Does Our Weakness Matter?

[Truth Warrior]

Does Our Weakness Matter?
by Robert Higgs

Thucydides tells us that "the strong do what they will, while the weak suffer what they must."

We recall these words even after 2,400 years because they have the ring of truth. And a hard truth it is, especially for those of us who cannot but regard ourselves as ensconced among the weak. As we look about, we see that the strong, who control the state, are rampaging in every jurisdiction and, sure enough, in countless ways the weak are suffering the consequences of these destructive rampages.

Libertarians habitually indulge in wishful thinking. We live in a country where freedom is under relentless attack in ways too numerous even to categorize easily. Governments at every level seem determined to crush each remaining molecule of liberty, and, worst of all, most of the citizens readily accept, when they do not affirmatively demand, the suffocation of freedom wherever it dares to raise its head. Schumpeter foresaw our present situation with clear eyes when he wrote in his diary: "Humanity does not care for freedom. The mass of the people realize they are not up to it: what they want is being fed, led, amused, and above everything, drilled. But they do care for the phrase." Ah, yes, "land of the free"?try to utter that phrase three times without breaking down in laughter or weeping. Yet libertarians are constantly seizing on some little tactical retreat by Leviathan or some little endorsement of liberty and describing it as the beginning of an imagined "revolution."

What are they thinking? Few friends of liberty are willing to recognize forthrightly just how formidable are the legions that oppose us and therefore how close to hopeless is our cause. In the United States today the enemies of liberty have both the big battalions and the big bucks.

Yet, as we are reminded from time to time, other, even worse tyrannies have fallen. The United States is a despicable police state, but it is not as horrible as the Soviet Union was, and today the USSR has passed away and the Russians enjoy a milder form of police state. The United States is not as horrible as Nazi Germany was, and today Hitler's Thousand-Year Reich survives only as dust blowing in the European wind. The United States is not as horrible as Mao's great leaping China was, and today the Chinese enjoy a milder form of police state. If worse tyrannies have undergone substantial attenuation or, like Nazi Germany, complete destruction, then perhaps we have some reason to hope that our freedoms will not be crushed into oblivion and perhaps even that a few of our lost liberties may someday be recovered.

When we look closely into how other tyrannies were checked, however, we encounter a vitally important fact: except where a tyranny was destroyed in war, as Hitler's regime was, great advances of freedom have usually occurred not so much because a hardy band of freedom lovers grew more and more powerful until they ultimately controlled the situation, but because the tyrannies they were resisting destroyed themselves. People did not have to defeat their tyrannical rulers; the rulers changed their minds about the desirability of perpetuating their tyrannical rule and loosened the reins on the people because they were willing to countenance a freer society and economy in the service of their own personal interests.

Thus, the Russian and Chinese Communist rulers were not defeated; they simply switched sides, as it were, declared themselves to be capitalists, and, by hook or by crook, assumed personal control of the socialized assets they had previously administered in their capacities as state planning functionaries. They had come to understand that, in the immortal words of Deng Xiaoping, to get rich is glorious, and, flipping Marx on his head, they undertook to transform themselves and their privileged children into capitalist billionaires or at least millionaires by what a lapsed Marxist might dub acts of not-so-primitive appropriation, well seasoned with rampant perfidy and corruption.

It is more than a coincidence that the way in which freedom tends to be restored?for the most part as a by-product of actions by people seeking only their own narrow goals, as opposed to a freer societal end-state?parallels the way in which freedom gained a foothold in the first place. This centuries-long process occurred in Europe from the eleventh century onward as merchants, seeking a more secure environment for the conduct of their business, essentially bought off the predatory robber barons (the real ones!) who preyed on traders as a source of revenue. In this deal, the lords got money tribute, rather than the customary feudal dues in services and locally produced goods, and they could then purchase the luxury goods, such as spices and fine textiles, that the merchants were making ever more available in Europe, owing to the revival of long-distance trade. In exchange for their periodic payment of money taxes, the merchants received assurances that the lords would respect their private property rights and the "liberties" of their commercial towns and cities ("Stadtluft mach frei"). The merchants, who were much more the pioneers of liberty than the philosophers, were not seeking to build a free society as such; they were simply seeking to diminish a costly hazard to their business dealings. Yet, in the end, they did indeed build that glorious social edifice we know as bourgeois civilization, complete with its private property rights, its tolerance of strangers, and its cultivation of virtues such as prudence, promise-keeping, thrift, and self-responsibility.

