Syphilis Infected Guatemalans Proves The Need for Limited Government

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The U.S. Constitution is a contract between the States and the Federal Government. The U.S. Government exists because the States, through the people, allow it to. The Founding Fathers feared a centralized federal government, so they took great pains to ensure that the government's authorities were limited.

An unchecked government with unlimited powers is tyrannical.

During the Truman presidency, according to recently released reports, American public health doctors deliberately infected nearly 700 Guatemalans — prison inmates, mental patients and soldiers — with venereal diseases in what was meant as an effort to test the effectiveness of penicillin.

This happened under the watch of Harry S. Truman, the Democrat President that followed one of the most hard left presidents in history, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The outrage over this black spot in American history has encouraged American government officials of today to apologize for these past atrocities.

The very fact that the American government acted in this manner, and did so in complete opposition to the U.S. Constitution, is evidence as to why it is so important for the federal government to be limited to the powers delegated to it by the U.S. Constitution. While the liberal left claims such atrocities as being yet another thing America should apologize for, in reality such past events supports the need for conservative principles to be the foundation of our government.

Had the government been acting under only the constitutional powers authorized to it, the dark marks of American history, such as infecting Guatemalans with Syphilis, would have never happened.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

U.S. Apologizes for Syphilis Tests in Guatemala - New York Times