Posted on 04/02/2014 6:51:18 AM PDT by Jacquerie
Elections matter in republics.
I question the practical, modern purpose of American elections. Their traditional purpose was to determine who will represent us in a law-making congress and who the electoral college appoints as President. Subsequently, these people were to promote the general welfare and happiness of a free people.
Is that what we have? Is it our recent experience? Does Congress draft, debate and send to the President the rules that govern a free people?
Instead of responsible, accountable government, we endure a lawless executive whose perception of constitutional powers is that which he and his handlers believe he can get away with. The limits to Obama’s progressive dreams are subject only to political and popular opposition. It is why the democrat party revels in democracy, in a majoritarianism that celebrates stealing the property of one’s neighbor.
Make no mistake. Legislative powers a sovereign people granted to Congress in Article I § 1, now reside in the executive branch. The purpose of Congress is no longer to pass law, but rather to splash a patina of legitimacy on what Obama has decided to do. I won’t bother with an attempt to summarize the numerous rewrites Obama made to Obamacare, and laws dealing with our budget, debt limit, borders, naturalization, elections, energy, insurance, banking, autos, the IRS, NSA . . . ad nauseam.
Sure, the shell of our republic remains. The imposing marble facades of Congress, Scotus, and the White House still stand. Yet, the fact remains that despite our traditions and law, lots of raw power has recently devolved to one person.
Precedent is the roadmap of American politics and policies, and it isn’t limited to court decisions. Paths blazed by Presidents point the direction for future executives.
Unless fundamental reforms are made, no matter the persons who fill the Oval Office for the rest of this century, they will sit down with authoritarian, arbitrary powers at their side. None of these Obama derived powers are legitimate, none of them are in the constitution, but they will be there nonetheless.
Assume for a moment the rats don’t build on their successful 2012 suppression of the Tea Party. For 2016, assume Eric Holder and various taxpayer funded Leftist groups won’t commit a solitary act of election fraud, nor intimidate any conservatives.
If we are lucky, perhaps the nation will find Ted Cruz at the presidential helm in 2017. Sigh of relief. Freedom is around the corner, right? By this dangerous train of thought, we acknowledge our unalienable rights depend on the outcome of Presidential elections.
Without fundamental change to the trend of our ruling institutions, elections will increasingly become at best, sideshow diversions that serve to condone tyranny. Obama has established executive branch practices that no popular election can erase.
Tyranny ignores the political party or benevolence of the person who exercises it. A good dictator is still a dictator. President Cruz will have the same arbitrary powers as Obama. Even if Cruz doesn’t, as I would expect, use them, executives from Obama forward will possess powers more characteristic of despots than Presidents of a FreeRepublic.
Elections matter in republics.
Article V ping!
I’m all in.
Deal the cards.
Balanced budget convention gains steam as congressman calls for official evaluation
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3140042/posts
We already have a Constitution that limits the powers of the federal government. The Feds almost completely and collectively ignore those limits. More amendments won't fix squat. Fixing this will be a long, hard haul of creating more limited-government conservatives, but the GOP-E is hellbent on creating more dependent voters via amnesty, which would render it all moot.
Blocking amnesty is the most critical action conservatives can take over the next two years and onwards.
Defense is warranted, for sure. Offense (Art V) is needed as well.
I don’t see what additional amendments would accomplish. Jefferson described the 10th amendment as a cast iron fence around the fedgov. Well, the fedgov knocked it down. We need more Ted Cruz-type politicians and more Clarence Thomas-type justices. We will only get that through spreading the limited government gospel.
Point made, democracy is mob rule.
wow, it’s a good thing we didn’t elect Romney...
I’d suggest taking a look at the amendments that are being thought of as potential for article V. Limited in scope to “reigning in the Federales”, things like 12-year term limits, abolish the 17th, etc. Learning from experience, these new amendments would be written with less wiggle room for avoidance.
We don’t need a balanced budget convention. Anybody proposing it is just co-opting the proposed Convention of States regarding the 17th amendment.
Once States get to choose their Senators (or elect them if they will), then all else will pretty well much fall into place as the States regain their influence.
I suspect the “Convention of States” has already been co-opted and plans in place to keep delaying, obfuscating and then eventually turning it into a full blown convention with the mandate to ‘fix our current Constitution’.
In fact, I heard that they had a meeting in December about having another meeting a year hence, to discuss having further meetings.
Yes, elections in republics do matter; and, as we are witnessing, the resulting consequences can be devastating to liberty.
