Posted on 06/22/2013 12:58:51 PM PDT by Jacquerie
As his fans know, Mark finished another book. Every night it seems, he wants to bust out and talk about it, but his publishers have put the ixnay on too much disclosure. Still, he shows a little leg now and then. That happened yesterday, in the first hour of his show.
Mark Levin:
I want to explain an aspect of this that hasn’t been discussed. We have United States Senators, and we have for a hundred years, since 1913, . . . and the 17th Amendment, which I believe must be repealed. We now have individuals in the US Senate who have absolutely no allegiance to their states, none. And you get very perverse results, and I think they’re very destructive. I’ll give you an example. Arizona has been at the forefront of fighting the federal government and the Obama administration on its refusal to enforce existing federal law. And the people of Arizona and the state of Arizona are paying a very heavy price for the government’s refusal to enforce existing federal law. Meanwhile, the two senators from Arizona, John McCain and Jeff Flake, they are part of the gang of eight, . . . well they’re one fourth of it, both senators. And they’re plotting and scheming with Obama and Harry Reid and these other groups and so forth, in ways that are detrimental to and undermine the state of Arizona.
“But Mark, they were elected by the people,” . . . it doesn’t matter.
This is not the kind of representation in the Senate that the Framers put in place. The direct election of Senators was part of the progressive movement, along with the so-called progressive income tax. The point was, and there was an enormous amount of debate about this at the constitutional convention, AND in the state ratification conventions, the federalists made the case over and over again, that the states not only had plenary power under the constitution, and the federal government was limited to specific powers, but the states were right there at the table in Congress in the United States Senate.
Meanwhile, the states are not at the table anywhere now, and when the states try to assert themselves, its “Whoa, look at that, they’re trying to undermine federal law.” We know about the supremacy of federal law, so the whole thing is out of whack. So federal law preempts, federal law is supreme, but now who is making federal law, the states have no say in it, none whatsoever. So there you have two senators, McCain and Flake, conducting themselves in ways that are harmful to the people of their state, and the state can’t do a damn thing about it. You have a state legislature in Arizona that has passed “tough” immigration laws, but they’re not tough, they’re appropriate and proper. And, and look, the state’s senators who are supposed to represent the states, are the worst senators when it comes to state government in Arizona. Something has to be done about it. The idea that we . . . seventy or more senators are going to support this bill, when I dare say, half if not more of the state legislatures in this country reject it, says a hell of a lot, doesn’t it? It tells you the system is broken, and here we are, oh, as if we’re really going to toughen up border security with the same people who refuse to do it, now telling us they’re going to do it.
I want to continue on this theme, that Washington cannot reform itself; Washington will not reform itself. The system is broken.
The system of checks and balances are less in place, and instead of Congress, the President, and the Courts checking each other, and despite their propaganda, “Oh if Congress doesn’t act I will,” the fact of the matter is, putting aside the politics, the nation is heading in one direction and one direction only, and that is hard left. And that is because the checks and balances really don’t work anymore.
In fact, fundamentally, the three branches of the federal government work together. Fundamentally they work together against the states, and more importantly, we the people.
I’m not into populism, I’m not into majoritarianism, I’m into constitutionalism. So we are paying a price for what these statists have done. Woodrow Wilson and his ilk had targeted the Constitution. FDR targeted the Constitution. They needed to break down the barriers to break the checks and balances, the protections that were placed in the Constitution, the states were supposed to be a buffer between we the people as individuals and the federal government. All of that, for the most part, is now gone. Nobody even talks about it anymore, . . . I hear these pseudo conservatives, and they write and they write and endlessly and relentlessly about things that don’t even matter. And if you raise these things as I have, its “Oh, gee, the world started with the New Deal, you have to accept these things.” I say NO. If you’re really honest with yourself, and you are somebody who looks at the facts and experience, and are rational, you know we can’t continue this.
We can’t continue this.
I recall reading about that as well, but forgot the details. It required 36 of the 48 state legislatures to ratify, and in a few states, the ratification may not have occurred properly. Perhaps there is some discussion of this on the Internet.
I believe there were similar questions attached to the ratification of the 16th Amendment as well.
In a letter to my state rep, I painted a quick hypothetical regarding his interest in 17th repeal.
"Is it reasonable for me to assume you would oppose seating a federal judicial nominee whose writings and speeches reflected hostility to the states? Is it also safe for me to assume you would impress that view on our senators?"
The American psyche has been corrupted these past hundred years, so I don't promise a world of chocolate and cute puppies with repeal. The fact will be that even the most corrupt state legislators, perhaps especially the most corrupt, liberal state legislators would be the most focused on keeping the feds out of state matters. James Madison saw it that way, a matter of disparate interests doing what they do best, . . . protect their interests.
I think the big difference is that political corruption at the state level is closer to the people, and the states cannot print money to fund Utopia.
Absolutely not. I would not trust my neighbors to elect a dog-catcher... they will (as they have twice already) sooner elect a dog-eater.
Thank you both. Please ping me to any future articles on this subject.
From that article,did you notice which states did not ratify it? Almost no southern states did, plus many others
Mark, you are so right! I only pray that we can fix it. Without God’s help, we will NOT, though. THAT you can take to the bank, as they USED to say!
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