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The 17th Amendment and Mark Levin
April 11th, 2013 | Mark Levin

Posted on 04/13/2013 9:42:21 AM PDT by Jacquerie

Mark is working on another book. Every night it seems, he wants to bust out and talk about it, but his publishers have put the ixnay on too much disclosure. Still, he shows a little leg now and then. That happened in the second hour of his show last Thursday, April 11, 2013.

With the help of sixteen rinos, Dingy Harry got 68 votes to proceed with a gun control bill that few, if any Senators had read. After wailing on the lack of process and regular order, Mark focused on the nature of the Senate and how it differed from the institution of our Framers.

Mark Levin:

“The Federal government’s powers were supposed to be limited. Defined. Enumerated. The Federal government wasn’t supposed to have all of this power. It wasn’t supposed to have plenary power; the plenary power was with the States. (Relates how in times past one could easily have a face to face with State legislators from your home town) Some States are great, some suck. But that’s not the point. The point is that the federal government is worse than any State; is it not? That’s what happens when power is concentrated. That’s’ what happens when limits are thrown off. So, we’re fighting battles we shouldn’t have to fight, and they’re coming one after another after another. They’re bipartisan. I want you to keep something in mind, this is very important, IMHO.” (wails on the 16 rinos who threw in with the rats over gun control/2A.)

“I want to ask you this question, what’s the purpose of the US Senate? I’m serious. Originally, the US Senate was supposed to be made up of members who were sent there, to this body, from the State legislatures. See, the States that gave birth to the federal government, they WANTED A SAY in what the federal government did. So they said, okay, we’ll have a popularly elected House of Representatives elected every two years; there was a lot of debate over the term, but they settled on two years, and then they said, ‘We’re going to have this Senate. And one of the main reason s we’re going to have this Senate is, well of course the main reason is WE THE STATES need a say in this, some position in this government we are creating. But they also said, look, the Senate will slow down, ya’ know what might become a fad, or a movement, a temporary sort of mob activity, because we’ll give them longer terms, and because Senators won’t be elected directly by the same people who elect House members, but they’ll be elected indirectly by the same people, through their State legislatures.”

“Instead what we have here really is a body that has no point. There’s no point to it. Do these Senators really represent their States? I mean this guy Wicker and his vote today, does he really represent Mississippi? These two jerks from Georgia, do they really represent GA? No, they got on a boat, with Manchin, who really doesn’t represent West Virginia, and “Mark what do you mean, he doesn’t really represent, I mean the people elected him . . . “ No, I didn’t say he didn’t represent the people of GA or MS, I said the States of MS or GA, because right now they have no say in anything. So what’s the point of the US Senate, will somebody please tell me? I don’t know exactly. Well, I know what the Constitutional powers are, THAT’S NOT THE POINT. My point is why have two bodies if they’re both popularly elected?” No matter how you change the terms, they don’t represent the States, or they represent a district, yiptido!"

"I don’t think there is a more useless body than the US Senate, in terms of its structure today. And how did it happen? In 1913, that the 17th Amendment was ratified, giving direct elections to Senators. Well, it’s the same way things happen today. Radical populists, and so-called Progressives, whom I call Statists, . . . because in the end that’s all they are, big government types, they pushed this movement, . . . both the 16th and 17th Amendments in the same year. (more on amendments in general) This movement has undermined our system, as it does today. This is why there is a disconnect, there’s an absolute disconnect, so if you’re a Senator you can change from day to day who it is you think you represent or claim to represent. (rant on who or what do Senators represent, the people, states . . . ) IOW you do whatever the hell you want in the name of the people, the Constitution . . . and so forth . . . and you’re really doing it TO the people and UNDERMINING the Constitution. It’s an ugly, bizarre institution right now."

"That’s what I’m saying. We understand the House of Representatives. We may not like what it does but we understand what it is supposed to do, don’t we? Its peculiar, this Senate. I’m going to talk of this down the road. . . . because I think what’s necessary here, well . . . I’ll talk more about it down the road, because in many ways I think we’re banging our heads against the wall."


TOPICS: Reference
KEYWORDS: 17th; 17thamendment; constitution; levin; marklevin; seventeenth; seventeenthamendment; statesrights
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Calling the Senate “ugly and bizarre,” Mark criticizes the 17th Amendment for booting the States from the federal government and giving us two popularly elected houses of Congress.
1 posted on 04/13/2013 9:42:21 AM PDT by Jacquerie
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To: NVDave; txrefugee; freedumb2003; muawiyah; cripplecreek; WhiskeyX; Carry_Okie; Rodamala; apillar; ..
17th Amendment ping!
2 posted on 04/13/2013 9:43:46 AM PDT by Jacquerie (How few were left who had seen the republic! - Tacitus, The Annals)
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To: Jacquerie

Bump.


