With regard to the Constitution, you are correct. The Constitution created a government with certain powers, and, through amendments, placed limits on its powers. But what you are talking about doesn't really have anything to do with the Constitution per se, but the overall role and purpose of government in any society.
One of the reasons people decided to create governments was to stem the tide of chaos and impose order on a group of individuals, a society if you will. Here's a better way of looking at it: Put 10 cavemen together, with no leader and no laws, and you have chaos. History has shown that humans, when left to their own devices, will commit themselves to fulfilling their own selfish interests, regardless of whatever negative consequences it may have on others. You basically end up with chaos. Now take 2 of those cavemen and make them leaders and tell them they have to bring order to all this madness, and you have a government. You have two individuals who have been given the power and authority to bring order to the small society the other 8 cavemen make up. In order to bring and maintain this order, the government, regardless of whatever laws or constitutions created it, has to impose some regulations on the actions of individuals. So the 2 cavemen say no killing each other, for we need as many cavemen as possible to hunt and do other activities to maintain the small society. Then the 2 cavemen say you cannot sniff the Ooka Buka tree because it has adverse effects on you, the other cavemen, on the government, and on the proper functioning of society.
Now, the other 8 cavemen say they want to pick the leaders and that the government has too much power. So they create a constitution that creates a new government and limits that government's powers. But even then, the original role and purpose of the government has not changed. It still must maintain order, and it can only do this by regulating the actions of the people under its dominion. Whether that's telling them they cannot kill, steal, lie, cheat, impose their religion on others, or whatever, in order to maintain order and stability, the government must regulate, in some fashion, the actions of individuals.
Now, you won't find a single sentence in the Constitution that takes away the power of the government (the legislative, executive, and judicial branches) to regulate the actions of individuals. In fact, the Preamble to the Constitution says, among other things, that the government's purpose in our society is to "insure domestic Tranquility."
So yes, the purpose of the Constitution was to limit the powers of government. It was not created to regulate the actions of individuals. But when you're talking about the regulation of the conduct of individuals, it goes beyond the Constitution and any particular form of government and goes to the heart of the overall role of government and the power it uses to fulfill that role.
And as for your last statement, well, as Thomas Jefferson said, "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." And as Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn said, "Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic." But this is the risk you and I both take for living in a republic where majority rule determines who our leaders will be and which laws these leaders will and will not pass.
I was all ready to post one of my trademark several paragraph responses to this, but I see that someone else has beaten me to it. Well put, by the way.
Well, I suppose I could probably muster something up.
It should be noted that, as has been said before me, all governments are based on power. You cannot have a government that tells its subjects to "just do whatever you feel like," because the second they did, it would not be a government anymore, only anarchy (and here I use the word in both meanings).
A government exists, said Locke, for the benefit of the governed, and this is largely true, but I don't think, necessarily, in the way he meant it. All goverments, throughout history (with very few expections, mostly communes which never extended beyond a small town), have benefitted the governed in the same way that a guardian benefits a child. By protecting them from themselves. And therein lies the biggest misconception in your post. The government is not in place for the individual at all. To hell with the individual. The government makes rules in order to benefit society at large.
This is, theoretically, why the victimless crime of marijuana use is prohibited, because the crop takes up growing space that could be used to farm, and because the use of marijuana makes people less productive (let's face it, lazy, and somewhat stupid). Therefore, while you may enjoy it (or maybe you don't, but for sake of argument, you do) as an individual, the government must say no.
This is also why, I believe, homosexuality was originally (and still is) considered a sin by certain people. The act of one man having sex with another man is unproductive. They're spending energy that could be spent working, and they're not providing society with another person as a result.
That's the actually the other conception of government than Locke's -- more like Hobbes. Hobbes viewed the role of government as essentially preserving civilization. Since men are inherently evil, in his view, he surmised that a powerful government was essential to preserve order. The nanny state born.
