Posted on 03/02/2021 2:17:47 PM PST by Jacquerie
Such is the GOP elite’s fear of Trump that some would rather deal with the loathsome and high criminal Hillary Clinton as president. This alone is proof enough of the existence of a single political party, albeit with two wings, left and right. I don’t recall who was the first to use the term “Uniparty,” but it is certainly accurate.
Political parties traditionally represent the common interests of their members, and to this end the two wings of the Uniparty have far more in common than differences. Their rhetoric often contrasts, but their mutual interests are on display. Witness the sixth year of Obamacare, out of control spending, executive and judicial tyranny. Both wings despise the Tea Party movement more than each other.
The Framers’ Constitution wisely divided power and provided checks that reached across the branches. Congress can deny appropriations, congress can override presidential vetoes, the senate can refuse consent to presidential nominees, presidents can be impeached, and so forth. Unfortunately, these necessary checks have dissolved into practical uselessness. Gone are the contesting institutional interests between the branches which the framers relied upon to prevent tyranny.
The common interests of the Uniparty are avarice and ambition, money and power. All else, even at the cost of the destruction of our economy, civil institutions, cities . . . everything else plays a minor role if any in their deliberations.
This is precisely the form of tyranny warned of by James Madison, in which all power resides in the hands of a backslapping few.
Conservatives have variously called for a real opposition party. Well, one exists. It is right in front of us. Its members have interests distinct from the Uniparty. They have sovereign powers, generally those which they did not grant to the government they created in 1788. They are fully capable of policing their environment, dealing with labor unions, taking care of their poor, etc. without the heavy hand of a distant, detached, and hostile Washington, DC.
If free government is to be restored, a competing interest must be reintroduced to an ever encroaching and centralizing government. That interest resides in the states.
There is nothing radical in returning the states to the senate. To do so means the reversal of tyranny and restoration of republican freedom. There is no substitute. The 17th Amendment must go.
Article V.
Quite right about liberals. What has me shaking my head are the conservatives who deny our first duty . . . to provide new guards for our security and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
Yes, it may be too late, but let’s not let history record that we curled up in a corner too frightened to fight.
The fundamental problem for us is that “our party” is not conservative at all. We don’t have a party.
We must get out of the mindset of expecting salvation from a political party. James Madison was all over this. It is why the Framers’ Constitution set up not only separation of powers, but separation of electors as well, which minimized the deleterious effect of parties.
We really screwed up when we assigned the same electors to all of Congress. The outcome, eventual tyranny, was a certainty. To finish off our republic, the rats will soon get around the electoral college and democratize the executive branch as well.
And an Article V COS is dangerous? Barf.
Would you ask why Ghana has the same representation in the United Nations as the United States?
-PJ
We also screwed up in two other respects. First, our voting system (aside from being a dysfunctional mess) allows the uninformed, greedy takers to negate the votes of the productive makers in society. So what’s the point of responsible citizens bothering to vote in a system which favors the people who want to raid the treasury and bend the rules to suit themselves?
Second, we have allowed government to expand to the point that it now regulates, controls, taxes and influences literally everything in society. We allowed the principles of federalism to die in exchange for government largesse and the notion that it will generally taking care of us if only we entrust our fate to them.
Third, the Founding Fathers took great pains to protect us from the inevitable abuses of power by big government. We ignored their warnings and now we are paying the price. We have mostly relinquished our rights to liberty, privacy and self-protection.
For these and other reasons the republic as we once knew it is gone. I no longer recognize the country I grew up in. It is a faded memory.
Like Winston Smith, our memories of a freer America grow dim, but we remember enough to know we are in big trouble.
Considering how big media/tech censorship and banned books, send all manner of American greatness down the Memory Hole, I wonder how many Americans born today will even have the opportunity to learn our wonderful history.
<>There is a large difference between expressing an opinion to which one is attached, and persuading others that it is correct, or desirable<>
Not my opinion. It is what our Framers designed. Given your screenname, you can avoid further embarrassment by studying the Federal Convention.
I understand this may not be the proposal, but it is my belief on what will happen.
No one can be assured of an outcome if we open that can of worms.
An Article V COS just makes the process that much faster.
And since I believe an Article V COS will result in the elimination of the electoral college, the Senate, and the State Legislatures, we will have nothing but a big, beautiful, socialist government run by the group that has the most factions aligned with its overall promises ... just like they have all across Europe.
-PJ
You believe much yet are certain of nothing.
True, and I would rather be wrong with what I believe than trust and have you be wrong in what you believe.
If nothing is done, and I was wrong, then we carry on as we are today.
If we hold an Article V COS, and you are wrong, then we lose what little freedom we have.
As ambassadors selected by the state legislatures, each sovereign state government has equal representation to discuss national matters. This was set up differently from the House, where Representatives are elected by the people at the district level, and more populous states had more Representatives.
The 17th amendment changed the role of Senators from ambassadors to super-Representatives, since they were no longer directly appointed by the legislatures with the intent on representing their state's long-term needs to the other states (hence their six-year terms).
The vertical alignment of people -> state legislature -> Senators was broken. We now have:
The state governments themselves have been outflanked by the federal government and no longer have a direct participation in the federation of states. The 17th amendment took that away.
-PJ
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