Well if I wasn't, I am now. Thank you for your reasoned reply. Good discussion material!
one point though
More specifically, corrupt, post-17th Amendment ratification senators are not doing their job to protect the interests of the states in Congress as the Founding States had established the Senate to do as previously mentioned.
Is there evidence that pre-17th Senators weren't just as corrupt?
all: on a side note, I'm about to go do a bit of construction for a friend but will return in a few hours to view more replys to my query. Please carry on and thanks to those of you with thoughtful posts.
I am glad that you asked that question. In my opinion, yes, the Senate was corrupt before the ratification of 17A.
Pre-17A Senate corruption is evidenced by state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices on the Supreme Court by the late 19th century. More specifically, in the Courts decision in the United States v. Wong Kim Ark (Wong) case, activist justices wrongly interpreted the 14th Amendment as giving citizenship to anybody born in the states.
The problem with the Courts decision is that it wrongly ignored that the congressional record shows that the federal lawmakers who proposed the 14th Amendment (14A) to the states for ratification had clarified that 14A is not to be interpreted as saying that a person born in the states is not automatically a citizen as the Wong justices later argued.
But let us not overlook that the pre and post-17A ratification Senate was probably nowhere near as corrupt, imo, as the post-17A, post-FDR era Senate is, the Senate now regularly helping the corrupt House to pass bills which not only steal state powers, but also steal state revenues associated with those powers.
In fact, Senate is also now refusing to work with the House to impeach and remove lawless presidents, and is also still confirming activist justices that the Senate likewise refuses to remove from the bench when such justices blatantly ignore the federal governments constitutionally limited powers.
In fact, Senate-confirmed activist justices are wrongly declaring the unconstitutional laws that the Senate helps the House to make to be constitutional!
What a scam!
As mentioned in previous post, the ill-conceived 17th Amendment needs to disappear, and senators who let the federal government attack 10th Amendment-protected state sovereignty along with it.