Posted on 04/08/2013 4:57:56 PM PDT by Jacquerie
Happy Anniversary! Today marks one hundred years of the horrible 17th Amendment.
Its Progressive purpose was to democratize the Senate, and boy, did it! In a complete about face from the philosophy, experience and warnings from the Framing generation, the States no longer participate in the federal government. One hundred years ago today, the republic ceased being federal, and overnight became a single un-confederated republic that spanned a continent.
It also created a temporary, partial power vacuum, and set the stage for total consolidation of authority in the national government. Once State agency was removed, all that was left were “parchment barriers,” as described by James Madison, to keep the national government confined to enumerated powers. By parchment barriers, he meant laws that could not be enforced due to the structure of government.
For a simple analogy, consider speed limit laws. If a city council passed a statute that disbanded highway patrol deputies, speed limits would be ignored, accidents would multiply and drivers would rightly regard local law enforcement with disdain and contempt. Speed limits were still law, but for all practical purposes were repealed. Ignored by local police, speed limits, while theoretically in force, like Madison’s parchment barriers, were made irrelevant.
In similar fashion, the 17th Amendment effectively repealed the 10th Amendment. While the 10th still exists in theory like the speed limits above, without enforcement by a State appointed Senate, the national government was suddenly free and unencumbered to ignore the parchment barrier of the 10th, federal separation of powers and enumerated powers. Still, the freedom destroying effects of the 17th took time to kick in.
Almost thirty years after ratification, in an infamous 1942 decision, Wickard v. Filburn, Scotus illegally assigned State control over intra-state commerce to Congress and unelected national bureaucrats. FDR appointed eight of the nine justices. Wickard blew the lid off limited, enumerated powers and set the stage for consolidated national authority. For Progressives, it was a twofer; it hammered the last nail in the coffin of separation of powers between the national and State governments and welcomed consolidated government with open arms.
Consider this: If States were still represented in the Senate, would Wickard have had a chance? Would Scotus have risked retribution from forty-eight State Senators? Better yet, would FDR have bothered to nominate judges hostile to the 10th? Would judges hostile to the 10th Amendment have made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee if he did?
Our subsequent history is one of increasing oppression as the Administrative branch exploded in power and arrogance. Recently, Arizona was told it could not secure its international border. Californians are told they cannot, by CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT define marriage as between a man and a woman. State Voter ID laws are derided as racist. We cannot buy a lightbulb, toilet, or auto unapproved by the heavy hand of some nameless tyrant in Washington. The EPA shuts down electrical power plants in the name of bogus climate change. Oh, and of course, Obamacare. Would these outrages have occurred if States appointed Senators? Left without means of self-defense, is it clear the 17th Amendment effectively repealed the 10th?
Because of the 17th we are not only not a federal republic, we are scarcely a republic at all.
What to do? The fact that over half of the States opposed Obamacare was overlooked by the dinosaur media and their partners, the lower federal courts and Scotus. Resistance is in the air. Obamacare is precursor to the unlimited evil we should expect as the national government/media complex cooperate to oppress us.
My Friends, as Mark Levin regularly reminds us, reform will not emerge from Washington. If we are to peacefully save what remains of our freedoms and regain what was lost, it is time for the States to call an Article V Constitutional Convention. If Congress does not head it off on its own to consider a single amendment, repeal of the 17th, we have little to lose. Our consolidated government ignores our unalienable rights, separation of powers and is arming itself to put down mass confrontation. If Congress ignores the threat and the States convene a convention, we risk no more than where we are already headed, a consolidated government of unlimited powers bent on creating a perfect social justice Utopian hell.
We have the means to save our society and lives; let’s use them. Together, with the help of God, we just might save these United States.
Yeah and they also passed the 17th, and the legislatures agreed, that’s the process our founders devised to amend the constitution.
And thank God they did or else their would be no bill of rights.
Nope.
Lift your rock. Crawl back.
Still serving the cause of the political elites again, I see.
Ya’ done good.
The 17th amendment effectively abolished the Senate and in its place it created a redundant house of reps.
Although we may not have a population knowledgeable enough about the nature of their own Federal Constitutional system to understand the devastating effect of this change. Much less knwoalgable enough about the nature of freedom & self-government to understand the cost of what is and has been lost as a result.
We who know cannot in our hearts deny the 17th Amendment’s effect to ourselves, nor the need to not only educate our population on the Constitution and John Loche theory upon which it’s founded. But to eventually guide them back toward a health respect for liberty and the competing decentralized interest which are necessary to practically defend & preserve freedom.
Perhaps the worst of the worst effects is the lifetime appointment of dozens of radical leftists to federal benches. Political theory aside, would any of these anti-10th Amendment nutjobs since the days of FDR have had a chance if Senators looked out for State interests rather than reelection by the mob?
I doubt it, but of course anytime you speak of what if and the judgment of men there is always a big question.
While I admit that a senate seat then like now could be effectively bought. Such buying then like now depended heavily upon the candidates in question generally reflecting what the electorate in question desired.
This means if a candidate did completely rejected his state's power interest the cost of buying the seat would have to be much more. Because it would correspondingly deprive State leglsators of their own lobbing value as it deprives them of power. Thus more leglsators would have to be bought to offset said loss. This of course makes that particular candidate all that more less cost effective compared to his competitors who might accomplish the same or competeting ends while protecting the power of the State.
Business including lobbing does not take the path of most resistance. As no business can stay afloat if is always spend the maximum amount of money on every product.
The other issue of course is the states ideological interest which should be regarded in this equation as a bit of a wild card. But one that nonetheless controls a great many of the "non-corrupt" votes. This interest however could just as easily sway toward giving up right as toward retaining them.
It's a cruelty corrupt equation(like most equations of competing power interest upon which a Good Constitutional system is built) but it is nonetheless a real equation that produces a result that helps keep Power in the hands of the people.
I love the idea, and I hope that it can eventually happen, but right now, I wouldn’t trust some of these legisl00tures to pick their own noses, much less U.S. Senators.
Besides the David Dewhurst problem, as Impy pointed out, there could also be Senator KARL ROVE! And don’t forget, we have Maryland, California, New York, Massachusetts, Colorado and other liberal-infested holes, whose legislatures would probably pick Senators-for-Life Martin O’Malley, Andrew Cuomo and so on.
Even if the legisl00tures shape up, there would need to be a few other reforms in place for repealing the 17th to really work.
1. Repeal the 16th Amendment and the Federal Reserve and put us back on a gold standard, so Senators couldn’t bribe the state legislatures as much with taxpayer- and debt-financed handouts.
2. Overturn Reynolds vs. Sims, so state Senates can once again be divided by geography, not demography (1 man, 1 vote). This would reduce the influence of liberal urban politics somewhat in choosing the Senators.
3. Make the House of Representatives much more numerous, say, 1 representative per every 50,000 people. Sure, there would be over 6,000 Congresspricks, but at least there’s a better chance they would actually represent people, rather than special interests and ideologies, since individual campaigns wouldn’t cost so much. Campaigning for a much smaller district would presumably cost much less, making special interest and party money less of a necessity.
Gotta go.
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