Tea Party Patriots’ ‘Stop Socialism’ Rally and the Constitution

I’m very much looking forward to being with you at Tea Party Patriots’ ‘Stop Socialism - Choose Freedom’ rally on Thursday.

I went back through the Constitution Minutes to see what I had written about socialism on prior occasions.  This is what I found:

People who have considered the question have cited various provisions in arguing that socialism is incompatible with the Constitution.  For example, Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution says the United States shall guarantee to every state a republican form of government, not a dictatorship.  Article 1, Section 8 sets up limited government and says Congress only has certain enumerated powers.  Under the 5th Amendment, no one can be deprived of property without due process of law.  If the government takes property, it’s supposed to provide just compensation.  This would seem to prevent the wholesale nationalization of industries under socialism.

Moreover, early Supreme Court jurisprudence strictly enforced property and contract rights on natural law grounds. [Chemerinsky, Constitutional Law, 4th Ed., p. 622 – citing, e.g., Fletcher v. Peck from 1810]  The rationale changed to the due process clause in the Lochner era, but the Court continued to strike down state laws that regulated private business.

But Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a famous dissent in the Lochner case declaring that the “constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism … or of laissez faire.”

Then the New Deal changed everything.  The Supreme Court began upholding federal statutes regulating business.  The last time the Supreme Court struck down a regulation on constitutional due process grounds was 1937. [Chemerinsky, p. 641]

If socialism means equalizing incomes, we have a progressive income tax no one has successfully challenged on constitutional grounds.  What principle stops progressive taxation until it completely levels everyone’s income?  I can’t think of one.

If socialism means government ownership of the means of production, we’re already half way there in terms of a constitutional stamp of approval.  The Chrysler bondholders were wiped out after the financial crisis of 2008.  Thanks to Obama, their money went to UAW retirees who were unsecured creditors.  And it was all considered perfectly legal.  AIG shareholders are still in court trying to get back what they believe was wrongfully taken from them in the financial crisis.

And I haven’t even mentioned the amendment process yet.  FDR proposed a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing everyone a job, a home, and healthcare, among other things.  The Second Bill of Rights would even guarantee a right to adequate recreation.  You can’t have Utopia without adequate recreation, right?

We have a Supreme Court that turns night into day and makes up rights out of whole cloth.  Why not a right to an equal income?  If Obamacare is a tax and, at the same time, not a tax, anything is possible at the Supreme Court.

The delegates [to the 1787 Constitutional Convention] did not put any particular economic system into the Constitution, or rule any out.  If you want to preserve limited government and free markets, don’t count on the Constitution to keep socialism at bay.  Roll up your sleeves and get to work.

I wrote that in 2017.  Now, just for a little teaser about what I have coming up for you:  I’m reading the proposed constitution of the Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States.  It’s almost a hundred pages long, whereas the entire U.S. Constitution can be read in little over an hour.  These Leftists are nothing if not wordy.  But there are some real doozies in Revcom’s proposed constitution I’ll be telling you about in coming weeks, starting with one-party rule.  Yep, they wrote themselves into their own constitution all over the place as being in charge of, among other things, political nominations and the military.  No other political party - or even the possibility of another party - is mentioned. 

So, three cheers for the U.S. Constitution and its enshrinement of limited government which allows political parties of all stripes to exist - even ones like Revcom that want to destroy the country as we know and love it.

Stop Socialism - Choose Freedom!