Thursday, March 18, 2010

Self-Preservation Legislation

Is there really any debate that Congress writes and passes legislation simply to prove that they have a job to do and therefore can keep the job they have?  We have been overladen with so much legislation which was written just for the purpose of showing that Congress has something to do.  The reality is that we as a nation would be much better off if Congress focused less on justifying their own position and more on what their job actually is.

The legislation of Congress has two main goals.  To preserve the safety and security of the union, and to ensure the rights and liberties of the citizens.  That's it.

The founding fathers and drafters of the Constitution recognized this and knew that there should be little for Congress to do.  Article I, Section 4, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution states that Congress has to meet once a year.  Once.  That's it.  Only one time each year.  That it was specified that they had to meet at all shows just how little the drafters believed that Congress would really be needed.  We would all be better of if Congress really did only meet once a year.

Instead of passing only the legislation needed to preserve the union and the liberties of her people, Congress has passed so much legislation that they passed legislation to delegate some of the legislating responsibilities.  And hasn't that served us all well.  They passed legislation to fix the problems caused by other legislation which was a result of even more legislation. 

Consider all the legislation that has been passed in the last 75 years and think about how much of that was actually critical to the preservation of the union and the liberties of the people.  There's not much of it.  There is some, but probably less than 1% of the total legislation written.  Now imagine if all of that legislation which did NOT have it's basis in those two categories were wiped from the books by a wave of Harry Potter's wand.  How much better off would we all be?  Especially considering that the vast majority of the legislation written not only does not serve the true purpose of Congress but actually defies it by intruding further and further into the personal liberties of the people.

We could disband Congress all together and it wouldn't make much difference in anybody's daily life.  That is if it weren't for the imbending bankruptcy the government is facing as the result of Congressional self-preservation legislation.  If only I had Harry Potter's wand.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a politician run on a platform of removing any legislation on the books which does not directly and primarily preserve the union and the liberties of the people.  Now there's a fantasy.

2 comments:

  1. This would be a great post to cross-post at the Second American Revolution.

    Also not the Party Platform there. It is right in line with this post.

    RWR
    www.rightwingrocker.com

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