11.06.2008

Can We Stop This, Please

The Dallas Morning News published a feature today which has a variety of business leaders giving advice to President-Elect Obama. I don't want to dog Ms. Clements, who is very hot and probably makes a krillion dollars a year, but can we get off this "carry a copy of the Constitution" in your pocket crap? In her bio, I noted that she went to Baylor Law which means she probably had the same goofball professor that told us that he also carried the document in his pocket --- but I was pretty sure he hadn't read it in the last 80 years of his life. He, like others, carried a copy of the Constitution in his his pocket so he could tell people he carried a copy of the Constitution in his pocket. You see, that makes you sound both smart and reflective. I don't want to get all Ron Paul on you here, but the Constitution means almost nothing today. Its text very clearly explained what the federal government could do and not do, and then left all the rest of the law making power to the States. It was pretty simple. The First Amendment is a perfect example. "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . . ." Nothing is more clear. Nothing is more absolute. Congress has no authority to create the FCC whose very job is to regulate speech. Congress has no authority to regulate porn. Congress has no authority to ban billboards on interstate highways. And the list goes on. Now if Texas, or any other state, wants to enact laws regulating those areas, have at it. That's what the Constitution had in mind. Or it did. But these days, what the Constitution says means very little. But, according to Ms. Clements, you are somehow worthy of Supreme Court consideration simply by caring a copy of it in your pocket.