3 posted on 04/13/2013 9:50:09 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (Life. Liberty. Property. Family. Sovereignty. Security. Borders. The Constitutional Oath.)
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To: Jacquerie

If it were up to me I would retain the right to vote for senators but give the win to whoever wins the most districts.


4 posted on 04/13/2013 9:53:05 AM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: Jacquerie

I’m at the point now where words or books have no substantive meaning in this battle between the evil we have come to confirm is Democrat and the last vestiges of freedom minded Americans. Words and books won’t cut it in this battle.


5 posted on 04/13/2013 9:54:24 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: Jacquerie
if you do a real careful read through you'd find the Constituion's basic framework is a parliament with a temporary king and possibly a permanent bureaucracy (the weights and measures, post offices, post roads, and a whole host of other clauses clearly point to that). The Senate was slathered onto the mixture for the purpose of gaining assent for the Constitution.

It wasn't a real good slathering, and mistakes were made where the Supreme Court ended up as its own judge.

The very same Founders did something very suspicious when they wrote up the rules for the Indiana Territory ~ the state Senate was turned into the chief court ~ boom boom ~ boom boom ~ boom boom ~ tympanic noise resounds in the hall.

Same guys; a dramatically different idea for a Senate. BTW, the Indiana legislature was still handling divorces in acts of the legislature in the late 1800s! That was after the reform of taking it out of the hands of the Senate alone.

The other territories and states that were laid out to rule the Old Northwest as it was carved up into states did pretty much the same thing ~ use the senate as a court ~

I think if we needed anything to give us a proper perspective on the Senate, it would be as a court with jurisdiction on all cases at law arising out of federal law. That would include any possible conflicts with state laws created by federal law.

6 posted on 04/13/2013 9:54:59 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Jacquerie

He’s right. There’s a reason the Democrats worked so hard to retain control of the Senate. There are only about 33 races every two years there. They mass their resources and win. And when a Democrat wins a Senate race, he/she is there for six years advancing the Democrat party. Their leadership is smarter than the Republican leadership. And since the Democrats control the judicial branch, the legislative branch is moot anyway as the Democrats will challenge every Republican backed law in court and win the vast majority of the cases.


7 posted on 04/13/2013 9:55:14 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blueunicorn6

Those who have knowledge will understand this ~ we need a GRAND CANAL ~ impeachment just doesn’t work to discipline the federal judiciary.


8 posted on 04/13/2013 9:58:19 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah

Our form of government is unique and reflects what the States were doing at the time, more than the Brit system.

The Federal Senate was modeled on the existing Maryland Senate and retained State representation, in modified form from the Articles of Confederation.

Congress has plenty of power over courts. It doesn’t use them because the ruling class generally likes the results.


9 posted on 04/13/2013 10:09:32 AM PDT by Jacquerie (How few were left who had seen the republic! - Tacitus, The Annals)
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To: Jacquerie; holdonnow; SierraWasp
We not only need to return the Senate to the States, we need to have state senators appointed by counties. I can walk into my county supervisor and get time. He is only one step away from a direct line to the US Senate. That's BETTER representation than I get as one of 34 million Californians.

It was the Earl Warren SCOTUS that wrecked that representative communications track with Reynolds v. Sims and Baker v. Carr, two rulings for which they neither had the Constitutional authority, nor were consistent with its construction for State representation. By forcing the States to have direct elections of their State Senators, they were violating the exact principle under which the US Senate was ordained. The result was exactly the same as the 17th Amendment, placing rural areas at the mercy of the ignorant whims of urban voters and the media that herd them.

I can't see why guys like Mark Levin haven't made this simple and effective point.

10 posted on 04/13/2013 10:18:30 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (An economy is not a zero-sum game, but politics usually is.)
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To: Jacquerie
As I said the federal Senate was slathered on top of what is clearly a parliamentary system with a temporary king with permanent bureaucracy ~ a really, really, really ancient and tried form of government.

So, it was the Maryland senate that was the model for the federal Senate. The NW Territorial Senate was clearly modeled on someone's idea of a high court and not the Maryland Senate ~ most likely because the Old Northwest was made up mostly of former Virginia land claims.

I think it's safe to say there were conflicting currents of thought ~ which is probably why the Federalists found it so easy to snake their Supreme Court into a position of equality ~ and even superiority.

We probably ought to undo that.

11 posted on 04/13/2013 10:33:41 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Carry_Okie
You are so right. “One man, one vote,” . . . BS. I read the link you provided in a post some time ago. Scotus reached in and illegally rewrote the basic structure of many State governments.

