TEXTBOOK OF AMERICANISM

Enterprise Integrators ^ | Ayn Rand

[NMC EXP]

When we say that we hold individual rights to be inalienable, we must mean just that. Inalienable means that which we may not take away, suspend, infringe, restrict or violate-not ever, not at any time, not for any purpose whatsoever.

Time for honest self appraisal folks...are you an Individualist or are you a Collectivist?

[Misterioso]

Let the kvetching begin.

[frankiep]

The Constitution of the United States of America is not a document that limits the rights of man but a document that limits the power of society over man.

This statement needs to to be taught to every single American citizen. I would change it slighty though. The Constitution does not say what you can do, it says what the government cannot do.

[NMC EXP]

The Constitution does not say what you can do, it says what the government cannot do.

Yup. If govt schools had not stopped teaching civics fewer people would consider that document to be "just a G-d'ed piece of paper".

[true_blue_texican]

a Randi ping for later

[frankiep]

It is the reason why I oppose any kind of constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, even though I think that gay "marriage" is an oxymoron. To use the contitution to tell people that they cannot do something is surefire way to open up a huge can of worms. To paraphrase the article, once you advocate using the constitution to say tell people what they cannot do, you invite all men to do the same.

Excellent article btw. This is one to be saved on the ol' hard drive.

[NMC EXP]

To use the contitution to tell people that they cannot do something is surefire way to open up a huge can of worms.

True...but they have been doing it without the fig leaf of a Constitutional amendment anyway.

[frankiep]

Big difference. What you're talking about, I'm guessing, are regular laws/policies/regulations, etc. These can be changed or discarded with relative ease. To put something in the constitution is almost like putting in stone - meaning that once it's in there it's not so easy to erase it. Of course, all of this would mean a whole lot more if our leaders actually followed the constitution...

[The Mayor]

Collectivism holds that man has no rights; that his work, his body and his personality belong to the group; that the group can do with him as it pleases, in any manner it pleases, for the sake of whatever it decides to be its own welfare. Therefore, each man exists only by the permission of the group and for the sake of the group.

This sounds just like the political parties, especially in New York. Thank you but I will be an individual.

[rodguy911]

I read Any Rand as a college student,We the Living Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and her philosophy of Objectivsm has served me well. It's what America should be all about.

Excellent thread. I am book marking it now.

[NMC EXP]

These can be changed or discarded with relative ease.

Relative ease in theory only. In actual practice what do you reckon to be the ratio of laws & regulations passed to those which are repealed?

I cannot remember the last time a federal law was repealed or allowed to sunset if it contained such a provision.

[NMC EXP]

This sounds just like the political parties

Yup...tribalism at its worst.

I will be an individual

Excellent.

[NMC EXP]

It's what America should be all about.

Should....sadly true.

[KarlInOhio]

I cannot remember the last time a federal law was repealed or allowed to sunset if it contained such a provision.

The "assault" weapons ban is the last one allowed to sunset that I can think of.

[MamaTexan]

Of the Simplicity of Criminal Laws in different Governments
In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments:
in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS Book VI By Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

[NMC EXP]

I beleve you are correct.

[NMC EXP]

Good one...thanks.

[rodguy911]

Yeah I hate to admit it.

[MamaTexan]

Good one...thanks

Quite Welcome! :-)

----

In 1803, St. George Tucker wrote "View of the Constitution of the United States," a long essay attached to a Philadelphia publication of Blackstone's Commentaries meant to be used in the new nation.
Since Blackstone was based on a monarchy, Tucker's commentary looked at the role and rule of law in a constitutional republic. It was, thus, as historian Clyde N. Wilson writes in a forward to Tucker's work, "the first extended systematic commentary on the Constitution after it had been ratified by the people of the several states and amended by the Bill of Rights."

(Tucker:)
"The federal government, then, appears to be the organ through which the united republics communicate with foreign nations, and with each other. Their submission to its operation is voluntary: its councils, its sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame by which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they are swallowed up. Each is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of its functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent."