'Constitutional' conservatives -- not

NY Post ^ | February 24, 2010 | JACOB SULLUM

[Scanian]

The day before last week end's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, a group of prominent conservatives gathered a few miles away at the Virginia estate of our first president. Their Mount Vernon Statement swears fealty to a "constitutional conservatism" that "applies the principle of limited government based on the rule of law to every proposal" and "honors the central place of individual liberty in American politics and life." If only they meant it.

Constitutional conservatism certainly sounds better than "compassionate conservatism," which turned out to be code for big-government conservatism. And it is easy to hope that the thread of a properly limited federal government could bind the strands of a movement that has been unraveling since the end of the Cold War.

[Dead Corpse]

Stare decisis is necessary? Why? You have the original source material. Why deal with someones interpretation of someones interpretation of someone else's theory?

Ever play grapevine? That is what they are doing with the millions of laws on the books and every court case over the last 200 years.

Any wonder left as to why some of us are fed up?

[Rockingham]

The fundamental problem today is not constitutional mechanisms and precedents but defeating the Left and fashioning an enduring conservative political majority.

Unfortunately, we have and need RINOs until we can get strong enough to no longer need them. Meanwhile, we must regard them as having loyalty like Arabs or the French.

I do not put people in neat boxes. Most are too complicated for that. And thanks for keeping the country safe from enemies foreign for this short, scrawny civilian with bad eyesight.

[Rockingham]

Major court cases arise because the law is unclear in concept or in application. Without stare decisis, there would be no continuity in judicial decisions because they could vary from week to the next and from one party to another. There would be no certainty and predictability to the law. Judicial decisions would be like a bus transfer: good for one day, and only for the passenger to whom it was issued.

[Dead Corpse]

So we need the likes of McCain and Snowe, who work with Democrats, thereby defeating real conservative goals from being accomplished, and this will lead us to an enduring majority?

This is sounding more like South Park's Underpants Gnomes...

[Dead Corpse]

That is a sure sign we have too many laws.

[Rockingham]

Snowe’s vote could be the difference between Mitch McConnell or Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader. The point though is to win enough seats to make Snowe irrelevant.

[Dead Corpse]

And you aren’t going to draw in the votes doing stuff like this:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2458429/posts

[Rockingham]

From Federalist No. 78, by Alexander Hamilton:

" . . . It has been frequently remarked, with great propriety, that a voluminous code of laws is one of the inconveniences necessarily connected with the advantages of a free government. To avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and point out their duty in every particular case that comes before them; and it will readily be conceived from the variety of controversies which grow out of the folly and wickedness of mankind, that the records of those precedents must unavoidably swell to a very considerable bulk, and must demand long and laborious study to acquire a competent knowledge of them."

[Dead Corpse]

“It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression...that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary;...working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped.” —Thomas Jefferson

[Rockingham]

I ain’t one of the 13.

[Rockingham]

Jefferson did not blame stare decisis.

[Dead Corpse]

No, but you are saying we need RINO’s like these.

I’m scratching my head as to why...

[Dead Corpse]

“The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them.”
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, Mar 9, 1821

“The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone.”
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Ritchie, December 25, 1820

What else could he have been referring to?

[Scanian]

It shouldn’t be such a big worry. I’ve followed politics for 50 years and the Democrats have been at each others’ throats about one thing or another all that time. Remember what Will Rogers said: “I don’t belong to any organized political party, I’m a Democrat.” In spite of all their disagreement and dissention, they do OK at the polls because they have enough political sense to pull together when it matters.

I don’t see why people on the right can’t do likewise.

[Rockingham]

Jefferson's distaste for the federal judiciary was because of Marbury v. Madison, which established judicial review, and because the judges were federalists. Jefferson and his party were on the losing side of Marbury and were therefore unable to oust John Adams' end of term appointees. In short, Jefferson was angry because he and his buddies could not take hold of all the patronage they expected.

[Dead Corpse]

They were right to be pissed. Just as we are...

[Antoninus]

I'm not sure exactly what you oppose.

I oppose legalizing. They have the constitutional authority to do so, however.

[webstersII]

“You are acting like a typical liberal, projecting what you are upon those of us tired of daily doses of LIBertarian and LIBeral bullsh!t.”

Nope. You merely refused to offer any rational explanation, saying that you didn’t like the way something was stated. That is a very touchy-feely response instead of a measured response of logic.

You should re-examine your screen name. It doesn’t fit well.

[webstersII]

“Yes? And tell me what our founding fathers thought of pornography and other “lifestyle” issues like sodomy? “

I think your opinion is somewhat naive.

No doubt that people who wanted to open, for example, a brothel in the 18-19th century didn’t ask for the endorsement of the city fathers, but it was a common thing back then for brothels and opium dens to be tolerated as long as they were away from the center of the city and didn’t cause too much trouble. IOW they didn’t try to stop those activities completely, they just chose to turn a blind eye as long as thing didn’t get out of hand.

Ever read anything about the Victorian era in England and the U.S.? It wasn’t polite and moral as The Queen herself would like to have people believe.

I’m not condoning this behavior, I’m just saying that these modern vices are not really ‘modern’ at all. They have been around for thousands of years and no matter what our society does about them, they will continue on.

The only way to change a society is to change people’s hearts. That’s what causes real, lasting change.

[Rockingham]

We may need a RINO or two to have enough votes to run the Senate. If it is in play after the next election, I hope that Mitch McConnell would do whatever it takes to get to 51 votes — even if means putting some Barry White on, calling Olympia Snowe in for a private meeting, then gently putting his arm around her and whispering sweetly: “Olympia, dear, what can I do for you?”