fewer rules bring better lives and make almost everyone richer. that's our show. we'll be back this time in the week.ing in. thanks everybody for watching. >> what happened to the constitution? nothing. it's still here. we wrote rules that helped create the most successful country in the history of the world. this allows for experiment. lab to hers of democracy, the lab are a to hers of democracy. that gives some people like gay marriage and legal marijuana. we founders are horrified by the way the dpg violates the principles we wrote in here. rick perry gets his right. >> get out of the health care business. >> but some people want the constitution weakened even more. why doesn't your party come out against the second amendment?

225 years ago still mean that these are the rules? this is what assured that the people remained free, and this is also the topic of stossel's show tonight. stossel: when this constitution was created, it was mostly a new idea. no one knew whether a nation founded on those principles would survive. after the founders signed this, ben franklin said the u.s. would be a republic if youucan keep it. well, we've kept it for 225 years. maybe franklin wouldn't have predicted that. but some aaericans suggest we ggve up on the constitution. many libertarians argue it's already been watered down so much so it doesn't preserve the liberties. wouldn't even say, of course, that violates the constitution.

when senator coburn asked her this. >> if i wanted to sponsor a bill, and it said, americans you have to eat three vegetables and three fruits every day, does that violate the commerce clause? >> sounds like a dumb law. stossel: yeah, but that wasn't the question. kagan simply refused to say that the constitution prevents government from telling us exactly what we should eat. >> i think courts would be wrong to strike down laws that they think is senseless just because they're senseless. stossel: senseless does not mean unconstitutional. how about striked it down just because dictating that every americans must eat three vegetables and three fruits a day. it's a horrible intrusion in our lives. i would hope the constitution would ban laws like that. many conservatives would also assume this would for bid congress from

buying things like health insurance. tim of the legal foundation thinks that, but two years ago the strowrt said no there's nothing in the constitution that makes most of obamacare unconstitutional. and the guy from the center of progress says the court was correct. don't we have a right to not buy something? >> i don't know how to tell you this, but the government already makes you buy things like broccoli. what do you think food stamps are? the government has the power to tax you and to buy things with it. the affordable care act basically cut out the middleman. >> obamacare said every person is required to purchase health insurance and if they don't they're pen liesed that succeeded congress' power under the commerce power of the constitution opinion then it said you have to pay a tax if you don't buy health insurance, which, by the way, was also wrong. stossel: and president obama has flipped on this. in 2009 he said, nobody

considers that a tax increase. but a year later, the administration changing stance now defends insurance mandate as a tax. couple years later the white house chief of staff jacob lou, no, it's not a tax. you pay a penalty so you just pay your fair share. the obama administration will say whateeer is necessary in order to -- stossel: isn't this twisting this beyond -- >> for whatever you guys wanted to do. >> if a law became unconstitutional that a politician said something about it that later said it was untrue. every law would be unconstitutional. noneconomic regulation is something that congress can't do. >> they couldn't pass a murder law. they couldn't pass a rape law. they couldn't pass a treuns law. they couldn't pass laws governing sexual morality. >> they can tell us what to eat? >> they can tax you whether through a food

stamp program -- >> can they force me to eat three vegetables a day? >> probably not. >> the federal government has limited powers. >> that's what i thought it said. the constitutional only refers to certain specific kinds of taxes. stossel: let's limit it to two issues, the commerce clause, which says you could regulate either state commerce, and the general welfare, to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and the general welfare. liberals tell me, well, that means that anything is in the general welfare. >> that's just what's wrong with that interpretation..3 if that's what the constitution meant, it would only be one sentence long. congress has power to do whatever is in everyone's general welfare. it says congress said regulate in the state commerce. it can collect taxes they affect interstate commerce. why did they bother

righting that stuff in the constitution if congress can regulate -- what the founding fathers were concerned with was making sure the government had federal enumeratorred powers that's why they listed them in the constitution. unfortunately it's true. courts have wrongly -- >> you say wrongly and you lawyers can argue about anything endlessly. it's like the battle is over. they say the federal government can do whatever they want. >> that's not correct. the federal government can only regulate commerce among the several states. it's true that courts have unfortunately allowed them to extend power beyond what the constitution has authorized. that's their fault. it doesn't mean that the constitution is somehow meaningless. it means people have ignored the constitutional promise. >> fdr said we should -@amend the constitution. the bill of rights should include the right to a useful job, the right to provide

