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TinyMachines
12-15-2008, 10:38 PM
My friend wrote this in reply to someone else. You don't need to understand the background of the discussion. The content here is, in my opion, brilliant.


You know, frankly, John, I wish you(as well as others) would A- stop assuming that you know the intent of every single person that effected the Constitution's wording, much less assuming that they were all benevolent much less infallible(which is just hogwash.... Hamilton, anyone?) and B- take a good, objective look at(if nothing else) Section 8 of Article I, known as the enumerated powers and see if you can't find a few powers in there that, if they had not been included, could have made this road back to tyranny at least a little longer....

You see, the first and foremost "evil" of the Constitution is that it created the federal government to begin with, which I see no need for then or now. "Chaining" the beast you've created is no excuse for the creation of the beast to begin with, and in my opinion, one must be quite dull not to see how these "chains" were only effective so long as the spirit of the Revolution was still fresh in the American people's hearts and minds. As soon as we could be once again scared into thinking we needed a Big Brother, the Constitution's "restrictions" reverted back to what any constitution truly is: "just a.... piece of paper". I'll get back to that topic later, but for now, let me address some of your points more specifically.

As to my remarks, I must assume that you are referring to my wish to see the Constitution "pissed away ostensibly". The key word here is "ostensibly", as the Constitution was "pissed away" a looong time ago. Let me elaborate. The Constitution is no longer in effect, for many reasons, and this idea that "its the best we've got" is flawed for the same reasons. First off, we just don't "have it" anymore. Whether you want to point to the fact that we have been operating under martial law at the federal level ever since the Civil War, or to Roosevelt's declared state of emergency that is redeclared every couple years(not to mention Roosevelt's many, many other nefarious machinations), or to the fact that many, if not all of us, have signed contracts with private corporations agreeing to conform to whatever laws they write, the fact remains that NOTHING is unconstitutional, and EVERYTHING is aconstitutional. Furthermore, I find that deluding ourselves that things are somehow not that way is an affront to reason, given our current situation, and therefore simply not helping. To put it another way, I find that one must percieve reality accurately to effect it properly and deliberately, and this illusion that we still have a Constitutional Republic isn't doing anyone any good, so please do your best to educate yourself to the reality around you, and be not afraid of the truth. "They" follow the rules, they just let you assume incorrectly which rules are actually in effect. Get it?

I believe that the Constitution is indeed a "big government" document, and I think the original colonies agreed with me, based on the fact that they balked at the statist thing until the Bill of Rights was added. Well gee, that helped for precious few years until the federal government, excercising their constitutional power to lay excise taxes, caused the Whiskey Rebellion by trampling on people's natural rights. Too bad the right to ferment and distill whatever trips your trigger(much less produce and sell whatever you want to generate monetary income) wasn't among those rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, and was not protected by the 9th Amendment.

You see, the 9th Amendment's language is "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people". Sounds great, that means we get to keep all the rights not listed, right? Wrong. It doesn't say that these unenumerated rights are protected, it just says that you can't use the existance of this list to claim that there are no other rights. Still sounds like we've got those unmentioned rights protected, you say? Well sure, until they bump up against one of the powers enumerated to the federal government, like the power to lay excise taxes at a whim. Ooops, no rights for you, the Constitution says the government has this power over you, now pay up.

Furthermore, the framers used the word "retained", implying that one must "retain" these rights, which means that an action must be taken by "the people" to actively preserve the rights. On the other hand, if they had used the word "enjoyed", or "excercised", that would imply that whatever right one wishes to enjoy or excercise is protected, with no need for the right to be actively "retained". I hope the distinction is clear enough, I know not many out there care for legalese, but, frankly, if you want to complain about laws, you'd best comprehend what they actually say. If you read the thing carefully, and make sure not to "translate" the legalese into what you want it to say, the CONstitution just doesn't look so hot anymore. These types of loopholes are all over the Constitution, and I have a hard time believing that it was an accident.

