We used to hang horse thieves. Now we let though the color of law, the many steal from the few.
Posted on 08/19/2010 4:16:11 PM PDT by Kaslin
How did we get to the point where many people feel that the America they have known is being replaced by a very different kind of country, with not only different kinds of policies but very different values and ways of governing?
Something of this magnitude does not happen all at once or in just one administration in Washington. What we are seeing is the culmination of many trends in many aspects of American life that go back for years.
Neither the Constitution of the United States nor the institutions set up by that Constitution are enough to ensure the continuance of a free, self-governing nation. When Benjamin Franklin was asked what members of the Constitutional Convention were creating, he replied: "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."
In other words, a constitutional government does not depend on the Constitution but on us. To the extent that we allow clever people to circumvent the Constitution, while dazzling us with rhetoric, the Constitution will become just a meaningless piece of paper, as our freedoms are stolen from us, much as a pickpocket would steal our wallet while we are distracted by other things.
It is not just evil people who would dismantle America. Many people who have no desire to destroy our freedoms simply have their own agendas that are singly or collectively incompatible with the survival of freedom.
Someone once said that a democratic society cannot survive for long after 51% of the people decide that they want to live off the other 49%. Yet that is the direction in which we are being pushed by those who are promoting envy under its more high-toned alias of "social justice."
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
We used to hang horse thieves. Now we let though the color of law, the many steal from the few.
There - all fixed.
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There is no need for you to crrect Dr Sowell. If you don’t like what he writes then don’t read him
make that correct
Abraham Lincoln warned of people whose ambitions can only be fulfilled by dismantling the institutions of this country, because no comparable renown is available to them by supporting those institutions.
I guess old Abe beat me to it. re: tagline below.
Thomas Sowell is amazing. Look at this brief essay and how many times he quotes others, Franklin, Lincoln, "someone," etc. holding them up as older and wiser than himself. That is what civilization is about.
Then compare the "self esteem" essays and efforts of today.
We really do fear we have passed the point of no return, and that is even given fair elections. Everybody votes you know, not just those with the insight of Thomas Sowell.
Johnny Suntrade
The Constitution is made of words, and words are symbols. They only carry information about the state of mind of the reader and the writer.
They are of human origin. There is nothing about the word “Freedom” that can be derived from mathematics, or physics, the observation of celestial objects, or of the atoms that make up a blade of grass.
Words like “freedom” or “decency” or “morality” have meaning, yes, but their meaning is subject to “drift” because it is only the will of individual human beings that gives them their meaning. Thus “freedom” can be made to mean “freedom from want” or “freedom from worry” or “freedom from stress,” over the course of many years.
The Founders set up a court system to interpret the laws, to interpret the words of which those laws are composed. Since the Constitution is a law, the words of which it is composed are subject to the “drift” phenomenon mentioned above.
Liberalism has many lines of attack, and among them are several aimed at undermining the meanings of words. This process has been going on for decades. The “living constitution” nonsense concept is part of this. They know they can’t just do away with the Constitution one morning, but they can accomplish the same outcome by shifting the meaning of the words within the Constitution. Over time, the population will accept a collapse of the protections afforded by the Constitution, and will accept it willingly.
Thomas Sowell is one of the greatest thinkers of our time. This article hits the nail on the head on how liberalism is destroying the greatest nation on earth. It is time to stop the self-loathers from obtaining power and start putting real intellects, like Sowell, in charge. God bless America and God bless Thomas Sowell!
“There is no need for you to crrect Dr Sowell. If you don’t like what he writes then don’t read him”
Thats one of the more egotistical things I’ve read on here in a while. So only lapdogs should read Sowell?
A decadent people send dirtbags to Congress. With apologies to H.L. Mencken, we get what we want, good and hard.
In another thread today, I posted the following information about a book written by Sen. Zachary Montgomery in 1896. In that 1896 work, Montgomery spells out many dangers to liberty from what he described as an "anti-parental" education system. The excerpted portion included below is pertinent to what Dr. Sowell discusses in his recent work.
ere are excerpted remarks from The Honorable Zachary Montgomery's "Poison Drops. . . ," regarding what he observed to be changes in interpretations of the Constitution by means of the dictionaries and the teachings within the public schools and its potential effect on the understanding of future citizens about their rights and the government's limitations:
"CHAPTER VI. POLITICAL POISON IN THE PUBLIC-SCHOOL BOOKS — TEN MILLIONS OF AMERICAN CHILDREN FORCED TO DRINK DAILY THE DEADLY DOCTRINE OF CENTRALIZATION AND DESPOTISM ! ! !