adequate food, clothing, and recreation, the right to a decent home. >> congress should make that a decision. take money from everybody else and give everybody adequate recreation? >> congress has the power to raise taxes, and they have the power to spend that money. and so the question is: who do we want to make the decision of how that money is spend? when we're talking about constitutional law we're talking about who should have the power. the elected representatives that we have the power to throw out or the supreme court. stossel: the problem is not everything is up to the majority vote. the point of the constitution was not to say, we're going to allow congress to control all these things. the point was to say we will not allow the government to control various things. stossel: i understand why people say it's not in here. it's a musty old document. it's out of date. look at how the founders dressed in these crazy

wigs. some owned slaves and slavery was implicitly sangd by the constitution. it says for the purposes of elections. free persons count as one. all other persons count as three fifths. the founders themselves ignored the constitution. president john adams signed the alien and sedition acts which forbade any false and malicious writings against the government. and who decided that? the government. that's clearly a violation -- congressman was jailed because he said john adams practiced ridiculous pomp, foolish adoration. he spent four months in jail and trowrnd congress. at least one case the supreme court stepped in that it was unconstitutional. government ignored the court. they wanted to cleert country to make more

room for white people. the chair can i they found out the law in court demanding that their land not be stolen. chair cacherokee said they had a treaty. president andrew jackson ignored the law. the army forced the cherokee and other indians to leave their home and settle in oklahoma. thousands died trying to get there. congressman davey crockett condemned it saying our happy days of republican principles are near an end. he was so upset he left the united states and amused to texas which was then independent, not yet a state, but many americans supported the evil policy. the government didn't formerly apologize for it until five years ago and that's all awful. so, tim, if presidents have ignored the constitution and when lincoln suspended habeas

corpus during the civil war, why do you libertarians say we ought to be held to this. >> the constitution is a promise about how government power is going to be used. it was a promise by people who had experienced tyranny. the lesson they learned from that was that the most important issue is to wall off government power from our private lives and to make sure that nobody, not elected officials, not a king, not a dictator, no one gets to dictate how we live our lives on a daily basis. the cherokee is a great example. in that case, georgia said it should be left up to officials how property is used in this state. therefore we will pass this law -- >> tyranny of the majority. >> what the founding fathers were doing was trying to make sure that no government of any sort told us how to live our lives. >> there are limits in the document. they're not the ones you

say they are. stossel: we're out of time. to join this argument follow me on twitter at my facebook page and post on my wall. we want to know what you think. coming up: a fox anchorman who amazed me by getting big ratings talking about the constitution. glenn beck is back for a visit. and later, we fight about what this means when it comes to nasty weed.

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stossel: we thought what we wrote was pretty good, but two years later some of us said maybe we weren't clear enough about the limits on government power, so we passed ten amendments. first, congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech or of the press. i'm glad we have a first amendment. it made my career possible. it allowed me to expose bad guys who cheat people. once the days before home pregnancy test kits i had a female producer take my ear on two abortion clinics. two of the clinics said

i was pregnant.3 they would have given my producer a fake abortion had she had not first said no. i changed my mind. i confronted those doctors. played them the audiotape. two closed their practices and disappeared. had i not recorded them they would have lied and said that would have never happened. i needed that recording to approve that fraud. a cosmetic who made stuff said the cheap and expensive stuff come out of the same vat. the company admitted it. >> in the country -- that is. [no audio] >> we can buy any of the colors nor only 18 cents and put our own label on the package. would we then have the same stuff as calvin klein and the like. >> oh, yeah. stossel: in other words, if you

paid more for calvin klein, estee laura you were tricked. >> it would have you paid higher prices for imagery. >> you got them from us only because we went undercover and because one retired chemist would talk. without the hidden recording we couldn't get you that information. i won an emmy for that report, but these days i rarely do hidden camera investigations. my employers discouraged it. they feared being sued. i went along because i hated the secrecy behind it. i was afraid they would catch me and break my legs, but james o'keefe isn't scared. you probably know him from his most famous undercover sting. they pretended this were prostitute and pimp talking about how to hide income from illegal

