Posted on 10/14/2014 2:21:31 AM PDT by servo1969
The General clearly thinks so. I tired of these circular conversions with the “lets go back in time to 19th century” Levinbot crowd.
Nate, I don’t know what you’re going on about with second sight. You continually fail to recognize the realities that the intent of the founders on what the Senate was supposed to be CEASED to be within 50 years of its existence.
You guys never mention HOW you expect it to somehow become what it was in 1789 with the repeal of the 17th. Do you also intend to pursue restoring the founders’ original intent for voting as well ? Because that would have to be done (at minimum) to get remotely close to the kind of elected representation the founders wanted.
Gay marriage liberal: MARRIAGE EQUALITY NOW!!! WE MUST HAVE GAY MARRIAGE NATIONWIDE TO ALLOW FREEDOM FOR INDIVIDUALS!!!
Me: So you're for "marriage equality", right? So do you support legalizing marriage between adult siblings?
Gay marriage liberal: F#$@ YOU!! YOU HATE AMERICA AND FREEDOM!!! FASCIST HOMOPHOBE!!
Anti-17th Levinite: REPEAL THE 17TH NOW!!! WE MUST HAVE STATE LEGISLATURE APPOINTED SENATORS NOW TO SAVE OUR REPUBLIC THE WAY THE FOUNDERS ENVISION!!!
Me: So you're for "restoring what the founders envisioned", right? So do you support abolishing the 11th amendment and making Mitt Romney veep under Obama?
Anti-17th Levinite: F#$@ YOU!! YOU HATE AMERICA AND FREEDOM!!! PROGRESSIVE STATIST!!
Really? So are you also campaigning to repeal AMENDMENTS 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26, and 27? None of that stuff was in the Constitution they wrote and ratified in 1789.
Or should we only rest on the parts of the Constitution they wrote about U.S. Senators?
voting for leftists of either party is stupid
Let's put our discussion into context. We are not really arguing about the wisdom of retaining or repealing the 17th amendment because it is extremely unlikely that the amendment will be repealed absence a catastrophic national event which renders whether we retain her dispense with the procedures outlined in the 17th amendment to be irrelevant to our destiny.
Nor are we really arguing about whether Mike Espe (or Cochran, Alexander, Graham, McConnell etc) is a a worthy conservative from such a conservative state because when he gets to Washington next January after his reelection it is clear that he will again be swallowed up into a system which is not about consciously to deflect the course of the Republic from that which has been the rule since Bush/Obama. And that brings us to our real discussion.
Either you believe as a conservative that the Republic is rushing headlong for a disaster or you believe that business as usual, that is, electoral politics as they have been waged for the last quarter-century since Ronald Reagan are perfectly adequate for our national condition. Either you believe as a conservative that Obama has already changed the game and plunged us into a post constitutional Epoque or you believe that the rules still apply as they did when it was Morning in America. Either you believe as a conservative that conservative values have not just a chance of prevailing but a chance of surviving in the game which Obama has changed or you believe that the game has been thoroughly rigged.
In this context, I merely point to our fiscal profligacy pushing us over the cliff and the immigration tsunami which is about to swamp our electoral politics. More can be cited but these two will do.
Clearly, I believe that we are headed for a reckoning and that what we as conservatives have been doing has no more chance of succeeding in the future than it has in the past. If we keep doing what we are doing we will lose the country. Under this view, I and other conservatives are prepared to do what is lawful and constitutional to save our heritage for our children and our grandchildren. Other conservatives want more of the same evidently expecting different results.
Part of the lawful and legal options available to us are in the article 5 movement. It is offered as a way of tearing a page out of the leftists' playbook and adapting it to our purposes. It is perfectly constitutional to amend the Constitution in the manner the Constitution provides. It is repugnant to the Constitution to amend it by stealth as has been happening for about three quarters of a century. When leftists fail to get the result they want at the polls, they get the result through the courts, through the bureaucracies, or through executive fiat. In short, they act extra-constitutionally. A very good example of this of already been cited, the electoral course of the country will be changed through illegal immigration. Old ways of dealing with this threat by electing conservatives like Mike Espe simply do not work and conservatism is about to be drowned out.
Falling on the side of the dichotomy as I do, I am willing to abandon C+ senators like Mike Espe in favor of those who might, repeat "might," actually serve conservatism in Washington. Equally, I am willing to invoke article 5 and amend the Constitution as an antidote to our present lawless situation. I am willing to take steps which offer no guarantee that they can save the Republic because I know that to stand frozen in place is certainly, at least a moral certainty, will be to lose the Republic.
Where do you stand?
Forgive me, General.
Thank you.
I can get testy and a little nasty.
Election in 6 days, we must remember who the real enemies are, and it’s (usually) not fellow freepers you disagree with.