Both the history of liberty's initial establishment and the recent cases of its (partial) restoration in tyrannical societies show that it may eventually win out even though the little band of liberty lovers remains weak. And weak we probably will remain, because, as Schumpeter's dictum and our own observations alike inform us, few people really care about living in a free society?though they like the phrase. Most people are content as long as they enjoy creature comforts, ample entertainment, and the illusion that the rulers are protecting them from real and imagined dangers. They would rather go to the mall than to the barricades.

Still, notwithstanding our fellow citizens' customary acquiescence and the alacrity with which they fall for every cheap trick the ruling establishment pulls on them, the giant tower of tyranny may crumble. Like the centrally planned economies that could not allocate resources rationally for want of private property rights and a market price system, our pervasively interventionist tyranny may tie itself in so many regulatory knots, operate its fisc so irresponsibility, and mismanage its fiat-money system so atrociously that it will ultimately find itself incapable of going on, unable to pay for many of its promised benefits, unable to collect many of its taxes, unable to sell its bonds, unable to maintain its globe-spanning structure of military bases, and unable to command anyone's real respect. The powers that be like to pretend that they have solved all the problems that brought down previous empires, but we may rest assured that they have not actually done so. As the U.S. government taxes, spends, borrows, regulates, mismanages, and wastes resources on a scale never before witnessed in the history of mankind, it is digging its own grave.

It has been digging for quite a while, and I do not pretend to know how much longer it can continue to dig before it topples headlong into the pit. Nor do I know whether the arrangements that take its place will be any better or freer; the world of tomorrow may prove to be even more hideous than the world of today. Yet, when the present system destroys itself, freedom will at least have a chance to be reestablished.

May 7, 2008

Robert Higgs [send him mail] is senior fellow in political economy at the Independent Institute and editor of The Independent Review. He is also a columnist for LewRockwell.com. His most recent book is Neither Liberty Nor Safety: Fear, Ideology, and the Growth of Government. He is also the author of Depression, War, and Cold War: Studies in Political Economy, Resurgence of the Warfare State: The Crisis Since 9/11 and Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Society.

Copyright © 2008 Robert Higgs

http://www.lewrockwell.com/higgs/higgs80.html

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

Does Our Weakness Matter?
by Robert Higgs

Thucydides tells us that "the strong do what they will, while the weak suffer what they must."

We recall these words even after 2,400 years because they have the ring of truth. And a hard truth it is, especially for those of us who cannot but regard ourselves as ensconced among the weak. As we look about, we see that the strong, who control the state, are rampaging in every jurisdiction and, sure enough, in countless ways the weak are suffering the consequences of these destructive rampages.

Libertarians habitually indulge in wishful thinking. We live in a country where freedom is under relentless attack in ways too numerous even to categorize easily. Governments at every level seem determined to crush each remaining molecule of liberty, and, worst of all, most of the citizens readily accept, when they do not affirmatively demand, the suffocation of freedom wherever it dares to raise its head. Schumpeter foresaw our present situation with clear eyes when he wrote in his diary: "Humanity does not care for freedom. The mass of the people realize they are not up to it: what they want is being fed, led, amused, and above everything, drilled. But they do care for the phrase." Ah, yes, "land of the free"?try to utter that phrase three times without breaking down in laughter or weeping. Yet libertarians are constantly seizing on some little tactical retreat by Leviathan or some little endorsement of liberty and describing it as the beginning of an imagined "revolution."

What are they thinking? Few friends of liberty are willing to recognize forthrightly just how formidable are the legions that oppose us and therefore how close to hopeless is our cause. In the United States today the enemies of liberty have both the big battalions and the big bucks.

Yet, as we are reminded from time to time, other, even worse tyrannies have fallen. The United States is a despicable police state, but it is not as horrible as the Soviet Union was, and today the USSR has passed away and the Russians enjoy a milder form of police state. The United States is not as horrible as Nazi Germany was, and today Hitler's Thousand-Year Reich survives only as dust blowing in the European wind. The United States is not as horrible as Mao's great leaping China was, and today the Chinese enjoy a milder form of police state. If worse tyrannies have undergone substantial attenuation or, like Nazi Germany, complete destruction, then perhaps we have some reason to hope that our freedoms will not be crushed into oblivion and perhaps even that a few of our lost liberties may someday be recovered.

When we look closely into how other tyrannies were checked, however, we encounter a vitally important fact: except where a tyranny was destroyed in war, as Hitler's regime was, great advances of freedom have usually occurred not so much because a hardy band of freedom lovers grew more and more powerful until they ultimately controlled the situation, but because the tyrannies they were resisting destroyed themselves. People did not have to defeat their tyrannical rulers; the rulers changed their minds about the desirability of perpetuating their tyrannical rule and loosened the reins on the people because they were willing to countenance a freer society and economy in the service of their own personal interests.

