The Constitution in Exile

J.J. Jackson* | February 17, 2007

Please, don’t ever take what a politician or a bureaucrat claims to be true at face value especially when it comes to the Constitution. Actually look and see if what they are saying is true. Please! For the good of the country!

WASHINGTON — Congress could authorize the regulation of excessively violent television shows without violating the Constitution, according to a draft of a long-awaited report by the Federal Communications Commission, which also found that increased blood and mayhem on TV has at least short-term effects on children.

Violence could be treated similarly to broadcast indecency, with its airing prohibited during times when children might be watching, an FCC official said Thursday. The official, who declined to be named because the FCC hasn’t officially adopted the findings, also said Congress could order cable and satellite TV providers to allow viewers to buy channels individually or in family-friendly packages to limit how much violence children see.

I think the first Amendment is pretty clear. It says that Congress shall “make no law” abridging freedom of speech.

This “logic” by the FCC stems from their cockamamie theory that because the air waves are public that Congress has the right to regulate what is broadcast over them. Of course cable doesn’t use the “air waves” but hey, we’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it right?

But the problem is that Congress doesn’t even have that authority to begin with. Article I of the Constitution lays out specific and defined functions for what Congress can do, what it can regulate and how it can tax. No where in any part of it is there anything about regulating the air waves or television in general. When you jump into the realm of broadcast networks and the private property rights of citizens the claim that Congress has the right to regulate these sorts of things becomes even less valid.

This is the way liberals deconstruct our society. They create arguments for their governmental power grabs that focus around bits and pieces of the Constitution which they believe they can twist to fit their whims and then simply disregard anything else. They talk here about the “first amendment” but when it comes to Article I, eh, they haven’t figured out how to justify against that yet so they’ll just ignore it.

Congress “shall make no law” is pretty absolute. But when you get politicians involved any absolute becomes malleable in their hands.

We need to stop letting our masters in Washington tell us what to watch and when and take a little responsibility for our own lives and further we need to stop letting them tell us how to raise our children. It’s bad enough that they have control over our public schools.

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