The founders never envisioned 535 men and women, teamed with an imperial president and his coterie of unelected czars and a multi-million man bureaucratic army dictating rules on how the rest of us should live and arguing over how to split the loot.
Like mercy, the quality of liberty is not strained
Western Hero - US Constitution
Like mercy, the quality of liberty is not strained
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. (US Constitution, 9th Amendment)
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. (US Constitution, 10th Amendment)They didn't put those amendments in there for the hell of it. The larger the collective, the more difficult it is to find solutions that satisfy everyone. Coercion and unhappiness will logically follow.
Western Hero - US Constitution
29 comments:
They didn't put those amendments in there for the hell of it.
Exactly.
Our Founders fully understood the greedy-for-power factor. They understood human nature. The Left never will.
Individual and states rights are the only barriers to the absolute power of a central government. We as individuals and as states have ceded too much power to the federal government -- trading in those rights for entitlements of various sorts.
Good post, Silverfiddle.
I for one miss them a hole lot.
The larger the collective, the more difficult it is to find solutions that satisfy everyone.
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Yes, and power will determine the "solution".
Right now government is just a middle man taking vigorish from the economic structure.
Reducing government will reduce the vigorish being paid but it isn't going t do jackshite about getting you any significant rights.
The robber barans aren't the way forward.
Of course the progressives will argues that the 9th and 10th amendments were superseded by the 14th.
Which is why we are screwed. No one cares about the Constitution anymore.
In re the 535 men comment:
We can say that they did expect Congress to get much larger. Most of them advocated for a large and expanded Republic, and they had already put in place the ratio for representative per x-thousand people.
Congress should be large in order to better represent people on the Federal level. YOU want Congress to be large, especially with how bad gerrmandering can be.
And actually, if we go by the Federalist papers, this is exactly what the founders wanted. They wanted the Republic to be large because that would mean there'd be a greater diversity in represented interests. That meant that people would be forced to compromise, and there'd be less room for the majority to crush all the minorities.
They wanted law-making to be slow. Why do you think they insisted on the creation of the Senate? It wasn't just because of the Great Compromise, but because the senate was supposed to slow down the law-making process. That's why senators weren't directly elected at first, because they wanted them to be somewhat free of constituents.
It's not necessarily the physical size of the government that matters, but rather what that government tries to do.
This mythologizing of the founding fathers is getting really annoying. Most of them were wealthy people, and one of their main concerns was preserving their wealth by maintaining the class system we've always had in this country - re: keeping the status quo. Lives for ordinary Americans changed very little from the revolution to the constitution to today. Had there never been a revolution, America would probably be much the same today, if not a little better when it comes to education, healthcare, upward mobility, and peacefulness.
Let's get real for a change and stop it with the silly mythologies of a place that never was.
JMJ
They repealed Prohibition.
Perhaps it's time to repeal -- or completely rethink, rewrite, then resubmit -- the 14th Amendment to a plebiscite?
"Wherever you find human beings, you find nonsense -- layers and layers of nonsense."
~ Thornton Wilder, The stage Manager, Our Town
Unless and until we can finally eliminate all vestiges of leftist thinking we will be doomed to lurch and stumble along in the dark till we reach "dusty death."
Life is a hopeless struggle against insuperable odds.
You have three choices
A) commit suicide and avoid the process altogether
B) bitch, moan, whine, beg, carp, cavil, criticize, demand and make a bloody nuisance of yourself
C) live joyfully, lovingly, creatively and helpfully till the moment The Axe falls, as you know someday it must.
The Mind of the Dreamer
Is a secret storehouse
Wherein may dwell
Each youthful fond illusion --
The embryo of
Each utter of hope --
Each word of comfort --
And each Song of Joy.
The Mind of the Cynic
Is a well-known Asylum
Wherein lie Disenchantment
Destruction and Despair--
The insidious, lisping voice
Of the Serpent!
O, Foolish Man!
Why choose strife
When only what
You choose to know --
Has life?
~ FreeThinke (1960)
FT, I think I'm in love with you.
Jersey,
Do you really think education, healthcare, peacefulness, and upward mobility is better than it is today in America?
