A Primer to The Preamble of Our Constitution

The government of our creation rarely does any of the things it is supposed to do, and spends enormous sums doing that which it is not empowered to do.

The next time you and your smug, liberal in-law get into politics, I have a curveball for you that he is sure to swing at and miss. Since the vast majority of Leftists substitute passion for reason, it is but a small task to put their nonsense to rest, IF we are armed with fundamental knowledge of our Declaration and Constitution.

First, ask him if he believes government exists, as per the Declaration, to secure our unalienable rights. Should he stutter that he has heard of it, bring up the Preamble to our Constitution. It presents fundamental ideas from the Declaration and sets forth the reasons civil society convened and created a government.

Preamble: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

“We the People,” meaning the people acting in their sovereign capacity [links below] through free ratification conventions, established the Constitution. Notice the hierarchy of law giving. When gathered in their sovereign capacity, the people are superior to the Constitution. Their Constitution, which establishes government, is superior to their servants in government. This isn’t to say the will of the sovereign people is boundless, because when drafting or amending Constitutions and enacting statutes, they are, like all men at all times, subject to Natural Law.

Next, “in order to form a more perfect Union” is acknowledgement that the institutions under the Articles of Confederation inadequately secured natural rights. James Madison wrote of this in a pre-convention newspaper column, Vices of the Political System of the United States. As further explained in The Federalist, an overabundance of democracy among the states had proved dangerous to liberty. Unlike progressives, whose efforts to create “The New Man” always ends up with men in gulags, our Framers didn’t attempt to establish Utopia, but rather set upon to improve the Articles of Confederation.

The pledge “to establish justice” reflects the underlying premise of the Constitution to secure natural rights. Accordingly, the most that can be established is a government that prevents injustice. Progressive hijacking of the term and turning it into fuzzy social justice does not secure natural rights and is anathema to natural law.

Closely related is our government’s duty to “insure domestic tranquility.” When there is civil peace and the absence of disorders, we can go about our business and lives secure in personal safety. With peace, we can raise healthy families; children can walk to school without escort or fear of gangs when in school. Without civil order, the circle of liberty can shrink to the point that simple survival becomes one’s primary occupation. In this condition, man is far closer to life in a state of nature than in an ordered society. Protect the law abiding from the criminal and liberty will have a chance.

Looking outward, our natural rights are protected from foreign interference when government “provide(s) for the common defense.” Protect the nation from external threats.

Progressives have long abused the fifth purpose of government, to “promote the general welfare.” The Framers’ term is properly understood as the public good, meaning measures in the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. Beyond safeguarding individual rights, government is to promote the well-being of the society that created the Constitution.

Finally, the new government was to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Here was an expression of hope, a hope that the Constitution would succeed where the Articles of Confederation had disappointed. Keeping liberty, that circle of freedom immune from government, best preserved the blessings to be enjoyed by future generations.

So, does the government of America 2016 respect sovereignty in the people, guard unalienable rights, secure domestic peace, defend the nation from external threats, and bolster the societal foundation of our republic? A ruling class so horribly corrupted from its legitimate purposes cannot possibly reform itself. That is up to us, We The People, acting in our sovereign capacity.

We are the many; our oppressors are the few. Be proactive. Be a Re-Founder. Join Convention of States. Sign the COS Petition.

OUTSTANDING post, Jacquerie.

Life Is a Gift from God

We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.

But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.

Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

What Is Law?

What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?

If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.

A Just and Enduring Government

If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that order would prevail among the people, in thought as well as in deed. It seems to me that such a nation would have the most simple, easy to accept, economical, limited, nonoppressive, just, and enduring government imaginable — whatever its political form might be.

Under such an administration, everyone would understand that he possessed all the privileges as well as all the responsibilities of his existence. No one would have any argument with government, provided that his person was respected, his labor was free, and the fruits of his labor were protected against all unjust attack. When successful, we would not have to thank the state for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful, we would no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune than would the farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The state would be felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided by this concept of government.

It can be further stated that, thanks to the non-intervention of the state in private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions would develop themselves in a logical manner. We would not see poor families seeking literary instruction before they have bread. We would not see cities populated at the expense of rural districts, nor rural districts at the expense of cities. We would not see the great displacements of capital, labor, and population that are caused by legislative decisions.

The sources of our existence are made uncertain and precarious by these state-created displacements. And, furthermore, these acts burden the government with increased responsibilities.

The Complete Perversion of the Law

But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.

/Bastiat

The worst thing you can do to a progressive is to make them think about facts. You do that and they will hate you until their dying hour. - fella

the vast majority of Leftists substitute passion for reason - Jacquerie

Education/be prepared BUMP!

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