Neither will Defense Conservatives.
Neither will Civil-Libertarian Conservatives.
Neither will Financial Conservatives.
And neither should they be expected to compromise. Reagan Conservatism in a nutshell. The only way we win is to endorse those who support and fight for ALL of our key issues (absolute principles). Expecting compromise is exactly what gives us liberal Republicans, and until you all n(not !you!, all y'all) realize that, and understand it viscerally, any victory will be Pyrrhic indeed.
And as an aside, Romney supported exactly *none* of those principles. McCain supported one (Defense) and pandered to Social Conservatives (Palin).
I understand you sincerly believe in what you do, but the problems we face have been going on for a lot longer than since Bush (Dubya) or Reagan. I think even the issue of states’ rights was effectively stamped out with the Civil War. Things must dramatically be changed, but the 17th repeal is not in my universe of proposals to do that.
As I’ve said many times, assuming you repealed it tomorrow and held special elections in every legislative body for the members, there would not be a restoration of states’ rights. What you would then have, as the representatives of the legislatures to DC, a singular fight for pork and largesse for their states. No high minded discussions or rumanations on the issues of the day, just a Pork War and a looting of what is left of our national assets. Whomever promised to bring home more bacon gets the office.
In the end, short of splitting the country into two separate entities (which might be better, and I tend to advocate this), one governed by the illogic of the left, the other governed by the wisdom of the Constitution, it may require another civil war between the parasite class and its exploiters vs. the productive class and makers. The parasite class (and that includes government workers, minus military/public safety), meaning those receiving the fruits of the productive class, should not be able to participate in electoral governance until such time as they establish themselves as independent, productive citizens. Voting should be a privilege, not a right. The Founders understood this. They’re the only ones with a viable and self-evident interest in preserving the nation. The other is about bleeding it dry from the fruits of the productive.
That is a far more important and pressing issue than the 17th.
I 10000% agree. How very "Starship Troopers" of me. But when I hear these people (usually the rats/libs) urging every idiot who knows NOTHING to "get out there and vote", ugh.
Ditto!
On the other hand, you acknowledge that "it might require a civil war" and that certainly is a solution among the most dire and, presumably, would not be expressed except in the contemplation of real need.
Whatever the need, we both agree that the 17th amendment is not really relevant because in a dire situation it's remedy, even if it works as reformers advocate, would be entirely irrelevant because events on the ground will have swept these procedural tweaks away. I do however believe in the prophylactic possibilities of a Fifth Amendment movement containing other reforms sides repeal of the 17th amendment as a way of avoiding the Civil War if initiated in time. But I am caught in the conundrum that they will not be advanced and will not receive popular support in the absence of some sort of national crisis which carries within it the danger of a leftist coup.
Finally, if you do accept the premise, do you not have to accept the challenge of providing some sort of remedy beyond, "let the devil take the hindmost?"
As always, I enjoy my exchange with you.
No, the situation has been urgent for some time. I believe the coup d’etat has already occurred, just that it happened in increments. The left has had a lot of time in which to do it, going back to the 19th century, while ours hasn’t really had that sort of control to enact measures to roll back the slow boil (not since the 1920s under Harding & Coolidge). The federal government has become like a malignant cancer, consuming everything in its wake and metastizing in every possible direction.
Actual reduction in its growth or laying off federal workers has been made an impossibility (look at the notion of “shutting down government”, where most government employees remain in place and gov’t thugs deliberately target closing popular national parks to inconvenience the public, and turn them against the non-existent “shutdown” — which is all a dog and pony show). President Reagan couldn’t alter this course. Too many in both parties with a vested interest in the status quo.
Finding a way to shut down entire departments, get the government out of areas never intended (health care/education), laying off scores of the permanent bureaucrat class that stays for years on end regardless of what party is in power. This is a far more pressing issue. The left derives power from a totalitarian/massive government and bureaucracy, and that has got to be cut off at the knees.
I favor, as well, the abolition of civil service and a return to patronage that was in place until the late 19th century. Garbage in, garbage out. You bring in your people, they’re in for 4 years or 8 (if reelected), and out they go. No permanent entrenched class, no endless benefits for these unaccountable secret armies. Working for the government cannot be a lifetime sinecure.
How done?
That is the million dollar question. The problem we face with implementing such measures is that if they are possible to put into legislative form, they have to be done quickly and en masse (and can only be done under a friendly administration, such as one headed by Ted Cruz). We don’t have time to do it increments as the left has.
We also face the added problem of a judicial tyrant shooting down such legislation on highly dubious grounds. Judicial tyranny is another subject that will have to be addressed, which has gotten out of control (the “finding” of the right for same-sex marriages for which there is no historical or logical, nevermind moral, grounding).
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