I can't speak for upward mobility or education, but their healthcare, although paid for by the government, is not all that great due to rationing and extremely long wait times to see their doctors.
Also, in terms of peacefulness, did you miss the whole riot thing? Saying what could have been is something that every good historian tries to stay away from, because shoulda/coulda/woulda's are fairly useless.
The 'class system' is a leftist myth, really.
@Camwell - but their healthcare, although paid for by the government, is not all that great due to rationing
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The free market (LMFAO) doesn't ration?
Health care is something that doesn't experience a diminishing demand. We generally want more of it for every ache and pain. Rationing is MANDATORY. Letting the free market (LMFAO) is pretty rough if you want some even distribution of basic care.
@dmarks - The 'class system' is a leftist myth, really.
-------
The myth that the founding elite cared about anyone's freedom but whit Protestant landowners puts the lie to that assertion as Jersey points out.
"Government doesn't work because it was never meant to work the way liberal statists want it to work."
That could easily have been the whole of this post. It really is that simple.
Long Live the Republic, indeed.
@JMJ,
Apparently, the 99% need to figure out a way to steal a time machine, or have one built for free since we all owe them everything, and then return to the late 1700's to protest the Founding Fathers for being white, wealthy, and slave-owning bastards.
Oh, but wait...they were merely British citizens, really, so why not protest Great Britain, instead? Without them, what would America be?
Your whining is tiresome, JMJ. It is always someone else's fault. Sheesh. It must be nice to live in such knee-jerk victimhood, knowing that the left will champion all the discrimination, ills, and offenses committed against you and your ilk.
Ducky,
How many hospitals here in the US close on certain days because the government can't afford to keep them open 24/7?
Now compare that number (likely 0) to how many hospitals in Britain and, say Canada, have to close because there's not enough money to keep them open.
Rationing care here in America doesn't mean the same thing as it does in other countries.
Ducky asked: "The free market doesn't ration?"
No, it doesn't. And it can't. In the free market there's no 'controlling authority'. If one company does something silly like rationing something, another company will ignore this and provide it to those who want it.
You don't have this 'out' in a socialist/fascist/etc system. The rulers in such systems make it a crime for anyone to seek or offer a product (care) outside of the limits of the rationing.
"one of their main concerns was preserving their wealth by maintaining the class system we've always had in this country"
Holy Christ. Through the eyes of a liberal.
Their main concern was preventing their PROPERTY being take by the monarchy. The class system never really came in to play until the turn on the 20th century with the redification and abuse of the 16th amendment, which the left uses to divvy up the population in to income class.
Camwell ... I can name three teaching hospitals in the Boston area that have either closed or are desperately looking for a merger partner.
Boston Medical Center which services a poor population is under serious pressure and requires heavy government subsidies.
Got anything else but the standard right wing aphorisms?
Again for the class, by its nature access to health care will ALWAYS be rationed. What we are arguing is how not if.
They didn't put those amendments in there for the hell of it. The larger the collective, the more difficult it is to find solutions that satisfy everyone. Coercion and unhappiness will logically follow.
Truer words have never been spoken. I agree completely.
And our Government was never set up to protect the wealthy corporations who have bought YOUR Democracy and pay for it on the backs of the middle class.
The fantasy facts and history of the left is somewhat astounding.
"And our Government was never set up to protect the wealthy corporations"...
Well no, it wasn't, considering that the corporation in the modern sense is a 19th century invention. They did have charter companies which were state patronages... kind of like GM is today.
" Most of them were wealthy people, and one of their main concerns was preserving their wealth by maintaining the class system we've always had in this country"
Most of them were middle class or lower upper class. The gentry, so to speak, were Loyalists connected to and favored by the crown.
John Adams father was a farmer who worked as a cobbler in winter to make ends meet.
Ben Franklins father was a soap and candlemaker with 17 kids. Franklin was broke several times in his life.
Alexander Hamilton was a bastard abandoned by his father, whose mother's first husband took everything she had.
John Jays father was a merchant with 10 kids.
Jefferson and Madison inherited wealth and plantations but were the "middle" gentry, not the upper crust.
Washington inherited an 80 acre farm and was the Culpepper County surveyor. Mt. Vernon came later upon his brother's death.
