Posted on 03/02/2020 12:48:20 AM PST by Jacquerie
Subtitle: The Article VI Placebo
There are some bright guys at The John Birch Society (JBS). Since I share their exasperation with Washington DC, I wish they devoted more of their intelligence to study. In particular, they should look both closer at, and beyond, Article VI.
The pertinent clauses of Article VI are frustratingly brief. The Constitution, laws pursuant thereof and treaties are the supreme law. Judges and everyone else in the state and federal governments are “bound by oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.” Well, there you go. JBS relies on Article VI to restore Constitutional government. Just send better people to DC. Send folks who really, really mean to follow the Constitution. Somehow, they’ll save our decks-awash ship of government and set a new course in liberty. This is also the excuse Leftists hoist to rationalize the failures of socialism.
Just what did the Framers mean by “support this Constitution?” Is it vague? The drafters could not have thought, could they, that the Constitution was entirely unambiguous, that one and all, judges, legislators, and the sovereign people would, upon confronting its application, come to the same conclusions? Not likely.
Similar oaths go back to ancient times. The Article VI oath is a cousin of the Athenian dikastic oath, where the dikasts’ oath embodied the fundamental statement of Athenian jurisprudence. In swearing it, Athenian dikasts (judges) solemnly declared that reason guided their judicial decisions. The oath included two key elements: first, that they cast their decisions ‘according to the laws’ and second, that they do so by their ‘most just understanding’ Imagine if the now-retired Anthony Kennedy and the fab-four progressives on Scotus had kept to law and reason.
(Excerpt) Read more at articlevblog.com ...
Reminds me of joke...
Question: What organization is responsible for the preservation of wooden toilet seats?
Answer: The Birch John society
The constitution is not as great and wonderful as we would like to think. It either authorized or allowed what we have today.
The founders debated this very issue. They concluded that both a constitution and the election/appointed of people who will honor their oaths is absolutely essential.
We have too many forswearing politicians in all branches of government.
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