Posted by
Corthell on Wednesday, December 02, 2009 2:40:51 PM
Well, now. As Steve Martin used to say, "Excuuuuuuuse me!" All I did was ask University of Maryland political science teacher Thomas F. Schaller a simple question: "Where in the Constitution, sir, do you see it authorized that Congress can be involved with 'health care,' or fund 'health care'? I added: "I am asking here about the Constitution, not any court rulings." And the guy went bananas.
In a snide and snotty e-mail response, Schaller, a columnist for the Baltimore Sun who advocates federal "health-care reform," said my "arguments" were "silly" – though I had not yet made any "argument." He said my question was "absurd" and "irrelevant" and "bogus." He said he always gets "a chuckle" out of constitutional originalists because, he implies, they are hypocrites who invoke the document selectively. He concludes his tirade: "So save me the insinuations that you've somehow caught me in a constitutional-historical trap, because you haven't. You need a more nuanced view of how the Constitution does – and did, from its inception – work. …"
Wow. All this and more billingsgate just because I asked Schaller a simple question about the constitutionality of something he advocates. In any event, in a subsequent article prompted by my piercing question, Schaller writes about what he says are "absurd fallacies" about the Constitution. Remember now, this guy teaches political science – another example of why, literally, I thank God I never went to college.
Fallacy One: "First, there is the fallacy that anything not specifically prescribed by the Constitution is unconstitutional."
When did government officials start ignoring our national charter – and why does it continue? Find out in "Who Killed the Constitution?"
Comment: Oooops! The loud, snapping shut sound you hear is Schaller stepping into "a constitutional-historical trap," causing him to hang there, a rope around one leg, dangling in mid-air. How so? Because it was none other than James Madison, often called "the father of the Constitution," who said, in Federalist 45, almost exactly what Schaller says is an "absurd fallacy"! Madison says: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." In other words, the Federal Government can do only what the Constitution says it can, what the Constitution "prescribes."
Fallacy Two: "Second, and conversely, there is the fallacy that anything not specifically proscribed by the Constitution is constitutionally permissible."
Comment: Sorry, never heard this one. I've asked Schaller for an example of someone who has said this. Thus far, no reply. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=117680