Posted on 11/10/2009 1:15:52 PM PST by myfreepress
We are on the edge of a vast storm that is blowing wind in all directions. The winds are blowing dangerous objects all about like a many headed hydra; Healthcare Reform, Card Check, Financial Industry takeover, GM takeover, Stimulus Bill, Cap and Trade, earmarks. We are all concerned about our safety and our future, especially the future of our loved ones. We are beginning to see that the one thing that was constructed to save us (the U.S. Constitution) has been distorted, manipulated and ignored. The federal government which was sworn to uphold and protect that construction has morphed into a corrupt, concealed and dangerous body. Alarmed and outraged, We The People are running around chasing the many heads of this hydra. But it seems that each day a new one grows. It also seems that some of these heads are empty threats designed to misdirect us, and confuse and anger us.
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I have been of the opinion for the last few years that the citizens of America have a limited number of options when it comes to our relationship with the federal government. A strong centralized government, even a friendly one, is the fastest way for citizens to lose their liberty. There is no way to put this genie back in to the bottle. Jefferson was right in that it is necessary for a free people to have a revolution about every generation. Nothing less than a full blown, hopefully a bloodless one, revolution is going to fix the mess in which we find ourselves. States maintaining their sovereignty is an excellent starting point. If would actually be a way of preventing a bloody revolution. At some point, the weight of debt and loss of freedom is going to initiate a revolution that is going to make France’s Reign of Terror look mild.
Poeple are beginning to learn they can live without Big Government. This panics Big Government.
Which is why the Constitution was a mistake in the first place. The Federalists were dead wrong. The antifeds were right---we should have remained a confederation. Meanwhile, the small government people of today try to "preserve" the very thing that created the mess--the Constitution.
Yes, there’s a lot of pent up ugliness in this nation.
“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.” Thomas Jefferson
How true this is. Our form of government has degenerated because the American people have allowed the three branches of government to become our rulers. It will continue to degenerate.
This big government problem can be traced back to 1913 when the 17th amendment was passed. I believe that repealing the 17th would go a long way to setting us back on the right path. Once the states get back to being a partner with the federal government rather than simply another lobbyist we’ll have a check on the purse strings and the executive branch.
You misunderstand his quote. He’s saying the people are a safe depository; you are blaming the people. I blame our form of government—a consolidated, gigantic republic with supreme power. We should have remained a confederacy, with independent states. The people would have had more power if that had been the case.
Nonsense. The parties run the government, not the states.
You could be right; however, I think that he is making a general statement about all forms of government.
From Antifederalist 39:
The State legislatures do not choose senators by legislative or sovereign authority, but by a power of ministerial agency as mere electors or boards of appointment. They have no power to direct the senators how or what duties they shall perform; they have neither power to censure the senators, nor to supersede them for misconduct. It is not the power of choosing to office merely that designates sovereignty, or else corporations who appoint their own officers and make their own by-laws, or the heads of department who choose the officers under them, such as commanders of armies, etc., may be called sovereigns, because they can name men to office whom they cannot dismiss therefrom.The exercise of sovereignty does not consist in choosing masters, such as the senators would be, who, when chosen, would be beyond control, but in the power of dismissing, impeaching, or the like, those to whom authority is delegated. The power of instructing or superseding of delegates to Congress under the existing confederation has never been complained of, although the necessary rotation of members of Congress has often been censured for restraining the state sovereignties too much in the objects of their choice. As well may the electors who are to vote for the president under the new constitution, be said to be vested with the sovereignty, as the State legislatures in the act of choosing senators. The senators are not even dependent on the States for their wages, but in conjunction with the federal representatives establish their own wages. The senators do not vote by States, but as individuals. The representatives also vote as individuals, representing people in a consolidated or national government; they judge upon their own elections, and, with the Senate, have the power of regulating elections in time, place and manner, which is in other words to say, that they have the power of elections absolutely vested in them.
That the State governments have certain ministerial and convenient powers continued to them is not denied, and in the exercise of which they may support, but cannot control the general government, nor protect their own citizens from the exertion of civil or military tyranny-and this ministerial power will continue with the States as long as two- thirds of Congress shall think their agency necessary. But even this will be no longer than two-thirds of Congress shall think proper to propose, and use the influence of which they would be so largely possessed to remove it.
But these powers of which the Freeman gives us such a profuse detail, and in describing which be repeats the same powers with only varying the terms, such as the powers of officering and training the militia, appointing State officers, and governing in a number of internal cases, do not any of them separately, nor all taken together, amount to independent sovereignty. They are powers of mere ministerial agency, which may, and in many nations of Europe are or have been vested, as before observed, in heads of departments, hereditary vassals of the crown, or in corporations; but not that kind of independent sovereignty which can constitute a member of a federal republic, which can enable a State to exist within itself if the general government should cease.
I don’t think so. He’s saying forms of government that rely on the rulers degenerate; those that rely on the people do not. It’s a debatable point. In fact, it appears the people are NOT a safe depository. There is no safe depository.
Here it is, and giving the thread another well desreved bttt.
The anti-federalists opposed just about every single aspect of the Constitution. Hamilton barely hid an accusation that the anti-federalists stood to make big $ if the Constitution was rejected.
If you don’t like the Constitution, tough.
Although beaten and battered it is still the supreme law of the land and the best ever offered to promote happiness and prosperity.
Half the people got their hands in the other half’s pocket
With good reason.
Anyone who thinks the 17th amendment has anything to do with our troubles is out to lunch.
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