activities. then he went on to catch a national public radio executive, pandering for money from a fake muslim group and claiming the tea party was seriously racist. so, james, you're lucky america has a first amendment. >> well, i mean, it's pretty remarkable the pressure we faced, the legal trouble we've gotten into. government coming after me for using false pretenses, lying to federal officials. two party consent lies. there's not very much a first amendment in this country when it comes to journalism and undercover reporting. the. stossel: let's talk about those cases. you were doing a story about senator mary landry there were reports she wasn't answering her phone so you posed as phone repairman. so i guess that was against louisiana law. >> i suppose. we could charge all our politicians in washington with entering their buildings with false pretenses. if it's nothing more i'm

fibbing my intention of being here. these laws are designed to protect the government from being defrauded i'm an investigative reporter who uses undercover methods. i don't intend to commit fraud. i intend to have conversations to uncover they're having fraud. >> evee canada which we think of as a free country where they sort of have a first amendment with an asterisk, people get prosecuting muslim. i can say president obama is a liar. the ceo of google is pandering do lefties and they can't do anything to me. you got in trouble and i was threatened plenty of times on this two party consent law, and you had to settle with a corn for 100,000 dollars. explain the law. >> if i'm still anna corn worker he has to give me consent or i have to be in an area where there's no

expectation of privacy. my critics like to use this acorn hundred thousand dollar lawsuit that i'm a liar. that lawsuit was over invasion of privacy. whether a government employee has rights to be recorded or not. it had nothing to do with lying about him. by the way, david won a polk journalism award for filming mitt romney -- >> let's remind the audience of that clip. this was taken by a left wing bartender and goifn mother jones. >> with him. believe that they are victims. they beliive government has the possibility to care for them. who believe they are entitted and they will vote for this president no matter what. >> so mother jones wins a polk award for that. they didn't do anything except take it from this guy and run it. but you get prosecuted? >> yep. there's an incredible

amount of hypocrisy. daniel is a hero. julian is a hero. things about edward snowden. these people are considered heroes, but we do the same thing and we do get attacked for it and that's unfortunate. >> i've been attacked for it in baltimore we exposed a crooked doctor. and they said don't go to maryland or you'll be arrested. the 12 states have this two party law. like maryland, california, illinois, i suspect there's more corruption in those states. >> absolutely. illinois just recently their supreme court overturned a portion of the law, and i think people say go to chicago, james. i can't actually do undercover work in chicago because of the laws there. they tried to issue me a criminal subpoena -- >> you used hidden cameras to show how easy it was to commit voter fraud. before the election he

had people try to vote using the names of dead people. >> general roger. >> could he receive a ballot to vote without showing any id? >> there you go mister. i left my id in the car. glenn: you go ahead. >> new hampshire passed a voter id law after you did that. >> it was literally lighting the flames of democracy. the house of representatives in new hampshire passed the law. people were outraged that ballots were offered in the names of the dead. it embarrassed the governor who opposed that. his attorney general issued a criminal grand jury subpoena because we embarrassed the government. we showed you can vote fraudulent. and this is how they treat journalists in this country. they come after you. they use intimidation instead of solving the problem that our reports

show to be wrong. they attack the whistle-blower. >> yes, except you keep doing it. and they haven't put you in jail. though you did have to serve community service in -- >> actually three years of probation, i was not allowed to leave new jersey for three years. >> in many other countries you would be locked up forever if not killed. so you do benefit from our first amendment. i agree with you. i wish you were freer to tell people what's going on. thank you, james. coming up, the constitution's second amendment. government shall not infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. what exactly does that mean? mean? when stossel returns.

