Posted on 10/28/2012 1:07:55 PM PDT by elhombrelibre
But but but... BAIN!!!!!!
At the same time favorable comments and appraisals of Romney's ability and character began popping up. I think that is a good sign, overall.
“As a testament to his character, if he wins next Tuesday, Romney will NOT ONCE blame Obama for the country’s problems moving forward. Anyone doubt this?”
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Not for one minute.
An earlier poster mentioned changes intentionally made to early voting ballots; I’m registered in Denver and sent in my absentee ballot by express mail—but I always worry that given the county I’m registered in, that my vote will be changed. We really need to figure out a solution to this problem.
RCP has that Maine vote separated out and has it leaning Obama so I’m not considering it (also due to there being no historical precedent for that vote being split). It’s possible, but with the polling where it is, I would guess Romney would only get that Maine vote if he blew out most of the other swing states and didn’t need it.
Iowa had 7 electoral votes in the last election and currently has 5 seats in the House of Representatives, but it lost one Congressional seat as a result of the 2010 census, so it will have only 6 electoral votes in the 2012 election.
Romney will be in the low 300 EV and the Obamas will be looking for property to buy off Tony Rezko on Oahu cheap.
Only the Constitution's provisions and protections will save liberty for future generations, and we need to rediscover the principles upon which it was founded, as claimed by the Founders in their Declaration of Independence.
Even King George may not have displayed the kind of deliberate arrogance and abuse of power as has been on exhibit recently in this once free and prosperous land.
"The People" now have a written Constitution which never has been amended in accordance with its own provisions in Article V to allow the kinds of invasions of individual rights and usurpations of power we have seen in the past four years!
The following is excerpted from a 1980's essay entitled, "Do We Have a Living Constitution?", published in "Our Ageless Constitution," and relates to the above comments:
"Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon them collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption or even knowledge of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives [the executive, judiciary, or legislature]; in a departure from it prior to such an act." - Alexander Hamilton
In the first of the eighty-five "Federalist Papers," Alexander Hamilton emphasized that:
"... it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection or choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force."
The Framers knew that the passage of time would surely disclose imperfections or inadequacies in the Constitution, but these were to be repaired or remedied by formal amendment, not by legislative action or judicial construction (or reconstruction). Hamilton (in The Federalist No. 78) was emphatic about this:
"Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon them collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption, or even knowledge of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives in a departure from it prior to such an act."
The Congress, unlike the British Parliament, was not given final authority over the Constitution, which partly explains why the judicial authority was lodged in a separate and independent branch of government. In Britain the supreme judicial authority is exercised by a committee of the House of Lords, which is appropriate in a system of parliamentary supremacy, but, although it was suggested they do so, the Framers refused to follow the British example.
The American system is one of constitutional supremacy, which means that sovereignty resides in the people, not in the King-in-Parliament; and the idea that the Constitution may be changed by an act of the legislature--even an act subsequently authorized by the judiciary--is simply incompatible with the natural right of the people to determine how (and even whether) they shall be governed.
Unlike in Britain where, formally at least, the queen rules by the grace of God (Dei gratia regina), American government rests on the consent of the people; and, according to natural right, the consent must be given formally. In fact, it must be given in a written compact entered into by the people. Here is Madison on the compacts underlying American government:
"Altho' the old idea of a compact between the Govt. & the people be justly exploded, the idea of a compact among those who are parties to a Govt. is a fundamental principle of free Govt.
"The original compact is the one implied or presumed, but nowhere reduced to writing, by which a people agree to form one society. The next is a compact, here for the first time reduced to writing, by which the people in their social state agree to a Govt. over them." (In a letter to Nicholas P. Trist, February 15, 1830)
Neither civil society (or as Madison puts it, "the people in their social state') nor government exists by nature. By nature everyone is sovereign with respect to himself, free to do whatever in his judgment is necessary to preserve his own life - or, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, everyone is endowed by nature with the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of a happiness that he defines for himself. Civil society is an artificial person (constituted by the first of the compacts), and it is civil society that institutes and empowers government. So it was that they became "the People of the United States" in 1776 and, in 1787-88, WE, THE PEOPLE ordained and established "this Constitution for the United States of America."
In this formal compact THE PEOPLE specified the terms and conditions under which "ourselves and posterity," would be governed: granting some powers and withholding others, and organizing the powers granted with a view to preventing their misuse by the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branches alike. WE THE PEOPLE were authorized by natural right to do this, and were authorized to act on behalf of posterity only insofar as the rights of posterity to change those terms and conditions were respected. This was accomplished in Article V of the Constitution, the amending article, which prescribed the forms to be followed when exercising that power in the future.
What THE PEOPLE were not permitted to do in 1787-88 was to deprive - or pretend to deprive - posterity of their natural right to do in the future what the founding generation had done in 1776. Nor could they, by pretending to delegate it to Congress, the President, or the Supreme Court, deprive them of their sovereign power to change the Constitution. Instead, that power was recognized in the Constitution's provisions in Article V.
The Framers had designed a constitutional structure for a government which would be limited by that structure - by the distribution of power into distinct departments, a system of legislative balances and checks, an independent judiciary, a system of representation, and an enlargement of the orbit "within which such systems are to revolve" And to the judges they assigned the duty, as "faithful guardians of the Constitution," to preserve the integrity of the structure, for it is by the structure (more than by "parchment barriers") that the government is limited. It would he only a slight exaggeration to say that, in the judgment of the Founders, the Constitution would "live" as long as that structure was preserved." (End of Excepted Portion from Dr. Berns' Essay)
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