Rick Santorum predicts a convention fight with Ron Paul delegates over party platform

Yahoo ^ | 06/08/2012 | Chris Moody

[EternalVigilance]

So, if a State banned speech, banned the internet, banned the printing press, shuttered the churches, placed the entire population, or some disfavored parts of it, in jail cells without trial, confiscated and banned all firearms, removed all parental rights, and allowed the sick and the aged to be done away with, the national government would have no power or duty to do anything about it, right?

[EternalVigilance]

Nice dodge, by the way.

[tacticalogic]

So, if a State banned speech, banned the internet, banned the printing press, shuttered the churches, placed the entire population, or some disfavored parts of it, in jail cells without trial, confiscated and banned all firearms, removed all parental rights, and allowed the sick and the aged to be done away with, the national government would have no power or duty to do anything about it, right?

I'd expect the shooting to be over with and a new State government being established before the feds got there. If the State did manage it, I'd expect the feds to show up asking for pointers on how they got away with it.

[tacticalogic]

Nice dodge, by the way.

How about you telling us when, in the history of the Republic, the US government has ever been in compliance with the US Constitution by your account.

[EternalVigilance]

Another dodge.

[EternalVigilance]

Another dodge.

[EternalVigilance]

Article Four, Section Four guarantees to every State a republican form of government.

Perhaps you could explain how a State that didn’t secure the most important unalienable right of the people could possibly be a republic in any American sense of that word?

[tacticalogic]

That’s cute. You’re avoiding questions you don’t want to answer by calling them a dodge.

[EternalVigilance]

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind."

"Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man."

-- Thomas Jefferson

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"Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing."

"I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary."

-- Ronald Reagan

[tacticalogic]

Perhaps you could explain how a State that didn’t secure the most important unalienable right of the people could possibly be a republic in any American sense of that word?

No one who understood the meaning of the word "republic" would ask such a question. A State cannot be a republic.

[EternalVigilance]

No. You refused to answer my question, and dodged repeatedly.

So, let me ask again: If a State is oppressing the people, and denying them their God-given, unalienable rights, does the general government have the legitimate power and duty to step in to protect them?

[tacticalogic]

So, let me ask again: If a State is oppressing the people, and denying them their God-given, unalienable rights, does the general government have the legitimate power and duty to step in to protect them?

Well then, let me ask again,

When, in the history of the republic, has the US government been in compliance with the Constitution by your account?

[EternalVigilance]

A State cannot be a republic.

Every one of our states is a republic. The Constitution requires that it be so.

Article Four, Section 4:

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government..."

[tacticalogic]

Every one of our states is a republic.

Did they teach civics when you were in school?

[EternalVigilance]

When, in the history of the republic, has the US government been in compliance with the Constitution by your account?

Even if the answer were never, or always, or anywhere in between, that wouldn't be a legitimate excuse to act against the rights of the people now. So, the question is a straw man.

[tacticalogic]

When, in the history of the republic, has the US government been in compliance with the Constitution by your account?

[EternalVigilance]

Did they teach civics when you were in school?

Didn't they teach reading comprehension in yours?

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government..."

[tacticalogic]

OK. I'm done.

You just did more damage to your own argument than anything I could possibly say.

[tacticalogic]

OK. I'm done.

You just did more damage to your own argument than anything I could possibly say.

[EternalVigilance]

When, in the history of the republic, has the US government been in compliance with the Constitution by your account?

As I have said before many times, the compromises that were made with folks who think like you do put the founding generation at odds with their own stated natural law moral principles immediately. And, as we discussed before, it ultimately almost destroyed the republic.

And Thomas Jefferson saw the judgment that was coming on that well in advance.

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free."

It's always a really bad idea to get out of line with the laws of nature and Nature's God. Even in the name of "originalism."