One of my pet peeves is the degree to which the federal government has stuck its sizable nose into the day-to-day business of the American people, and the indispensable assistance in this Constitution-dismantling exercise from the U.S. Supreme Court.
I have begun reading the excellent book by Andrew Napolitano entitled The Constitution in Exile which, along with other books addressing the shenanigans of the courts, has enhanced my perspective on the extremes our government has gone to in making us subservient. I believe that the Founders were plainspoken people who said what they meant and meant what they said, and that the Constitution was intended as a template for a government subservient to the people, not the other way around. They did not intend for it to be changed every time some whim or another arose in the land. Such a “living Constitution” is no constitution at all; a document that changes every few years to accommodate the fancy of the moment is useless, whether those changes occur through amendment, through the passage of unconstitutional laws that the Supreme Court refuses to recognize as unconstitutional, or through measures that the Court itself imposes on the people through judicial fiat, which is a circumvention of the democratic process.
As a former employer whose business was heavily regulated by the federal government—and what business isn’t—I am particularly disgusted with such unconstitutional measures as a federal minimum wage law and restrictions on the details of employment that an employer and employee may mutually agree to for their own mutual benefit. This government power grab was enabled by a badly mangled interpretation of the Commerce Clause that is so broad as to include literally anything you can think of in the realm of business activity. How many of us really believe that the Founders ever intended for the federal government to tell business owners the least they could pay for labor or how many hours a week workers could work before their wage had to be increased?
If I as an employer have a job that a potential worker looking for a job is interested in, why should the federal government have anything to say about that? Is there anything in the Constitution that allows the federal government to participate in the negotiation between employer and employee? No. The Constitution does not allow the federal government to participate. If you disagree, quote that part of the Constitution where employment is addressed. Hint: You won’t find it there.
Why should I not be able to offer employment on the basis of any set of criteria that I choose? If those criteria appeal to someone looking for a job, they can apply for the job; if they don’t appeal to them, they don’t have to apply. Or, someone could come in and talk about the criteria. Perhaps he or she doesn’t have the necessary experience for the job, but believe they can adequately perform the duties anyway. Perhaps they can convince me to give them the job, anyway. Or perhaps I might lower the wage offered based upon the fact that the applicant does not meet the minimum requirement for experience. If the applicant agrees to the modifications, and I agree on the modifications, why should any government, even a state government, have anything to say about it?
In the future, the worker may decide that he or she doesn’t like the way I run my business; perhaps I demand more hours from than we originally discussed. Or I may not like the way the worker performs the duties of the job; perhaps he or she didn’t live up to their assurances. Either of us has the right to end the relationship. Simple. And right. And Constitutional.
The government was never intended to be able to insert itself in such mundane aspects of the lives of Americans, and we need to start restoring freedom, as it was originally intended as quickly as possible.
Technorati Tags: Supreme Court, Constitutional Government, Regulation, Big Government, Congress
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