Posted on 06/10/2003 4:17:50 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
One thing I've learned during the last six years or so of hanging around Free Republic is that politics is a dirty game. It may qualify as a runner-up for the understatement of the year, but it seems to me that one of the worst things about politics is that it is made up of politicians. These guys seem to be desperate to get into office and once they've had a taste of power they're even more desperate to hang onto it. Doesn't matter what the Founders had in mind for our Republic and or what they wrote into the Constitution, if the elected politicians feel that they can create or expand another give-away program or cater to the demands of one special interest group or another, and it will help them get re-elected next time, well, why not? Constitution be damned.The House represents the people. Sure, the Congressmen are supposed to be sensitive to the wants, needs, desires and demands of their constituents and they are and should be swayed by popular opinion and they should be passionate in their representation of the people. That's the name of the game and that's what the Founders intended. But when the people demand more than the Constitution allows, then what? Well, for one, you've got to get by the Senate. Then by the President, and perhaps by any Supreme Court challenges.
It's my understanding, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Founders established the Senate as the senior body of the bicameral legislature and set higher qualifications, higher standards and longer terms for its members. The Senators were to be experienced, wizened senior statesmen, insulated from swaying popular opinion, and the Senate as a body was to serve as a check on the hotheads in the House.
I also believe that one of the primary responsibilities of the Senate was to defend the Constitution and to guard over the longevity and continuity of the Republic. To this end, the Senate was designed to confirm judicial and high level executive appointments, ratify treaties and conduct impeachment trials--all highly essential elements to the maintenance of our constitutional republic, our national sovereignty and our Liberty.
To ensure that the Senators were truly insulated from swaying public opinion the Founders intended them to be appointed by the state legislatures rather than elected by the populace. It was hoped that only the very best statesmen, men of unimpeachable personal character, would rise to the top of the state legislatures and be considered to serve as U.S. Senators. Hmmmm... Hillary Clinton? Well, so much for high hopes.
I also understand that the three branches of the federal government were established as co-equal partners, with checks and balances designed so that no branch could control another and none could subvert the Constitution. The terms of the members of each branch were varied and staggered and the methods of election or appointment were different for each branch. The only members elected by the populace were to be the members of the House of Representatives. The Senators were to be appointed by the state legislatures, the President elected by the Electoral College and the Judiciary and high officers appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.
The members of the House serve for two years, the President four years, the Senators six years and the Judiciary for life. The number of representatives for each state is determined by the number of people in each state, each state was guaranteed representation by two senators, and the number of electoral college members for each state determined by the number of congressional representatives, etc.
The state governments were intended to remain sovereign and all rights and powers not expressly delegated by the Constitution were to be left to the states and to the people. The central government was restricted to only about a dozen and a half enumerated powers and functions and was never intended to be the absolute ruling authority over the states or the people that it is today.
The primary functions of the federal government was to defend our national borders, maintain the federal judiciary, run the post office, the weights and standards office, the patent office, etc., and to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and our individual rights.
Well, we all know that this is not how it ended up. What went wrong? For one thing, the balance of power was upset with the ratification of the seventeenth amendment. This amendment allowed for the popular election of the Senators instead of having them appointed by the state legislatures. At first glance, this looks like it would be more democratic. In fact, it is. However, as we conservatives love to point out, our Founders did not establish a democracy, they established a Republic.
With the popular election of both the House and the Senate, we are now one step closer to being a democracy where the mob rules rather than the rule of law. Also, the states essentially lost their representatives to the federal government and now, four-score and some odd years later, the result is that most of their states rights and powers have been eroded away. And we're now seeing where the democrats are wanting to do away with the electoral college. Al Gore won the popular vote in the last election, due mostly to the large highly populated liberal states, but President Bush obviously won in the electoral college. Thank God for the wisdom of the Founding Fathers! If Hillary and her mob have their way, the electoral college is history and so is the Republic. That's what happens when you allow mob rule and we're only one amendment and one step away from that sorry end now.
The liberals rule the land. They control the education systems. They control the media. They control the judiciary. Regardless of the party in executive or legislative power, the career liberals control the more or less permanent bureaucracy, the regulatory agencies and the courts. In defending the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, I count the liberals (lumping in the greenies, the socialists, the anarchists, and other assorted un-American types, etc.) as our primary domestic enemy number one. I count the left-leaning moderates and RINOs as domestic enemy number two.
Pretty basic and simple so far, but here's where it gets tricky. Like it or not, we have a two party system. Our good friends, the Libertarians, Constitutionalists, Reformers, Buchananites, paleocons, and other right-wingers, etc., may have some pretty good ideas about constitutionality, freedom, Liberty, etc., however, they are weak numerically, and will probably never get much stronger. Let's face it. The general populace has been indoctrinated for decades (make that several generations) by the liberal state controlled education system, brain-washed by the liberal controlled media and conditioned by the liberal controlled judiciary to accept whatever mushy touchy-feely liberal policy or concept that comes down the pike.
Where are the libertarian, reformist or strict constructionist parties ever going to find enough voters to overcome the Democrats and Republicans? Answer is they can't. It's an impossibility. Perhaps they can draw from the conservatives or Republicans, but they can hope to draw almost no liberal or Democrat voters. So, even if they can draw away from the conservative parties, it will only serve to strengthen the liberals and we will only reinstall Democrats to the majority. Happens every time. We flop back and forth between the Democrats and the Republicans and we continue to make zero progress, but the head-long slide into socialism continues on.
