Posted on 07/01/2012 7:20:34 AM PDT by dagogo redux
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”- John Adams
I blame human nature more than specific deficiencies in the Constitution...although I’ve often wondered how we’d have done if we’d have never ditched the Articles of Confederation.
As Adams (our first liberal president) pointed out, our form of government requires a moral populace. Our largely successful republic produced such a long period of freedom and peace that we started to take it for granted. Our culture has deteriorated to the point that we now have as many people happily on the dole as those providing the funds. Under these conditions, given time, humans will do whatever is necessary to change the meaning of the constitution to remove the limitations it imposed on the federal government. Any unconstitutional law that slips through becomes precedent for the next via “stare decisis”.
We are in the midst of a marxist takeover, yet even the victors are unaware of that fact. The final stage will progress very rapidly...and is just around the corner. Keep your powder dry.
There is no system of government that can withstand an over saturation of ticks.
You are right that Madison had no such control, but you miss the point entirely: he crafted a Constitution he thought would endure such failings and such people, with whom he was quite familiar. He tried valiantly to build such controls into the very fabric of the Constitution. Our country adopted the Constitution, thinking he got it right.
Immoral people elect immoral people and singling either left or right out for that “honor” would be dishonest and thus immoral.
Too many people want to go back and change the founder’s ideal to fit their own. I even saw a thread here the other day where a handful of FReepers were seriously supporting the idea of a dictator as long as it was “our” dictator.
We’re in real trouble.
I suspect the powder of which you speak is very dry among Freepers. :)
The Supreme Court is, in essence, a branch above the branch based on the fact that it has the "final" word. As we know, the powers of judicial review were not delegated to the Supreme Court but it didn't take long for them to be used. I can't think of a solution for this, really - you should always have the ability to have an 'arbiter' on an issue.
The other unelected, fourth branch of government as Mark Levin calls it, is the bureaucracy. I don't think our founding fathers predicted a large, monolithic branch passing rules and regulations with absolutely no input from Americans, but here we have the EPA, the FCC, you name it. The power to regulate should not be able to be delegated. The EPA should be an advisory agency that recommends laws to pass by Congress.
A lot of time is spent nowadays over nuances of text in the Constitution because of the evolution of the English language. Concepts such as "regulate for the general welfare," and of course the entire 2nd Amendment's debate around a comma. However, if countless published texts from the first-party sources like Madison himself are not enough to convince those intent on changing the meaning, or interpreting it incorrectly, what can ever be done?
I sometimes wonder if the amendment process was made too difficult. I understand the principle - it should be used only for extreme situations because the text establishing our government should rarely be altered. But because of this, it's rarely tried anymore. Those who want to change it have found ways around it. Why bother with an Amendment when the Supreme Court themselves will rule that the power to force Americans to purchase a product is permissible as a tax? If the Amendment process were easier, perhaps these things would be proposed - and defeated.
No form of government is perfect, and history shows us that all of them become some form of tyranny sooner or later, and usually sooner. Madison understood that quite well. I think where Madison and the Convention went wrong was in not abolishing slavery immediately. (I am aware why they did not- if they did, the states where slavery existed would not have adopted the Constitution in the first place). If they had, then a civil war might have been avoided, and the resulting disaster of a over-mighty Federal government also avoided. I am not going so far as to say it would have stopped a demagogue like FDR from creating the New Deal, or Johnson from creating a “war on poverty” which has turned into a quagmire.
Madison should have listened more closely to the criticisms of the “anti-Federalists”. Time has proven them to be correct on almost every point raised during the ratification debates. It took quite a while for the rot to progress, but the Anti-Federalists identified the root causes of pretty much every rotten trend plaguing us today.
Part of the problem here is the definition of “republic.” It means a government of “the people” acting through officers they elect or choose in some other fashion themselves. A republic contrasts with an aristocracy, monarchy or dictatorship/tyranny in which power is obtained or handed down through heredity, military force, etc.
Unfortunately, there is nowhere any guarantee that “a republic” cannot be oppressive of many or even a majority of the people who live within it. All ancient and medieval republics defined “the people” who would choose the magistrates more or less narrowly, often being less than 10% of the actual population.
And of course many of these republics were appallingly oppressive of everybody except their full citizens. An example being Sparta, which though technically a (dual) monarchy functioned in practice much more like a republic. Sparta was notorious for being oppressive even of its full citizens. The Roman Republic in its last century or so was so oppressive and chaotic that almost everyone welcomed its fall and the institution of effective government under the Empire.
Madison, through his study of the history of republics, was of course fully aware of this. That is why he attempted to set up a republic with limited powers,
What I’m trying to say is that we still have a republic, but that this form of government structure is not a guarantee that it will not be oppressive. We the people have allowed this mess to get so bad. We can also fix it.
Will we? I am hopeful but by no means certain. The people can become just as corrupt as any other group.
There is a picture I've seen occaisionally on FR, the smiley face that reads "Imagine the world with no liberals".
Though the picture makes me smile, and I agree with the sentiment, if we take that idea to the end, we end up with what you describe. A dictatorship.
A place where those who don't agree with our particular views are outlawed.
How many "cults" have been started with the intent of controlling morality or thoughts or expression of thoughts.
Go back to early America, where certain religous groups tried that. The Puritans TRIED to lead lives of self control and discipline. They knew that discipline was the enemy of immoral living, and yet that very discipline became the burden around their necks.
Until sin is removed from the world, no political system will truly succeed.
You can’t fix the failings of the human heart. The only way would be to set up a shadow government that keeps the real government in line, harshly. But even it could be corrupted over time.
I say let Cloward-Piven have their collapse, then snatch victory from them. Take control by any means necessary, and rebuild a free society, and this time become intolerant of leftist ideas.
-- James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
That was true.
But more than anything, to allow people who have no stakes in the fate of our Republic an equal vote is the beginning of the end.
The old Constitution was mugged by history, specifically: the Civil War, which weakened the old concept of the states as sovereign; the development of the country as a powerful, unified market that looked to the federal government to set common standards; the Progressive movement and the exigencies of the Depression, which led to new federal powers; and the vast federal revenue stream generated by the income tax. These gradually created and cemented into place a massive, powerful federal government, too big to cut back or reform until we are on the brink of bankruptcy.
Yours may be the best plan.
Kind of ridiculous to allow those with no skin in the game to vote against those with everything invested.
People want the unearned, the undeserved, and something for nothing, and politicians are willing to give it to them in order to be reelected.
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