Posted on 11/15/2009 11:12:49 AM PST by Bokababe
...The Founders did not give us a government like the one we have today. The government they gave us was strictly limited in its scope, guaranteed individual liberty, preserved the free market, and on matters that pertain to our private behavior was supposed to leave us alone.
In the Constitution, the Founders built in checks and balances. If the Congress got out of hand, the states would restrain it. If the states stole liberty or property, the Congress would cure it. If the President tried to become a king, the courts would prevent it.
In the next few weeks, I will be giving a public class on Constitutional Law here on the Fox News Channel, on the Fox Business Network, on Foxnews.com, and on Fox Nation. In anticipation of that, many of you have asked: What can we do now about the loss of freedom? For starters, we can vote the bums out of their cushy federal offices! We can persuade our state governments to defy the Feds in areas like health care -- where the Constitution gives the Feds zero authority. We can petition our state legislatures to threaten to amend the Constitution to abolish the income tax, return the selection of U.S. senators to state legislatures and nullify all the laws the Congress has written that are not based in the Constitution.
One thing we can’t do is just sit back and take it....
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Constitution Ping!
the check and balance was removed the second the states were nullifed by having the senate directly elected.
the senate was there to represent that states, the house the people and thus 100 years later, no checks or balance but an out of control federal government with no way to rein it in.
We should all tell all our friends/family about this program.
I would believe that if we were broke as a nation for a government without checks and balances would surely break the bank.
When that happens I will take your statement to heart.
Not until then!....
From the Declaration of Independence " That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.".
It starts with the vote and ends wherever it has to!
I am still trying to find Part 2 of this & will post it when I find it.
I really enjoy listening to the Judge. He makes a lot of sense. However, he comes up a bit short on this one. He couches his argument in terms of arresting the expansion of government by threatening the elected elite with a variety of actions: amendment to scrap the Income Tax, return election of Senators to the State legislatures, etc.
For my part, we should be doing these things REGARDLESS of the party in control; and, it should be much, much more that mere threats. We should be demanding the Federal leviathan return to the live within the constraints of the Constitution. We should be demanding that the Income Tax be repealed. We should be demanding that the States be returned the election of Senators. And, we should be demanding that ALL Federal legislation of the last 200+ years be tested against the authorizations of the Constitution. AND IT SHOULD NOT MATTER WHICH PARTY IS IN CONTROL. It’s the right thing to do.
It’s time to take back the country.
And don’t expect any help from the courts.
we are broke as a nation, we depend on the chicoms to keep giving us the cash we need to survive.
Looking forward to Judge's course.
My naturally cynical thoughts tell me the voters tried voting the bums out in 1994, 2006 and 2008 and congress only gets worse(1994 being the exception short lived). Your state level ideas are OK in some states, but you can forget my liberal state MD doing anything but electing more liberals.
My thoughts are :
1) Term limits for house and Senate as promised in 1994 contract with America. Guess why that didnt get passed..
2) A ‘congress has to live in our world” act. For starters, congress must send their kids to public schools as long as they are office. Next, apply Freedom of Information act to congress like it is applied to the white house.
And I thought all along that because of our freedoms via the Constitution that we are the only "super power" surviving today.
I'm rethinking of late.
I’d like to hear a discussion of Obamacare vs. the health care plan that congress enjoys but does not pay for. That discussion should be centered on the ‘equal protection clause’.
This is a nice sentiment, one that I believe in to my core. But, there is a possibility that it makes me an ideologue. Why? Because the status quo is so ingrained in peoples minds, it is the way our reality is framed, and there are some things that many just would not want to give up. Even conservatives have raked me when discussing whether the 17th amendment should be repealed and many balk at eliminating the Department of Education, the EPA, the FDA and so on. It does not matter that these departments, as policized as they are do not function in the best interest of the people and over time have expanded way beyond their intended scope.
This stiff opposition to my constitutionalism (which is distinct from Libertarianism) lead me to believe that I truly am quite a minority, and people like me have been likewise as far back as John Adams. The recognition of things like the Alien and Sedition Acts, constant meddeling in the financial sector, and political manipulation of states all along shake my confidence that true constitutionalism could ever be a reality.
In my opinion, that government the Founders established died a very painful and bloody death during the civil war. What we have now are bits and pieces of what was left over. We are indeed very lucky to have as many freedoms and liberty left over as we have today, but many of the attitudes from the civil war persist even to this day, only with a different face. Something and someone has to be the historic antithesis of the liberals, and I don’t beleieve it is folks like me. Constitutionalists, and even Libertarians are stuck in the middle of the persistant tug-o-war between different ways to stomp on the constitution, for better or worse. Winning and having it be their way is far more important than just letting people and society be what it is, and more importanly for society to have the ability to define, and govern itself the way that was intended in the constitution.
“We can petition our state legislatures to threaten to amend the Constitution to abolish the income tax, return the selection of U.S. senators to state legislatures and nullify all the laws the Congress has written that are not based in the Constitution.”
This would be a major step in the right direction.
“Three: in certain extreme situations, the law is inadequate. In order to shame its inadequacy, it is necessary to act outside the law. To pursue... natural justice. This is not vengeance. Revenge is not a valid motive, it’s an emotional response. No, not vengeance. Punishment.” Time that some needed punishment was served.
We’re marerialistic junkies and the Chicoms have become our pimps. Plus we have an addiction to Saudi oil, and there ARE doemestic forces that are keeping us trapped into relying on both foreign oil and yen.
That and the Commerce clause spelled Doom for the Republic. We are reliving the history of the Roman Republic.
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