Thus, the Russian and Chinese Communist rulers were not defeated; they simply switched sides, as it were, declared themselves to be capitalists, and, by hook or by crook, assumed personal control of the socialized assets they had previously administered in their capacities as state planning functionaries. They had come to understand that, in the immortal words of Deng Xiaoping, to get rich is glorious, and, flipping Marx on his head, they undertook to transform themselves and their privileged children into capitalist billionaires or at least millionaires by what a lapsed Marxist might dub acts of not-so-primitive appropriation, well seasoned with rampant perfidy and corruption.

It is more than a coincidence that the way in which freedom tends to be restored?for the most part as a by-product of actions by people seeking only their own narrow goals, as opposed to a freer societal end-state?parallels the way in which freedom gained a foothold in the first place. This centuries-long process occurred in Europe from the eleventh century onward as merchants, seeking a more secure environment for the conduct of their business, essentially bought off the predatory robber barons (the real ones!) who preyed on traders as a source of revenue. In this deal, the lords got money tribute, rather than the customary feudal dues in services and locally produced goods, and they could then purchase the luxury goods, such as spices and fine textiles, that the merchants were making ever more available in Europe, owing to the revival of long-distance trade. In exchange for their periodic payment of money taxes, the merchants received assurances that the lords would respect their private property rights and the "liberties" of their commercial towns and cities ("Stadtluft mach frei"). The merchants, who were much more the pioneers of liberty than the philosophers, were not seeking to build a free society as such; they were simply seeking to diminish a costly hazard to their business dealings. Yet, in the end, they did indeed build that glorious social edifice we know as bourgeois civilization, complete with its private property rights, its tolerance of strangers, and its cultivation of virtues such as prudence, promise-keeping, thrift, and self-responsibility.

Both the history of liberty's initial establishment and the recent cases of its (partial) restoration in tyrannical societies show that it may eventually win out even though the little band of liberty lovers remains weak. And weak we probably will remain, because, as Schumpeter's dictum and our own observations alike inform us, few people really care about living in a free society?though they like the phrase. Most people are content as long as they enjoy creature comforts, ample entertainment, and the illusion that the rulers are protecting them from real and imagined dangers. They would rather go to the mall than to the barricades.

Still, notwithstanding our fellow citizens' customary acquiescence and the alacrity with which they fall for every cheap trick the ruling establishment pulls on them, the giant tower of tyranny may crumble. Like the centrally planned economies that could not allocate resources rationally for want of private property rights and a market price system, our pervasively interventionist tyranny may tie itself in so many regulatory knots, operate its fisc so irresponsibility, and mismanage its fiat-money system so atrociously that it will ultimately find itself incapable of going on, unable to pay for many of its promised benefits, unable to collect many of its taxes, unable to sell its bonds, unable to maintain its globe-spanning structure of military bases, and unable to command anyone's real respect. The powers that be like to pretend that they have solved all the problems that brought down previous empires, but we may rest assured that they have not actually done so. As the U.S. government taxes, spends, borrows, regulates, mismanages, and wastes resources on a scale never before witnessed in the history of mankind, it is digging its own grave.

It has been digging for quite a while, and I do not pretend to know how much longer it can continue to dig before it topples headlong into the pit. Nor do I know whether the arrangements that take its place will be any better or freer; the world of tomorrow may prove to be even more hideous than the world of today. Yet, when the present system destroys itself, freedom will at least have a chance to be reestablished.

May 7, 2008

Robert Higgs [send him mail] is senior fellow in political economy at the Independent Institute and editor of The Independent Review. He is also a columnist for LewRockwell.com. His most recent book is Neither Liberty Nor Safety: Fear, Ideology, and the Growth of Government. He is also the author of Depression, War, and Cold War: Studies in Political Economy, Resurgence of the Warfare State: The Crisis Since 9/11 and Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Society.

Copyright © 2008 Robert Higgs

http://www.lewrockwell.com/higgs/higgs80.html

Even the ideas of liberty and democracy should be considered secondary legal precedents to the primary Civil Purpose in the Constitution. According to our founding fathers, that Civil Purpose is a "self evident" truth which reduces "inalienabe" into the conscience of every human soul.
This Civil Purpose I speak establishes a positive government: 1) by reducing the interpretation of the Civil Purpose to a truth which cannot be challenged by any legal, logical, scientific, metaphysical or philosophical argument, and, 2) by creating a 3 branch type governmental structure to resist the natural tendencies for a positive government to erode back to the tyranny of the past caste system.

As is posted, Thucydides tells us that "the strong do what they will, while the weak suffer what they must."

