Posted on 06/25/2012 12:13:28 PM PDT by Bob Ireland
Dear Arizona;
As Justice Antonin Scalia has just written, the SCOTUS opinion against the state of Arizona concerning immigration problems has made the phrase 'sovereign state' of no further effect.
The primary function of government is to serve the people it represents. One primary function under that obligation is to protect the population it serves. The SCOTUS opinion states that - if the United States Federal Government has statutory mandate to fulfill that obligation - then the state has no right to supersede the Federal Government when the Federal Government refuses to extend that protection.
The effect of the SCOTUS opinion today is to eliminate states' rights' in a major area of the states' statutory mandate. Put another way, the Federal Government can establish rules that eliminate states' rights under historical common law.
This author therefore suggests that the state of Arizona call a Constitutional Convention of interested states - to potentially include Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Alaska and perhaps the Carolinas [and any other state wishing to bind itself under such restrictions as herein mentioned] - pursuant to forming a new sovereign nation established under the auspices of the original Constitution of the United States.
Such Declaration of Independence should include a rejection of an imperial presidency which reserves unto itself the right to establish and enforce laws as it best sees fit without legislative oversight. The Declaration should reject all laws and regulations that establish a socialist, communist or dictatorial interpretation of states' rights or citizen's rights.
Such a federation or commonwealth should recognize in perpetuity the right of any member state to withdraw from the union when the said union jeopardizes the rights, liberties or the pursuit of happiness of said member state and its citizens. It should recognize the responsibility of the Executive Office as lawfully established to enforce laws properly passed by the legislature of representatives of the people, and to be interdicted against reinterpreting the meaning of such legally passed laws or refusing to enforce said laws.
The convention of agreeable states should establish such legal standards as were envisioned by the Founding Fathers of the United States, and should carefully protect states' rights and individual citizen's rights.
It is impossible to see any other alternative for states and citizens wishing to protect their Constitutional rights in the face of a runaway Federal Government of the United States, and its various organs, that has all but suspended the founding intent of the original Constitutional Convention.
LET FREEDOM RING!!!
Your alarm is justified but we are a long way from the tyranny you describe.
Roberts has been very good so far. You would prefer more Sotomayor and Cantors?
It isn’t as though we are where we are because of foreign influences or invasions but because the American people expect something for nothing and believes government when it promises just that. These are our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, friends and neighbors who think that way. Like it or not.
The whole concept of a Republic is consent of the governed and representation. What is your alternative? I lean toward an aristocracy but that is not a popular belief today. And how do you maintain power as a minority except thru armed force?
These are not simple questions with simple answers.
BUT the constitution was DESIGNED to protect the minority from the majority. If it fails then I see no chance for any other man-made system to do that.
1- the Constitutional Convention was not only completely legal but the actual document incorporates whole sections of the Articles. Had the States believed the CC exceeded its authority they were free not to ratify the document.
2- the Articles called for a perpetual Union. The Constitution declared its goal was “a more perfect Union”. Since a more perfect Union could not be less perpetual than the aforesaid perpetual Union there was no need to mention perpetuity in the new document. It was implied by logic.
3- The States sacrificed very little sovereignty to the Congress under the Articles which was the reason the first government essentially dissolved after the Revolution. That was why the CC was called and the constitution removed most of the real aspects of sovereignty from the state governments.
4- Congress or two-thirds of the state legislatures can call a Convention at any time and discuss secession or expulsion or any damn thing they wish and it would be legal and constitutional. Unfortunately it would be taken over by Dumbasses and a disaster would result.
5- SOME of the Thirteen original states preceded the Union. However, all the other states were the creation of the Congress. Some of them occupied land bought by the federal government, some occupied land conquered by the federal military. However, even the original thirteen were occupied by people who believed themselves to be ONE People, the American people.
6- had the states not “linked up” they would have been conquered piece-meal by one of the empires which surrounded us. Washington and Hamilton and the greatest of our leaders, Lincoln included, understood this. They all understood that our Union was our strength. We can look at the penny ante nations across the world and see the weakness of small states in world politics which are unavoidable.
7- Actually the Constitution says nothing about states being “sovereign” and, in point of fact, they gave up most of the most important aspects of sovereignty: foreign policy, having state laws be paramount, monetary policy, exclusion from establishing pacts without Congressional approval, even the way their militias are regulated. Any idea of state sovereignty, esp. after the 17th amendment, is nothing more than a convenient fiction or a pretense.
8- Congress did not give states a choice other than “Yes” we ratify the constitution or “No” we reject the constitution. They NEVER had the choice “Yes, we ratify but...yada, yada, yada.” Only in some people’s fertile imagination did that option exist not in reality.
9- No, the people who attempted to use extra-political mans to defend slavery don’t count. Only those who use constitutional means count politically. There was no “tyranny” the South tried to escape. IT was the tyranny. There was no principle involved any more than there was with the earlier planning and actions of New England. In both cases it was economic conflicts not real principle. And Jefferson had done far more damage to NE with his embargo than Lincoln ever contemplated prior to the Wah.
