[ForGod'sSake]

A worthwhile read IMHO.

[ForGod'sSake]

Last ~~ping~~ of the night — probably.

[American Constitutionalist]

When Obama said that the US Constitution was a " flawed document " was he nodding to the same sentiments as Hamilton ?

( Hamilton did not get his way, of course, thanks to the Jeffersonians. When the Constitution was finally ratified, creating a federal instead of a national or monopolistic, monarchical government, Hamilton denounced the document as “a frail and worthless fabric.” ) .....

[heartwood]

ping

[American Constitutionalist]

No wonder the progressives want to lie and tell the people that " the US Constitution is a living and breathing document " because it says whatever they " DEEM " it says....

( The first Big Lie that Webster told was that “the Constitution of the United States confers on the government itself . . . the power of deciding ultimately and conclusively upon the extent of its own authority.” ) ....

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

As a sub-mediocre student of history, I find it remarkable...endlessly remarkable...that the Founders foresaw just about everything that could happen in their new nation; governed by their new Constitution; and wrote about and discussed and speculated about their concerns as to what would/might/could happen.

I am sure that if I were a far more diligent student than I am, my amazement would only grow. This is really one vile bunch of brazen sick scumbags we have running the place in DC.

[tumblindice]

Good article. My 2 cents:
The states preceded the federal government and created it, as the people created government in their own states from positive law. Preceding postive law was natural law, e.g. that government “gives us” no rights and possesses only those rights that we give it.
The Declaration of Independence preceded the framework given us by the first Americans, and it recognizes morality throughout, while the Constitution is a pure creature of positive or manmade law.
Presumed in the Constitution, however, is that citizens are—and must be—moral people. In a moral vacuum, tyranny results. A tyrant, whether a regent, aristocracy or oligarchy will take as much power as it is allowed. In a totalitarian state, members aid in their own subjugation and actually encourage it, while discouraging liberty, because they have actually returned to a state of nature in which they do not know the difference between freedom and slavery. http://www.free2pray.info/5founderquotes.html

[rae4palin]

I’m sure we agree on darn-near everything but I don’t look to Calhoun for enlightenment. Not a good guy. An unrelenting advocate for slavery. He drove this nation apart. Andrew Jackson threatened to “hang from the highest tree” those who spoke of succession.

[central_va]

Worth repeating:

Secession of a single state would mean “dissolution of the government,” Story wrote. Nonsense. After eleven Southern states seceded in 1860–61 the U.S. government proceeded to field the largest and best-equipped army in the history of the world up to that point. It was hardly “dissolved.”

[aruanan]

The “part in favor of the restrictions” (i.e., strict constructionists) would inevitably be overpowered. It is sheer folly, Calhoun argued, to suppose that “the party in possession of the ballot box and the physical force of the country, could be successfully resisted by an appeal to reason, truth, justice, or the obligations imposed by the constitution” (emphasis added). He predicted that “the restrictions [of government power in the Constitution] would ultimately be annulled, and the government be converted into one of unlimited powers.” He was right, of course.

It's folly to believe that the founding fathers and those near their time didn't know anything about "modern" government because they lived in relatively non-technological, more bucolic age. They knew the propensities of the human heart and that it didn't make much of a difference except in body count and extent and speed of oppression whether the perp was using a club or the most powerful federal government in the history of the world.

Their goal was to keep these people hobbled. Strong states were the way to do it. The states could band together against any one state that tried to take over. The states could band together against a federal government trying to do the same. The first thing that the proto-statists would do, then, was to weaken the states. This was done through the 17th Amendment. By the popular election of senators the state governments were displaced from their position of counterbalance against the populism of the House of Representatives. It was said that the senators still represented the states, but it was no longer the states' governments they represented.

Remember that the move to institute the popular election of U.S. senators came because of someone trying to buy a senate appointment. And now we have the spectacle of others in the federal government buying the senators' votes on health care.