What Thucydides recognized was a governmental caste system where "the strong (master class) do what(ever) they will (do), while the weak (slave class) suffer what they must (do).

The world during this time was ruled by tribal dynasties with some more advanced than others because the elite status of teachers was to train the children of the master class to take their rightful place of their parents as rulers, much like Aristotle did with Alexander the Great, while it was believed at the same time that the children of the slave class could not learn to improve their lot in life.

In contrast, Socrates the serving "midwife philosopher" took the courage to claim that he could teach the mind of a slave boy to improve himself:

http://www.hermes-press.com/dialogues_teach.htm

While the statement made by Thucydides did sound noble and sophisticated (literally "wisdom like"), the courageous idea of Socrates ushered in Western Civilization while the vision also ended his life later on when he decided to drink poison rather than recant.

The notions introduced by Socrates that elite teachers should bow as servants to improve the minds of the poor planted seeds for the concept of "positive" government. The idea of such a government was that it could exist to improve the happiness (good life) of Greek citizens.

While the old caste systems clearly sat the master class and the slave class at seperate dinner tables, the concept of positive government later on attempted to sit master and slave at the same table. While they tended to create external conflict between tribes, the primitive systems tended to create internal peace; while, a positive government tended to create both internal and external conflicts.

This revolutionary concept of positive government far superceded the Greek ideas of Democracy and the later Protestant and Puritan notions of liberty. These ideas should be considered prerequisite rights necessary to acheive he Civil Purpose of sitting the master class and the slave class at the same table.

[Truth Warrior]

"Inalienable", "self-evident" sounds more the D of I, to me. Where are you finding those words or even concepts anywhere in the US Constitution?

Thanks! :)

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

"Inalienable", "self-evident" sounds more the D of I, to me. Where are you finding those words or even concepts anywhere in the US Constitution?

Thanks! :)

For you to argue that the Declaration of Independence holds no legal precedence over the Constitution is as significant as when Catholic ministers told the Protestant Catholics in their congregation that the new found words in their Holy Bibles held no legal precedence over the rituals established by the Holy authority of the Pope in the Vatican.

In other words, your claim is insignificant while the opposite is actually the truth. The legal precedence that you bring up is of secondary importance when contrasted to the primary Civil Purpose in the Constitution.

The terms 'self evident' and 'inalienable' describe a natural law whose established truths reduce to supercede any argument whether they be legal, logical, metaphysical, philosophical, epistemological . . . etc.. Such a truth even superceded the authority of the King of England.

[Truth Warrior]

For you to argue that the Declaration of Independence holds no legal precedence over the Constitution is as significant as when Catholic ministers told the Protestant Catholics in their congregation that the new found words in their Holy Bibles held no legal precedence over the rituals established by the Holy authority of the Pope in the Vatican.

In other words, your claim is insignificant while the opposite is actually the truth. The legal precedence that you bring up is of secondary importance when contrasted to the primary Civil Purpose in the Constitution.

The terms 'self evident' and 'inalienable' describe a natural law whose established truths reduce to supercede any argument whether they be legal, logical, metaphysical, philosophical, epistemological . . . etc.. Such a truth even superceded the authority of the King of England.

Nope, the D of I is about freedom and revolution.

The Constitution is just about power. The Federalists merely staged an illegal and unauthorized coup, and betrayed the revolution. The Constitution has now brought us to our current Leviathan, Frankenstein monstrosity. :p

"Official" history is written by the winners.

"The Illegality, Immorality, and Violence of All Political Action"
http://users.aol.com/xeqtr1/voluntaryist/vopa.html

Thanks! :)

[nate895]

Uncle Emanuel Watkins, your arguments make no sense at all. They are ramblings of what seems to be totally made up. I have never heard of a legal scholar say anything relating to the "Civil Purpose of the Constitution," which, BTW, can never overrule liberty. Liberty is a natural right that is superior to all man-made laws, and it can be asserted whensoever the people who do not have it see fit.

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

Nope, the D of I is about freedom and revolution.

The Constitution is just about power. The Federalists merely staged an illegal and unauthorized coup, and betrayed the revolution. The Constitution has now brought us to our current Leviathan, Frankenstein monstrosity. :p

"Official" history is written by the winners.

"The Illegality, Immorality, and Violence of All Political Action"
http://users.aol.com/xeqtr1/voluntaryist/vopa.html

Thanks! :)


A self evident and inalienable truth is true regardless of power. This is the reason our nation was justified in seperating itself from the authority of the King who according to Romans in the New Testament held the sovereign authority of God.