For the most part they were merchants, lawyers, farmers, soldiers, doctors, and ministers.
"The myth that the founding elite cared about anyone's freedom but whit Protestant landowners puts the lie to that assertion as Jersey points out."
Tell that to John, Charles, and Daniel Carroll, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Cornelius Harnett, Gouverneur Morris, Hugh Williamson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Ethan Allen, Thomas Paine... who were Catholic, Deist, Unitarian, or anti-clerical.
An Poblacht Abú ~ Up the Republic
Why Government Doesnt Work?
Because what you are referring to is progressive statist socialism (ROFLMFAO) and sooner or later you run out of other peoples money.
Since the grossest manifestation of the psuedo-socialist state is in entitlements, and health care is a large part and seems to be the issue here. Chew on this cud:
Half of the population spends little or nothing on health care, while 5 percent of the population spends almost half of the total amount.
The elderly (age 65 and over) made up around 13 percent of the U.S. population in 2002, but they consumed 36 percent of total U.S. personal health care expenses.
People 65-79 (9 percent of the total population) represented 29 percent of the top 5 percent of spenders. Similarly, people 80 years and older (about 3 percent of the population) accounted for 14 percent of the top 5 percent of spenders.
http://www.ahrq.gov/research/ria19/expendria.htm
Effectively in 2011 Tax Freedom Day was April 12th... meaning you worked 102 days for the state, and they said they abolished slavery.
Personally, I'd rather live free for sixty five years than live 80 as a slave to the socialist state.
"Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?"
~Sergeant Major Dan Daly
The point I'm trying to make is that we are most certainly not some socialist central state, we are not becoming one, and we have never been one.
This country was founded by and for the interests of wealthy capitalists. When you study the American Revolution, for example, you learn most Americans were neither here nor there in the whole matter. They went with the tide. They had no choice. The powers that be here simply had more influence over their lives than the powers that be far across the Atlantic.
You conservatives and "libertarians" are nothing but useful sycophants for moneyed interests. You lap up nationalism and jingoism and the myth of lottery-esque opportunity. But it isn't real. It is invented by the wealthy press, the military, and business concerns.
In other words, you rail against your own best interests for nothing but a handful of magic beans.
There are many great thing about America, none of which you laud.
JMJ
The perversely earnest and earnestly perverse remarks continually dropped by Jersey and Ducky -- in that order -- remind me of yet-another poem.
It would be interesting to see if you drew the same inference I did in relation to these two bombastic bigots.
He preached upon "Breadth" till it argued him narrow —
The Broad are too broad to define
And of "Truth" until it proclaimed him a Liar —
The Truth never flaunted a Sign —
Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence
As Gold the Pyrites would shun —
What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus
To meet so enabled a Man!
~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
"The trouble with liberals is that they know so many things that simply aren't true."
~ Ronald Reagan (loosely quoted from memory)
The Parallel Universe phenomenon must be illusory, but if you listen to liberals long enough, you can't help but begin to wonder if it might be real after all.
Don't forget the mission of Cultural Marxism is to confuse, weaken, derail, and cut off access to Truth whenever and wherever possible. Denial, denigration, dismissal, castigation, chastisement, constant questioning and relentless adverse criticism are the weapons they use to destroy a society from within.
~ FreeThinke
Free Thinke: you have succumbed to a conspiracy theory. It is not necessarily devious to challenge any idea, even good ones.
Jez:
Do read it:
http://www.americanthinker.com/archived-articles/../2007/02/cultural_marxism.html
I have lived a long time. The inferences I draw come from observable results not theories. I remember the past -- a past you could never have known. You, of course, won't agree, because your mind was obviously co-opted and corrupted by the Cultural Marxist Ethos long ago.
You don't have to be aware of it for this to happen -- in fact those who've skillfully indoctrinated you with their insidious, wickedly seductive propaganda much prefer it that way. It helps in their relentless quest to deny, discredit, defame and destroy the Bourgeoisie they fear and despise.
I hope you do not wind up living out your entire life as a useful idiot. A mind is terrible thing to waste.
~ FreeThinke
Jersey: Spoken like a true goose-stepping stooge of the state.