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stossel: a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.

the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. what exactly does that mean? did they mean only a well-regulated militia has the right to bear arms. no, any adult who is not a felon can have a gun the supreme court said. this camouflages the people on the left especially after a horrible shooting. i mean, 27 children were mowed down, isn't that enough for us? >> why doesn't your party come out against the second amendment. >> attorney steve holbrook specializes in the second amendment. what do you say to people like bill maher who is this is just nuts everybody having guns. >> we have certain freedoms inwith shrined in the bill of rights and they can be dangers sometimes. the right to assemble, the right to free

speech, these can lead to bad consequences as well as -- >> they say guns are worse that this was written for a time when people have muskets and now we've got machine guns. >> rifles, pistols, and shotguns. those are protected by the second amendment. the supreme court said the other are not. there's a big between the single pull of the trigger for each shot versus keeping the trigger down. stossel: if it's not a militia why didn't they talk about a militia. >> by recognizing the right to bear arms, the law-abiding people would have arms and when the time came they could be @rganized into militia. >> you have gun control in the 13 reich. does arming the jews and enemies of the state. >> well-intentioned politicians creed

registration of firearms. they thought this would do something to solve violence and crime. >> as people today say. >> and they warned don't let these registration records fall into the wrong hands. in 1933 the hitler dictatorship began to consolidate its power. they looked at social democrats to take their guns away and disarm them and in fact against all its opponents. by 1938, people don't realize the focus of that was to disarm the jewish population of germany. stossel: hitler said the most foolish mistake we would make is to allow the subjects to bear arms. >> we knew how to enforce it. nazi germany it was the deathly penalty for not turning in your guns within 24 hours. >> what would the founders have thought about the second amendment if they were alive today and seeing

gun stores running commercials like this. >> who says family fun time can't be family gun time. shooting is fun so give it a shot america. cheaper than dirt has everything you need for good times and great memories. >> the founders they enjoyed firearms. they had shooting matches. if you look at the dairies of ethan the vermont boys they had -- they enjoyed it. they used guns for pleasure, but for food. @p>> after the shooting of santa barbara passed the law to make it easy -- take guns from a family member you feel is dangerous. >> there is a procedure for keeping guns out of the hands of people who their relatives know they are dangerous. >> people are saying it's horrible. it's going to take away the rights of law-abiding citizens. what about the rights of

victims? you can't just have relatives who might want to get rid of them make a statement and then they get picked up and then their guns are taken away. there has to be due process of law. >> cominn up what does this document say about marijuana, gay marriage, and the right to die if you're sick. but next, i wonder was this guy one of my students. >> under the constitution, you have freedom. you have freedom to worship, you have freedom to speak, and you have freedom to you have freedom to create.

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when you use promo code go. call now. stossel: one of the first people to currently me to come to fox news was a tv host who surprised me by getting good ratings talking about this old document. what happened to the constitution? tonight an hour dedicated to the constitution. the constitution's goal

was to limit the power of government so the power ould lie with you, the people. stossel: glenn beck joins us now from his blaze studio in dallas. >> that's kind of old outdated constitutional talk now. it's a dusty irrelevant document at this point. >> i know you're kidding. we did a search 416 times you mentioned the constitution. what made you think people would listen to you talk about the constitution? >> because i had props. one time i talk about it, i would wear, you know, leader hose en. who could turn the channel? i think ten years ago, maybe 15 years ago, you couldn't have talked about the constitution. people wouldn't have cared. but now people see, oh, wait a minute things are happening and they shouldn't be. what -- why are they happening? where have we gone wrong? and you go back to the original documents and you see what's gone wrong. >> so give us a couple

examples. >> i don't know. the spying from the nsa. just about everything right now. just about everything, john. stossel: some people say, hey, look, they wore stupid wigs. some of them had slaves. we shouldn't follow this document. >> look at the people that are saying it now. i mean, i can't find anything wrong with the people of today? are you kidding me? some people are having boorgses. some people are still some people are, you know, full-fledged crazy. it doesn't mean that we -- we look and we cherry-pick the crazy -@things and the bad things. we look at the sum of what they did. despite what anybody likes to say, our founding fathers were wildly intelligent. they studied man and government throughout the generations of time. and they said what works what doesn't work. that's why it's a genius

document. >> and your talking about the constitution on tv means you went boldly where no man went before. one man proceeded you captain kirk. each claimed they had rights over the year. kirk said this. look at these three words written larger than the rest with a special pride written before. we, the people. these words and the words that follow were not written only for the yangz, but for the kongz as well. they must apply to everyone. >> i suspect the kongz and glenn beck saw this episode and this show pointing out this big print. do you think that was a font problem that somebody said, hey, hey, we, the people it's too big. it's not all going to fit on a page? no, that was code. they wanted to make a point..3 hey, dummy, look, we, the people is the