You are trying to make an argument from the point of view of legal precedence; whereas, I am arguing from the point of view of what is the self evident and inalienable truths.

Although they can with their power and shear might rewrite history, these winners can't alter a self evident and inalienable natural law. They could even wipe out the U.S. army and burn every document of the Declaration of Independence and its truths are still going to be written on the conscience of every living soul as a natural law. This makes the Declaration of Independence the formal document over all others including the Constitution and the Federalist papers.

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

Uncle Emanuel Watkins, your arguments make no sense at all. They are ramblings of what seems to be totally made up. I have never heard of a legal scholar say anything relating to the "Civil Purpose of the Constitution," which, BTW, can never overrule liberty. Liberty is a natural right that is superior to all man-made laws, and it can be asserted whensoever the people who do not have it see fit.

Liberty is just a prerequisite as is Democracy to get every American citizen sitting together at the dinner table. The point of sitting every American citizen ideally at the dinner table is the Civil Purpose, not the prerequisites necessary to get us to it and keep us there.

We all know what the Civil Purpose is in the Constitution because as citizens we don't need legal scholars, lawyers, scientists, philosophers, professors or any kind of expert explaining this truth to us. This truth belongs to us because it has been written as self evident and inalienable as a natural law that reduces to the very conscience of every living soul.

On the other hand, liberty for the sake of liberty is just as insignificant as Obama speaking of change for the sake of change, Hillary Clinton speaking of legal precedents for the sake of legal precedents and John McCann speaking of balogna for the sake of balogna. As liberty for the sake of liberty is no better than bondage, change for the sake of change is no better than no change; while, legal precedents for the sake of legal precedents are no better than no legal precedents whatsoever.

[Conza88]

Liberty is just a prerequisite as is Democracy to get every American citizen sitting together at the dinner table.

Tsk tsk. Constitutional Republic, silly.. :)

[Truth Warrior]

A self evident and inalienable truth is true regardless of power. This is the reason our nation was justified in seperating itself from the authority of the King who according to Romans in the New Testament held the sovereign authority of God.

You are trying to make an argument from the point of view of legal precedence; whereas, I am arguing from the point of view of what is the self evident and inalienable truths.

Although they can with their power and shear might rewrite history, these winners can't alter a self evident and inalienable natural law. They could even wipe out the U.S. army and burn every document of the Declaration of Independence and its truths are still going to be written on the conscience of every living soul as a natural law. This makes the Declaration of Independence the formal document over all others including the Constitution and the Federalist papers.
It seems like we're not disagreeing. Weren't you cheerleading FOR the Constitution? :)

Thanks!

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

Tsk tsk. Constitutional Republic, silly.. :)

Thank you. We don't have a pure Democracy partly because such a scheme was used in the execuation of Socrates. Still, Democracy has been incorporated into our culture.

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

It seems like we're not disagreeing. Weren't you cheerleading FOR the Constitution? :)

Thanks!

The science that substantiated the government set up by our founding fathers was expressed in the Declaration of Independence as a natural law. The conclusion expressed as a Natural Law or Law of Nature is nothing more than how science was practiced during that time.
As legal experts like to belittle our system today by arguing that the Declaration of Independence has no "legal precedent," scientists like to belittle our system by arguing that it is based on a primitive science.

[Truth Warrior]

The science that substantiated the government set up by our founding fathers was expressed in the Declaration of Independence as a natural law. The conclusion expressed as a Natural Law or Law of Nature is nothing more than how science was practiced during that time.
As legal experts like to belittle our system today by arguing that the Declaration of Independence has no "legal precedent," scientists like to belittle our system by arguing that it is based on a primitive science.
I belittle YOUR barbaric system because it's tyranny and is based on BS. :)

Thanks!

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

I belittle YOUR barbaric system because it's tyranny and is based on BS. :)

Thanks!

Our nation has a Formal-Culture. That Formal-Culture sits the master at the same dinner table as the slave. If you happen to be a black American, then your Formal-Culture holds these truths to be self evident and inalienable that the black master is bound to sit at the same table as the black slave. If you happen to be a Hispanic American, then your Formal-Culture holds these truths to be self evident and inalienable that the Hispanic slave must be free to sit at the same dinner table as the Hispanic master.
If you don't believe this, then you aren't an American.

[Truth Warrior]

Our nation has a Formal-Culture. That Formal-Culture sits the master at the same dinner table as the slave. If you happen to be a black American, then your Formal-Culture holds these truths to be self evident and inalienable that the black master is bound to sit at the same table as the black slave. If you happen to be a Hispanic American, then your Formal-Culture holds these truths to be self evident and inalienable that the Hispanic slave must be free to sit at the same dinner table as the Hispanic master.
If you don't believe this, then you aren't an American.
I'm an American. I also recognize tyranny and barbarism, by any other name you may prefer to call it, when I see it.

