It is true that much of this has been ingrained in people's psyche, but it is also true that "the idea of the Constitution", rather than its actual content, has been equally ingrained. If and when people actually refer to the content of the Constitution, they will find that you are right. The point is to get them to look and educate themselves. Ron Paul and the Campaign for Liberty has been doing an excellent job of that, as have many smaller organizations.
That you feel this to your core makes you a Patriot, not just "an idealistic dogmatist".
Even conservatives have raked me when discussing whether the 17th amendment should be repealed and many balk at eliminating the Department of Education, the EPA, the FDA and so on
There are many people here on FR and beyond who are primarily Social conservatives rather than Constitutional conservatives, many of whom like big government and big government power -- their only dispute is how that power is used when it denies their agenda. They virtually never question whether government should have that power over us at all -- unless the opposition is in office and then they start the Constitutional chest-beating. It's a hard to make them realize that once you allow those powers to a President and government you like, you've also allowed the powers to the next government who you may hate.
Social Conservatism is the RESULT of a functional free society where people are responsible for their choices. It cannot be achieved by government decree whether we wish it so or not.
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.
Probably true, but politics is always a push-pull with history, yet there was never a Constitutional amendment passed to deny the rights of the States to secede -- that says something about the limits that the Fed had, even after that bloody Civil War.
"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."
Yes, and it is exactly where they should be right now because they have elements that appeal to be shared with both sides in fighting for our freedom and our country. IMHO, this should not be a purely partisan fight -- until or unless one of those Parties, hopefully the Republicans, come to their senses and begin to defend (rather than just try to cash in on) preserving those freedoms that this country was based on.
At worst, the Constitutionalists and libertarians will have stopped both Parties from moving further and further ideologically Left away from the Constitution, and at best, will have moved the discourse back toward a more Constitutional and libertarian model.
I think that we need to quit thinking of "idealist" as a dirty word, because without "ideals" we will have no sense of direction whatever.
One of my very favorite quotes:
“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites—in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity;—in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption;—in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon the will and appetite is placed somewhere: and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds can not be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
— Edmund Burke
And wouldn't matter if it had. If you're willing to secede, it means you don't care what the law is in the country you're parting ways with. Maybe a little more convenient if it were explicitly sanctioned and the other government abided by it, but that wouldn't happen anyway.
Good post, thank you for taking the time to write it.
Thank you for your very thoughtful response.
I had been figting what I believe to be the ‘good fight’ ever since this whole financial meltdown and what it has meant to me personally really opened my eyes about the conseqences of tyranny. To my dismay, I’ve been labeled not a ‘true’ conservative, a Libertoon, and other such things by those who are only interested in blue steel and have felt like a complete outcast. It does not seem to matter to anyone what the framers actually said, or thought, or how much or often I post Thomas Jefferson’s argument against the establishment of a national bank, which applies to just about everything the government is doing today, or the Federalist papers that describe the purpose of the Federal government, and what it is not. They just don’t get why it was limited or do not care.
To me, that big government sword cuts both ways, and I’d prefer that it cuts not at all. This problem we have of being in fear of the government running amuck, and being promised that by the party in power, is a problem that I do not wish my children to have and it all comes from the constant over-stepping of bounds, with each step being even more bold and more brash than the last; left or right, it doesn’t matter.
If you ever have a chance to study the Buchanan era, you might notice some similarities to the political and economic envrionment today. Some like to think that FDR wrote the book on big government, but it probably started as early as Jackson, coming to a head during Buchanan. I agree with you that the post-war Fed was indeed a kinder, gentler Fed, but it did nothing to prevent future economic and societal meddling that I believe was at the root of the conflict.
In the debate about the 17th amendment I was told that it would have some negative impact on the subsidy southern states get because they lost their 3/5th exemtion after the war, and they still need it because they aren’t as economically advanced as the northern states. I was boggled that a subsidy for that still exists 150 years later.
Why is that place STILL a shambles? Why am I paying taxes for this?
It wasn’t until then that I realized that this problem is far bigger than logic, rational thought, or any amount of education about what the constitution really means. All people can see is what they get from the abuse. It is a monumental task, and a lonely one at that.