Posted on 04/05/2010 5:15:07 PM PDT by Kaslin
However, if we could have green shoots PLUS a couple of really strong rulings at the SCOTUS (building on what the Court had to do to preserve the Constitution against FDR's New Deal and communism), maybe one or two states could break free.
I think if we could just get one or two states to lead the way -- for example, Virgina -- people would voluntarily start to redistribute themselves according to how they viewed forced redistribution of wealth. It then has the chance to become a self-perpetuating cycle. The downward cycle is self-perpetuating if not forcefully stopped. But so is the upward cycle.
As soon as the States have more freedom, however they get it (hopefully, peaceably through SCOTUS knocking back the onslaught), that freedom will itself increase our ability to fight socialism.
And finally, those lawsuits may be the death knell of this once-great country if they fail to result in a return to Federalism. Remember this battle is not taking place in a vacuum, the other side will be fighting each of these steps tooth and nail.
The stakes are indeed incredibly high. But if we can win a way for the States to return to federalism, at least the follow-on battles will take place in the states. And, more importantly, people would have a place to go. Right now, as Ronald Reagan, we are the last stand on Earth. There is nowhere to flee to. We are the place where our forefathers fled to find freedom.
The key here is not so much saving America from socialism (as much as we need and want to do that). It's about preserving the union by allowing the roughly 50% that want socialism to live in socialist states and the roughly 50% that don't to live in free states.
Right now half the country is miserable every time there is a party change -- and Obambi is making this much worse by playing up racialism and teaching that to a whole new generation. Unless conservatives have a place to go (free states), it simply will not be able to withstand the socialist tipping point forever.
>>>Delaware and the Eastern Shore all the way down <<<
WoooHooo - YES - Let’s do it!
Drinkin’ wayyyyyy too much of the sauce...
So, ultimately, aside from some critical litigation, it comes down to which states have the stones (and the supportive citizens) to walk away from the federal teat?
Unfortunately, I don't think there are any right now...largely due to the political costs of abandoning some fairly significant portion of their electorate.
Even with all that we have said, though, I know I DO NOT want to live in the country that the left is desirous to make. And I don't want my children to grow up in that country either.
Actually, once inflation kicks in and their checks become worthless and/or bounce they will do that regardless of what we do
“Not an attack here, but your view is short-sighted.”
The view was intended to quickly express the following fundamental principle: The stars and stripes went up the flagpole and that flag was secured by our Constitution.
“The problem is that a significant portion of the citizens of this country SUPPORT that viewpoint.” (Presumably, you mean ignoring and attacking the Constitution.)
That is their choice, but it shouldn’t matter. That significant portion does not have the option of peacefully implementing their viewpoint without amending the Constitution.
“How do any two peoples reconcile their differences when they are DIAMETRICALLY opposite from one another?”
The theory of relativism is not at play. Reconciliation is by reference to established ground rules or by agreement to add to, or alter those rules . When “they” are capable of amending the Constitution then we should adapt or leave.
“They don’t want to live in the country I would like to make.”
Fortunately, the hard work in that regard has been performed by other patriots throughout our nation’s history. If falls on you and me and others to protect that work.
“...so, I ask again - how is that reconciled?”
The simple answer is that we have the high ground, if they want to change the rules without amending the Constitution, then you and I and others will defend that document by meeting them in the field.
The slightly more complicated answer is that our nation will not survive in the face of a continuing socialist attack (even without regard to external threats) unless we defend the Constitution - by one means or another. To prevail in that regard without bloodshed, we must be represented in Congress by politicians that honor the oath to defend the Constitution.
Many Republican politicians in recent decades have failed to resist attacks on the Constitution simply because they wanted to be “bipartisan” – and perhaps feared the MSM. To citee just two recent disappointments, look at the Republican role in the Clinton impeachment process and their pathetic inaction during the Jan 2009 Joint Session.
We must find fearless politicians prepared to recognize and confront the socialist threat without regard to risking his or her political office. Perhaps we can get the beginning of a turnaround in 2010.
“The main obstacles are the Ponzi schemes known as Social Security and Medicare. Many Conservatives have had so much taken from us over the 30 or 40 years of our careers to fund this idiocy that we can’t afford to retire without it. How would we allocate the liability for providing this ? “
I say we give them all the money we have and let them invest it or not as they choose. Privatize it except with one caveat, NO MORE REQUIREMENT TO PLAY THE GAME!
Then at least there is a snow balls chance in hell of them getting something as apposes to the basically nothing they are getting now.
“How would we allocate responsibility for the national debt ?”
Standard rules is to sum up all the existing Federal assets per state and assign dept accordingly in share of their value.
“These things require Federal taxes to pay for because they are Federal obligations, and that tax burden dwarfs the tax benefits of moving to one state or another. FDR planned this disaster with malice aforethought, but he planned it well. Short of a slow unwinding of federal powers, or an explosive collapse, we are stuck — an amicable separation is not possible.”
Not really once you assign the dept according to assets and population, so do you you get the transfer of theses “obligations” Most of which are technically unconstitutional and thus technically disregardful, but that doesn’t mean we would.
Thinks like social security and Medicare being in large part legal State obligations would have to be assumed by states at least at first.(We would get rid of and otherwise privative them later)
This web is not as complicated as you think it is, and its a lot more strait forward then not.
Quote THEG, from our sister site:
http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1479537#1479537
I have said for the longest time- going back at least as far as the Clinton plague- that I wished we could divide the nation into
1)- those who want the government to be the supplier of all their wants
and
2)- those in the “leave me the Hell alone!” category.
Unfortunately, the latter require the money, talent, and productivity of the former,
so it can never be.
I do not honestly see a solution for it, peaceful, or otherwise.
Producers, versus parasites.
The election of Øbozo was the ascent of the latter. Aberration? Or trendline?
You’ve never lived there. They have everything in common with the rest of North America except for their imbecilic refusal to speak English and their adoption of Code Napoleon civil law (which, unlike Louisiana they do not come by legitimately, never having been part of the Napoleonic Empire). Quebequois culture is American culture translated into French: they all drink “Le Budweiser”, shop at Target (pronounced ‘tarzhay’). I still don’t want them in Greater Texas thank you very much.
Why? Natural resources.
Supposedly, the future is going to be decentralized exurban or semi-suburban communities. People will work from home and order online so big cities won't be as necessary as they once were and big city politics will wane as a factor.
As so often happens in politics, though, that doesn't mean a victory of one side over the other but a change in the terms of the disagreement. Those exurbs will be socially more liberal than today's rural communities, but it will be upscale, limosine liberalism.
As a worst case scenario, though, if big cities aren't needed any more it could lead to more violent clashes between urban and non-urban populations.
Not of “Greater Texas” implements strong border controls and restrictive immigration polices vis-a-vis immigrants from the rump United States.
Maybe not.
Act I: Bright and successful people move to the red states. Unsuccessful people move to the blue states.
Act II: Bright and successful red staters start living and acting as people blessed with wealth and privilege always do: they start to feel entitled and expect too much for themselves. The losers in the blue states have to hustle more.
Act III: Red states end up pretty much where the blue states are now.
I haven't worked out if the losers manage to get things together or not.
HELL YES!!!
We also need a fair way to filter out the commies from the beginning of our USA. You can be sure that they would try to infiltrate from the beginning even pretending to be Conservative.
I think that it would be far more “imbecilic” of the Quebecois to give up their language, which after all is an important part of any people’s culture and heritage. I very much admire their ability to hang on to their language and heritage over the centuries. They were there before the English after all. Why should they give up their language? California is almost majority Mexican. Once the Mexicans are a clear-cut majority, should Californians now all conform and speak Spanish, regardless of their heritage? That makes about as much sense to me as your suggestion. The Quebecois are not immigrants to Canada. They did not decide to come to a new land and assimilate. They were already there.
Let’s agree to disagree here. I do not see Quebec as the same as the rest of North America. Just because they use a lot of the same products and stores hardly means they are the same people. There are MacDonald’s in Egypt after all. Are the Egyptians the same as us? Quebecois’ heritage and traditions are different, their politics are different (look at their voting patterns and their great leaders, Trudeau, Chretien.../s), some of their outlooks and cultural practices are different, their legal system is different (however illegitimate in your mind), and of course their language is different. That’s enough for me. On this point I stand with De Gaulle: Vive le Quebec libre!
What is that URL?
My question, in reality, what can we do to promote this? Aren’t we totally at the mercy of the Supreme Court to make some rulings that support a return to a more federal rather than national type of union? What if the Supremes don’t rule as we wish?
How would this all play out? Say a couple of states get enough of their electorate educated in founding principles, that they actually elect a governor and legislature in which the majority wants to do this. Ok, do they just declare, from now on, we are collecting taxes and we are sending to the Federal government only those tax revenues that pertain to those things listed in the enumerated powers - for national defense and so forth. From now on we are not funding anything else that is not a constitutional responsibility. We are not taking any more payments for Medicare, Medicaid, etc. No more federal funding of universities, public schools, etc. We’ll take care of these things in our own way, thank you very much. So they impose some type of tax on their citizens, a flat tax or fair tax or whatever they decide for their state, send in a very small portion of that to the Federal government, and proceed to do what they think is best for a conservative government at the state level. They declare that IRS agents have no legal authority in the state - all federal funds come through the state itself, and private citizens or corporations may not be harrassed or intimidated by the IRS, and that private citizens and corporations do not have to abide by any of the multitude of federal rules and regulations put in place over the last 40 years.
So what comes next - say the Supreme court rules the state can’t do that, that they are under obligation to support whatever the Federal government mandates - that IRS DOES have the power do continue doing as they’ve done. They do have to follow all the environmental/global warming /whatever regulations whether they like it or not.
Then what comes after that? Seems like it’s still “show down at the OK corral” time, ...either way. Seems like the president would still (if he’s an Obama type marxist) send in the federal troops to get that money one way or the other, remove the governor, arrest the state reps, etc. So, would it still come down to war? Or is there something I’m not seeing? I absolutely hate the thought of our country breaking uo, but I’m with everyone here, it can’t keep going on this way.
I’ve been trying to read through some of the anti federalist papers. I don’t understand all the language, but it seemed they had a pretty good idea that this was where our country would eventually be headed, even with all the checks and balances in place - that eventually the national government would swallow up the state governments.
That’s why Patrick Henry was so opposed to the ratification of the constitution. He would rather have had the weak confederation where the federal government just didn’t have near as much power over the states.
Yes. We are in agreement. I too know I do not want, and I do not want my children, to live in a Socialist country. For that matter, I do not want to see a world where there is no U.S.A. as a force for good, order and peace. I shudder to think of the wars that will be fought if the American Superpower truly falls.
I do wonder if the economics of this thing will get so bad that the political dynamics do, in fact, change in ways we can’t envision right now. I mean: change for the better, toward freedom.
There is literally nowhere to flee to. We are it.
How likely, do you think, that this could (maybe in our children’s lifetime) come to war?
I never in my life thought I would ask such a question, and I’m not sure I know (or want to know!) the answer. But thoughtful people such as ourselves, we are sitting here saying yes, there is a path to freedom (federalism), but what’s the likelihood it can and will be followed? If not followed, though, will those who want to live free just be the frog in the pot that one day wakes up boiled?
Just as around the time of the Civil War, there are many who talk big. And I myself am no longer willing to completely rule out anything in the future. But it seems to me that if there were enough sentiment to go to war over Marxist dictates, there’d be enough sentiment for the free States to fight peaceably through political and governmental channels for a sort of secession-in-place through a return to greater federalism. Those “stones” you were talking about — suddenly found.
(And people should not kid themselves: if it truly were evident that a return of some power to the States was absolutely demanded to preserve the Union or to prevent massive civil unrest, the SCOTUS would find a whole lot more meaning than it presently does in its charge under the Constitution to be a check on the wild use of power by the other branches of government.)
IOW, I’m pretty much concluding that if this thing isn’t resolved through peaceable means, a return to federalism, then we’re going to lose.
And as you pointed out in a previous post, the window for making that course correction will not be open indefinitely. Further this problem doesn’t go away when “our” guys get into the White House. As Williams pointed out in the posted article, the other side is just as unhappy at that point as we are now.
Yes! I hope Dr. Williams visits the thread, picks out many of the good threads of discussion, and continues to write extensively on this topic as only he can.
This idea of 50 states with their own character, their own cultural distinctives, their own way of striking the balance between taxation and government services -- this is exactly what our Founders must have literally ASSUMED was wanted and would happen naturally, so long as the federal government didn't get out of control.
Even the Electoral College, in all its brilliance, pays homage to the fact that the United States would have regional differences and that no single regional political philosophy should be automatically able to control the government. Without the Electoral College, it might be possible to win the presidency with the votes from a very few states that, for example, had massive urban populations that voted for socialism.
But the whole idea of America was that the States, being granted the power under the Constitution to quite freely invent themselves in their own image, would always provide that same sort of array of refuge that those who fled England came for.
Look at the colonies -- people settled in the one that suited them and they were, in many ways, quite distinct. Then when the frontier opened up, those who wanted that type of freedom, and were willing to shoulder that type of burden, packed up and went to Colorado and New Mexico and all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
This is a wonderful heritage of being blessed with a big land and a big idea for government by the people, at the consent of the governed! Of course, we eventually needed a somewhat larger, more powerful federal government. This actually has been a force for good in the world, to the extent it has enabled the projection of superior military might all over the globe. But, like many things, it has simply gone way too far. To the point that, as we have been discussing here, I think that a return to federalism is more and more integral to the very preservation of the Union.
Aren’t we totally at the mercy of the Supreme Court to make some rulings that support a return to a more federal rather than national type of union? What if the Supremes don’t rule as we wish?
Sigh. Yes. We are. Here's where I do have a little hope:
First, the Court is always going to be to some extent a creature of its times. Can't help it. My point here is that it's easy for the Court to be lax on allowing federal power to expand (metastasize) when it's easy. Does that make sense?
IOW, when the times are such that the Court's deference to expansion of federal power doesn't seem to be actually harming the country, I think the Court would tend to be more liberal in allowing it. When the times are such that the federal power grab doesn't look so egregious and no one else (save those cranky Originialists) seems too upset about it, I think the Court would lean toward liberality on the issue.
The upshot of this is, if the times are such that the Court knew very well that its stance on these issues actually could tip the country irretrievably away from even the thinnest doctrine of Constitutional federalism, well, then there might be a little more consternation about erring on the side of Marx rather than Jefferson.
Second, and related, I do think -- again more or less so depending on the times -- the Court does have a sense of its importance in history and its critical role under the Constitution. It knows very well that, entrusted with the power to declare the "Law of the Land," its (sacred) function as a "check" on the other Branches is undeniable.
It was the Supreme Court that finally began to try to put the brakes on FDR's Marxist march. I'm sure it wasn't easy for the Justices then. FDR was popular and times were dire. Yet there was still that loud voice that "this is too much power to be wielded by one man, by one branch of government." And the Court rose to its constitutional duty. I do think a Supreme Court that actually becomes concerned about the scope of power exercised by the Executive and Legislative Branches would step up in ways it would not in run-of-the-mill commerce cases, for example.
Third, and, again, related, if it is true that at some point it becomes evident that a return to federalism -- a return by the Supreme Court of at least some meaningful power to the States -- is demanded, even implicitly, as necessary to preserve the Union (prevent massive civil unrest or possibly even war), well, then I think someone's got the Justices' proper attention.