Hell, in fiction, the Klingons had a "Formal-Culture" too, and yet were barbarians still, nonetheless. Ask the Afghans and Iraqis about your US "Fomal-Culture".

Thanks! :)

[nate895]

Liberty is just a prerequisite as is Democracy to get every American citizen sitting together at the dinner table. The point of sitting every American citizen ideally at the dinner table is the Civil Purpose, not the prerequisites necessary to get us to it and keep us there.

We all know what the Civil Purpose is in the Constitution because as citizens we don't need legal scholars, lawyers, scientists, philosophers, professors or any kind of expert explaining this truth to us. This truth belongs to us because it has been written as self evident and inalienable as a natural law that reduces to the very conscience of every living soul.

On the other hand, liberty for the sake of liberty is just as insignificant as Obama speaking of change for the sake of change, Hillary Clinton speaking of legal precedents for the sake of legal precedents and John McCann speaking of balogna for the sake of balogna. As liberty for the sake of liberty is no better than bondage, change for the sake of change is no better than no change; while, legal precedents for the sake of legal precedents are no better than no legal precedents whatsoever.

Who wrote of the "civil purpose of the Constitution?" The Constitution of the United States serves to provide a framework for the Federal Government and tell the Federal Government what it can do (and limitations on the things it can do). There is no other purpose in the Constitution of the United States. There may be another purpose to your state's Constitution, but I am unsure of that.

The Constitution of the United States can't serve any purpose other than the one it states because it is not serving as a Constitution for a sovereign body. There is power in another government superior to the Federal Government, that being your state's government, who established the Federal Government to serve their purposes, and no other purpose other than the ones written into it.

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

Who wrote of the "civil purpose of the Constitution?" The Constitution of the United States serves to provide a framework for the Federal Government and tell the Federal Government what it can do (and limitations on the things it can do). There is no other purpose in the Constitution of the United States. There may be another purpose to your state's Constitution, but I am unsure of that.

The Constitution of the United States can't serve any purpose other than the one it states because it is not serving as a Constitution for a sovereign body. There is power in another government superior to the Federal Government, that being your state's government, who established the Federal Government to serve their purposes, and no other purpose other than the ones written into it.

The Civil Purpose in the Constitution is substantiated in the Declaration of Independence as truths which are self evident and inalienable. Self evident and inalienable truths reduced to natural laws which were the way in which science determined its conclusions during that time.
Both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence elevate every American to that of a citizen because we do not need to be a client of an expert when interpreting self evident and inalienable truths. Such self evident and inalienable truths supercede all legal precedents because they reduce to the conscience of every living soul even beyond that of the sovereign authority of the king.
So, the primary importance of the Civil Purpose in the Constitution supercedes the secondary importance of legal precedents.

[nate895]

The Civil Purpose in the Constitution is substantiated in the Declaration of Independence as truths which are self evident and inalienable. Self evident and inalienable truths reduced to natural laws which were the way in which science determined its conclusions during that time.
Both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence elevate every American to that of a citizen because we do not need to be a client of an expert when interpreting self evident and inalienable truths. Such self evident and inalienable truths supercede all legal precedents because they reduce to the conscience of every living soul even beyond that of the sovereign authority of the king.
So, the primary importance of the Civil Purpose in the Constitution supercedes the secondary importance of legal precedents.

What? Prove what your saying isn't a whole bunch of drivel. It makes no sense from a historical or legal point of view.

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

What? Prove what your saying isn't a whole bunch of drivel. It makes no sense from a historical or legal point of view.

In regards to understanding truths as self evident and inalienable, I do not have to prove anything nor do I have to be an expert outside of who I am as a mere citizen. This means I don't have to answer to any contemptible questions regarding the Civil Purpose in the Constitution because such inquiries serve to tempt and distract from that Civil Purpose.
As we erode away into tyranny as clients, legal precedents distract us from the Civil Purpose in the Constitution; while, as we return through movements to the Constitution as citizens, its Civil Purpose supercedes legal precendents.

[nate895]

In regards to understanding truths as self evident and inalienable, I do not have to prove anything nor do I have to be an expert outside of who I am as a mere citizen. This means I don't have to answer to any contemptible questions regarding the Civil Purpose in the Constitution because such inquiries serve to tempt and distract from that Civil Purpose.
As we erode away into tyranny as clients, legal precedents distract us from the Civil Purpose in the Constitution; while, as we return through movements to the Constitution as citizens, its Civil Purpose supercedes legal precendents.