10- Perhaps you need to brush up on your WWII history. Germany was not able to defeat Britain because of the massive military support Roosevelt provided. Without that it was finished. Had this been two or more nations rather than the UNITED States of America that support is problematic at best and non-existent at worst. Only the most short-sighted could believe its power would be anything but much less if divided.
11- I was born and raised in the South and love its people so I am in no way “beating up” on them. But don’t try and tell me that the ordinary Southerner had any control of what those states did. They did not but suffered from the control by the planter elites who controlled events and, BTW, along with their slaveholder friendly northern allies in the big cities, had controlled the federal government for all but short periods prior to the Wah.
Who is threatening who with civil war?
The greatest of our leaders: Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lincoln and Madison ALL viewed the idea of secession with horror.
A lot of people did get it wrong but not any of our greatest thinkers.
Washington’s Farewell Address was pointed at the “designing men” who spoke of secession. Read it if you don’t believe me.
The 10th amendment does not change the legal mechanism set up to change the Constitution which secession from the Union would be so there is nothing reserved which would allow secession by States.
While that might help get the federal budget under control, red states being net recipients of federal taxes it is just a silly fantasy.
There was no chance Lincoln was going to allow the South to fire on federal property and troops and leave, none.
It is laughable to claim that the hatred for the former slaves was the result of the federal occupation. It would have ended much sooner had not the Freedmen and Republicans been attacked throughout the South. There were thousands of murders prompting the laws against the KKK and other killers.
In REALITY the Roman Republic ended long before Caesar. It had devolved into class war at home and the control of distant provinces by the ultra-wealthy who often fielded their own armies. Republics were considered appropriate governments only for small states not the great empire Rome created.
I’m sure my understanding of Roman history and politics is sufficient for me to discuss them with you.
I don’t believe you can find one post wherein I have advocated a democracy rather than a republic. A description of what has actually happened does not imply approval.
It is remarkable to see the number of people prepared to argue against the obvious.
So Obama is using Constitutional means? So we should revolt?
Rather than support the Constitution if he is NOT? Which is it?
You will note that Madison references “the powers...being derived from ...the People of the United States...” NOT the people of Virginia or Connecticut.
By 1861 the leadership of Virginia no longer understood what it was quoting. The political leadership of the South by then was pitiful.
The quote trying to justify the Treason of 1861 is wrong. The constitution was ratified by the People of the United States gathered in conventions within the states as Congress ordered. It was NOT allowed to be ratified by state legislatures, the highest state authority. The reason the legislatures were not allowed to ratify was PRECISELY because Congress was not going to allow a legislative act which could be rescinded by a subsequent legislature. Secession would indeed have been legal had that been allowed wrt ratification.
The NY ratification was accepted by Congress not the other states and it was NOT conditional.
1) the Supreme Court’s decisions are not intended to reflect popular opinion. They are supposed to draw meaning from the Constitution and it was set up to protect against popular opinion. If there really is a popular opinion about something the Congress is intended to reflect it and change the Constitution to reflect that opinion. This is and was intended to be very difficult.
2) voter turnout is about 60% I believe. To me that is disgusting and not something that republics can long endure.
But people do not want to become that involved in politics or anything else really serious.
3) the election game is not rigged but it is partially the result of having a professional political party, the Democrat Party, go up against a semi-professional one, the Republican. One is utterly corrupt, the other semi-corrupt. One LOVES government, the other doesn’t. Democrats use it to buy votes, the other doesn’t.
4) whatever you would think of changing it would soon have to face the same facts we face today and the same forces.
You saw the benefit in 1846 you would see it again even without the benefit of your greatest citizen, Sam Houston.
The only problem with your dreamy scenario is that the Red states benefit from the federal budget from the taxes paid by the Blue states. The flow of tax revenue is from Blue to Red. Illinois, California, NY, NJ, Conn., Mass., etc. are the biggest losers under the current regime.
Wow, apparently you are utterly unaware that the flow of federal tax revenue is from Blue states to Red. Hence, your comment is not to be taken seriously as anything but rhetoric.
The rest of the crack-pottery aside we haven’t had a “Keynesian” system. Keynes never suggested anything as one-sided as what we have where the spending never stops. Nor did he ever suggest massive government expenditure during periods of prosperity.
It matters not what the constitution of Texas says wrt secession. The Constitution of the United States is the Supreme Law of the Land not the constitution of Texas.
I always heard that the Treaty accepting Texas into the United States had some clause allowing the state to split into several states but am not sure about any of that.
Texas never left the Union so it could not be readmitted. The attempted rebellion, after it was put down, had no authority to do anything wrt to Texas’ participation in the US government or not.
Texas is a unique case but it has too many patriots to want to split this country.
If the USA falls there is no hope for mankind. It is was and always has been “the last, best hope of mankind.”
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