answer. but the sense now among many americans is that the way to help the people is to pass lots of laws. >> nn. no. they're just simply wrong. the way to fix our problems is to obey the law as it was written in the constitution. let me tell you a story. this is about charles pomeroy stone. this is an original document. this is an original letter. and i want to tell you about this guy. he was duly protecting detail of abraham lincoln. he went through the first inauguration then he went and there was a really bad battle in the civil war, and they needed to blame somebody for it, so what they did is they didn't pay attention to the constitution. they held him without charge, they tried him without a jury. they tried him without him being able to speak in his own defense. he spent 189 days in jail before finally abraham lincoln signed a -- a notice that you

had to release him. his life was completely destroyed. it was so bad, his name was mud, if you will, it was so bad he was run out of the country in 1883 edges back because his country needs him. he decedents that i know what the people did, but i know what the constitution says and i believe in the constitution. we needed somebody that could understand this -- this group of boxes that we needed to put together and put in the harbor. this is an original order here to order 8,000 cubic yards of stone for the base of the statue of liberty. the guy who was wronged by our -- by our own government because they didn't follow the constitution, they didn't do the right @hing, he knew the constitution is worth standing for. the constitution is that light in that lady's lamp and i'll help restore that no matter what the people might do. because the people will screw it up, but the constitution is true. >> after president obama's state of the

union message, you said he fully intends to trash the constitution and simply seize control ask&do whatever he wants to do. i think that's a little unfair. >> that doesn't sound like me. >> you didn't say that? >> that doesn't sound like me. but thank you glennt. beck. coming up a fight between -- >> i've mellowed some, john. i've stopped assigning blame to people. i've stopped assigning intentions to people. i don't know what their intentions are. they're not standing up for the constitution. we, the people must because it is our document and it is our job to stand up for it. it's our job to learn it, to know it, to live it. the constitution will always be lived on this continent whether there's a flag flying over the capital that's red, white and blue or black, there will be the constitution that's lived by the people as long as it's understood and carried in people's hearts and that's what

matters. we have to live it. what ear people do that's up to them. we have to live it. >> thank you glenn beck. coming up the fight between the federal government and the statts. >> get out of the health care business. get out of the education business. stop hammering industries.

stossel: we wrote this to protect people from oppress i have governments to make that extra clear we added the tenth amendment. powers not delegated to the united states by the constitution, in other words, if the powers aren't written in here, those powers are reserved to the states or to the people. at the time, america had 13 states. more territories became states, there were more chances for people to say we don't like what those other states are want to a different way. so people like to say this. >> states are the lab are a to hers of democracy. the state lab are a to hers of democracy. >> we libertarians like competition so 50 states gives us some, but the federal government doesn't allow that to happen. nick is the editor of

the website reason.com. when i was 18, drinking alcohol was allowed in most states at age 18 so that was good experimentation what happened? >> the great federalist ronald reagan who ran on a campaign of what he called the new federalism of decentralizing power to the states passed a fundinggmemphis so all the states if they wanted ohio federal dollars -- 21 and that's what happened. we like lab are a to hers of democracy. barrooms of democracy, not so much. this is the real gist of federalism. everyone is a fair weather federalist. you love it when it does what you want. >> but it's a dumb phrase because federalist means the opposite of what it sounds like. >> you decentralize power across 50 states or however many you have. (?) >> that's what we call federalized. >> and that's a good idea. >> and in taxes we have

some competition that keeps california being as worse as it is because it has texas as a model. >> when you look at california and texas the two biggest states in the country, california takes in almost if we feel percent of its state economy in state and local taxes. texas only about seven and a half percent. so one state has high taxes and high services. the other has low taxes and low services. people can sort based on which model they like. >> and they're moving to texas. >> they do seem to be. >> gay marriage is a state experimentation sometimes. >> it is in the sense that some states have passed laws that have legalized gay marriage in the states now the federal government which do not technically recognize that is start of letting the states experiment and hopefully as it rolls out it's similar to pot legalization. people can learn from those experiments. so we like this or we don't like this or we can tweak it when it

