Posted on 04/04/2018 5:20:51 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
In parts 1 through 4 of this series (Scroll to the bottom for more detail about the parts) I have been examining progressivism and its relation (or lack therof) to the 1803 court ruling Marbury vs Madison.
Here in part 5, I just want to ask two questions. First, what is the purpose of a bill of rights? We could be talking about the Bill of Rights of the Federal Constitution, or the Bill of Rights that exists in your State constitution. It doesn't matter really, where that bill of rights happens to exist.
What is it for: Is it there to expand the power of government and give them more power over jurisdictions which more local than itself? Or is said bill of rights there so that the people know what they should expect, and therefore to limit the power of government?
I'll state it plainly what I believe: I believe that a bill of rights exists for the purpose of setting limits to the government to which it is attached.
My follow up question is this: If a bill of rights, intended to limit government authority, is perverted into becoming an object that expands governmental power, is it no longer a bill of rights for the people? Does it then become a bill of rights for the government? As we come to the conclusion of this series, this is a very important question to cover.
In part 1 of this series, I asked one very simple question: Are progressives telling the truth about Marbury?
In part 2, I examined the gap between the activist cases of the early-mid 1900s and the 1803 ruling.
In part 3, the negative and positive aspects of how the Marbury ruling functioned were examined.
In part 4, the constitutionality of the judiciary act was examined.
Yes, this series is getting rather long, but I assure you it is going somewhere.
That's 51 Bills of Rights - why do they exist? To make government bigger or to make government smaller?
A Bill Of Rights exists in order to fool people into thinking a piece of paper can limit a monopoly provider of justice and security.
bm
and yet, it does - see how regulation of speech and firearms differs from that in the United Kingdom.
It’s not just the Bill of Rights. The entire Constitution was constructed so as to limit the power of the government.
I see an issue with what we call it. It is unfortunate that the first set of amendments were referred to as “rights”. It’s almost as if from day 1 of this republic, there was a movement to change the language to suit their agenda. Why couldn’t we have called it the Bill of Restrictions?
Hopefully, someone will know!
(Hopefully!)
Me GranMa useta say...hope in one hand, xxxxx in the other, tell me which one fills up first!
;)
Ya Grok that, right~
+++++++++++++++++++++
The 9th and 10th Amendments are perfectly clear.
No debate necessary.
Except for the liberal courts that only apply them to desrtoy the USA.
>If you are of the belief that a Bill of Rights exists for the expansion of government...
James Madison, the Father of our Constitution, clarified the authority of the federal government in the Federalist Papers #45:
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are ***few and defined.*** Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”
Madison was against the Bill of Rights at first since the powers of the Federal gov’t were “few and defined”. He (and others) thought that naming only **certain*** rights in a Bill, would allow other rights not enumerated to be considered ‘secondary’ and not protected.
Madison changed his mind from ‘counsel’ by Jefferson that without the Bill of Rights (or a promise of them) no Constitution would be passed by the States.
So.... the Bill of Rights existed in order to persuade States to put the Constitution into existence.
The Constitution has two parts:
Part 1: The powers granted to the Federal government by the sovereign entities (the States and the People). This is the portion the Fed Gov MUST do.
Part 2: The Bill of Rights is the opposite. It is a statement of rights the Fed Gov may not touch. This is the portion over which the Fed Gov has no authority. Did we miss something? Read the 9th and 10th... they still belong to us.
If you have to ask that question you were educated in a government school.
Home school!
It’s the people themselves who either consent to be ruled, or who don’t. Otherwise, the subjects of the Soviet Union would have been just as free as Americans.
“I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks — no form of government can render us secure.” ~ James Madison
I think it’s obvious that diminishing individual rights inflates the government. The Bill of Rights was supposed to “check” authority so as not to again enslave them. Government always needs to feed itself and that its sole purpose is to live and grow. Rights of people are a direct threat to government. The Founders could never imagine the American government for what it is today from Federal to the most local level.
Very true. Eternal vigilance is our only hope and our duty.
That was one of the arguments the Founding Fathers made against having a bill of rights in the Constitution: the federal government represented the States and the People, so each one's rights were already protected. The Anti-Federalists refuted this argument by pointing to the Necessary and Proper Clause, which could read as allowing the trampling of rights if Congress thought doing so would assist it in carrying out any of its powers. The Anti-Federalists won the argument and history has proven them correct.
Mr. Patrick HENRY. Mr. Chairman, the necessity of a bill of rights appears to me to be greater in this government than ever it was in any government before.
... Let us consider the sentiments which have been entertained by the people of America on this subject. At the revolution, it must be admitted that it was their sense to set down those great rights which ought, in all countries, to be held inviolable and sacred. Virginia did so, we all remember. She made a compact to reserve, expressly, certain rights.
When fortified with full, adequate, and abundant representation, was she satisfied with that representation? No. She most cautiously and guardedly reserved and secured those invaluable, inestimable rights and privileges, which no people, inspired with the least glow of patriotic liberty, ever did, or ever can, abandon.
She is called upon now to abandon them, and dissolve that compact which secured them to her. She is called upon to accede to another compact, which most infallibly supersedes and annihilates her present one. Will she do it? This is the question. If you intend to reserve your unalienable rights, you must have the most express stipulation; for, if implication be allowed, you are ousted of those rights. If the people do not think it necessary to reserve them, they will be supposed to be given up...
Virginia Ratification Convention ^ | June 16, 1788 |
Of course, anyone with a brain in their head knows “for” is just a euphemism for “to”.
The preamble to the Bill of Rights explains the purpose.
"The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution expressed a desire in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.”
Does not "declaratory and restrictive" make the intentions of the Bill of Rights clear?
Satan told him that in a dream?
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