My conclusion is we will never, ever regain constitutional government until we completely demolish the liberal stranglehold on the bureaucracy, the education institutions, the media and especially, the judiciary. How do we do that? The most straightforward way, IMHO, is to vote out the Democrats. Ensure that we maintain as large a Republican majority as we possibly can. Ensure that the most conservative judges as can be found are appointed by the Republican president and confirmed by the Republican Senate. Why do you think Daschle and the Democrats are fighting so hard to block Bush's judicial appointments? They see the handwriting on the wall. As we begin replacing the liberal judiciary. the socialist welfare state is going to fall. The socialist bureaucracy will begin to crumble. We will withdraw from the U.N. and begin rescinding international treaties not in our best interests. We will be defending America and America's interests first.
Who knows? We may even get to the point we can overturn Roe vs Wade, repeal the 16th and 17th amendments, abolish the slave tax, privatize social security and medicare, repeal the unconstitutional gun control laws, dismantle the welfare state and reestablish the American Republic. These are my dreams, my goals and my reasons for Free Republic. If sometimes my actions seem a bit odd, please remember that my ultimate goals are to restore constitutional government and I see the total destruction of the Democrat Party and liberalism in general as the only possible solution to the problem. I don't care if people call me a neo-con, a bushbot, a blind Republican, a statist or whatever. I've asked many times but there has been no Libertarian or Buchananite or Reformer or Rockwellian or paleocon who has documented and presented a better plan or one that has any prayer of success, so I'm committed to this one.
As we move forward into the next election cycle, the FR battle cry will be: Restore the Republic! Vote out the RATs!
See you at the Free Republic George Bush Second Inaugural Ball in January '05!
Jim
I guess I am pretty negative about Republicans these days, Jim -- at least those outside the Bush Administration. I have great confidence in and tremendous respect for the President and his close advisors, especially Mssrs. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Dr. Rice. I just note there are quite a number of congressional Pubbies that seem to give him almost as much trouble as the Dims.... Instead of standing with their President on, say, tax cuts (e.g., Grassley, McCain, Snowe, Collins, Chafee, et al.), they find every "high-minded" excuse to stick to the stinky status quo...instead of letting their leader LEAD.... Heaven forfend that those mandarins should ever follow anyone or anything but their own narrowly-defined political self-interest.
But you're absolutely right -- the Party of the Dim must be systematically denied the resumption of control of any branch of the government. That is essential! And this is so because the Left systematically lies and cheats. (Pubbies tend not to do truly outrageous stuff like that.) But the Left obviously has no compunction about rigging/stealing elections, or outright, calculated, deliberate lying to the public. And the general public manages to remain either clueless or indifferent about the Left's active subversion of American institutions. They get sucked into the rhetoric, not realizing how very bad the reality is for them in terms of both liberty and national security.
WE need to work hard to get a supermajority in the senate, 55 or 56 Republican senators, to me, isn't enough.
We need an overwhelming majority. It worked for the Raw New Deal democRats and we have been paying for their efforts for years in building a dependent system par non. A populace dependent on govt for anything and everything has to stop be the order of and fundamental social program changes and the day and eliminations and /or re-structuring thereof need to be made.
A populace dependent on govt for anything and everything has to stop being the order of the day and fundamental social/entitlements program changes and eliminations and / or re-structuring & adjustments need to be made.
We're talking about politicians here, after all, mere mortals aswim in a sea of money. Like ducks take to a pond, we will need to provide guidance as the oceans of money they handle these days have a tendency to make even good people lose sight of whose it is.
And frankly, the Constitution doesn't deal with fiscal structure to any serious degree.
No, that has been done by those who came long after the Founding Fathers were in their graves.
FRom the creation of the Federal Reserve to the imposition of the Income Tax, these acts too, were enacted in "good faith" to serve the greater good of all of us.
The side effect, intended or otherwise, has been to enslave rather then to serve the common good.
(Been on vacation, be posting more later. Over an out)
Exactly, NormsRevenge. The Dims in power use their majority to make new policy happen; virtually everybody on that side of the aisle lines up in support: The Dims can summon a united front.
Even out of power they can unite to block changes in the status quo they dislike. Just look at the success the Dims have had in (unconstitutionally) blocking the President's judicial appointments. If President Bush could get his "constitutional constructivist" judges on the bench, it would likely be his most important and lasting legacy, and would do so much to restore constitutional jurisprudence and the rule of law (that has been so gutted in recent times).
Which is why he is being fought tooth and nail in the Senate: The Dims know very well that so-called "conservative judges" would be inclined to put the kerbosh on legislative innovations that do not meet constitutional tests -- and that would thereby reduce the power (actually, the usurpations) of Congress.
The Pubbies, on the other hand, are a pack of individualists. They'll "substitute their own judgment" in lieu of accepting direction from their leadership at the drop of a hat. Thus divided, they are helpless to stop the Dims even when the Dims are out of power.
I suspect in many cases the Pubbies are simply lacking in political courage. This President has plenty of that; but he often can't get his own people in Congress on-board and, thus isolated, his policy agenda is undermined. It really is a most discouraging state of affairs.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)
That's part of his strategery.
Hehehe... I think he does it on purpose, actually... Just to p!ss folks like my colleagues (noocular physicicists) off...
So no RINOs are liberals?
Yes and no. One wonders what the House and Electoral College would look like, and how they would function, if we stayed with the original one representative per 30,000 people.
We have added almost 200 million new Americans since the size of the House was frozen at its current 435. What kind of "peoples" representation is this?
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