> 
>  
>                    Ask them now, While it's Still Legal
>  
>                             By Doug Fiedor
>  
>  Anyone who can see or hear knows by now that this is an election year.  This
>  is the season politicians pander to the voters.  And, yup, just like a bevy
>  of New York hookers swarming a young sailor, here they come, telling us what
>  they are going to do to make us feel good.
>  
>  The problem is that with these political prostitutes comes the infliction of
>  the AIDS of high taxes, the herpes of oppressing our rights and the
>  enforcement pimp bureaucrats.  Not a pretty picture.
>  
>  At least with prostitutes you have to touch them to catch something.  With
>  politicians, we are sometimes affected only because we exist.
>  
>  So let's be careful.  We'll treat them like strippers, rather than hookers.
>  You know -- stand back and look, but don't touch.  And, as with strippers,
>  let's encourage them to put on a public show for us.
>  
>  In politics, this is called the "silly season."  So why not get a little
>  silly and study your Constitutions for a day or two?  Review the document
>  that once was a parchment limitation on government.  Then, compare it with
>  the government we have today.
>  
>  Oh, and don't get confused about all that "shall not" stuff in there.  The
>  federal government overruled all that years ago.  In Constitutional law,
>  those words no longer mean what the dictionary says they mean.  Government
>  officials conveniently "interpret" the Constitution to fit whatever it is
>  they wish to do.
>  
>  Still, we can have a little fun, cause during the campaign season, all
>  politicians make mouth noises indicating that they'll follow those
>  Constitutional rules.  The fact that they never do, is another story.  We
>  can worry about all that later.  Right now, let's just have some fun.
>  
>  To initiate some profound political pandering -- and hence, to produce a
>  very interesting intellectual strip show -- let's ask questions of our
>  Members of Congress.
>  
>  Actually, only one pointed question is necessary to start the fancy fan
>  dance.  It's a question we have all wondered about in one form or another
>  for years.  So, while we still have the remnants of freedom of speech, let's
>  try to get it answered.
>  
>  The pandering politicians are all out there telling us what they will do for
>  us.  How about we ask what, if anything, they will _not_ do to us?  Sure,
>  that is a perverted question.  But, this is a perverted subject.
>  
>  First, let's clean up our question a bit so it can be used by all.  Make it
>  something like, "May we please have a list of those rights, liberties and
>  actions which the federal government will not regulate."
>  
>  Quick!  Name three. . . .  Yeah, right!
>  
>  Our Constitution gives the federal government authority to legislate on only
>  eighteen functions.  That was intentional, by the way!  The Founding Fathers
>  did not want the federal government running every little thing in the
>  country.  They gave them those eighteen things to do, and that was all.
>  
>  Congress themselves added a few thousand more subjects on which to
>  legislate.  That they have zero authority to do that is, well . . .
>  incidental.  You (the American citizen) let them.  They did it.  And now it
>  is probably too late to stop them.
>  
>  But that doesn't mean that we can't yank their collective chains on the
>  subject from time to time.  You know, encourage them to go back to being
>  simple prostitutes, rather than acting like an over-bearing dominatrix. . . .
>  
>  Another question for the pandering politicians then -- should you still have
>  the courage to ask it -- is quite easy:   "Are there _any_ areas affecting
>  human existence in which Congress may not legislate?"  And, if so, "may we
>  please have a list."
>  
>  These are fair questions for an election year.  Eighty percent of what the
>  federal government does, it does with absolutely zero Constitutional
>  authority.  And, when you add the foolishness perpetrated by the regulatory
>  agencies, a whopping ninety percent of what the federal government does is
>  without any Constitutional authority.
>  
>  You think not?  Pick a subject.  Then find it in the Constitution.  You'll
>  need a real good imagination to find authorization for any federal law that
>  affects your personal life.  That's because the federal government is not
>  supposed to be able to pass any laws that affect the personal lives of
>  citizens.
>  
>  Today's Congress legislates like a Parliament.  That is, they do pretty much
>  as they please.  So, to ask for a list of subjects on which they will not
>  allow government regulation is an honest request.
>  
>  Probably there are no subjects affecting our lives the federal government
>  will stay out of.  Yet, we'll never know if we do not ask.  So, let's all
>  have at them this year.
>  
>  Expect the reply to be a lot shorter than this editorial.
>  
>  ===============================================
>              This is one of a periodic series collectively titled:
>              "A View from the Foothills of Appalachia"
>              by Doug Fiedor     e-mail to:  fiedor19@eos.net
>              8-9-96
> 
> 
>