Monday, February 5, 2018

How Corrupt Are We? My Post-Memo Musings

In the aftermath of the release "The memo," I find myself wondering: Just how corrupt are we? Has our system gotten totally out of control?

That's what has me concerned with the memo: How much integrity is there in our government system? In our media? In our courts? How confident are we that justice and truth will prevail?

Because I'm not an expert in the inner workings of our government, and because my academic background is not in the fields of law or political science, I find my head spinning when it comes to sorting out which agency is responsible for which decisions and whose authority overlaps with another's.

How mired have we become in bureaucratic red tape? How difficult has it become to get anything done without having to jump through endless legal and governmental hoops?

The more I watch our government in action, the more I see massive inaction.

Law professor Gary Lawson wrote, "When the Constitution was sent to the states for ratification in 1787, many citizens worried that the new national government proposed by the document was a Leviathan in waiting. During the crucial New York ratification debate, James Madison, writing as Publius, sought to allay these fears in the 45th Federalist Paper by emphasizing that adoption of the Constitution would create a government of enumerated, and therefore strictly limited, powers. Madison said: 'The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined... [and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce....'."

Did you catch those words? Many of our founding citizens worried that the new national government proposed by the Constitution "Was a Leviathan in waiting." Ironically, had we adhered to the principles of the Constitution, their fears would not have been realized.

https://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2018/02/05/how-corrupt-are-we-my-postmemo-musings-n2444315 

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