P-I Columnist E-mails Me To Display His Ignorance

Joel Connelly in the Seattle P-I wrote about how people who don't want federal arts funding are like Nazis.

No, I am not exaggerating, read it yourself.

So I reply to him via e-mail:

You do realize, of course, that federal arts funding is a violation of our civil rights?

That would be the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. It says the federal government can only do what the Constitution says it can do. And there's nothing in Article I, Section 8 that states (or, as per the "elastic clause," implies) that the federal government has any authority to fund the arts.

You can compare people who want to get rid of all federal arts funding to the Nazis, but it seems to me that you're the one who favors taking away my civil liberties as enshrined in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.

His short reply was amazingly ignorant:

If what you said had the least bit of truth to it, the Supreme Court would have been asked log ago to rule on legality of NEA.

*headdesk*

I leave you with one of my favorite quotes on the subject, from James Madison:

If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.

Of course, many people today want an indefinitely powerful federal government, subject to particular exceptions. Their first response is often, "the Constitution doesn't specifically prohibit it, so it is allowed." They believe the Tenth Amendment does not actually mean what it says. This essentially unlimited form of government was deemed by Madison and his contemporaries -- as well as by me and most libertarians and conservatives -- as antithetical to liberty, and as blatantly unconstitutional.