The Bill of Rights, includes 10 Amendments, but somehow through the course of history, the 9th and 10th Amendments to that Constitution, have not been as materially effective as they were meant to be. The 9th Amendment makes it clear that the people are the ultimate sovereigns of their Constitutional government, and therefore the enumeration of certain rights in regards to the people so listed in that Constitution, is never meant to be limited to just those specific rights. The 10th Amendment echoes that point by stating that those powers not specifically delegated to the United States government, are reserved to the States or to the people, which basically signifies that the Federal government is prohibited from aggrandizing onto itself, more and more undelegated power. and therefore, more and more control of the population at the expense of the people; but rather good government is that government which provides for the common welfare of those people, above all else, for the primary purpose of government is for the beneficence of those people.
The nature of governments, well intentioned or not, is to inexorably increase its influence into all areas of its citizens’ lives, typically done under the guise of being a necessary or appropriate thing on behalf of the people, or perhaps so done under exigent circumstances; but once the population has ceded control of certain aspects of their lives for safety, convenience, or whatnot, that government, seldom relinquishes its newfound powers, once that crisis is done and dusted, or continues on instead for iteration after iteration. Further to the point, governments and the people that are their representatives, have a strong tendency to want to be seen as being helpful, and often have the self-serving belief that in order to be most helpful, they need to know just about everything about their constituency, and therefore with this newfound knowledge they will then be able to be of more assistance to that populace, which seems like a good thing, but in reality, almost always is not.
When the government has the power to tax, the power to arrest, and the power to rule on that which is ruled upon, then that government is clearly superior in its powers, explicit and implicit, then a given individual is; yet, that government is supposed to serve the people, not rule in a manner in which the people do not seem to have a voice, especially, when that individual voice is theirs by right. The point of the 9th and 10th Amendments is to keep the government, well intentioned or not, subservient to the peoples’ rights, and not therefore for the people, to have to keep giving ground, year after year, decade after decade, only to therefore find themselves ultimately in a position in which they are seen as a resource to be exploited by that government, for the benefit of those that are the actuators of that government.
There isn’t any doubt, that since the Constitution was ratified in the 18th century, that the Federal government, let alone any State government, is far more powerful than it was back at its inception, of which, the only pushback that the people really have in their arsenal is the 9th and 10th Amendments, and if, in effect, the 9th and 10th Amendments are basically treated as if they don’t exist, then the people are no more than subjects of that government which day-by-day, is becoming more and more authoritarian, in which that government’s way is clearly one of ever limited choices for the people and their only desire of those that are its subjects, is obedience.