President Biden and other leftwing statists are up in arms over a comment made by former President Trump calling for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution” in order to declare him the winner of the 2020 presidential election, which he claims was stolen from him. As they condemn Trump for his comment, Biden and his leftwing statist cohorts have suddenly discovered a deep and profound love and respect for the Constitution.
Responding to Trump’s statement, Biden’s White House spokesman Andrew Bates, stated:
The American Constitution is a sacrosanct document that for over 200 years has guaranteed that freedom and the rule of law prevail in our great country. The Constitution brings the American people together – regardless of party – and elected leaders swear to uphold it…. Attacking the Constitution and all it stands for is anathema to the soul of our nation and should be universally condemned.
Really?
Well, how about we review some of the positions that Biden and his leftwing Constitution-loving cohorts have long taken that contradict that lovely statement by White House spokesman Bates?
1. The declaration of war requirement. The Constitution states that the president is prohibited from waging war without a congressional declaration of war from Congress. Yet, that constitutional provision has been openly and flagrantly ignored and violated in every single foreign war since World War II, with the full support of leftwing statists.
2. Gold and silver. The Constitution gives the federal government the power to coin money. It does not give the federal government the power to print money. Moreover, the Constitution expressly states that no state shall make anything but gold and silver legal tender. Nonetheless, leftwing statists have openly and flagrantly ignored and violated these constitutional provisions since the 1930s, when leftwing Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt illegally nationalized gold and made it a felony offense to own it.
3. Federal drug laws. Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government given the power to punish people for ingesting drugs that have not been approved by federal officials. In fact, in order to punish people for ingesting alcohol, statists had to secure a constitutional amendment (which they later repealed through another constitutional amendment). Leftwing statists have never done the same with respect to federal drug laws. Instead, they continue to openly and flagrantly support the federal arrests, prosecutions, incarcerations, and fines for people who are caught ingesting unapproved substances.
4. Welfare, including Social Security and Medicare. One searches in vain for any grant of power in the Constitution to the federal government to grant welfare to anyone, including seniors. Nonetheless, the feds openly and flagrantly continue to operate their gigantic socialist welfare-state programs, with the full support of leftwing statists.
5. The conversion to a national-security state. The Constitution called into existence a limited-government republic, a type of governmental system in which the government wielded limited powers, specifically, those powers that are enumerated in the Constitution. U.S. officials converted that system to a national-security state, a type of government system in which officials wield omnipotent powers, including state-sponsored assassinations, torture, indefinite detention, and mass secret surveillance. The conversion to omnipotent government took place without even the semblance of an amendment to the Constitution. Nonetheless, leftwing statists continue to support this open and flagrant violation of the Constitution.
6. Sanctions and embargoes. There is no grant of power in the Constitution to the federal government to target the populations of foreign nations with death and suffering with sanctions and embargoes, as a way to achieve regime change. Nonetheless, leftwing statists have long supported this open and flagrant violation of the Constitution. Perhaps the best example was when leftwing Democrat President Bill Clinton’s U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, declared that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from U.S. and UN sanctions were “worth it.” By “it,” she meant U.S. efforts to regime-change Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who, ironically, had previously been a loyal partner and ally of U.S. officials.
Of course, at the risk of stating the obvious, it’s not just Joe Biden and his leftwing Democratic cohorts who have long favored these open and flagrant violations of the Constitution. Republican rightwing statists, including Donald Trump, have long been in the same anti-Constitution camp.
Reprinted with permission from The Future of Freedom Foundation.