You're title is right.

You need some sort of historical proof to make a document mean anything more than it says. The legal precedents set by the SCOTUS are mostly wrong, and that is not a point I'd contend. However, there is no proof other than some guy posting on RPF that there is a higher civil purpose to the Constitution other than that which it says.

[Ozwest]

Nice scholarly work boys and girls.

During the meantime...

A bunch of ninnies have allowed a fascist government to run amuck.

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

You're title is right.

You need some sort of historical proof to make a document mean anything more than it says. The legal precedents set by the SCOTUS are mostly wrong, and that is not a point I'd contend. However, there is no proof other than some guy posting on RPF that there is a higher civil purpose to the Constitution other than that which it says.

The historical proof is the science our founding fathers used in the document. Because it was written as self evident and inalienable, the conclusiveness of a "natural law" has no opposing argument.
Now our system could indeed erode away to a tyranny one day that held the power to abolish our Constitution; or, it could pass a lot of legal precedents in violation of the Constitution's Civil Purpose that would bind most of us into slavery or into prisons. Still, a natural law is greater than any corrupt power against it because it remains true regardless.
These self evident and inalienable truths substantiate me as a citizen because I do not need to be a client to an expert to understand them.

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

Nice scholarly work boys and girls.

During the meantime...

A bunch of ninnies have allowed a fascist government to run amuck.

As an American citizen, I do not need to be schooled in scholarly work to understand expertly the self evident and the inalienable truths in the Constitution. Ignorance is not the danger to the Civil Purpose in the Constitution; but, it is the questions that arise which tempt and erode it.

[Truth Warrior]

The Long Night

by Charley Reese

Have you ever wondered how human beings can be so cruel? And how cruelty crosses all the boundaries – national, racial and ethnic? I have. Rereading an autobiography published in 1941 by a communist agent reminded me of the dark side of human nature.

The book, Out of the Night, was written – under the pseudonym "Jan Valtin" – by a German who lived through the chaos of the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism. Broken by Gestapo torture, he ended up being pursued by both the Nazi and the communist manhunters and killers.

Murders by these two forms of socialism are measured in the millions during the 20th century. That alone should warn all people off any form of collectivism, because all of those millions, in the minds of their killers, were sacrificed "for the greater good." They – flesh-and-blood individual human beings – were all murdered in the name of an abstraction, a stupid theory of how society should be organized. I doubt if the head thugs on both sides actually believed the theories. What they really believed in was power over their fellow man.

If you look at the French Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution, the message is clear: Intellectuals and the common people can produce a blood bath. Latching on to some "ism" for justification, their greed for power and desire for revenge can run amok. Butchering women and children because they were born into the "wrong" class is surely insane.

In our time, when people are saying we must sacrifice liberty for security, that scrapping the Constitution is necessary to win the "war" against terrorism, I would suggest that you take your choice of genocides in the past 100 years and remind yourself what happens when people buy into the false proposition that the end justifies the means. People who preach that are always more interested in the means than in any end.

The only safe environment for a human being is under a weak government with very restricted powers. Normal people don't need much to be happy – food, shelter, dignity and freedom from marauders. They need a rule of law that applies to everyone equally and at all times and in all circumstances. In established societies, legislators should meet rarely – perhaps once every two or three years – because a continuing cascade of new laws will eventually drown freedom.

The Founding Fathers, whether through luck, wisdom or divine guidance, gave us an almost perfect form of government, and we've been busy ever since trying to take it apart. Human beings are dangerous predators and cannot be trusted with power over their fellows. Many Americans have forgotten that the power of government comes out of the barrel of a gun. Governments coerce; they don't persuade.

There are people living among us at this very moment capable of the cruelty so evident in the Holocaust. All they are waiting for is the opportunity. No greater opportunity exists than when a government enlists such people and says whatever you do is now justified for the sake of the "greater good."

Who would have guessed that George W. Bush, who seemed to be a genial good old boy, would turn out to be a tyrant, launching wars of aggression, arresting and confining people without charges or access to a lawyer, condoning torture and lying to the American people? A government that can without trial destroy you by simply putting on a list your name or the name of an organization with which you are associated is a tyranny. A government that invades other countries and that feels free to murder people in any country it chooses is a tyranny.

Americans are on the edge of a long night. We had better wake up and step back before it's too late.

May 10, 2008

Charley Reese [send him mail] has been a journalist for 49 years.
© 2008 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese455.html

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

The Long Night

by Charley Reese

Have you ever wondered how human beings can be so cruel? And how cruelty crosses all the boundaries – national, racial and ethnic? I have. Rereading an autobiography published in 1941 by a communist agent reminded me of the dark side of human nature.

