Posted on 09/16/2011 4:50:58 AM PDT by Jacquerie
I was referring to the AF barracks with the babes. I exited the AF in ‘73.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
The relative uselessness of the office of Vice President has been a feature of the system from the very beginning and a perennial source of humor. Placing that individual as President of the Senate was a threat to the latter body that in the case of persistent deadlock the Executive would make up their collective mind for them, a deliberate risk with a specific end in mind. I'd call it a very interesting bit of systems feedback in today's terms. It was meant to be a rare circumstance and has proven so.
Changing the ratio of House members from one for every 40,000 people to one for every 30,000 only delayed the inevitable certainty that as the country grew one of two things would happen: either the House would grow so large that debate would be impossible or the ratio would grow so large that representation would become far less direct than originally intended. Madison called that one and so did Jefferson. The federal government was always intended to be distilled through the intermediary of state government, a role that had steadily diminished even before the events of the Civil War, was exacerbated by direct election of senators, and now is atrophied, simultaneously with the growth of the inability of the federal government to provide direct representation by itself. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that the federal government has become an unwieldy, unresponsive, bull-headed dictatorial monster in the absence of this means of citizen input. But I don't think that it was ever a role that the federal government could do very well from its very design. There are just too many people in the country to admit it. The most workable alternative, in my view, is to re-empower the state governments because they're the only ones who can, by their size and distribution, be close enough to the citizen to allow for the direct representation that was always the intention of the Founders.
And it may be that the country is now to big to allow that, in which case the principle of a distributed government suggests that the county and city governments may now be the proper repositories of direct representation. The challenge then will be the methods chosen to force both state and federal governments to be responsive to them. It can be done, but not without a deliberate, long-term, concerted effort that will be resisted fanatically by those for whom centralization of power without accountability is desirable. These are not our friends.
Mr. Mason's motion to include a Bill of Rights was voted down by all the States. There is something “there” when he couldn't swing even one state, including his own, especially considering most States had a Bill of Rights.
As for the rest of his objections, it is a matter of opinion as to whether they should have been corrected. Others, such his support of occasional ex-post facto laws, strike the modern ear as at least odd and perhaps dangerous to our liberty.
Two of his objections, had they been corrected, may well have torpedoed the Convention. One, the furor over Navigation Acts and second, a ban on any law that impaired slave importation for 20 years.
As tomorrow's post will show, objections were common. No one was entirely satisfied. The Constitution ultimately was an armistice among men who had become convinced their common interest would never be realized until they budged off their local, special interests.
The biggest problem... We now have a Congress— and a Court, and an Executive all of which believe they have been given the power to make the Constitution a thing of wax in their hands i.e. it is a Living Constitution. The Patriot Post has begun a class action lawsuit to ask the Court to decide if solemn Oaths administered mean anything —if we the people have any right to expect our Govt. honor the oaths taken?
I wonder what if anything would be thought of those who actively are working today to destroy the Constitution -claiming we have outlived out time as a sovereign State/empire?
If they could spend a day at any government school they would know what has happened.
If you’ve ever gone to a Krisanne Hall seminar you will find out how 600 years of living under tyrranical rule brought about the Constitution. The founding fathers lived under this oppression and used critical thinking when writing it. It was no small feat. The Left have no respect for it because they have always lived in complete freedom. At our current rate they may have to learn its importance when the current Marxists start dismantling it.
The left does not respect the constitution because their people are in power. If constitutional republicans were in power, the liberals would be whining about and grab for power that was outside constitutional bounds.
I’ll look up Kris Anne. I’ll be meeting Ann Coulter this week, so this is going to be fun.
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