Abolish Justice

The Justice Department, that is. The small-government movement can point to a lot of unnecessary agencies and departments in the federal government. There are the Special Interest Departments: Commerce, Labor, Agriculture. There are the Social Engineering Departments: Health and Human Services, Education, Housing and Urban Development. There are departments that fall in between like Energy and Transportation. Most of their duties go far beyond the powers the Constitution delegates to the United States government. And those few scattered agencies that actually do constitutional things can all be put into the umbrella of the Department of the Interior.

Most of the time, however, the worst that these agencies do is waste the public's time and money. The real damage done to America is done by the Departments that advocates of limited government would retain: State (our interventionist foreign policy creates more problems than it solves), the Treasury (think of the IRS or the national debt), and Defense (with its undeclared wars and massive waste)

And then there's the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice exists almost exclusively to attack our basic rights and freedoms found in nature and/or protected by the Bill of Rights. Real crimes - attacks on persons and their property - is a police issue that the Constitution leaves to the states. Victim-less crimes, such as drug possession or gun-dealing, are "unenumerated rights" protected by the Ninth Amendment. They do not affect the foreign and instra-state relations the Constitution was created to address. This means the federal government has a Constitutional responsibility to leave individuals alone. If what individuals do is "immoral" or a "threat to the public," that is an issue best left to the States.

So get rid of Justice. Whatever few necessary functions it serves could be put in the Department of the Interior. Yes, there can still be an Attorney General to serve as top legal counsel for the United States, but his rank would be the equivalent of an Under-secretary.

Oh yes, I almost forgot: scrap Homeland Security as well because, like Justice, its only purpose is to violate our rights. But that probably goes without saying.