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Originally Posted by August
Don't worry, I understand.
What the 10th Amendment basically says is that Americans have a right to anything unless the Constitution specifically gives their government the power to regulate or deny it.
Some of the framers were worried that some day someone would try to attempt to limit the freedom of the American people to what is listed in the Bill of Rights.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sailor Steve
The concept of the Framers was that government has no rights at all. They were used to (and tired of) the background they came from, which said that the Government has all the rights, the Government owns you, you are a subject. They created the National Government because they had to, not because they wanted one. And they created that government to accomplish two things - arbitrate disputes between the States and deal with foreign policy. The first was because the States couldn't always agree on everything, and they needed some way to keep each other in line. The second was because foreign governments refused to deal with thirteen separate little nations severally and insisted that they would deal only with The United States, since that was what we had chosen to call ourselves.
Everything beyond that is outside the pervue of the Constitution, which specifies how the Government is to be run and then lists certain things that it is not allowed to touch. To hedge his bets, author James Madison made sure the Ninth and Tenth amendments were in there. The People have ALL the rights, the Government has none.
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Thank you, gentlemen - that clarifies beautifully.
Curious how many laws we have on the books - and how open to interpretation many of them are over the years.
Health is a condition, not a right. What bothers me about socialized health care (in the US) is the slippery slope it starts the nation down; specifically, around the abortion issue. It's a clear cause of one party to outlaw the practice, and the other party to allow it. Both parties could sue - and win - a case based on the "right" to health, were it such a right. One wins on the basis of woman's health, while the other wins on the basis of fetus health. Every time Congress (more likely, the leanings of the SCOTUS) changed in dominant party, the law would be enforced differently. This is not the way to do business.