The Framers held the opposite view - that government should generally leave men alone, absent some key areas. The feds could regulate things like courts and defense and trade and some miscellany, and the states health and safety. Beyond that, it's left to the individual. You'll note that the Constitution and its amendments speak numerous times of the individual, and arguably only once of a "group right" (the Second Amendment, although that's considered a misinterpretation).
Hence many smart original meaning constitutional scholars who hold that sodomy laws conflict with the Constitution.
One of the reasons people decided to create governments was to stem the tide of chaos and impose order on a group of individuals, a society if you will. Here's a better way of looking at it: Put 10 cavemen together, with no leader and no laws, and you have chaos. History has shown that humans, when left to their own devices, will commit themselves to fulfilling their own selfish interests, regardless of whatever negative consequences it may have on others. You basically end up with chaos. Now take 2 of those cavemen and make them leaders and tell them they have to bring order to all this madness, and you have a government. You have two individuals who have been given the power and authority to bring order to the small society the other 8 cavemen make up. In order to bring and maintain this order, the government, regardless of whatever laws or constitutions created it, has to impose some regulations on the actions of individuals. So the 2 cavemen say no killing each other, for we need as many cavemen as possible to hunt and do other activities to maintain the small society. Then the 2 cavemen say you cannot sniff the Ooka Buka tree because it has adverse effects on you, the other cavemen, on the government, and on the proper functioning of society.
Now, the other 8 cavemen say they want to pick the leaders and that the government has too much power. So they create a constitution that creates a new government and limits that government's powers. But even then, the original role and purpose of the government has not changed. It still must maintain order, and it can only do this by regulating the actions of the people under its dominion. Whether that's telling them they cannot kill, steal, lie, cheat, impose their religion on others, or whatever, in order to maintain order and stability, the government must regulate, in some fashion, the actions of individuals.
Now, you won't find a single sentence in the Constitution that takes away the power of the government (the legislative, executive, and judicial branches) to regulate the actions of individuals. In fact, the Preamble to the Constitution says, among other things, that the government's purpose in our society is to "insure domestic Tranquility."
So yes, the purpose of the Constitution was to limit the powers of government. It was not created to regulate the actions of individuals. But when you're talking about the regulation of the conduct of individuals, it goes beyond the Constitution and any particular form of government and goes to the heart of the overall role of government and the power it uses to fulfill that role.
And as for your last statement, well, as Thomas Jefferson said, "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." And as Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn said, "Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic." But this is the risk you and I both take for living in a republic where majority rule determines who our leaders will be and which laws these leaders will and will not pass.
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It should be noted that, as has been said before me, all governments are based on power. You cannot have a government that tells its subjects to "just do whatever you feel like," because the second they did, it would not be a government anymore, only anarchy (and here I use the word in both meanings).
A government exists, said Locke, for the benefit of the governed, and this is largely true, but I don't think, necessarily, in the way he meant it. All goverments, throughout history (with very few expections, mostly communes which never extended beyond a small town), have benefitted the governed in the same way that a guardian benefits a child. By protecting them from themselves. And therein lies the biggest misconception in your post. The government is not in place for the individual at all. To hell with the individual. The government makes rules in order to benefit society at large.
This is, theoretically, why the victimless crime of marijuana use is prohibited, because the crop takes up growing space that could be used to farm, and because the use of marijuana makes people less productive (let's face it, lazy, and somewhat stupid). Therefore, while you may enjoy it (or maybe you don't, but for sake of argument, you do) as an individual, the government must say no.
This is also why, I believe, homosexuality was originally (and still is) considered a sin by certain people. The act of one man having sex with another man is unproductive. They're spending energy that could be spent working, and they're not providing society with another person as a result.
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The Framers held the opposite view - that government should generally leave men alone, absent some key areas. The feds could regulate things like courts and defense and trade and some miscellany, and the states health and safety. Beyond that, it's left to the individual. You'll note that the Constitution and its amendments speak numerous times of the individual, and arguably only once of a "group right" (the Second Amendment, although that's considered a misinterpretation).
Hence many smart original meaning constitutional scholars who hold that sodomy laws conflict with the Constitution.
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