There is no way this would have happened if States had agency in the Senate.

I'll bet Mark eventually gets around to it.

12 posted on 04/13/2013 10:34:29 AM PDT by Jacquerie (How few were left who had seen the republic! - Tacitus, The Annals)
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To: Gaffer

You are absolutely correct. Words, books and talk show rants are not going to stop this MarxoFascist tyranny from subjugating us.

We are way past any peaceful political solution at this point. History more than teaches where we have arrived.

But because we are infected with Normacly Bias - the American people do not think the horrors of genocide and subjugation of the last century by similar Leftist Utopianists as what we have in power in this country now, can happen to them.


13 posted on 04/13/2013 10:37:27 AM PDT by INVAR ("Fart for liberty, fart for freedom and fart proudly!" - Benjamin Franklin)
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To: Gaffer

The brush moves both ways, Demo & Repub, when painting a picture about the attack on constitutional freedom. Go back to the late part of the 19th Century and the first decade of the 20th Century and see that Republicans were right there in the thick of Progressivism. Think Teddy Roosevelt here...

This is at the center of how we arrive at the 17th Amendment.


14 posted on 04/13/2013 10:39:46 AM PDT by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: INVAR

To restore the 10th Amendment, repeal the 17th.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3005581/posts


15 posted on 04/13/2013 10:48:22 AM PDT by Jacquerie (How few were left who had seen the republic! - Tacitus, The Annals)
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To: Jacquerie

We do not have the power or ability to keep our own representatives from defacto abolishing the Second Amendment, or throwing in with the homosexual agenda. They are compromised and even the TEA Party is infiltrated.

We cannot get Congress to stand up for the Bill of Rights - how can anyone expect them to repeal the very Amendment that gives them limitless power??

What makes anyone think that a Con-Con would not also be twisted and perverted into a complete scrapping of the entire Constitution itself??

No my friend, if we take a hard look at history and human nature - you will find that there is no peaceful or political solution to where we now find ourselves in the effort of stopping what the Ruling Class is doing to us.

If liberty is precious, then war to preserve what is left of it is going to be the only solution. It has come to that. As soon as the vestige of liberty is removed, life itself becomes the target of those working to subjugate us.

Since the Ruling Class do not fear a Godly, moral people beholden to their faith and our Foundational documents - there is no bulwark against what they intend to do to us.

The only way to get them to stop - is to put fear of our resolve into them. Not even sure that will suffice at this point.

The fact is, most in this nation no longer share or have in common the very foundations that forged us in the first place.

Since we would not fight when the cost would have been bloodless, we are arrived at a point where we will have to fight a futile attempt to preserve our own lives, or live as slaves.


16 posted on 04/13/2013 11:20:06 AM PDT by INVAR ("Fart for liberty, fart for freedom and fart proudly!" - Benjamin Franklin)
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To: Jacquerie
A new day is dawning! Chip your Children for Public Safety!


17 posted on 04/13/2013 11:31:25 AM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: INVAR

Tell me what war will accomplish.


18 posted on 04/13/2013 11:32:01 AM PDT by Jacquerie (How few were left who had seen the republic! - Tacitus, The Annals)
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To: Jacquerie; All
Thank you for posting Jacquerie.

Although I would support the repeal of 17A just to help reconnect patriots with the Constitution and its history, 17A is not the problem with the unconstitutionally big federal government imo. The problem is that constitutionally ignorant voters don't understand that most of the spending programs that candidates promise to get themselves elected as federal lawmakers are based on constitutionally nonexistent federal powers.

In fact, what you're not going to hear from Obama guard dog Fx News is the following. Practically the only federal program that Congress has the power to regulate, tax and spend for within state borders is the postal service as evidenced by the Constitution's Clause 7 of Section 8 of Article I. In other words, federal government has no power to tax and spend for most other government services within state borders.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

19 posted on 04/13/2013 11:38:59 AM PDT by Amendment10
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To: Jacquerie

Are you kidding me?

It TOOK WAR to establish our liberty from tyrants.

It will TAKE WAR to preserve what is left of our liberty from tyrants.

Or was Jefferson wrong when he discussed the absolute need of watering the Tree of Liberty?

If we’re not willing to do what it takes to keep what is left of essential liberty, then slavery and death is our near-term future, and a meager existence will be labeled ‘freedom’ - for the privilege to live as the State dictates.


20 posted on 04/13/2013 11:41:35 AM PDT by INVAR ("Fart for liberty, fart for freedom and fart proudly!" - Benjamin Franklin)
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