A year or two ago, I might have huffed at such a prospect. I'm not so sure now. Going back to Williams and the original article, the need for divorce seems inevitable. As Obama more and more uses brute political force to confiscate more and more of our money and freedom, the need for amicable divorce will become inexorable. The Court knows as well as us little peeps on this thread that the only peaceable way to allow more choice in how we will be governed is to return to federalism.
How would this all play out?
Lord, I love how you answered that question! My first thought is that, actually yes, the State would do the sorts of things you say -- except not quite to the extent you so wonderfully describe! I think they would have to start much smaller and build. For some reason, I keep coming back to school choice. The federal education racket is a huge breech into a State. Whatever a state could do to ratchet that down would begin to break the federal grip.
(For quite a while I have said that if conservatives want to quickly and efficient begin to defund the Left and break federal power all they have to do is, every family that can homeschool, should. Right there you are stripping school disticts of federal per-head "Average Daily Maintenance" funds that cause them to suck up to the unions and the feds. But I digress.)
I am going to really chew on your ideas, because I have been mulling over the same point. I wish we could hit upon something that would be (1) very popular with citizens, and (2) fairly easy to "get away with" in terms of federal resistance, as a starting point. Suggestions welcome.
But, no matter, I do think where this has to get walked back is at the SCOTUS. So the free States would have to figure out where they can resist and where they can provoke -- meaning cause or bring a lawsuit against the feds that advances the ball for them. As to the latter, they would need to plan out their case very carefully.
While this is a very complicated area of the law (though a simple idea under the Constitution), here's what I think is the general lay of the land: Even today the feds cannot always force the States to participate in various programs. How the feds get their way is by tying conditions to the receipt of funds. And that has been upheld over and over again by the SCOTUS - if the feds send money to the states, the feds have the "right" to say how it will be used, and the "right" to withhold that funding if the state wants to use it differently.
This seems pretty reasonable until you realize that, OTOH, the feds have the "right" to take the money of a State's citizens by taxation. This makes it practically impossible to resist the "return" of that money to the States, no matter what conditions are put on the funding.
I've argued before that it's one thing for Dad to write a check against his own bank account and demand that his son use the funds only for college tuition. It's quite another for Dad to confiscate the son's money, that he himself earned, then write a check against the confiscated funds, then demand that the money, which the son earned in the first place, be used only as Dad sees fit.
This latter is the logical fallacy that's been built into the Court's reasoning on federal funding for decades.
I do think that the federal government's out-of-control spending has reached the point where average citizens understand clearly that it is unsustainable. If that's true, then this understanding might provide a basis for a free State (as you set out in your hypothetical) to start banging the drum against the feds taking its citizens money, wasting it, using it to pay someone else's bills, and returning fifteen cents on the dollar (or whatever) to the State's citizens.
IOW, maybe we have reached the point where that type of narrative can catch fire. Once the grassroots really became committed to stopping federal confiscation and robbing Peter to pay Paul, there would be no limit to the type of actions and arguments the State could come up with to resist and provoke the feds into more submission.
Seems like the president would still (if he’s an Obama type marxist) send in the federal troops to get that money one way or the other, remove the governor, arrest the state reps, etc
I think if sentiment reaches this level on both sides, first, the SCOTUS will use one of the inevitable lawsuits to try to settle the practical (on the street) issue as well as the legal issue.
I don't know enough about tax law at all to know, but I would like to find out exactly how much revenue flows to the federal government that is based on a legally enforceable law, not on some kind of "voluntary" "you send us this money if you want to get this service," etc. I would like to know the legal basis for every penny that goes to the federal government. That would be useful to learning where a State could resist and provoke.
That’s why Patrick Henry was so opposed to the ratification of the constitution. He would rather have had the weak confederation where the federal government just didn’t have near as much power over the states.
May this great nation find a way out of this mess. Our Founders were brilliant men. But somehow the bad side of human nature always seems to threaten the best-laid plans.
I apologize if I tried your patience with the length of my post. I am, shall we say, a bit exercised over this issue.
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