This brings me back to the Constitution(more specifically the Bill of Rights) being just a piece of paper, there are a couple of reasons why I'm just not all hot and bothered by the idea of a codification of our "rights". First and foremost, to make a list is to define something as finite, which our natural and God-given rights certainly are not, and as I pointed out earlier, the 9th Amendment came with a few loopholes(most likely not by accident, in my opinion). Constitutions do not protect rights, they cannot. They are, like John said, a structure for laws. The idea that you can make this powerful central government structure, and then "reign it in" with an attached "Bill of Rights" must have come from someone with a wild imagination indeed, for it has no grounding in any reality that I've experienced.

Secondly, I must ask: what is it that protects our rights? When we stand up and hold up our "Bill of Rights"(assuming anyone cares), what is it that protects these rights? Is it the fact that it was written down? I don't think so, plenty of things are written down, not all of them matter. How about the fact that someone, somewhere took an oath to uphold this document? Obviously not, as "upholding the document" and "protecting people's rights" are two different things entirely. "Upholding the Constitution" means perpetuating the federal government, nothing more, nothing less. If you want people's oaths of office to include the protection of rights, you're gonna wanna get that specific language put in the oath, otherwise rights are secondary to the persistence of government.

No, what protects these rights is, in my opinion, simply the fact that they are rights, and are percieved by society to be so. I think we do ourselves a great disservice by complaining about the Constitution when we should be complaining about our rights, and why they are rights. What makes anyone here think that holding up a loophole-ridden, unpopular document will secure rights any better than just standing up and saying "Look here, I have a right as a human being to X, Y, Z, and its not because someone wrote it down, its because A, B, C, not to mention, its my natural, God-given right, and if you don't like it, take it up with God, go tell the mountain, I don't care, just keep your distance from me and my rights, or I will make you wish you had spent the day fornicating with a cactus instead."

I'm not saying that tactic will work every time, but I'd say it'll have a better success rate than bringing the Constitution into it, simply because I think people would respect you more if you had specific, logical reasons why the specific right you want to "retain", as opposed to just saying "well, the Constitution says so". That is simply not a reason for anything, especially when you consider the fact that the Constitution is no longer in effect in 99% of legal situtations in this Country.

I agree with you, John, that the way the Swiss do things militarily is right in line with the language of the Second Amendment, not to mention absolutely the only way to defend a country pysically without exposing the country economically. Too bad in Article I, Section 8, Congress has the power to raise a standing army. Because, if you have a standing army, then it is financed by the federal government, then if we get attacked, then the country will go into debt, and if the country goes into debt, then there must be taxes laid to pay off this debt. So what is stopping someone with alot of money and banks willing to give loans from attacking us simply so that we must borrow money from them? Sound familiar? Can anyone see what I'm getting at here? Don't get me started on what happens when a Republic is transformed into a corporation and then goes bankrupt(yes, that is what happened). Again, there are more problems like this in the Constitution where this came from(again, Article I, Section 8, read it and weep).

We can do better than our current Constitution, we must do better, or we will condemn our descendants to the same problems we are dealing with today. Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better, and in my opinion, if the fascist reality around us is brought out into the open, it would be a huge step towards not only waking people up, but exposing the specific problems with fascism. Don't get me wrong, I'll try every trick in the book to try and get myself into that con-con, and I will throw every fiber of my being into getting the things I want inserted into, as well as deleted from the Constitution, but realistically, its gonna be bad, and I think we need to do some educating on what rights are and why they are rights before we go crying about a document that has done an excelent job of acting as a structure for some very maleficient laws.

I hope this clears things up for you, John, as well as any others that have similar feelings.

