nonsense. It is a compounding process whereby regulations are stacked upon us without any mechanism of eliminating past regulations before new ones are invented. We are becoming frantic with regulatory insolvency. Although our God recognized no man can serve forever without relief, our government has no such moral equivalency. God never allows us to obey his law without immediate compensation. Blessings are always attached to obedience to Him, whereas our government only demands more. We are not getting a just return for our investment in this government.

            We aren’t just talking about the cost.

            We are talking about the principle of new chances, the hope for new opportunities, and the promise of fresh beginnings if we are capable of structuring such things in our lives. Such regulatory release can only be accomplished by moral processes and government demonstrates it is incapable of defining those processes. Deuteronomy 15:1-2 offers the gleaming example of how we should deal with compounding regulations.

            At the end of every seven years you shall make a release. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow man. He shall not require payment from his brother, because the Lord’s time canceling debts has been proclaimed.

            In this case, the cancellation will not be aimed at debt, but, rather, regulatory burden. The text would read:

            At the end of every seven years which is proclaimed the acceptable year by this nation, all regulations created in a manner extralegal to the authority vested by the Constitution, and which, by their nature, lay repressive restraint on the American citizenry shall be cancelled. Any and all regulations deemed finite, necessary, and or prudent on the basis of future legislation shall and can be crafted, but will enjoy a sunset on this day seven years hence.

            In God we Trust

            It should pain every one of us that the blessings of liberty defined in the Constitution have been eroded and redefined to fit political expediency. If change is indeed necessary, the document sets forth the means for change but that change cannot come by the migration of agenda forces through the courts. That course will and has altered the intent and the form of the Law of Our Land to a point unrecognizable to the Framers and to the diligent reader who is given great power in the 10^th Amendment, the last of the amendments which constitute our Bill of Rights.

            It is also time to reset the clock and the intent of all law schools. No longer is it acceptable to fund these factories of liberal doctrine without at least a full year of Constitutional study. There was no intent to create our foundational document on the basis of code and innuendo. What is says is what was intended. If there is confusion, then it must be fixed but only through the legal process that is defined in its content not the corrupted maneuvering of radical agendas. That is why we found it intolerable to bow to the east and King George III.

            Indeed, in our Constitution we find words of wisdom amid all the black print of the law of man, but only … In God (do) we Trust.

            Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Doesn’t it offend you the Constitution is relegated to the ‘Oh, yea, sure’ archives?”