Posted on 03/03/2011 3:37:35 PM PST by Publius
Disagreement is no stranger to this exercise so here we go again.
Firstly, you are making an apples to oranges comparison. A con con would not be similar to a presidential election at all.
Secondly, you see the situation through the lens of California while I see it from a Texas perspective. The true overall landscape likely lies somewhere between the two.
Thirdly, I think there are a HELL of a lot more of us than there are of them! Obozo got elected because the alternative was no better and many folks on our side stayed home or voted for some third party candidate who had zero chance of winning.
That is TREASON, Mr. Henry! The KING shall hear of this!!
The antis got a lot wrong.
As Hamilton relates, no one thought the Constitution was perfect, for perfection was not to be found on this earth.
The Constitution was uniquely American. It did not just happen, but was the result of almost 180 years of experience in self government.
The Constitution fixed the farcical treaty known as the Articles and gave the world what would become a beacon of light and hope.
I cannot find where the Anti’s put forward a rational alternative.
In rereading Federalist 1, we can see that the Founders recognized that certain forces would oppose ANY new system. Well, here we are.
One point I embrace is that any system is designed to thwart the ambition of men, some better than others. Even if we had heeded the warnings of the AF’s, we may very well be in the same situation today because of the nature of man and the various perversions of constitutionalism that brought us here.
It is here that I treat the arguments of the AF fans with a great degree of skepticism, just as I do with the liberals who claim that socialism hasn’t worked because the right people haven’t tried it.
I went through that experince as a high school junior during the Goldwater campaign. I truly believed that once people understood what was going on, they couldn't help but vote for Goldwater.
My political deflowering on election night 1964 was extremely painful, and I never let my heart get ahead of my head again. I've been a cold, calculating political SOB since then.
Sometimes the political tides roll against you.
Ditto!
I literally cried that night. I somehow knew - don't ask me how - that we had turned a corner and that it would take a VERY long time to get well again.
I have often wondered what our country would be like today had that one election come out the other way.
I didn't cry. I just felt terribly sad and sick. Things were not going to go well in Vietnam, we would spend ourselves into penury with entitlements, and we were headed into some kind of moral decay.
I have often wondered what our country would be like today had that one election come out the other way.
Unfortunately, that was impossible because the people just weren't ready for such a change. Things appeared to be going too well. It took national humiliation via defeat in a war, societal strife and stagflation before people were ready to try something as radical as Reagan and conservatism.
(I should note that Fiorello La Guardia, Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie were also elected in extremis when things got so bad that there was no other rational choice.)
Back in 2002, the Atlantic Monthly published an article about how Goldwater had really won when viewed in the long run. I posted the article here, but after so many server changes, it has disappeared.
Yeah, I get tired of the urban legend at these threads that the Federalists calculated to impose tyranny while the motives of the antis were pure.
Even Madison observed that the Constitution could not diminish the security of the people unless a majority of their representatives should concur in a violation of their rights. With power goes the possibility of abuse. A debauched people will send fellow dirtbags to represent them.
9 Thus have I, fellow citizens, executed the task I had assigned to myself; with what success, your conduct must determine.
Class act. Hamilton didn’t claim victory with ratification. The future conduct of his fellow Americans would determine success or failure.
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