Posted on 09/01/2013 11:23:58 AM PDT by Dysart
One oft-overlooked aspect of the Constitution’s genius is the Framers’ humility. They had two animating ideals to guide the Republic they designed. The first, of course, was liberty: The United States would be the first Republic in history in which sovereignty was vested in “We the People,” not the central government; in which the central government’s function was to serve rather than rule the people; and in which the citizen’s autonomy over his life and property was presumed—the central government permitted to burden it only in limited and strictly defined ways. The second ideal was separation of powers: The recognition that power was necessary but inherently corruptive. For liberty to survive, power would need to be divided in a calculated manner, not just among the three branches of the new central government, but also among the central government, the states (which were to retain sovereignty notwithstanding the creation of the Union), and individual citizens.
The Framers were confident about these enduring ideals for a flourishing, free society. Nevertheless, they were sage enough to realize they were mere men. They had undoubtedly made errors. Though they disagreed with the anti-Federalists,the persuasive force of many contentions lodged in opposition to the Constitution was not lost on them. Moreover, even if the compromises they made and the balance of power they struck were suitable to the conditions of the late eighteenth century, they understood that those arrangements might not be suitable forever. History is dynamic. To persevere, a Constitution would need a process for self-correction and for maintaining its animating ideals through changing times. That process—explaining it, and offering a plan for using it in the manner and for the purpose the Framers intended—is the subject of The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic, Mark Levin’s latest effort to reinvigorate faithful constitutional governance
(Excerpt) Read more at newcriterion.com ...
“We the People” goes deeper than just an expression of democracy. European powers had long claimed they ruled because they had been *anointed* to rule by God. Thus anyone who challenged them was also challenging Heaven.
The founding fathers wanted no confusion in this. They wanted it clear that men created the constitution and the law, so men could change them without offending God. That nobody could use religion as an excuse for tyranny, claiming that they, and they alone, had the right to rule.
To know Mark is to know an activist. He ran for a school board seat at nineteen years of age and has twisted liberal tails ever since.
Given that reform will not emerge from the Wash DC denizens, I got off my duff a couple months ago, before his book release. After several letters to editors and communications with my state representative, the overall response has not been encouraging. It just means I'll continue, and hopefully, others will join.
We have the means to save our dying republic; history will not look kindly on us if we just sit back and let it die.
Article V ping!
thanks!
Thanks for the ping!
I hope more people become aware of this initiative.
Just the latest example of how one of his proposed amendments would be helpful ( term limits for Congress and the federal judiciary, and the ability for Congress and the States to override bad SC rulings.) We need to push for a convention to propose amendments!
Good for you. Restoring liberty is not a passive endeavor, that's for sure. Maybe Levin should entertain the idea of devising a Tevee show: Maybe a Dancing With The Patriot Survivor competition, or some-such, to draw mass appeal to his solutions. I think very highly of the visionary Levin and his proposals, but for what I believe to be good cause, have sincere doubts about a sizable percentage of my fellow Americans. Too many are either brainwashed or ignorant; often they're-- not coincidentally-- government-dependent and plainly slothful. I see elected officials who self-identify as Conservative when their energies are only channeled toward their personal betterment/enrichment with no regard for country, the Constitution or any discernible principle. Which is why Levin, I think, proposes a solution rooted in the states' legislatures. It may well be the best hope.
"Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers experienced by the first [Constitutional] Convention which assembled under every propitious circumstance, I should tremble for the result of a second.""That useful alterations will be suggested by experience could not but be foreseen....The mood preferred by the Convention seems to be stamped with every mark of propriety. It guards equally against that extreme facility which would render the Constitution too mutable; and that extreme difficulty which might perpetuate its discovered faults. It more over equally enables the general and the state governments to originate the amendment of errors as they may be pointed out by the experience on one side or on the other."
"Altho' the idea of a compact between the GOVT. & the people be just exploded, the idea of a compact among those who are parties to a GOVT. is a fundamental principle of free GOVT.
"The original compact is the one implied or presumed, but nowhere reduced to writing, by which a people agree to form one society. The next is a compact, here for the first time reduced to writing, by which the people in their social state agree to a GOVT. over them." - (In a letter to Nicholas P. Trist, February 15, 1830)
"Should the provision of the Constitution...be found not to secure the government and rights of the states of usurpations and abuses...the final resort within purview of the Constitution, lies in an amendment of the Constitution, according to a process applicable by the states."
The Founding Fathers were also very clear that the rights of the individual are granted by the Creator and not the government. The Constitution was designed to codify, not change or overrule, the concepts laid out in the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution followed the guidelines to institute a Government “among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” based on the self-evident truths that all men are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights from God, which no ruler or man-made law has the authority to infringe on.
This was a part of an argument which took place between one of Henry VIII advisers and Cardinal (and Saint) Robert Bellarmine. Henry VIII used the Divine Right of Kings arguments in his justification for establishing state control over the Church in England and rejecting Papal authority over it. In his response to the Henry’s arguments, Cardinal Bellarmine wrote De Laicis: Treatise on Civil Government in which he argued for a distribution of power within a government, strong local governments ruling with consent of the governed, and unalienable rights of the people granted by God.
Thomas Jefferson had a copy of De Laicis with his hand written notes all over it. He incorporated these ideas in the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. These very Christian concepts are at the very basis of our Nation’s founding.
” To introduce more political accountability, the author would require a three-fifths supermajority vote in Congress to raise the debt ceiling and, in a nice touch, move Election Day to the day after income taxes are due to be filed.”
Let’s do it.
Interesting background.
Considering the results of the last election one must come to the conclusion that one of two things are true. 1. The majority of the voters have elected to become socialist. 2. The elections process is riddled with fraud. I am not ruling out the possibility of both being true but what should be the method of dealing with either, and which would be the most likely to succeed.
I'll take door number 1 for the win, Monty.
I have concluded that a near majority of those who vote (that's an important distinction as they skew the results) are in fact collectivists sheep. Self-interest drives that dynamic...what can they obtain or how will they benefit from Big Govt at the expense of their fellow citizens? They've been indoctrinated from early in life that they are simultaneously oppressed and deserving; deserving of the largess which they entitle themselves to through the democratic process. They find willing benefactors in Democrat Socialist politicians.
If you thoroughly acknowledge and digest this truth, you come to realize the difficulty in imparting self-sufficiency and freedom to succeed or fail in these adherents of socialism.
Do I have an answer? I only know that any solution must be multi-faceted and could take at least a generation to rid the country of the entrenched collectivist scourge. Just as the socialist power brokers have co-opted academia, the media, local and state controlling authorities, etc, similarly the antidote will have to be just as all in-compassing.
I've not even spoke of the push to legalize millions of border violators who will undoubtedly be tied to the Democrat Socialist plantation. And their numbers and bloc voting power will secure our ruin. At that point no civil solution will avail itself.
I quite agree with everything you wrote.
I just want to clarify the timeline ref the arguments over the Divine Right of Kings (as I wrote my previous comment from memory). The arguments I am citing began with Henry the VIII, who died in 1547, and carried on for most of a century. Bellarmine published a De Laicis sometime in the late 1500’. Sir Robert Filmer, Court Theologian to James I, published his answer to to Bellarmine @ 1630 AD; “Patriarchia: the Natural Power of Kings Defended Against the Unnatural Liberty of the People.”
Credit for the original research on this goes to Peg Luksik at FoundedonTruth.com
“I quite agree with everything you wrote.”
You must be quite brilliant! ;-)
Can you recommend a book about this subject?
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