The ideology of leveling democracy to clear out competing institutions of power had knocked out a major threat to statism. The others that needed to be subordinated were churches and religion in general, educational institutions, private clubs (even the idea of any sort of private association which could determine its own membership requirements) and business. Looking over the past 100 years, the statists have done a pretty good job of eliminating or weakening the competition.

Another way they've used is to abuse words so that they become just another of the same kind of politics so that the distinctive nature of their threat is lost through a feeling of inclusiveness or familiarity, "Hey, we're all ideological." As I said in an earlier thread:

"Ideology" has come to mean "a system of political thought," but that loses the original distinction as a means of using reason, free of religion or aristocracy, to devise a system that will ensure equality and justice for all men.

Conservative politics is based on known quantities of what man actually is, of lessons learned through long experience in a real world. It is about as ideological in nature as mechanical engineering.

Ideological politics begins not with man as he actually is but with man as the ideologue believes he ought to be or could be if only the ideologue and his followers had enough time, money, or power to make them that way.

Since time, money, and power are all limited and since the ideologue has never been successful in accumulating any of the latter two through persuading enough people to make any difference (because at every stage of effort his product is defective and he relies chiefly on spinning a fairy tale of a perfect future), he aims to take control of a government in any way he can so that he can exercise power both to coerce the masses toward immanentizing the eschaton and to extort money from them to pay for it.

Since his world view is by definition in conflict with reality, the degree to which he is able to use state power to force people to conform to it is the degree to which people will be dehumanized and oppressed.

[knarf]

I try to understand the language used during our early years as opposed to how we speak today, because I think the English used then was by far more eloquent and descriptive.

Having said that, I also discover myself NOT reading what is sometimes explained as the understanding that is meant.

(I know .. it jumbles in MY head too)

But here .. in a passage of the above article;

"In a classic of doubletalk, Story admitted that “The original compact of society . . . in no instance . . . has ever been formally expressed at the first institution of a state.” That is, there was never any agreement by the citizens of any state to always and forever be obedient to those who would enforce what they proclaim to be “the general will.” Nevertheless, said Story, “every part should pay obedience to the will of the whole.” And who is to define “the will of the whole”? Why, nationalist Supreme Court justices like Joseph Story and John Marshall, of course."

The first segment; "In a classic of doubletalk, Story admitted that “The original compact of society . . . in no instance . . . has ever been formally expressed at the first institution of a state.”

Reads .. to me .. Story is stating that a social structure is never manifested when it first begins to developw from an idea.

But the author continues by saying;
"That is, there was never any agreement by the citizens of any state to always and forever be obedient to those who would enforce what they proclaim to be “the general will."

Now, that MAY say the same thing as I understand it, but not exactly.

So, here's my question(s) to any and all ...

When I read, am I understanding correctly the English used?

If I am not, but only partly, could THIS be the reason we are in such turmoil today ... our ability to understand our own language has been so altered and/or destroyed the words no longer make sense (teenage. and all .. texters scare me ) ?

[dynachrome]

Good post. Sounds like most in gov’t would like this interpretation:

“the Constitution of the United States confers on the government itself . . . the power of deciding ultimately and conclusively upon the extent of its own authority.”

People that believe that are not pro freedom.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

How likely is it that the original 13 states that ratified the Constitution would have done so if they believed that they would be abolishing their authority and sovereignty by doing so?

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

If the founders had intended that the fedgov could define the limits on its own power, the Constitution was a lot of wasted ink. This notion could have been expressed in a single article with a single clause.

Of course, no state that wasn’t controlled by raving lunatics would have ratified it.

[April Lexington]

One thing is certain, the states had better dismantle the Federal government and severely limit its power or we are doomed. The health care battle just showed the path to greater threat to our freedom. The Left will be back, more emboldened than ever next time. And... next time is very soon. They have the momentum only as long as the Baby Boom Generation can vote...

[Brugmansian]

But it was the Jeffersonians who led us down the path to Jacobinism. Which fits in very well with what Rockwell is all about. This critique of Federalists is the same critique of Republicans we hear today from “progressives”.

[Cold Heat]

Marker for later.......