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Our Views: U.S.
history’s new
dates
- Advocate Opinion page staff
- Published: Oct 9, 2010 - Page: 8B
For most
Americans, the
important dates
in U.S. history are those that mark
important
events.
In 1776, the
colonists
declared our
independence. In
1941, the
Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. In 1933, President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt passed
the New Deal.
Screech! Hit the
brakes right
there.
Go to any number
of tea party
rallies during
the past year or
more, and one
will find many
references to
what some
activists
believe to be
much more
significant
dates in
American
history.
Most of us
aren’t very
focused on 1913.
But some of the
kookier fringe
consider that a
critical year,
when the Federal
Reserve System
was established
in banking —
and, in the view
of the fringe,
enslaved the
American economy
to the bankers.
Most of us
aren’t as
focused on 1936.
But we’ve seen
many signs about
the
establishment of
Social Security
— which in the
view of the
fringe enslaved
Americans to
taxes and
incentive-destroying
handouts.
The fringe
should not
define politics,
but it has a way
of tugging
political life
in one direction
or another.
American
socialism, for
example, in
American
politics a
century ago,
certainly never
came close to a
majority.
However, it
influenced the
political
climate and
ideas of the
Progressive
movement then —
and, to some
extent, the New
Deal.
So is the fringe
this year
tugging
respectable
politics? There
is evidence that
it is, in the
“Pledge to
America”
from the GOP
leadership in
the U.S. House.
The GOP platform
promises to
include in every
law a reference
to the
constitutional
authority for
the statute.
The political
rationale for
this rather
vague pledge
seems obvious
enough. Many of
the tea party
rallies of the
past year have
been festooned
with placards
and speechmaking
about the
Constitution,
and not in a
patriotic or
general sense.
Rather, there is
the implication
that many
actions of the
government of
the
United States
are
unconstitutional.
The Pledge to America is intended to appeal to
them, without
actually
promising
anything.
But it’s
interesting that
the GOP
leadership
should
implicitly
embrace this
really radical
view that every
law passed by
Congress has to
have some
explicit
blessing in the
document that
the great men of
1787 wrote.
Perhaps the
Founders meant
that there
shouldn’t be an
Interstate
highway system,
because they
certainly didn’t
authorize it.
Benjamin
Franklin, one of
the scientific
minds of his
day, dreamed of
going to the
moon — but if he
specifically
didn’t write
NASA into the
Constitution,
then maybe the
GOP should zero
out its
appropriation?
The Founders,
were they alive
today, probably
would find much
about American
life they don’t
like, and much
about American
government that
seems expansive
by the standards
of the 18th
century. But
were the
Founders alive
today, they’d
probably not
have much
sympathy at all
for the idea
that their
historic
document was
intended to
limit the
application of
law and reason
to the nation’s
problems,
however similar
to or different
from conditions
in 1787.
Should
Republicans win
control of
Congress, we
predict they
will find
constitutional
authority for
anything they
want to do.
Every bill will
begin with a
reference to
Article 1,
Section 8: “The
Congress shall
have Power To
lay and collect
Taxes, Duties,
Imposts and
Excises, to pay
the Debts and
provide for the
common Defence
and general
Welfare of the
United States
...” It then
goes on to
delineate
specific tasks,
such as
preventing
counterfeiting
and, yes, “post
Roads” for the
mail.
As so often in
politics, those
seeking a
radical
restriction of
government
action will be
disappointed, as
the “general
welfare” will be
invoked again
and again and
again.
The I-10 post
road is
protected, never
fear.
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