"From, a Speech by the Author, delivered at San Diego, Cal., Oct. 30, 1884.
"In our California public schools, as in those of most of the other States, Webster's Dictionary is the legally established authority for the definition of words. This would all be well enough if the Webster of to-day were the Webster of twenty-five years ago. But the illustrious and patriotic Noah Webster would blush in his grave at the thought of being made to father the bastard brood of political heresies which are now being taught in our public schools, through the medium of a false, forged, and mutilated dictionary bearing his honored name.
"To show how the overthrow of constitutional liberty and the inestimable right of democratic' self-government are being brought about by changing the meaning of words, a few examples will suffice.
"Take for example the word "Constitution" Webster's Unabridged Dictionary," as published in 1859, the legal definition of the word "Constitution," says :
"'In free States the Constitution is paramount to the statutes or laws enacted by the Legislature. limiting and controlling its power; and in the United States the Legislature is created and its powers designated by the Constitution.'
"But every word of the above definition is expunged from the Webster now used and required by law to be used in our public schools, and in its place we find the following definition of the word "Constitution," to wit:
Political Poison in the Public- School Books. P. 39 "'The principal or fundamental laws which govern a State or other organized body. . . are embodied in written docu- ments or implied in the institutions or usages of the country or society.'
"Thus, under public-school tuition, the rising generation no longer look upon the written Constitution as the source and limit of legislative power; but on the contrary the mere " usages of society'''are raised to the dignity of constitutional law.
"What a very convenient way of clothing official villainy in the garb of constitutional authority ! After our corrupt and perjured officials have violated, in a hundred ways, the Constitution they had solemnly sworn to support in order to carry out their nefarious schemes of fraud and plunder, how would it have been possible for them to have contrived a more ingenious device to justify in the eyes of the rising generation their official misdeeds, than by thus adopting, legalizing, and forcing into the public school, through their willing tools, a definition of the word " Constitution" sufficiently elastic to cover every species of their acctustomed rascalities?
"Again! The old Noah Webster of twenty-five years ago, in giving to the word "Union" its political signification, defines it as " States united. Thus the United States of America are SOMETIMES CALLED THE UnION."
"But in the false and mutilated Webster which the public-school system now forces our children to study this definition is entirely suppressed, and in its place we have the word " Union" defined as meaning —
"'A CONSOLIDATED BODY, AS THE UNITED StATES OF AMERICA, ARE OFTEN CALLED THE ' Union.' Thus, while the real statesmen of both political parties are warning the people against the danger of a consolidated government, the children, who are soon to take the places of these statesmen, through our public-school machinery are indoctrinated with the idea that we ah'eady have a consolidated republic. In the case of McCollough vs. The State of Maryland, Chief- Justice Marshall, of the Supreme Court of the United States, said:
"'No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States and of compounding the American people into a solid mass.'
"But what no political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of in Judge Marshall's tiine is now taught as an accomplished fact.
"Again, " Webster's Dictionary" twenty-five years ago defined the word " Federal " as —
"'Consisting in a compact between parties, particularly P. 40 '' Poison Drops" in the Federal Senate. "'AND CHIEFLY BETWEEN StATES AND NATIONS FORMED ON ALLI- ANCE BY CONTRACT OR MUTUAL AGREEMENT, AS A FEDERAL GOV- ERNMENT, SUCH AS THAT OF THE UnITED StATES.' But the present public-school Webster, after expunging every syllable of this definition, defines " Federal " as being " specifically composed of States, and which retain only a subordinate and limited sovereignty, as the Union of the United States and the Sonderbund of Switzerland."
"A moment's reflection will show that under such a definition of the word "Federal," the several States composing the American Union would have no rights and no sovereignty which the General Government would be bound to respect.
"Now it is undoubtedly true that in all those matters in which, under the Constitution, the Federal Government has been clothed with sovereign authority, the authority of the States is subordinate to the Federal Government. But in all things else the sovereignty of the States is as supreme and as independent of the Federal sovereignty as if the Federal sovereignty had never existed.
