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Home » Government Ethics » Congress’s Abuse of the Common Good Shames Our Founding Fathers

Congress’s Abuse of the Common Good Shames Our Founding Fathers

Last update October 10, 20132 Comments

Our Founding Fathers called for getting rid of government when it becomes destructive. Too bad we don’t have that option. The best we get is a year-long wait for another election in 2014 so we can choose from a roster of the same dismal caliber as those who just failed at the only thing we expect them to do: keep the government running for our common good.

Congress comes uncomfortably close to the definition of treason when it helps our enemies by making us weak. Members are so deeply mired in their pit of hubris that they are unable to see how their petty partisan turf war mocks the greater principles our government was founded on. The Founding Fathers understood that only a limited government could carry out its role without violating both individual freedoms and the common good. Ignoring this advice, in a little over two hundred years our government has turned to empire-building by public servants on both sides of the partisan divide, one of the few things Congress agrees is right and just.

Congress abuses two big Constitutional powers.

The Constitution was meant to be more than an excuse for Eric Holder to sue states that disagree with presidential policy. It is also useful for Democrats and Republicans who have joined to make a mockery of two of the most basic congressional powers, to tax and to borrow money on the nation’s credit. Was the power to tax meant to include the power to withhold services we have paid for and the power to borrow intended to be jeopardized by another shutdown stunt?

Can we withdraw our consent from the government?

We don’t need a new Declaration of Independence. The original one is still good. We just need to reissue it because America has come to ignore the ideas that keep us free from the tyranny of government.

Does anyone in Washington still believe that legislative powers come from the governed? The Declaration of Independence denounced infringements on the rights of the people, coercing legislative bodies into complying with the whims of a despot, making judges dependent on a ruler’s will, building a bureaucracy of too many officers, and abolishing valuable laws. Sound familiar? It also charged the king with imposing taxes without the public’s consent, like the tax you will be shelling out for not buying health insurance that passed with only the consent of the Democratic Party.

Health care in America proves the common good is meaningless.

Democrats gave us an Affordable Care Act already plagued by delays and evasions that failed us when it collapsed under its own weight on the first day the exchanges went online. The Founding Fathers could not have envisioned this modern health care system, but they could have seen the tyranny implicit in how it is administered.

Our Founding Fathers believed the people have the right to change or abolish their government when it becomes destructive, but Americans have been duped and divided by partisanship into believing things will get better if their party prevails. It never happens. Rest assured that our overly enriched lawmakers aren’t losing sleep over whether we will withdraw our compact with Washington. If anything is bothering them, it is how long they can remain in the national spotlight and where they will find the next opportunity to put a crisis in the headlines.

Filed Under: Government Ethics Tagged With: Congress

Comments

  1. Randy Sims says

    August 28, 2017 at 12:48 pm

    While I don’t disagree with your blog, you did not provide an adequate understand and use of the phrase common good provided by our Founders. So I will do it for you.

    Our Founders believed there exists in this world good and evil. They believed what designated good and evil began with the Ten Commandments of God and continued within the confines of his Holy Word found within the Holy Bible.

    The phrase common good came about as a term used do provide common sense truths rooted in what was deemed as good, not going against the Word of God.

    So when we hear the term common good, understand the intentions of our Founders were truths that move men toward true freedom, God’s true freedom, not freedom in the minds of men.

    Our Founders believed in order to be a truly free people, it wasn’t the number of laws created by men, but it was obedience to the laws already in existence by God found in the Bible.

    So the common good was simply put truths. Truths that work to improve our society, to move us toward true freedom.

    True freedom? What is true freedom?

    In today’s world, people are deceived into believing tree freedom comes only by a system of laws. The government of our Founders has been corrupt and today most of what our Founders established has been corrupted, compromised by those who seek to destroy it.

    Our Founders understood that no matter how many laws men create or provide as government rule, that does not provide true freedom. Our Founders believed that the only true freedom in this world is to be free from sin. They believed only when a man is born again he can truly be free.

    Reply
    • Bob Prokop says

      August 28, 2017 at 6:52 pm

      Excellent comments and observations, Randy. I can certainly agree that the people have been deceived by putting their faith in a system of laws that so often fails us. Thanks for sharing.
      Bob

      Reply

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