Yup.

That's why I have finished several posts in this thread -

"The tree of Liberty MUST be refreshed from time to time with the blood of Patriots, and tyrants."

- T. Jefferson

I see no other remedy. When a tick gets buried deep enuf, you gotta cut away some flesh from the host in order to kill it.

"Bread and circuses." Well said. The belly fat, the mind busied with trivialities. The Republic is lost.

And who is going to do the interpreting?  David Souter and Stephen Bryer?  As you know, the Justices parrot that every power exercised by Congress must be specifically enumerated, they just interpret the constitution a wee bit more loosely than would you or I.  If not the Supreme court, then who makes this decision?  A right-thinking dictator?  You know your interpretation would be different than his (or hers) also.  You can not take the representative nature out of the regime without also wrecking the constitution.

We are getting exactly the government we deserve.

Or, I guess the more disturbingly, the Southern and Rocky Mountain states are getting stuck with the government that the Northeast and California deserve.  That is the root of the problem.

[Edited for spelling.]

Another Heinlein quotation:

"The worst thing about living in the declining era of a great civilization, is realizing that you are."

Its NOT a matter of interpreting.

Your point about the South and Midwest getting burdened with Northeat liberalism is exactly right.

It it isn't "DIRECT(ly), specifically enumerated" in the Constitution (like roads, national defense, power to levy taxes, etc) its immediately repealed. No interpretation - either the words are there in teh Document, or they aren't.

The Constitution then says if the words aren't in the document, then its up to teh people or the several states to make their own mind up. (Ninth and Tenth Amendments) The PROBLEM today is we do too much interpreting of the Constitution. We need to simply go by teh words.

Any questionable laws (do the words actually say that? are voided. Either its unmistakeably clear from the words, or its nullified.

Actually, Congress has no general power to build roads - only "post Roads."  Are you sure you are for strict construction?  [;)]

It may seem perfectly clear, but other people see it perfectly clearly another way.  The "necessary and proper" clause basically makes limiting Congress' power an act of pure discretion.  Who exactly is going to determine what is "necessary and proper."  The Supreme Court gave up years ago, and basically left it to Congress.  There is no objective limitation there.

Look at any Supreme Court opinion justifying some ridiculous extension of Congressional power; they are always very careful to root it "limited" powers given to the Congress by the Constitution, usually in the commerce clause.

I'm pretty sure you abhor judicial activism as much as me.  I myself do not like the courts striking down statutes, because the next thing they do is create some new right (like retards being given immunity from the death sentence).  They are flip-sides of the same coin.  I do not think that our country can be saved by the court or a dictator tossing the US Code.  Giving someone that power does not make them wise.  The only thing that will save us is the virtue of the People.

Or maybe a divorce.

"Our Constitution was

made only for a moral

and religious people. It is

wholly inadequate to the

government of any other."

--- John Adams

Men will either govern themselves,

or they will be ruled by tyrants."

--- William Penn

Its like de Tocqueville wrote many years ago.

Democracy is doomed once people figure out they can vote themselves a paycheck.  

When did that happen?  The income tax started it, then you get the Federal Reserve.  It was accelerated by Social Security and the AAAs of FDR.  We've been sliding down for quite a while.

As for SCOTUS, it'll be hard to get justices in that have spines.  And if you do get "spined" justices in, they can be persuaded to rubber stamp unconstitutional tripe anyway.  FDR's socialism was greatly hampered early on in his term by SCOTUS.  When he threatened to expand the court, SCOTUS started to find his bills constitutional (what a coincidence).

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse* from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilization has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependence back again into bondage."

-- Penned by Professor Alexander Tyler, a Scottish historian, who in 1787 wrote about the fall of the Athenian republic over 2000 years earlier.