So the founders were all bastards and America sucked until Wilson, FDR and LBJ came along and leveled everything...
I'm not calling this socialism, I call it statism. A simple reading of the constitution will tell anyone with a thinking brain that the federal government is doing too much.
"http://www.americanthinker.com/archived-articles/../2007/02/cultural_marxism.html
"
I don't care. Only had time to briefly skim it, but it seems pretty pseud at first glance. My assessment may be unfair, I'm in a rush, and don't have much patience for that kind of thing at the best of times (I prefer science).
Your habitual prognosis of my comments as "Denial, denigration, dismissal, castigation, chastisement, constant questioning and relentless adverse criticism" is in itself dismissive, to borrow one of your adjectives (I could borrow more but IMO when it comes to adjectives, less is more).
Questioning ideas, surely, is a good thing (otherwise, what are we all doing here? -- whoops there's another question): good ideas can stand up to it, and bad ideas should be identified and rejected. It's not seductive propaganda that led me to that philosophy, that's just reasonable skepticism which, provided it does not degenerate to cynicism, is a very positive outlook.
Consider science. Science's entire schtick is the systematic rejection of bad ideas. We've made pretty good progress following that program, wouldn't you say? (bare in mind that the devices through which we are communicating rest on scientific achievements that would have been inconceivable when you were born.)
Anyway, what alternatives do we have? If you rob me of my skepticism, I must become naive; if I follow your advice and stop questioning and judging, I am left with my preconceptions.
What exactly do you advocate? I know it's not orthodoxy: I already know your religious beliefs to be most unusual, a mainstream Christian would say heretical. How did you come by that if you were timid about questioning the mainstream / authority?
Jersey, your comment was, to use SF's analogy, goose-stepping all over the facts.
The aristocracy of colonial America was not far across the Atlantic and were predominately the loyalists that were here. They were crown appointed colonial government officials, the managers of the crown charter companies, and wealthy merchant families with ties to the crown.
They were mercantilists, opposed to the free market capitalism demanded by the American colonists. The American revolution was by and large the only revolution fought and won by the middle class.
"I don't care. Only had time to briefly skim it, but it seems pretty pseud at first glance. My assessment may be unfair, I'm in a rush, and don't have much patience for that kind of thing at the best of times (I prefer science)."
No, not "science." What you prefer are pieces that echo your preconceived, predigested notions of what is and is not true, right and proper.
If factual data presented doesn't conform to your worldview you dismiss it as "pseud" by which I suppose you mean it is false, contrived, tendentious, hateful or bigoted.
Marx, Gramsci and the Frankfurt School were entirely real. Their stated aims have been well documented. their influence has been ugly, disruptive and enormously destructive.
~ FreeThinke
What I mean is I prefer science to any other sort of academic reading. I have a great deal more attention span for eg. physics than for political history.
My attention span is, I admit, my own problem. On the other hand, 2000 words is substantial, and if they are poorly chosen they can be quite an effort to pursue. I certainly wouldn't demand that you read 2000 dryly written words on algebra and declare you to be a lazy bigot if you failed.
My judgement of your link is that it is pseud, by which I mean it pretends to a degree of rigor and sophistication that its contents can't justify. (for examples: use of an academic citation style, but the reference is to a light-weight magazine; overwrought vocabulary deployed for polemic effect [a bit like what I've just done there, but worse]; reliance on pop-culture complaints [eg. "attacks on christmas" are a tabloid staple, and here it is again in this piece]; context-free reference to cherry-picked episodes in history).
I've also made it, I hope, totally clear that said judgement is in no way important nor expert, since this is very far from being my area.
"What you prefer are pieces that echo your preconceived, predigested notions of what is and is not true, right and proper."
I'm championing skepticism and questioning ideas. You're arguing against that. (are you? it really seems like you are, have I got you wrong?) Are you sure this isn't projection?
"Marx, Gramsci and the Frankfurt School were entirely real. Their stated aims have been well documented. their influence has been ugly, disruptive and enormously destructive."
I'm sure they were real but still I ask, what's wrong with questioning ideas? Also, I know you question orthodoxy occasionally (often?), how do you determine when this is allowable without lapsing into cultural terrorism?
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