Posted on 08/19/2025 6:40:22 AM PDT by Starman417
Our Constitution, perhaps the greatest document in human history behind the Bible, is not quite perfect. In 2025, we can see things that might have been added. Number one is probably term limits. Another would be a prohibition on deficit spending outside of war. And maybe they could have added something about judges being responsible for the crimes the criminals they release into society commit…
No doubt there are countless things we could sit here 250 years later and think of that the Founding Fathers could have added, but didn’t because they couldn’t see into the future. One thing they could see clearly was that the nature of man is to accumulate power, use that power to take from others, and that the most effective way of doing both is by harnessing the power of government.
Alas, it wasn’t possible to put frameworks in place to control all of the base instincts of men, as they are simply unending and evolve constantly. The Founders could not envision our world. They could write about freedom of speech and the press, but they couldn’t have known about radio or mobile phones or the dark web or Bitcoin or shadowbanning.
Nonetheless, one of the greatest attributes of their Constitution was its staggered terms. The House, the place from which spending originates, is the closest to the people and is elected every two years. The President, who executes the laws, has a term of four years. Then the Senate, originally the representatives of the state legislatures, serve staggered six-year terms.
The goal of these staggered terms was to tamp down the passions of men such that if a majority wanted something, they couldn’t easily command it, and it would take years for them to take control over the government. The Founders understood that tempers run hot, but cooler heads often prevail with time and therefore they wrote a document with built in cooling off periods.
What the Founding Fathers never envisioned, however, was a permanent government, in either the elected officials or the bureaucracy. Sadly, today we have both. That wouldn’t be a significant problem if the government was as small as it was initially. Indeed, for America’s first 50 years, we had a Department of State, Treasury, War, Attorney General, and Postmaster General. That was it. Interior and Agriculture came in the middle of the 19th century when the country was adding states and territories rapidly, and farming was becoming a major point of conflict between cattle herders, sheep herders, farmers, and miners, not to mention Indians. Nothing more until the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903 – the two split in 1913.
The point is, for most of the first half of America’s history, the federal government was essentially an afterthought in the minds of most Americans. For the Founding Fathers, government was part-time. Today it’s anything but. To put this in perspective, there have been almost 2,000 people who have served as a US Senator, and of the 25 who served the longest, all but one started his career in the 20th century – 15 of them after 1960 – and two are still there! Similarly, over in the House, where 12,000 people have served as Representatives, of the 33 longest serving, all but one began their service in the 20th century and four are current members. The Founding Fathers didn’t see a need for term limits because for them, Congress was a service to the country, not a job, and certainly not a permanent career.
Today, the federal government is anything but an afterthought in the lives of Americans. Not only does it seek to control almost every aspect of our lives, but it spends like a drunken sailor on liberty weekend. Not surprisingly, most of the regulations that stifle productivity and innovation and the departments from which most spending emerges, are those created in the last century. Seventy-five percent of the federal government spending is on things that simply exist at the federal level for our first 150 years. From healthcare spending to food stamps to Social Security to education, the limited government our Founding Fathers left us with has metastasized into a borg that grows year after year, regardless of who’s in control.
This does not end well, particularly as the United States is $37 trillion in debt, with twice that in unfunded obligations. The words of Scottish historian Alexander Fraser Tytler explain why: “A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”
On our present course, that is America’s fate. Sadly, we have few leaders willing to tell Americans the truth about that reality. While we have men like Rand Paul and Thomas Massie, Americans writ large don’t seem to be interested in following them.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
I’m actually not a fan of term limits. That is a two-edged sword. The only term limits should be elections.
1. Everyone wants to pay as little as possible for what they buy.
2. Everyone wants to get paid as much as possible for what they sell (and for most people, what they sell is their labor).
95% of the U.S. government is in place to help Americans pretend that this irreconcilable contradiction doesn't exist.
The Constitution doesn’t mention term limits because the founding fathers couldn’t conceive of professional grifters in politics .
The thought of democracy is repugnant. We are not that. We have a republican form of governance. Learn what that means. Put the choosing of senators back in the hands of state governments. Make all federal spending reduce to no more than they accumulate on an annual basis.
First: “...we can see things that might have been added. Number one is probably term limits.”
Followed by: “The House, the place from which spending originates, is the closest to the people and is elected every two years. The President, who executes the laws, has a term of four years. Then the Senate, originally the representatives of the state legislatures, serve staggered six-year terms.”
Those are term limits.
the founders counted on educated electorates to weed out grifters.
term limits are unnecessary if the electorate is well informed.
That's 92 years from 1933 to present....
That’s such a profound, succinct, and accurate way to describe the problems with government! Thanks for posting!
What the Founding Fathers never envisioned, however, was a permanent government, in either the elected officials or the bureaucracy. …Nope, and that’s what the Tenth Amendment was supposed to prevent. However, the communists had other ideas.
In America, where a democratic constitution has already been established, the communists must make the common cause with the party which will turn this constitution against the bourgeoisie and use it in the interests of the proletariat …The 16th Amendment, by abolishing the taxation protections in the original form of the Constitution, instead substituted one of the ten planks of communism: “A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.” Subsequent amendments and legislation put ice on the slippery slope.
The problem is, as John Adams correctly noted, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
The USA has become a nation of mostly IMMORAL people. Today’s Americans want no control over their worst human failings and sins. America is now a nation of narcissists.
That’s not a fair comparison. Drunken sailor’s spend their own money.
Also, when the Constitution was drafted, the average life expectancy was about half what it is now.
The war for independence was fought, and the Constitution formed as it was originally, because of the Founding Fathers’ awareness of grifters in politics.
The states’ governments were supposed to handle the matters of morality and punishment for crime, not the federal government, either way. The federal government was primarily for national defense.
Apportionment should never have changed. Count only citizens and adults and one rep per 30k. Yes, that would be a large number but it also would be more direct representation.
Also, the founders never conceived of plea bargaining, of being charged with hundreds of charges to be plead down with the threat of investigating family members and financial ruin defending yourself. They also never considered that we would face greater penalties if we exercised our right to a trial instead of pleading it out. Ask General Flynn about this.
Neither am I.
I've posted many times over the years that I believe the people have the absolute right to vote for whomever they want to represent them in the House of Representatives for however long they want those people to represent them.
I also believe that the state legislatures have the absolute right to select whomever they want to represent the state in the Senate for however many terms they want those people to represent the state.
I finally believe that the people have the absolute right to vote for whomever they want to represent them in their state legislatures, and consider whom they select for the Senate as a consideration when voting. If they don't like their Senator, they can vote for someone else for the state legislature.
The problem was that the 17th amendment broke the federalism between the states and the federal government. Once the legislatures no longer selected their Senators, the people no longer had that incentive when choosing their state legislators. This newly disinterested state voter also began to share that apathy with voting for their House representatives, too.
An alert and aware voter would have paid more attention if the direct line between their local vote and their federal vote had been maintained.
-PJ
Article IV, Section 4 is your control over deficit spending as it GUARANTEES to the states a “Republican” form of government by the Federal branch. This means that we the people exert OUR will upon the means we are governed through those WE elect to represent OUR interest. Someone not yet born is denied this guarantee when THEIR money is being spent WITHOUT THEIR ability to have THEIR intent represented. Passing OUR debt to them is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
Amen.
Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.