Posted on 03/04/2015 7:54:42 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Instead of watching helplessly as our republic devolves into crown government, let’s distract ourselves with a counterfactual. What if senators were appointed by state legislatures for indefinite terms?
The Senate was designed to preserve the federal nature of our system. Members of the House represent the people, but the Senators were to represent the states — really, state governments.
Had this worked, the people would have benefited. (Sometimes, you win by grabbing all the power, but sometimes you win by ceding power to critical allies. The states were the people’s only allies in the War Against the Feds.) Unfortunately, senators came to be viewed as redundant representatives of the people, and this was reinforced by the 17th Amendment’s requiring the direct election of senators.
The design flaw that doomed the whole experiment was simple: fixed six-year terms for senators. They resemble other elected officials. The senate lacks a proper feedback loop. Senators become creatures of Washington. They go native.
We should treat them as state ambassadors. They should serve at the pleasure of the state legislators. If one gets out of line, recall him. Replace him instantly.
Sadly, the founders lacked the benefit of this wisdom. We’re doomed.
We must add the provision that anyone who has accepted Gov’t handouts (aka welfare) since the previous election cannot vote. No one who “depends” on Gov’t largesse will ever vote to control it.
founders had it right it was 17th amdendment via the progressives that ruined the republic.
—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny…
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers…
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
February 2015 grievances…
Heading the list was the continuing saga of big and increasingly threatening government in the Age of Obama. Early in the month, President Obama proposed a budget that would increase spending on social programs and—surprise, surprise—increase taxes on the wealthy. This is in spite of the fact that ever-spiraling federal domestic spending over a half-century has had limited success, caused government dependency to deepen and even expand to the unneedy, and created a more bloated bureaucracy than ever (the major beneficiaries seem to be the legions of federal employees).
Even though Democrats have long cultivated this image of “socking it” too the wealthy, how tight they actually are with them was seen in a news story about how large corporations donated millions to the Clinton family foundation while they were lobbying the State Department during Hilary’s tenure there.
The Democrats are also usually the first ones to tout integrity in government. Another story about the Clinton foundation last month challenged that, too: the foundation has been accepting big donations from foreign interests and governments who would certainly be dealing with a future Clinton administration.
Obama’s unilateral action to regularize millions of illegal aliens continued to stir controversy, with a federal judge temporarily halting it and Congressional Republicans taking half-hearted, uncertain steps to try to defund it. Articles I and II of the Constitution hang in the balance, since control over immigration policy comes right from Congress’s enumerated powers and this is hardly something that justifies a Lockean-type of executive prerogative. It was also revealed that as a result of Obama’s amnesty, illegal immigrants would be eligible to receive the earned income tax credit (even retroactively). The problem is that under Article I Congress makes the tax laws.
Other reports said that the Treasury Department was paying subsidies to health insurers under Obamacare because of steps they have taken to limit out-of-pocket costs by policyholders—even though Congress has never authorized them. Never mind that Article I also says that federal spending requires Congressional appropriation. There was another news report about surveillance overkill. The National Security Agency (NSA) collaborated with Britain’s GCHQ intelligence agency to purloin codes so they could spy on mobile phone conversations worldwide, including Americans’. It was another example of how such pesky concerns as privacy and the Fourth Amendment simply wither when there’s an appeal, no mater how tenuous, to national security. Perhaps our current government operatives should remember Federalist 51: while government has to control the governed, we must also “oblige it to control itself.” We’re told that government needs to spread the spy net widely—have universal surveillance—or otherwise we could not protect ourselves from terrorists. Like the U.S. child protective system (CPS) with its universal monitoring of parents, they don’t get it that when everyone is under suspicion the resources are spread thin and the real bad guys slip through the cracks.
The specter of overreaching government was seen also in the FCC’s vote, at Obama’s behest, to regulate Internet providers—“net neutrality”…
Many more…
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3263338/posts
h/t Stephen M. Krason
I think the writer has an interesting point, in that the 6 year service for Senators does make the senate appear to be another form of elected office, as opposed to an appointed office designed to preserve representation of the states themselves. However, the constitution was designed for an *aware* people, who would actively work to preserve its balances while aggressively working to further their own lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness.
There is a confluence of deliberate ignorance instilled in the people - where the government relieves Americans of their need to be informed in return for modern “bread and circuses” - and the unabated grab for power of the political class - the very people who were antithetical to the establishment and keeping of our republic from day one.
It has nothing to do with "the wonderfulness of state legislatures." It has much to do with the makeup of the Senate. Currently 2/3 of the state legislatures are Republican. The Senate, not hardly.
I agree with your proposals in theory. However, I believe that we are past the point of conventional political reform including article 5. I think that the constitution is dead, we have a dictatorship, we have no checks and we see complicity with the dictatorship from the congress on both “sides” and the supreme court. The congress won’t impeach. The states are too weak and can’t or won’t challenge the feds in a substantive way.
We only have a small window before the totalitarians shut every thing down. As you know the Feds are attacking the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 10th amendments in a big way. Secession or a military coup are the only practical solutions to stem the tide of hard tyranny and totalitarianism. The article 5 solutions could come AFTER the coup or in seceding states.
Once totalitarianism is firmly in place, we’ll have death camps and/or a civil war will ensue. That would be much worse than any coup.
Yup, and vote him out. The concept was if the Constitution had not been amended to make Senators popularly elected. . . and they were instead serving at the will of the State Legislatures, representing the States, as the original founders intended, balancing the powers of the judiciary, the states, and the people.
It’s not the fault of the state’s electorate. It’s the fault of the RNC rules providing for an open primary that allows democrats to crossover and vote for McCain while republicans vote in majority for his primary opponent.
It’s the same play that was used in 2014 in Mississippi by Cochran against McDaniel.
Democrats know they can control McCain and he knows that without their crossover that he cannot survive.
McCain reelected to office is just more evidence of Uniparty machination.
I agree - the 17th was truly misguided and wrong.
However, if we have a judiciary that legislates from the bench and an extra-constitutional fed that *clearly* violates the US Constitution both in it’s intent and plain language and does so with impunity — then how will any amendment(s), no matter how well thought out or unarguably, patently clear bring the judiciary and a fearless Fed back into alignment?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a con-con. I hope it will be the slap on the ass that jars all three federal branches back into tight constitutional alignment. That is my hope. But my realistic expectation is that any new amendments would not be be enforced just as the current constitution is bent/interpreted to fit agendas where politically expedient (if not outright ignored).
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