comes to our state. >> and alcohol problems ended in the same way. >> that's right. what happened was there a constitutional amendment that banned it. and when it was repealed it was left up to the states. and there were states like oklahoma which didn't actually go back to allowing the sale of liquor for decades after problems was repealed. >> abortion was a state controversy until roe v. wade. >> that's riggt and this is where you get in a weird thing where do do you want a federal law or state law. before roe v. wade, new york first and foremost had essentially legalized abortion. some states would have it. others wouldn't. what roe vs. wade said in the first three months of pregnancy at least every woman and every state in the country has the right to abortion on demand. >> they found this right in the constitution somehow. >> what they said that it's under the rights of

privacy that came from an earlier decision about contraception. and, you know, this is where you get into the question of federalism. if it's an essential right, you know, that you have as a citizen of the united states, it should be recognized everywhere. is it one of these things where it should be up to different states and localities to say yeah, this is okay. new jersey and oregon, for instance, don't allow people to pump gas. they say it's too dangerous. we just can't have that. >> they said, oh, it will take jobs away now. >> is this something do i have the right to pump my own gas? you know, i benefited from it as a college graduate, pumping gas. >> no you do not have that right in two states. you can move if it matters that much to you. thank you nick. reason.com. coming up my colleagues and i are the reason your life is pretty good. have you thanked me

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stossel: when we wrote that, america was what you people today call the third world. no one had indoor plumbing or running water. our leader, george washington was one of america's richest men, but even he had no teeth. he had to wear this painful set of dentures. only 3 million people us were much poorer than

other relatives in england, but then protected by that, americans tried new things and in just a century, you made america the most prosper country in the world. why did that happen herr? i say largely because of me and y colleagues because we wrote the a constitution that said there will be limits to government. we founders knew about british tyranny so we understood the dangers of big government. thomas jefferson said trust no man with too much government power. instead bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution. chains. which. wish we had some chains to put on these guys now. what went wrong in 225 years. we thought we were clear on putting limits on eager politicians. james madison wrote the powers delegated to the federal government are few and defined. a few of my fellow

delegates still voted against the constitution, not because it was too radical, but because they feared it left governments too much power to limit individual freedom. one delegate wrote, conceiving as i did that the liberties of america were not secured by the system, it was my duty to oppose it. i disagreed, but i was happy two years later when to make it clear that the rights lie with the people, not the government, we wrote a bill of rights. some of us argued that would be redundant. >> why declare things should not be done when there's no power to do? why should it be said that the liberty of the press should not be restrained by no power is given by which restrictions can be -- >> eventually we signed off the bill of rights. now, your politicians say government can do just about everything except what is forbidden by the bill of rights.

still the constitution's limits have done you a lot of good. during the korean war steelworkers threatened to go on strike. truman nationalized the coal industry. within two months, the supreme court ruled, well, i'll let movie tone tell it. >> there seezure by president truman was held illegaa by the supreme court. the. >> maybe that's what stopped president's bush and obama from nationalizing the banks when the housing bubble burst. but the constitution has slowed the growth of government. in 1895 congress passed an income tax, but the supremes said, no, the constitution does not give you the power to do that. the income tax was struck down. waat a second i have to pay income tax. i pay lots of it happen

approximate 20 years later politicians and state will do that and more than two-thirds of congress managed to amend the constitution to allow an income tax. that's why i say the constitution at least slowed down the government. for a long time the supreme court ignored theesecond amendment, but now they've started to enforce that too. five years ago they ruled that individuals do have the right to keep and bear arms. some places still haven't gotten the memo. john stossel tried getting an illegal permit to carry an gun, but he hadn't proved a special need for it. they sent me a letter rejecting my application. that was in new york city, but chicago nd washington have been forced to change laws to honor the second emit. so you should thank us for that. then all of you can have what thomas jefferson% promised a wise and frugal government which

would leave men free to go after their money pursuits. that's stossel's show tonight. he'll be back this time next week. melissa: moneymakers are sharing their tips. even when they say it's not, it's always about money. ♪ money is always trying to get you the most bang for your buck. fox business cheryl bisson kicks it up for us in new york city.