<< Oh good gawd. Please produce one quote from a founding father that describes the Constitution as anything but a listing of specific powers given to the government. Moreover, please provide one quote that says the government has powers not listed in the Constitution. Just one.
why don't you provide a quote from the constitution, saying that the government's powers are limited to the powers specified in the constitution? this is why there are two readings, because there is ambiguity. please do not try to pass off your own opinion as fact.
It's not a "conservative" view. It's a literal view and was the original intent. If you want to change that, amend it. But do NOT make plain english mean something it does not.
original intent is subjective to interpretation. and your interpretation is a textbook conservative reading (note: reading, not view). conservative reading means that you interpret the constitution as granting rights, and anything not in the constitution is not meant to be. liberal reading means that you can add laws as long as they don't conflict with the constitution.
you show me where in the constitution it says that laws are limited to what is in the constitution, and then i'll believe you. >>
You could not be more wrong. The Constitution grants NO individual rights. It limits the government from restricting them. The Constitution starts from the premise that rights are inherent, and cannot be "granted."
The framers originally did not want a Bill of Rights, because they could not fathom people like you who would want to limit rights not listed in a document and give the government powers to do so, even though those powers are not listed in the Constitution. Luckily, Jefferson and Henry won that debate, and passed the Bill of Rights to protect us from folks like you. Sadly, though, it's become a wrong --but common-- misconception that the only rights we have are those listed in the first eight amendments. Of course, this completely ignores the 9th Amendment.
If you want original intent, read the Federalist Papers. They are, and have always been legally considered the guidebooks of the founders original intent.
Hamilton sums it up nicely, and shows EXACTLY what the original intent was in Federalist #84:
"I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights."
In other words, the government can have no powers not granted to it in the Constitution.
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