"When did this all start?"

Today, i will try to sum this up without sounding like a complete idiot. But first, something has to be made abundantly clear:

What i know about government is only slightly more than the average person my age. For more detailed and pointed questions, i can only direct you to books, websites, or professors that i know. As my blog title goes, this is just my view from down here.

That doesn't mean that i'm not right. It just means that my picture is blurrier than others.

Back in the early 1900's the Supreme Court stuck like tar to the Constitution. The fabled Four Horsemen (HEROES in my book) Justice Butler, McReynolds, Sutherland, and Van Devanter dissented on legislation after legislation, using the Constitution to strike down tyranny as it tried to violate our Natural Rights. To them, the commerce clause had only to do with interstate commerce and commerce had to involve the movement of goods. PERIOD. Free market and due process actually meant something. Contracts were unbreakable by the government. Congress only had 18 enumerated powers. And the rights of the INDIVIDUAL were strictly upheld.

For example: The Lochner case of 1905. In Lochner (I must quote here because i couldn't put it in better terms if i spent all day trying) "The Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a New York State law that limited the number of hours a baker could work. How dare a state in the land of opportunity try to steal the liberty of a laborer to work and a small businessperson to employ them? That is precisely what the New York legislature attempted. And this theft is precisely what goes on everyday in twenty-first century America. But the Lochner court, one hundred years ago, would have none of it!" - Judge Napolitano.

They also struck down a law that would require women to have a minimum wage, clearly violating the Contracts Clause. I can tell you that as a woman, and a proud one, i don't need anyone HOLDING MY DAMNED HAND! Here we were, struggling for decades to get the right to vote, and then suddenly the government wants to walk me to work, make sure i got there alright, and make sure i get paid properly? Once more, the Four Heroes dissented to defend our Constitutional right to have contracts and another New Deal policy was crushed.

I am no scholar, but i'm pretty sure that the Founding Fathers never wanted big government to chaperon me to work!

Back on track before i loose myself.

Economic crises at the time began to call for immediate action. The Supreme Court only had a handful of Justices, which explains why the Four Heroes made such an astounding impact. So what did FDR do? He packed the Court and within a short time, he'd changed everything. The Four Hero's voices could not be heard through the throngs of people who had begun to panic. Enter New Deal legislation!!! Cue the Vader music!


So even though a lonely single mother with only the government to take care of her pulls at all of our heartstrings, where would we be if we had just followed the Constitution and gotten back to free market and individual rights that USED TO protect us from tyrants? I can tell you this. We wouldn't be in the shit we're in now.

I'd like to end with a favorite quote from one of the Heroes, Justice Sutherland:

"Whether the legislation under review is wise or unwise is a matter with which we have nothing to do. Whether it is likely to work well or work ill presents a question entirely irrelevant to the issue. the only legitimate inquiry we can make is whether it is constitutional. If it is not, it's virtues, if it has any, cannot save it; if it is, it's faults cannot be invoked to accomplish it's destruction. If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they might as well be abandoned!"