Don’t waste it all on the tenthers. After you’re through heaping well-deserved scorn on them, you’re going to need some left over for the folks who wrote the 10th Amendment, the founders.

No, the tenthers’ idea that Congress can only do the specific things listed in Art I, sec 8, is indeed all wet. That list is the list of things Congress had the responsibility to provide for from day one. Not imagining that they lived at the end of history, they wisely left in a general specification, “to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States” to cover contingencies not on the specified list of particular duties and powers.

Great so far. The US Congress, the federal govt, is not only free to pass whatever laws seem best to provide for the common defense and general welfare, it has the positive duty to pass any and all laws that seem best to those ends. And, look, over in Art VI we get the comforting confirmation that we indeed have but one govt in this country, when the Constitution and acts of Congress are made the supreme law of the land, and then, in the next paragraph, requires every officer of every state govt, including our Pawlenty, to be bound by oath to uphold the Constitution that makes the acts of Congres the law of the land.

Great. One country, one governmment — sounds like a plan. But then we have the 10th Amendment. It says that all powers not delegated to the federal govt, or specifically denied to the states, are reserved to the states or the people. Hunh? Look, we already have the 9th Amendment to make clear that the failure to enumerate a right of the people in the first eight amendments doesn’t mean that no such right exists, so it’s not clear why “the people” need protection in this amendment. We’re clearly talking about some sorts of governmental powers here, or reserving any of them to the states makes no sense. But that reservation means one of two things when set against Art I, sec 8. Either the tenther stand is correct, and Congress only gets to do the things specifically enumerated, with the states claiming any other govt function not enumerated, or the language about the common defense and general welfare is intended as an escape clause, itself a specified power/responsibility but one so general and so broad as to mean anything not specifically denied Congress by other provisions of the Constitution. But if that latter interpretation is correct, why have a 10th Amendment?

Sure, the tenthers are hypocritical assholes, and sure, if you take their reading of the 10th, then nullification at least, and probably secession, are as constitutional as church on Sunday. While I agree 110% that that’s no way to run a railroad, I can’t for the life of me make the 10th read any way other than to say that we have divided sovereignty, and are not really one country with one government. It’s not there for nothing, it was put there to mean something, and the way we sane people have resolved the contradiction, that in actual practice we go by Art I, sec 8 and take the “general welfare” language as an escape clause, makes the 10th into nothing.

Look, the founders had their virtues. But they punted on this one. Whether out of a foggy idealistic faith that divided sovereignty could actually be made to work without recurrent civil war, or whether because of the frank political calculation that they would never get the formerly independent states to take the plunge into one, new state formed by combination, but that they had to leave in sops to state power to get all the states to sign on, or some combination of these reasons — any way you slice it, they left us with an irresoluble contradiction here.

But hey, at least the 10th isn’t the worst such contradictory concession to divided sovereignty. That honor goes to the Right of Rebellion they embodied in Art IV, sec 4 and the 2d Amendment.

He was hoping that citing the Tenth Amendment would be less obvious to the non-wingnuts than talking about “states rights”. Unfortunately for him, too many folks are now clued in to the “Ten Amendment” code.

Yay. Let’s watch them out-crazy one another for the nomination — leaving only wise and rational Newt standing as the statesman at the end of their 2012 process.

Good point…the Minnesota DFL Party began to disintegrate in 1981 when the old “New Deal liberals” lost control and the young “centerists” like Walter Mondale’s son were scared to death of Reagan’s shadow…so a third party run marginalized the party and allowed a couple of self interested “players” like Al Tinklinberg to offer up Jessie Bullethead Ventura. The rest as they say is history. Pawlenty and the batshit crazy Republican Party that had had it’s ass whipped durin the 70’s won a couple of elections because the Independence Party split the vote and snookered the DFL for 10 years…Pawlenty posed as a “moderate” while keepin the lunatic fringe in the fold. I’m not sure that the DFL has it’s chops back yet though…Amy Klobechar is no “liberal” and Franken had to overcome not only the Independence Party but the knuckledragin’ pseudo feminists to win by a whisker. There is still lotsa work ta do in the Gopher State.