(excerpted from)

                             THE LIBERATOR ONLINE
                                       
   April 21, 1999
   Vol. 4, No. 8
   http://www.self-gov.org/liberator/maintain.html


                              PRESIDENT'S CORNER
                                       
   Dear friends,

   What's the federal government doing in my bathroom?

   That's what one Advocates supporter wanted to know. Rev. Michael K.
   Mitchell, Ph.D., sent the following letter to his congressman.
   Unfortunately, he received no response. ("Big surprise," he says.)

   Hope you enjoy it.

   * * *

   Get Outta My Bathroom!

   Today I found the federal government in my bathroom. For 20 years I
   have used a Teledyne Shower Massage. I liked this product. It worked
   well and lasted a long time. But last week I had to replace it.

   Imagine my surprise when, after installing the new shower massage
   fixture, I did not get a massage. I got a weak drizzle. There was not
   enough pressure to clean the soap suds from my washcloth. I looked for
   the solution to the problem in the instruction manual that came with
   the shower head. The manual stated:

   "The Smart Flow water controller ensures a high performance shower...
   It requires no adjustment or maintenance and cannot be removed."

   I wondered why, if the Smart Flow ensures a high performance shower,
   one would want to adjust or remove it. I called the Teledyne 800 phone
   number and the mystery was solved. The customer service operator said
   that the federal government limited the shower head to a flow rate of
   2.5 gallons per hour. The original shower massage heads had a flow
   rate of 5-6 gallons per hour.

   Now I understood why my shower head did not massage. What I did not
   understand was: what gives the federal government the right to enter
   my bathroom? An examination of Article 1 Section 8 of the United
   States Constitution revealed the following list of 15 things the
   United States Congress may do. Look at this list and ask yourself,
   which of these things permits the federal government to limit the
   pressure in my shower massager?

    1. Set and collect taxes
    2. Borrow money
    3. Regulate interstate commerce
    4. Set rules for naturalization and bankruptcy
    5. Print and coin money
    6. Punish counterfeiters
    7. Create post offices
    8. Issue patents
    9. Set up lower federal courts
   10. Punish pirates
   11. Declare war
   12. Create an army and navy
   13. Call the militia
   14. Govern the District of Columbia
   15. ...and make laws necessary to enforce THESE powers.
       
   Perhaps in your search for an appropriate power of Congress, you
   selected #3: To regulate interstate commerce. Wrong, unless you
   believe that the writers of the Constitution intended for Congress to
   regulate everything. The fact is that it was not the intent of the
   framers of the Constitution for Congress to regulate anything beyond
   the 15 enumerated items. Nor was it the intent of the states that
   ratified the Constitution. Furthermore, the water I use in my bathroom
   in Alaska is not from, nor does it go to, any other state. It is not
   interstate commerce.

   I submit that the federal government regulators, through the powers
   which Congress has given them, have exceeded the intent of the
   Constitution. We must turn back the propensity of the regulators to
   control our lives. This control is exercised through federal agencies
   with initials like HUD, HEW, BATF, DOE, DOE DEA, FDA, EEOC, EPA, OSHA
   et cetera. There are hundreds of agencies like these who simply have
   no basis in the United States Constitution. There is even a commission
   called the Glass Ceiling Commission.

   None of the agencies have a basis in the Constitution that justifies
   their intrusion into the rights of the states and the people and their
   bathrooms. All rights except the 15 listed above are reserved to the
   people and the states, according to the Tenth Amendment. The
   reiteration of the limitations of the federal government in the Tenth
   Amendment reveals the importance that our Constitution puts on a
   limited federal government.

   The writers of the Constitution, the legislators of the states that
   ratified the Constitution, and 150 years of experience preceding the
   imposition of the New Deal and the Great Society precludes the
   intrusion of the federal government into my bathroom.

   Get out of my life, my pocket and my bathroom, Uncle Sam! I have had
   enough of your interference and -- thanks to your meddling -- I don't
   have enough water pressure to get a decent shower.

   * * *