Not The Constitution Guy

Michael Bastasch wrote about Bill Nye the Science Guy and how he misquoted the Constitution this past Saturday (and has evidently done that before) with regard to science. Bastasch says this is why they do not call Nye the Constitution Guy.

What did Nye say? At a rally for science on Saturday (a rally where people showed up to protest cuts to the federal budget in some of the science areas like the bogus man made global warming) Nye quoted only part of the Constitution to give the impression that the federal government had some Constitutional duty to provide funds for science. Nye made this claim:

“And it is interesting to note, I think, that Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution refers to the progress of science and the useful arts”.

Which mirrored what he said in a 2015 Vox interview:

“Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution says the government shall ‘promote the progress of science and useful arts’”.

There is one small problem here and that is Nye is not giving the entire phrase from the Constitution. Article 1 Section 8 lists eighteen things Congress is authorized to do and among those is:

“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

This power deals with copyrights and patents. It allows for the granting of these things for limited duration (though successive limited grants were not deemed unconstitutional) in order to promote the sciences and the arts. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say the taxpayer (which is where federal money comes from) is supposed to PAY for the sciences or the arts.

Our nation spends a boatload of money on many things not authorized by the Constitution. If we do not get a handle on this then the people marching in the rain in DC for the government not to cut taxpayer funding of the sciences will not have to worry. There won’t be money for anything at all.

[note]Liberals are good at leaving out parts of the Constitution. Like Nye did with the sciences and the arts, liberals always leave out the second part of the Establishment Clause. The part of the First Amendment that states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, is often used by liberals to claim that nowhere in government (or in most of society it seems) is religion allowed and they do this while conveniently leaving out the second part of the clause that reads, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. They do this because they are infringing on your right to freely exercise YOUR religion. Liberals are good at ignoring the things that do not fit their point of view.[/note]

I know that people who live off government or are not responsible have no concept of how things are supposed to work. The reality is these folks want others to pay for things through the forced taking of their money.

It is a crying shame that people are not bright enough to see what is happening. I know there will be screams to tax the rich but the rich pay most of the taxes now. If you took all the money that all the rich people had you could run our government for three months but then you would not get any more money because you took it all. Government (and by that I mean the politicians and the people who suckle at the teat of government) has an insatiable appetite for the money of others. Record amounts of money come in and government spends even more.

Bill Nye is a big government person and by misquoting the Constitution a guy who alleges to teach people in fact misleads them and causes them to be ignorant.

Bastasch is right. There is a reason they do not call Bill Nye the Constitution Guy.

The shame is there are countless politicians and citizens who fit that bill as well.

Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Big Dog

Gunline

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