Posted on 06/01/2008 5:49:56 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
I do not argue that the problems of early 21st-century Europe are identical to those of late 18th-century America. I am now myself a federalist. Yet the Americans did have to face similar problems in trying to reconcile the relationship of the federal government with the individual states - the very questions that confront Europe in the Lisbon treaty.
The American Constitution has succeeded in providing the US with a stable democratic framework that has survived the great changes of the past two centuries, including - in the 20th century - two world wars, a Cold War and a slump. The US Constitution is 221 years old, and still able to produce a presidential election with three highly gifted candidates. The Constitution has repeatedly proved able to regenerate itself.
The original French Constitution was adopted only shortly after the American; within a decade it had been overtaken by the Terror and overthrown by Napoleon. Surely, Europe should be asking this question: why did the US Constitution succeed when the French Constitution has repeatedly failed? There is also the primary question of assent. The articles of the US Constitution were adopted by the Federal Convention in September 1787; the opening words are: “We, the people of the United States...”
Combined with the earlier treaties, Lisbon does form a sort of constitution, though an unsatisfactory one. Yet no one would be entitled to start this European constitution with the words: “We, the people of Europe...” It might have to be: “We, the people of Ireland...”, since the Irish are the only people allowed a vote. Will the Lisbon constitution last as long as the American? The answer is probably not.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
....and still able to produce a presidential election with three highly gifted candidates.
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This MUST be from Scrappleface....you can’t make stuff like this up...
A slight correction is due: One major party tries to [somewhat] retain it and protect it, while the other party tries to debauch it. The end result is that it slowly moves to the side of debauchery, with occasional jumps into debauchery.
IMO, George Washington is a better lesson to Europeans and Americans. But I see that Jefferson is more popular with libertines, because he seemed to be much more liberal (was against going so far as to hang sodomites and the like).
This MUST be from Scrappleface....you can’t make stuff like this up...
The writer is correct, they all three are gifted. I do not happen to like their gifts. Nor, I suspect, do you.
The English are alone in Europe, being blessed with Common Law roots, unlike the onerous and inefficient Code Civil that plagues “Old Europe”. This is why they grasp that power derives from the people, not an elite who envision themselves ordained as rulers.
And this is why they are alone in being able to understand the meaning of the US Constitution, if they try, and why it is inherently better than anything that could be produced by the undemocratic bureaucrats in Brussels.
But it also means that the English will chafe under their lords on the continent, who despise the rights of free born Englishmen and seek to divide and enslave Albion.
With luck, the EU shall become another HRE, and England shall be free of its tyranny. But every Englishman who hopes that their children will have liberty had best study the US Constitution and its origins as if their life, and the lives of their posterity depended on it.
It’s “We the People” vs “His Majesty King of the Belgians” which is really how the preamble to the EU Constitution stars
Never mind our "highly gifted candidates," or the plaudits for a "living Constitution," this simile is advocacy for a Trojan horse.
The EU constitution as currently proposed is 346 pages long. I’m willing to bet a beer that no one in Europe has even read the thing, let alone understand it.
Any constitution that requires 346 pages is not worth the paper it’s printed on.
I hope the Irish have enough sense to save Europe from their own follies once again, by turning down the EU constitution in their upcoming referendum.
Washington was much more the original American. His attitude was that since the Founders had explicitly created a system that differed in principle from anything Europe had to offer, and they all knew what europe did have to offer all too well, there was little virtue in wasting time over there. So he didn't. I think a bunch of guys in monocles felt snubbed and never forgave us for it.
Special perhaps, but definitely not "Gifted".
btt
In 1825 Thomas Jefferson himself proposed that The Federalist should be adopted as a required text in the University of Virginia. He described it as: “An authority to which appeal is habitually made by all... as evidence of the general opinion of those who framed, and of those who accepted the Constitution of the United States, on questions as to its genuine meaning.”
It is not just remarkable in that it comes from Jefferson, it is remarkable for its assumptions: that it is incumbent upon us to uncover the "genuine meaning" of the Constitution; that "genuine meaning" should be determined by resort to the opinion of those who "framed" and who "accepted" the Constitution. Hence, the Constitution is not a living, mutating document but one whose meaning was fixed at birth and whose meaning is determinable by reference to the history of its birth.
This utterance comes very late in Jefferson's life and must be regarded as being tempered with the perspective of time. That he proposes this in the context of required reading for his beloved University of Virginia, reveals the seriousness with which he makes the observation.
Am I alone in being unacquainted with this remark from Jefferson? It seems to be terribly important in the world of constitutional interpretation.
Being aware of Jefferson’s Reverence of the Constitution has only limited value in the battles to save it today. The dark forces couldn’t care less, and thoughts and words of Jefferson are only impediments to carrying out their agenda. Its not like pointing out the founders meaning to Constitutional Kneaders will cause them to realize the folly in their ways - they are blinded by their goals to destroying us and US.
Nevertheless, we must fight the fight as though it actually matters. If we want to have long-term success at the ballot box we must provide the intellectual underpinning for our side. If we fail to do that, we risk becoming like the statists-you know the kind, the ones that like to run show trials, or conjure up looming disasters like global warming or global cooling, depending on the season, or incipient fascism, or latent racism.
We cannot neglect the fundamentals and hope to win it on spin.
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