REPOST: How Tyranny Came to America [re: Constitutionalism 101]

Constitution Party / www.constitutionparty.org ^ | 2000 | Joseph Sobran

[Sofa King]

You're the one who refused to answer the very simple question I posed and posted a general rant instead. The facts are not in your favor.

[Southack]

"You're the one who refused to answer the very simple question I posed and posted a general rant instead. The facts are not in your favor."

Really? Then why didn't you repost the "question" that I "refused"?

Afraid that I'd answer it if I actually saw it?!

[Sofa King]

What was not to see about it? It's right there in post #115. Ignoring it was your choice, not mine.

[Southack]

Oh, you meant why didn't I answer your question that was completely off topic. Now I remember why I didn't answer it in the first place. Nice try, though.

[Sofa King]

You can't answer it, can you? It's proof that I was on the side that I am currently claiming to be on, and the same cannot be said for you. Just ignore it, like you do with every other scrap of logic in this debate.

[Sofa King]

You can't answer it, can you? It's proof that I was on the side that I am currently claiming to be on, and the same cannot be said for you. Just ignore it, like you do with every other scrap of logic in this debate.

[Southack]

"It's proof that I was on the side that I am currently claiming to be on, and the same cannot be said for you."

Well, that's good enough for me.

< /MOCKING >

[Sofa King]

No, that's too good for you. [/truth]

[justshutupandtakeit]

Blah, blah, blah. But what would you expect from a man who believes Shakespeare's works were written by someone else?

[AdamSelene235]

From Boston T. Party's Hologram of Liberty

Civic Belief #1 The Congress was given few specific powers. All else was left to the States and to the people under the 10th Amendment. Ample checks and balances protect the Republic from federal tyranny.

Civic Belief #2 The Federal Government has become so powerful only because despotic officials have overstepped their strict, constitutional bounds.

If #1 is true, then how did #2 happen? The Constitution has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. -- Lysander Spooner; No Treason (1870)

Think about that. By either the Constitution's purposeful design or by its unintentional weakness, we suffer under a federal colossus which takes a third of our lives and regulates everything from alfalfa to xylophones. This is Freedom?

So, why aren't Americans free? Perhaps we weren't really meant to be!

hol· o· gram (häl' e gram) n. [< Gr. holos, whole + gramma, writing] 2. a document falsely representing itself as an accurate metaphor

lib· er· ty (lib'er tee) n. [< L. liber, free] 1. freedom from slavery

Hologram of Liberty--The Constitution's Shocking Alliance With Big Government--is a cold splash of water on our civic mythology. Hologram's main contention is that the 1787 Convention, its Constitution and Federal Government was the most brilliant and subtle coup d'etat in political history. While the majority of Americans then were Jeffersonian in nature, a few Hamiltonian Federalists eradicated our Swiss-style Confederation and replaced it with a latent leviathan. The Federal Government was given several escape keys to the putative handcuffing by the Constitution. Using the "necessary and proper" and "general welfare" clauses in conjunction with congressional powers under treaty, interstate commerce, and emergency, the "Founding Lawyers" of 1787 purposely designed a constitutional infrastructure guaranteed to facilitate a future federal colossus. While such a massive government was impossible to erect in the freedom-conscious 1780's, the "virus" of tyranny was cunningly hidden within the Constitution to foment the eventual federal behemoth we are burdened with today. The feds take in a third of economic activity and regulate everything from the price of corn to the size of chimneys and it's all constitutional! " Oh, it's only 'constitutional' because autocratic Supreme Court Justices say it is!," some would reply.

Yes, but the Framers allowed the Supreme Court, without any check or balance, to approve of federal encroachment on the States and on the people. There is no constitutional avenue for overturning a despotic Supreme Court ruling--and it was designed that way. The feds are allowed to "monitor" themselves, like students grading their own tests. Had the Framers wanted to really check the Supreme Court, they'd have at least created an appellate court (activated by petition) staffed by justices from the States. Had the Framers wanted to really hamstring Congress and the President, they would have given the people a "no-confidence" device to remove traitorous officials in midterm. Had they wanted to, the Framers could have (as did the Swiss) easily confined the Federal Government--but they didn't want to. In their opinion, a strong central government--independent of real popular approval--was best for America. The Framers left the federal fleas in control of their own flea powder, and that's why we have such an unchallengeable government today.

Most conservatives and libertarians believe that the Constitution and its Framers were Jeffersonian and laissez-faire. They were not, and they never claimed to be. This Jeffersonian gloss is echoic of two things: 1) What the Constitution was sold as to the people through The Federalist, and 2) How the Constitution, according to Jefferson, should have been interpreted under strict constructionism. Add the Red, White, and Blue, July 4th, the Founding Fathers and George Washington and you've got a civic religion with its unique parchment worship. There are but three ways to view anything, including the Constitution:

1) The way you see it. 2) The way you would like it to be.

3) The way it really is.

Friends of freedom have gazed dreamily at the Constitution for two centuries, fusing #1 with #2 to create a false #3. We need to snap out of our parchment worship and coldly study the predicament of Liberty--before it's too late. Liberty-loving folks need to quickly understand that freedom is not well-served by the current Constitution. Neither is tyranny. It is Royce's firm opinion that the Constitution will be radically amended, if not abolished altogether, by "us" or "them" within 10 years. Royce proves that the States and the people were politically "checkmated" at ratification, and discusses his three peaceful solutions prior the imminent insurrection now brewing. The goal of Hologram of Liberty is to spark an active synthesis of Libertarians, Patriots, and Conservatives to prevent a 21st century Dark Age in America.

There hasn't been an innovative theory about the Constitution in 84 years, since Charles Beard's An Economic Interpretation. We are long overdue for a paradigm shift to political reality. It's time to complete the story with Hologram of Liberty, the Jeffersonian/anti-federalist epilogue. Our window of opportunity for reestablishing freedom is quickly running out and we simply don't have time for comforting old fantasies. Hologram of Liberty is the freshest research on the Constitution since 1913

[Sofa King]

"Think about that. By either the Constitution's purposeful design or by its unintentional weakness, we suffer under a federal colossus which takes a third of our lives and regulates everything from alfalfa to xylophones. This is Freedom?"

It is neither by the contitution's failure or by it's design. It is by the American people's failure to protect it. No document, no matter how well written, can defend itself.

Also, the Constitution is more than 200 years old, and was written to be as clear as possible. The fact that there are any theories less than 200 years old on it at all is a sign that something is wrong.

[Southack]

Ah yes. After posting your vile slander in Message #91, you've managed to *neither* apologize nor substantiate or defend your lies.

Typical. All that you've managed to do is to cower in silence and flee from this thread, lest you be caught performing more craven acts.

[Black Agnes]

I've been AFK. Sorry you're so sensitive.

[Sofa King]

You still haven't answered my question.

[Black Agnes]

Nah, he's busy being insulted by (craven) non insults.

[Southack]

Your off-topic question doesn't deserve to be answered.

[Sofa King]

You mask your shortcomings poorly. You'll have to go to DU to find people who will believe your excuses.

[Countyline]

... worth repeating several times ...

"James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, elaborated upon this limitation in a letter to James Robertson:

""With respect to the two words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. If the words obtained so readily a place in the "Articles of Confederation," and received so little notice in their admission into the present Constitution, and retained for so long a time a silent place in both, the fairest explanation is, that the words, in the alternative of meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken for granted.""