Truth Warrior
12-16-2008, 03:29 PM
The Illegality, Immorality, and Violence of All Political Action
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showpost.php?p=1537946&postcount=109 (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showpost.php?p=1537946&postcount=109)



'Lysander Spooner once said that he believed "that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize." At the same time, he could not exonerate the Constitution, for it "has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." It is hard to argue with that.' -- Thomas E. Woods Jr

TruckinMike
12-17-2008, 06:18 AM
'Lysander Spooner once said that he believed "that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize." At the same time, he could not exonerate the Constitution, for it "has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." It is hard to argue with that.' -- Thomas E. Woods Jr

It was our duty to stop it from happening. They knew that the Constitution was not restrictive enough to enslave the beast. They warned us, but we did not listen. -- the inception of Public schools, Lincolns doings, laziness, left vs right paradigm, and more... these a just a few of the reasons for our downfall.

I blame US on one hand, but on the other I suppose the Constitution could have had usurpation clauses for politicians in it - "Hanged by the neck until dead" for "willful introduction of bills that do not meet the Constitutional test that is determined by the majority of a random 12 man jury of the people at large. All Constitutional tests are to be performed after each Bill is introduced. Execution of traitorous politician will occur within 24 hours after the jury makes its decision."

I think that would do it.

Maybe at the upcoming Con-con we could add that.:D

TMike

Truth Warrior
12-17-2008, 07:07 AM
It was our duty to stop it from happening. They knew that the Constitution was not restrictive enough to enslave the beast. They warned us, but we did not listen. -- the inception of Public schools, Lincolns doings, laziness, left vs right paradigm, and more... these a just a few of the reasons for our downfall.

I blame US on one hand, but on the other I suppose the Constitution could have had usurpation clauses for politicians in it - "Hanged by the neck until dead" for "willful introduction of bills that do not meet the Constitutional test that is determined by the majority of a random 12 man jury of the people at large. All Constitutional tests are to be performed after each Bill is introduced. Execution of traitorous politician will occur within 24 hours after the jury makes its decision."

I think that would do it.

Maybe at the upcoming Con-con we could add that.:D

TMike

Don't beat youself up. Spooner wrote that about 130 ago. Things have NOT been improved since then.<IMHO>

With good old 20/20 hindsight, you may also want to consider adding the T J wished ammendment to that Things TODO "wish" list. ;)

"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing. I now deny their power of making paper money or anything else a legal tender. I know that to pay all proper expenses within the year would, in case of war, be hard on us. But not so hard as ten wars instead of one. For wars could be reduced in that proportion; besides that the State governments would be free to lend their credit in borrowing quotas." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798. ME 10:64

TruckinMike
12-17-2008, 08:12 AM
I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing. I now deny their power of making paper money or anything else a legal tender. I know that to pay all proper expenses within the year would, in case of war, be hard on us. But not so hard as ten wars instead of one. For wars could be reduced in that proportion; besides that the State governments would be free to lend their credit in borrowing quotas." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798. ME 10:64

Is there a quote of Jefferson's thats not prophetic? He seems to have an uncanny ability to see the future -- He had a full grasp of the nature of man and Government.

TMike

Mini-Me
12-17-2008, 08:15 AM
It was our duty to stop it from happening. They knew that the Constitution was not restrictive enough to enslave the beast. They warned us, but we did not listen. -- the inception of Public schools, Lincolns doings, laziness, left vs right paradigm, and more... these a just a few of the reasons for our downfall.

I blame US on one hand, but on the other I suppose the Constitution could have had usurpation clauses for politicians in it - "Hanged by the neck until dead" for "willful introduction of bills that do not meet the Constitutional test that is determined by the majority of a random 12 man jury of the people at large. All Constitutional tests are to be performed after each Bill is introduced. Execution of traitorous politician will occur within 24 hours after the jury makes its decision."

I think that would do it.

