Jeepers I hope I didn't come across as "smart-alecky" there! It's just I've been doing a whole lot of thinking lately about who "the people" are in our system of government. (They are mentioned not only in Preamble, but also in the Tenth, and by implication in the Ninth Amendment as well — the latter of which hardly anybody talks about these days, or seemingly even understands). Just some thoughts FWIW.
When students are educated in our system of government (assuming they are so lucky these days), they are told that it is fundamentally a system that separates and balances power. The example always given is the separation of the federal power into the congressional, executive, and judicial branches, each of which is anticipated to be seeking power at the expense of the others, and thus needs to be checked by the institutional prerogatives and jealousies of the other two branches. And out of this struggle of the separate branches for preeminent power a livable political modus vivandi issues forth to the benefit of a free people.
But it seems to me there is an even more fundamental separation of powers subsisting in our national law: the federal establishment, the several states, and the sovereign people.
It is the people which is ultimately "sovereign" under our system of constitutional law. In the first place, it was "WE the People" who "ordained and established" the Constitution of the United States, for the benefit of themselves and their "Posterity." It was the People who granted the powers of the federal government TO the government in the first place. And there were very few grants (27 by my count.)
The other way in which the people are sovereign is that the legitimacy of our rule of law depends on the consent of the governed. That is, the consent of the people....
Plus there are a couple of instances that come to mind where the people get to express their "sovereign" will in ways in which no government, federal, state, or local can challenge, modify, or override in any way. For instance, the exercise of the franchise, and jury duty.
Juries can even set aside law in particular cases; and if they do so, there is no officer of the court in the land that has standing to override their verdict.
I have always found the idea of jury nullification quite fascinating. The point is, the government may indict and bring forth cases at criminal or civil law all day long. But only a jury of one's peers can convict one of a crime. And if a jury doesn't want to convict somebody of a crime that has been charged against him by federal or state authorities, then the defendant walks. A jury verdict is ultimate — there is no agency of government that can challenge, let alone set aside, any verdict of a duly-constituted jury.
Some people say this is a deplorable situation, and point to, say, the famous O.J. case of jury nullification as a failure of American justice. But I would say the American jury system is the sovereign safeguard of the liberty of the American people. For the government may charge crimes against whomsoever it will; but only a jury of our neighbors can convict of the crime, and thus legitimate the penalty that the government wants to impose.
Anyhoot, what the Framers of the federal Constitution eminently realized was that their design, their project for a novus ordo seclorum — a new order of Liberty designed for the ages — absolutely depended on citizen virtue for its realization and sustenance over time. If the people are morally compromised, this result cannot happen.
And hosepipe put that very issue in its precise ramifications for total American well-being at his recent Post 340.
What we Americans most desperately need right now, it seems to me, is a renewed sense of what constitutes basic public morality — i.e., civic virtue.
My dearest sister in Christ, recently you cited the great Greek philosopher Heraclitus on contemporary questions, i.e., that he saw (as later did the great German philosopher-mathematician Liebnitz) that all of existence depends on two things: (1) that which does not change; and (2) that which is capable of changing. The direct analogue here, as you point out, is the first and second laws of thermodynamics and how they synergistically play out in Reality.
Heraclitus had yet another great insight, one which by analogy bears on our present problem. He said there are only two types of men: (1) the public man; and (2) the private man.
The Framers were all public men, designing their constitutional construct for public men, or men of "virtue," for the ages.
The virtue of the public man consists in the fact that he recognizes that there is only one Logos, "which suffices for all things, and more than suffices." The "private men" are those who "turn aside as if asleep, into their own private dream worlds."
And so if anyone is wondering what the Logos is, just try a little thought experiment: Consider Heraclitus' public man — the man of virtue who lives beyond himself for the benefit of the wider community of men — and his private man, the man who is given over to his own dreamlike personal wishes, hopes, and desires as abstracted from the well-being of anything beyond his own personal preferences and narrow idea of personal welfare, which is finally and fatally abstracted from the requirements of the universal human condition.
Then maybe you'll see what the sheer lack of moral consensus — of the shared sense of a common Logos — is perpetrating in American sociopolitical life nowadays. If this trend is not resisted, it will issue in the doom of the novus ordo seclorum, and of its LONE sponsor: the United States of America.
We do indeed live in interesting times!
Thank you ever so much for your splendid essay/posts, dearest sister in Christ!
They are currently called liberals and conservatives.. but a rose is a rose by any name.. I believe the same is true in any culture, dialect, or language.. Also spoken by the meme of, first reality, and second reality.. Could be any culture has these realitys at any time its just the words used for the public and private man is changed..
I submit that there may be other words to express this dicotamy concurrently used harboring different aspects of the divide.. like at the same time some may be, democrats vs republicans, liberal vs conservative, evolutionists vs creationists, capitalist vs socialist, or even more dualities that I cannot grasp as I write this..
And that even the most remote tribe will have these dualities working in the culture..
Please remove me from the “ping list” on THIS thread.
I have stated my opinon and wish to leave it at that.
Thabk you!
And thank you, dear brother in Christ, for all of your encouragements!
I very strongly agree with your assessment of jury nullification. The jury has the power to nullify law - though often the jurors do not realize it. It must be quite an affront to the courts, i.e. I suspect that simply mentioning the phrase "jury nullification" during selection is enough to be sent home. LOL!
And there's the Second Amendment - the right to keep and bear arms as an individual right. As long as that right is upheld, a "Hitler" cannot prevail here. Some have called it the "reset button" to the Constitution. I believe there are many who fear that element, but I also believe those fears are unwarranted - our society does not have large enough areas of isolation to support another civil war. If the Constitution ever needs to be reset, it'll be because a "Hitler" type came to power.
Then maybe you'll see what the sheer lack of moral consensus — of the shared sense of a common Logos — is perpetrating in American sociopolitical life nowadays. If this trend is not resisted, it will issue in the doom of the novus ordo seclorum, and of its LONE sponsor: the United States of America.
Many people have become disturbingly self-serving, i.e. the "me" generation "looking out for #1," "I'm ok, you're ok," "if it feels good, do it," etc.
Scriptures speak of this trend:
For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. - 2 Timothy 3:1-5
Maranatha, Jesus!!!