I've been listening to all the twaddle about an amendment to the U.S. Constitution ensuring 'victims' rights.'

I think it's a bad idea.

I generally think it's a bad idea to fool around with the U.S. Constitution unless there is some dire or urgent need.

Victims' rights doesn't seem to throw up any dire or urgent red flags.

And if you remember, the last time it came up was in 1996. Isn't it ironic that these feel-good, "Ah feel yer poin" issues come up in direct correlation to the general election cycle?

In 1996, both Bill Clinton and Bob Dole thought it was a good idea. It wasn't then and it isn't now.

Advocates - including W - always seem to say something like, "Well, the Constitution protects the rights of criminals, so we should protect the rights of victims, too."

That sounds great, but it's really not accurate.

Constitutional scholars are quick to point out that the Constitution protects the rights of the accused. The only right afforded to criminals in the Constitution is the right to not be cruelly or unusually punished.

Actually, once you are a criminal - someone convicted of a crime, that is - you forfeit a bunch of rights afforded to law-abiding citizens.

The rest of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, for that matter, spends time providing for the protection of citizens from an overzealous and unwieldy government, not from other citizens.

A Scripps Howard report notes that any amendment Congress would approve could contain nothing that state legislatures couldn't enact. And that many states - which is where the issue of victims' rights belongs - already have enacted those types of measures. Measures like giving crime victims the right to restitution, protection against intimidation and the right to speak out at specified stages of the criminal justice process - sentencing, pleas, pardons, release.

Another problem with an amendment is that some of its provisions like speedy trials and advance notification of court proceedings require funds and personnel.

Of course the amendment wouldn't provide either.

And the amendment by necessity has to be vague to achieve the "one-size-fits-all" status necessary to function in every jurisdiction in America.

Federal courts would undoubtedly be called upon to sort out the details and define a new class of rights for a new class of individuals.

All of the above are good reasons to leave the issue of victims' right up to state and local governments.

Those governments, as well as the federal government, should support and encourage the work of public and private victims' advocate groups like the one right here in Kosciusko County.

Proponents of a victims' rights amendment would do well to pick up a copy of the Constitution and read an amendment that's already in there - the 10th Amendment.

I think it is one of the most important. Unfortunately, I think it also is one our government most likes to abuse.

People are always expressing concern about losing their First Amendment rights (freedom of religion, speech, assembly) while their 10th Amendment protections are being trampled.

The 10th Amendment (The last amendment in the Bill of Rights) says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Our founders envisioned a limited federal government. Problem is, "limited federal government" has become an oxymoron.

James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay wrote a group of essays called the Federalist Papers. The Federalist Papers explained and supported ratification of the Constitution by the states.

The Constitution established a limited federal government that possessed only the powers specifically listed in the Constitution itself. And those powers were delegated to the federal government by the individual states.

Here's a portion of Madison's Federalist Paper No. 45:

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be principally 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 states will extend to all 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."

States and individuals were considered by the framers to be the most important elements in the operation of the new government.

They never envisioned the federal courts or any federal bureaucracy deciding issues of life and liberty. That was a state province.

The framers knew that if the federal government could decide those issues, its power would be unlimited.

So what did they do? They made it overt and obvious that the powers of the federal government would be severely limited. The federal government would have authority only in matters specifically spelled out in the Constitution. And they even went a step further, barring the federal government from involvement in matters not specifically designated.

So whatever happened to that concept? Anybody consider today's federal government limited?

Hardly. The "numerous and indefinite" powers Madison talked about have been assumed by the federal government.

We have a federal government that regulates everything from clothes dryers to lawnmowers. We have a federal government that consumes more than 35 percent of this country's Gross Domestic Product.

We are so far flung from the founders' intent, it's as if the 10th Amendment never existed.

People would freak out if the government tried to limit their right to look at dirty pictures.

Put a nativity scene on the courthouse lawn and watch the litigation fly.

Meanwhile, the federal government continues to grow, gain power and whittle away at our independence in direct opposition to the founders' intent, and nobody seems to care.

Or maybe they just don't understand.

You hear about the First Amendment all the time. Maybe we should start paying more attention to the 10th Amendment. [[In-content Ad]]