Maybe at the upcoming Con-con we could add that.:D

TMike

It sounds like a great idea on its face, but I think it would fail for three reasons:
"The powers that be" could find a way to manipulate the jury selection so that the only good representatives - like Ron Paul - are executed for introducing bills would would actually scale down government, whereupon the jury pool's corruption would only be discovered well after 24 hours.
Legitimate juries would be hesitant to strike down "mildly" unconstitutional laws that were made in good faith that they weren't unconstitutional, because it would necessitate killing the person who introduced them.
The people would only have one shot of striking down an unconstitutional law, and I have a feeling that more than one in twelve people in the US has a poor enough understanding of the Constitution to let ANYTHING pass.

There's another check that I think would be much more effective, especially in combination with amending the frequently abused sections of the Constitution* and requiring a 90% majority in both houses for most new legislation to pass and only 25% of representatives to repeal a law. I've kicked the idea around before, so I'll quote from two older posts:

What if individual citizens could file civil suit against specific federal laws? The trial would have to be a majority-based jury trial, where the burden of proof is "preponderance of evidence." The government would not have the option of trial by judge, as the judge could be corrupt. Furthermore, restrictions against double jeopardy would not apply in this case, so laws may be tried over and over again until they're eventually repealed. Finally, if the jury convicts the law of violating the Constitution, the law is immediately struck from the books, and all involved in its legislation or enforcement will immediately and permanently leave government payroll. Afterwards, they will be subject to criminal trials on charges of perjury or treason, depending on the nature of their crime. (These trials would be full, fair jury trials following due process, obviously) Note: Perjury charges would be based on breaking an oath to uphold the Constitution, and treason charges would be based on an amendment to the definition of treason clarifying the meaning of "waging war" on the United States to include public officials writing, enforcing, or validating laws that undermine the Constitution itself. (Particularly laws that are explicitly in direct contravention of a "thou shalt not," such as the Patriot Act and the Fourth Amendment.)

One of my favorite hypothetical checks and balances is a Constitutional requirement that citizens be able to file lawsuits against the government for unconstitutional or unjust laws or practices (including the creation of unconstitutional bureaucracies), which a jury of peers would then decide upon. If that's not enough by itself, consider how strong such a check would be if the Constitution - the law itself - explicitly and unequivocally stated in 72-point font that if anyone were ever denied such a trial/hearing, the government would immediately lose all legitimate authority and the people would be completely justified in rebelling against the government, hanging government officials with legal impunity, etc. What if the Constitution further stated that this is in fact the solemn duty of the people, and if just about everyone was taught exactly that from a very young age? If the Constitution itself drew such an obvious line in the sand, it would become very difficult for government to get away with unconstitutional laws for any period of time (and to avoid circumvention through amendments, certain parts of the Constitution could be unamendable). Whenever the government tried expanding its power, someone would call them on it and the government's power would soon be returned to former levels by a jury...and any individual could keep suing over and over (at their expense of course) until a favorable jury overturned the unconstitutional law. The only laws that could withstand the test of time under such a system would be those that practically everyone agreed with. The erosion of Constitutional checks and balances is gradual and cumulative, and it has only gotten as far as it has in the United States because the government has been able to build upon previous expansions of power - while going unchallenged - for many generations. If the people could regularly enforce Constitutionality through jury trial of laws and practices, and if any circumvention of this check invited open rebellion and assured death to any official bold enough to try it, the government would probably never be able to gain enough of a foothold to build upon past expansions of power.

*Especially, the "general welfare" clause in Article I, Section 8, the "elastic clause," the "commerce clause," and the clause about borrowing money.

Truth Warrior
12-17-2008, 08:21 AM
Is there a quote of Jefferson's thats not prophetic? He seems to have an uncanny ability to see the future -- He had a full grasp of the nature of man and Government.

TMike He's got a pretty good batting average, that's for sure. That's probably why he's my favorite. ;) T J chose the red pill too.<IMHO> :)

heavenlyboy34
12-17-2008, 08:38 AM
he's got a pretty good batting average, that's for sure. That's probably why he's my favorite. ;) t j chose the red pill too.<imho> :)

+1776 :d