President Obama and the Hip-pocket Congress are taking unprecedented steps to seize control of private sector firms, placing their assets under direct federal control. With plans to implement measures to permit government agencies to intercede in large publicly traded companies the push to state control of industry is at a fever pitch. Today’s news includes one such affront to a free market. At the request of the Obama administration, GM CEO Rick Wagoner resigned. This is just one example of the future we face with President Obama. Such is to be expected from Mr. Obama, since he has never worked in private industry, having made his living seeking political solutions to every problem. He can be excused for concluding government activism can make everyone as wealthy as it made him.

The issue at hand is constitutional. The Constitution is the document that defines, empowers and restricts the federal government, establishing its relationship with the people and the states. When looking through the document, you will find several powers expressly permitted to the federal government or forbidden to the states. The founders wisely knew that without some definitions to help with interpretation, and to set limits, the purpose of the document would be lost as the agencies it meant to limit extended their power incrementally. To do this they ratified ten amendments to the document that were meant to define the relationship between the people and the new government. This Bill of Rights defines and sets definite limits to federal power. For example it defines the relationship of the people to the central government, by forbidding laws about religion or meddling in the press while empowering the people to bear arms for their own defense even if it is the government that is to be defended against. This set of amendments also defined the relationship of government to the market by limiting the governments interaction with her citizen’s property, whether it be for defense (3rd Amendment), law enforcement (4th and 5th Amendments) or for the public good (6th Amendment).

This document ends with a sort of ‘Catch-22.’ the last two amendments greatly limit the meddling of the central government in the affairs of the people or the state. The 9th Amendment assures that the rights of the people, inviolate and off limits to the federal government, are not limited to those laid out in the document. This means we have other rights that the founders chose not to enumerate and that these rights are to be protected as well. This gives the people a huge advantage over the government. The central government is to accomplish the purpose for which the people established it and no other—any straying from that purpose will infringe on these unspecified rights. The next amendment (10 if your counting) says that any power not given to the federal government or expressly forbidden by it to the states remains in the hands of the states or the people. This sets the federal government is the serf not the master of the state governments. The people in this land are sovereign and the states being the closest to the people are superior to the federal government. Though many of the original framers of the Constitution had plans that would place the states under the supervision of the federal government—Madison once supported federal veto of state laws, for example—these were all dropped in the document and it was designed to produce a strong but managed central government—managed by the states and the people.

Now we have leaders who believe they are permitted to overpower and seize the assets of citizens so long as it is done with a utilitarian concept of the greater happiness or public good. Those who believe that some companies are too big to fail or that some industries are so essential that they must be protected should read a bit of history and imagine what it was like for those who made wagon wheels. Where are they now? Where is their industry now? If a company is unable to be profitable then they should be allowed to follow their actions and close their doors. If companies move off shore, don’t those who own the factory have the right to place them where they choose, where they can be the most profitable. If government is meddle is such things then we all lose certain freedoms.

In order to bail out these companies it is necessary to confiscate the funds from those who produce to underwrite those who are being unproductive or at least unprofitable. This is a text-book definition of an abuse of federal power. It is better to live in a land where the maximum of freedom is available; where you are free to succeed or fail. You can buy your products from the country that makes them cheapest, or best depending on your own criteria and if domestic companies are unable to compete you are not forced to subsidize their inefficient practices or their unrealistic union contracts.

Bailouts just shift the costs of inefficient unprofitable practices and strangling union contracts to the American taxpayers. This subsidizes bad decisions and rewards mismanagement. If you want to see the American car industry saved then let ‘em fai