"In the celebrated Dred Scott case the United States Supreme Court said :
"'The principles upon which our Governments rest, and upon which alone they continue to exist, is the union of States, sovereign and independent within their own limits, in their internal and domestic concerns.'
"But if, as now taught in the public schools of California and elsewhere, the States have no sovereignty except such as is subordinate to the sovereignty of the United States, what becomes of our sovereign right to local self-government? Suppose that the Federal Government should to-morrow, in the exercise of its supposed superior sovereignty, undertake to nullify our State Constitution and laws, abrogate our State Government, remove from office our Governor, abolish our State Courts and our legislature, and force us to accept for our local government just such laws as the Federal Congress might choose to give us, such State, county, and municipal officers as the President might send to rule over us, what remedy would we have? Shall I be told that such action on the part of the Federal Government, clashing, as it would, with the principles of State sovereignty, would not be tolerated?
"But I would answer, if a State possesses no sovereignty except such as is subordinate to the sovereignty of the Federal Government, would not our subordinate sovereignty be forced to yield to the superior sovereignty to which it is subordinate? Is it not a law
P. 41 Political Poison in the Public-School Books. "of nature that whenever two unequal forces meet, the inferior must yield to the superior?
"My countrymen, disguise the fact as we may, there is in this country today, and in both the political parties, an element which is ripe for a centralized despotism. There are men and corporations of vast wealth, whose iron grasp spans this whole continent, and who find it more difficult and more expensive to corrupt thirty odd State Legislatures than one Federal Congress. It was said of Nero of old that he wished the Roman people had but one head, so that he might cut it off at a single blow. And so it is with those moneyed kings who would rule this country through bribery, fraud, and intimidation.
"It is easy to see how, with all the powers of government centered at Washington in one Federal head, they could at a single stroke put an end to American liberty.
"But they well understand that before striking this blow the minds of the people must be prepared to receive it. And what surer or safer preparation could possibly be made than is now being made, by indoctrinating the minds of the rising generation with the idea that ours is already a consolidated government; that the States of the Union have no sovereignty which is not subordinate to the will and pleasure of the Federal head, and that our Constitution is the mere creature of custom, and may therefore be legally altered or abolished by custom.
"Such are a few of the pernicious and poisonous doctrines which ten millions of American children are to-day drinking in with the very definitions of the words they are compelled to study. And yet the man who dares to utter a word of warning of the approaching danger is stigmatized as an enemy to education and unfit to be mentioned as a candidate for the humblest office.
"Be it so. Viewing this great question as I do, not for all the offices in the gift of the American people would I shrink from an open and candid avowal of my sentiments. If I have learned anything from the reading of history, it is that the man who, in violation of great principles, toils for temporary fame, purchases for himself either total oblivion or eternal infamy, while he who temporarily goes down battling for right principles always deserves, and generally secures, the gratitude of succeeding ages, and will carry with him the sustaining solace of a clean conscience, more precious than all the offices and honors in the gift of man."
"Poison drops in the federal Senate : the school question from a parental and non-sectarian stand-point : an epitome of the educational views of Zach. Montgomery on account of which views a stubborn but fruitless effort was made in the United States Senate to prevent his confirmation as Assistant Attorney General (1886)"
Author: Montgomery, Zachariah
Subject: Education -- United States; Education and state
Publisher: Washington, D.C. : Gibson Bros., printers
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
Language: English
Call number: AXU-5456
Digitizing sponsor: MSN
Book contributor: OISE - University of Toronto
Collection: toronto
Nice article and good point. We won’t get anything meaningful out of Washington D.C. that simply goes against the nature of politicians.
if not term limits then how about shorter terms?
or just adopt a draft system, this volunteering system is not working so well for municipalities.
I don’t know if term limits would work. With the entrenched political parties, they would simply put up their revolving candidates. Another problem we had here in the primaries was the sudden appearance of a multitude of “conservative”, “tea party” candidates on the Republican ballot. They all canceled each other out and the establishment Republican candidates won. My guess is alot of the “conservative” candidates were put up by the GOP. Throw vote fraud on top of all this, and the solution of saving our country thru elections looks dim.
Clever? Who? Doc, are you looking at the same leaders I’m looking at?
This has been going on since the Civil War and the District of Criminals has continued this war since that pacification program’s success.
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