"Tyranny is a poor provider. It knows neither how to accumulate, nor how to extract." - Speech of Edmund Burke, Esq., on American Taxation April 19, 1774 [Second Edition. Dodsley, 1775.]
Are we not seeing Burke's wisdom being played out in America today?
To have election results which might be favorable to liberty, however, requires a knowledgeable electorate; and, by yielding control and implementation of the education of youth to the so-called "progressive" movement for the better part of the last 100 years, we now have voters who cannot connect the dots between powerful government and loss of individual liberty.
John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, February 2, 1816:
"Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God service, when it is violating all His laws. Our passions, ambition, avarice, love, resentment, etc., possess so much metaphysical subtlety, and so much overpowering eloquence, that they insinuate themselves into the understanding and the conscience, and convert both to their party."
Liberty, under the Founders' Constitution, as others have stated, depends upon a virtuous and knowledgeable citizenry.
John Adams stated:"The foundation of every government is some principle or passion in the minds of the People."
The Founders' principle was LIBERTY. The virtue among the people often referenced by the Founders was linked to this love of liberty referenced by John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court:
"Let virtue, honor, the love of liberty . . . be the soul of this constitution, and it will become he source of great and extensive happiness to this and future generations. Vice, ignorance and want of vigilance, will be the only enemies able to destroy it."(Quoted in "Our Ageless Constitution" Essay entitled, "Virtue Among the People" available here)
Rediscovering and understanding the principles which made the American Constitution a protection for liberty may be the most important task of our day, and time is running out. The "enemies" already have censored these principles from the nation's textbooks and much of our public discourse.
If every person on this thread and every person involved in the Taxed Enough Already movement would commit himself/herself to understanding and then sharing the ideas of liberty with at least 3 people, what a difference that might make!
Levin's "Liberty and Tyranny," Schweikart's "A Patriot's History of the U. S.," and Stedman and Lewis's "Our Ageless Constitution" lay out these principles in easy-to-understand language and are an excellent means by which our own "dumbed-down" generations can be exposed to the truly revolutionary principles by which our liberty was obtained.
Ideas have consequences, - Weaver
, and it is IDEAS for liberty, or the counterfeit ideas of tyranny, as promoted by so-called "progressives," which will motivate voters.
And I am saying that does not address the core problem - the Feds already ignore the clear limits on their power that exist in the Constitution. That will only change when we get a limited government majority.
> Sure, the shell of our republic remains. The imposing marble facades of Congress, Scotus, and the White House still stand. Yet, the fact remains that despite our traditions and law, lots of raw power has recently devolved to one person.
Which means when the public has FINALLY had it they know which one person to come for
BTW while posting this my tax person called me and old me I OWE almost a $1,000 to the IRS after paying in all yeat. FUBHO. Now I can pay for some thug to lay on his backside, play video games all day, play the knockout game, and sell weed to buy Escalades in cash nd never pay a damn dime in taxes. Again - FUBHO
The US has metastatic cancer. The cancer is progressive leftism and fostered dependency. Whatever the cure is, it will not come from within the existing governmental system.
> Sure, the shell of our republic remains. The imposing marble facades of Congress, Scotus, and the White House still stand. Yet, the fact remains that despite our traditions and law, lots of raw power has recently devolved to one person.
Which means when the public has FINALLY had it they know which one person to come for
BTW while posting this my tax person called me and old me I OWE almost a $1,000 to the IRS after paying in all yeat. FUBHO. Now I can pay for some thug to lay on his backside, play video games all day, play the knockout game, and sell weed to buy Escalades in cash nd never pay a damn dime in taxes. Again - FUBHO
When men rule from a position above the law, it is called tyranny.
Presidents from here on out will have the identical, un-enumerated powers that Obama has. Whether or not the executive rewrites laws will be determined by a political calculus unrestrained by the constitution.
"By this dangerous train of thought, we acknowledge our unalienable rights depend on the outcome of Presidential elections.”
Have been trying to get that since, well, forever. Article V uses the gasping Several States power to try and remedy the situation. If that doesn't work, well, then... we're talking about having a Liberty Tree Watering moment. Options are not yet exhausted, and Article V is is... let's make it work.
With the utmost respect for your posting, it contains an obvious contradiction. Because the Feds ignore the limits placed on them, there are no real limits beyond (maybe) the ones we, the citizens, actually enforce at the county level of government. The Feds have proven that they have only theoretical limits.
To change that, we need more representatives like Ted Cruz and fewer like Lindsey Graham. Which will only happen when we increase the number of persons who adhere to a limited-government mindset.
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