The book, Out of the Night, was written – under the pseudonym "Jan Valtin" – by a German who lived through the chaos of the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism. Broken by Gestapo torture, he ended up being pursued by both the Nazi and the communist manhunters and killers.

Murders by these two forms of socialism are measured in the millions during the 20th century. That alone should warn all people off any form of collectivism, because all of those millions, in the minds of their killers, were sacrificed "for the greater good." They – flesh-and-blood individual human beings – were all murdered in the name of an abstraction, a stupid theory of how society should be organized. I doubt if the head thugs on both sides actually believed the theories. What they really believed in was power over their fellow man.

If you look at the French Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution, the message is clear: Intellectuals and the common people can produce a blood bath. Latching on to some "ism" for justification, their greed for power and desire for revenge can run amok. Butchering women and children because they were born into the "wrong" class is surely insane.

In our time, when people are saying we must sacrifice liberty for security, that scrapping the Constitution is necessary to win the "war" against terrorism, I would suggest that you take your choice of genocides in the past 100 years and remind yourself what happens when people buy into the false proposition that the end justifies the means. People who preach that are always more interested in the means than in any end.

The only safe environment for a human being is under a weak government with very restricted powers. Normal people don't need much to be happy – food, shelter, dignity and freedom from marauders. They need a rule of law that applies to everyone equally and at all times and in all circumstances. In established societies, legislators should meet rarely – perhaps once every two or three years – because a continuing cascade of new laws will eventually drown freedom.

The Founding Fathers, whether through luck, wisdom or divine guidance, gave us an almost perfect form of government, and we've been busy ever since trying to take it apart. Human beings are dangerous predators and cannot be trusted with power over their fellows. Many Americans have forgotten that the power of government comes out of the barrel of a gun. Governments coerce; they don't persuade.

There are people living among us at this very moment capable of the cruelty so evident in the Holocaust. All they are waiting for is the opportunity. No greater opportunity exists than when a government enlists such people and says whatever you do is now justified for the sake of the "greater good."

Who would have guessed that George W. Bush, who seemed to be a genial good old boy, would turn out to be a tyrant, launching wars of aggression, arresting and confining people without charges or access to a lawyer, condoning torture and lying to the American people? A government that can without trial destroy you by simply putting on a list your name or the name of an organization with which you are associated is a tyranny. A government that invades other countries and that feels free to murder people in any country it chooses is a tyranny.

Americans are on the edge of a long night. We had better wake up and step back before it's too late.

May 10, 2008

Charley Reese [send him mail] has been a journalist for 49 years.
© 2008 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese455.html

I assume the long night will have us sitting at different tables again as master and slave classes? Perhaps a lot of us will be executed or caste into prison during this next dark age? Freedom for the sake of freedom is no better than imprisonment.
While Gandhi was sent to prison by the visiting British, young, healthy Indian men were being chosen to break the law deliberately so that they could likewise fill up the prisons. As was the case in India, an eroded tyranny will use prisons to punish those who work to sit the master class at the same dinner table with the slave one. Properly utilized, prisons should be the bedrooms where naughty ones are sent when they work to divide us into master and slave classes.
Freedom by staying out of prison is not the Civil Purpose in the Constitution. Freedom in itself is not what we desire -- for this is meaningless; rather, freedom is a prerequisite that the slave needs for his or her encouragement to sit at the same table with the master.
How many young men today desire not to be free but to be restricted and disciplined by a father? We think of liberty in terms of a right or a legal precedent rather than as a prerequisite that needs to be shrewdly regulated in bringing every American citizen together to ideally sit at the same dinner table. For the sake of the Civil Purpose in the Constitution, the master class has had to be bound in this nation's history in order to keep them sitting at the same table with the slave class.
While we are working ourselves to death today or literally out of business, our system is raising up failing young men who never learn the discipline necessary to control the "male vessels" they occupy. We then shake our heads at them while giving them up to being raptured against predacious young men who were raised to be better suited. Now this is the epitome of cruelty.
As I had to tell my sons to calm their fear of the dark, it is okay to die. The self evident truths will always remain whether we live or die. Likewise, whether our souls are free or are crushed in prison, the same inalienable truths will exist: The Civil Purpose in the Constitution is to sit the bright face of the master with the darkened face of the slave.
It isn't death or imprisonment that we should fear as hell; but, we should fear that we shall have to live forever in judgement within a place that looks very similar to a courtroom where after the proceedings are all over we are made to eat at a table as slaves without any concern for whether we thirst.