So, President-elect Obama’s vetting questionaire includes this tidbit.
“Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage.”
The last time I looked, there is a Second Amendment to the Consitution. Yes, firearms ownership and possession has been restricted in various ways, but the Supreme Court has decided that it IS a personal right, not a group right, and that greater scrutiny must be applied in the future regarding limitations on it.
Of course, the First Amendment protects various other rights:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
To be consistent, the Obama transition team should be asking questions like these:
1) Have you or any member of your immediate family ever misused your right to free speech by standing up in a crowded theater and shouting, “FIRE!”, or talking back to a judge in court, etc.?
2) Have you or any member of your immediate family ever illegally prayed out loud at school?
3) Have you or any member of your family ever protested at an abortion clinic? If so, were all laws followed regarding minimum distance from the clinic? Have your or any member of your family ever been arrested during an abortion protest? If so, give full details.
4) Have you or any member of your family ever placed Christmas decorations in a public place?
And this is just the beginning. What if we consider all the ways people may have abused their privileges under other Amendments in the Bill of Rights? There are a LOT of possible questions that really must be asked. Right now, I’m thinking of the Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the
States respectively, or to the people.
Congress, made up mostly of lawyers, has interpreted this to mean that it can pass a law about anything it pleases (because the Constitution gives it the power to regulate interstate commerce), without regard to ANY limitations contemplated by the Tenth Amendment. The courts, made up exclusively of lawyers, have denied any feeble objections to this practice. That’s why Congress can make rules about the shape of the headlights in a car, if it pleases, or the amount of fat in mayonnaise.
It takes lawyers to decide that words don’t mean what they mean, of course.
So, the final question, to be asked of any former member of Congress:
5) Have you ever passed a law affecting people’s lives that had nothing whatsoever to do with the Interstate Commerce Clause? If so, give full details, including Constitutional references authorizing the type of law you passed.
Of course, since lawyers specialize in making words mean something other than what they mean, the answers to these questions need to be evaluated by average high school graduates with a copy of the Constitution and Amendments in front of them, and no other advice or pressure from outside.
Since about half of what comes out of Congress was never supposed to be ANY part of its sphere of action in the Founder’s plan, every member of Congress will be instantly disqualified from working in the Obama administration.
Maybe not a bad idea.
