Conservatives hold sacred the Constitution, or at least they maintain they do. Republicans profess to be the "party of the Constitution." They claim to revere the Constitution, to love the Constitution, to honor the Constitution. They castigate "activist" judges for broadly reading the Constitution. They criticize those who advocate a "living Constitution." They talk about the necessity of discovering the "original intent" or "original meaning" of the Constitution. Conservatives and Republicans even insist, with a straight face, that they believe in following the Constitution, when, of course, they do nothing of the kind.

Libertarians know that the Constitution is not a libertarian document. The taxing and taking power the Constitution gives to the federal government is troubling. Libertarians recognize that the Constitution is a flawed document. The ambiguous clauses in the Constitution—the "general welfare" clause, the "commerce" clause, and the "necessary and proper" clause—have been abused almost from the very beginning. Libertarians believe history makes abundantly clear that the fears the Anti-federalists had about the Constitution allowing the national government to become too centralized and too powerful were tremendous understatements. The Constitution has utterly failed to limit the size and scope of the federal government. Libertarians argue that the Constitution was designed to expand government power, not to limit it. The Constitution means only what the Supreme Court interprets it to mean. As Lew Rockwell reminds us in Against the State: "The Constitution creates a government that is the judge of its own powers."

Nevertheless, even though the Constitution is not without its problems, it would be better for the cause of liberty and property if the government at least followed it in those areas where it currently doesn't. This is because most everything the government does is unconstitutional. Now, although it would be better still if the government also didn't follow the Constitution in those areas in which the document is problematic, first things first.

The United States was set up as a federal system of government where the states, through the Constitution, granted a limited number of powers to a central government—not the other way around. As James Madison succinctly explained in Federalist No. 45:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

There are about thirty enumerated powers congressional powers listed throughout the Constitution. Everything else is reserved to the states—even without the addition of the Tenth Amendment.

Most of these powers are listed in the eighteen paragraphs found in article I, section 8. Four of them concern taxes and money. One concerns commerce. One concerns naturalization and bankruptcies. One concerns post offices and post roads. One concerns copyrights and patents. One concerns federal courts. One concerns maritime crimes. Six concern the military and the militia. Once concerns the governance of the District of Columbia. The last one gives Congress the power "to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers."

Congress may also propose amendments to the Constitution or call a convention for proposing amendments, admit new states into the Union, make or alter state regulations concerning national elections, establish courts inferior to the Supreme Court, direct the location of the place for the trial of a crime not committed within any state, declare the punishment for treason, provide the manner in which the public acts and records in each state are accepted by the other states, dispose of and regulate the territory or other property belonging to the United States, give the states consent to lay imposts or duties on imports or exports, and provide by law for the case of the removal, death, resignation, or inability of the president of vice president.

If one simply compares what the Constitution authorizes the government to do with what it currently does, it is obvious that the government hardly follows its own Constitution at all. For if the government did follow its own Constitution—

There would be no Social Security.

There would be no food stamps.

There would be no Medicare.

There would be no Medicaid.

There would be no Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

There would be no student loans.

There would be no Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

There would be no Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

There would be no AMTRAK.

There would be no Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).