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Thread: "US constitution enabling the establishment of a dictatorship" foretold in 1947

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  1. #1

    "US constitution enabling the establishment of a dictatorship" foretold in 1947

    I just came across this interesting anecdote while reading about some mathematicians:

    Gödel had confided in them that he had discovered an inconsistency in the U.S. Constitution, one that would allow the U.S. to become a dictatorship.
    That's the mathematician Kurt Gödel, who almost blew his chances at becoming a US citizen by announcing he thought the constitution would enable a dictatorship to be established. Quite foreboding.

    http://morgenstern.jeffreykegler.com/
    The Madhouse - a critical study of Swedish society
    www.danielhammarberg.com - my book publishing website



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  3. #2
    I don't know what prompted me to read about Gödel last night and today (maybe McCarthy's upcoming book) but I think these guys are right and it's Article V.

    http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blo...dworkin_p.html

    enzo rossi said...

    I have heard somewhere that Goedel pointed out that the wording of article five is such that even that article is open to amendment. Thus the constitution could be changed and immunized from further changes, as it were.
    constitutional said...

    the scholarly article makes the following argument: the 10th amendment to the united states constitution (and later ones as well) limit the powers of Article V. this would (by paradox of self-amendment) prove the 18th amendment (end of prohibition) unconstitutional. but numerous court decisions upheld the 18. for our case only Leser v. Garnet, 258 U.S. 130 (1922) is interesting, because it features the following decision:

    "[T]he function of a State legislature in ratifying a proposed amendment to the Federal Constitution, like the function of Congress in proposing the amendment, is a federal function derived from the Federal Constitution; and it transcends any limitations sought to be imposed by the people of a State."

    By giving congress the right to amend the constitution as they see fit, as well as giving congress the right to allow state legislature ratification, as well as denying it to the people, effectively 2000 or so people (federal and state legislators) rule the land. oligarchy. but more important Leser v. Garnet's wording of "transcends any limitations" gives implicit power to strip the people of every constitutional right.

    In this context the article mentions:

    "Gödel studied the U.S. constitution in preparation for his oral citizenship examination in 1948. He noticed that the AC had procedural limitations but no substantive limitations; hence it could be used to overturn the democratic institutions described in the rest of the constitution."
    About that book...

    http://www.crossmap.com/blogs/more-o...passenger-6750

    One person asked who Kurt Gödel was and why is he important to the story. Again, I'm not sure the role Gödel plays in the book. I can only go off the how his name was mentioned during the reading. Gödel is a hero of the main character. Maybe Gödel acts as a metaphor for mathematics, logic, and mental instability (sadly, Mr. Gödel was institutionalized later in his life, much like the character in the novel appears to be). As far as Gödel's life: he was an Austrian-American mathematician, philosopher, and logician. In his work he dealt with recursive axiomatic systems. From these systems we now have Gödel numbering. Additionally, Gödel was a believer in God, and sought various proofs for God's existence. A helpful book I read several years back is called Gödel: A Life of Logic by John Casti and Werner DePauli. I recommend the read.
    Can't wait!
    Last edited by Lucille; 08-13-2016 at 09:56 AM.
    Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
    --Albert J. Nock

  4. #3
    The Paradox of Self-Amendment:
    A Study of Law, Logic, Omnipotence, and Change
    http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/psa/
    Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
    --Albert J. Nock

  5. #4
    Gödel's theorem is important.

  6. #5
    i think we already have a dictator and have had one for 35 yrs or he could be called a king .

    in the land of the blind a one eyed man would be king .

  7. #6
    Pfft...the anti federalists warned everybody about this is 1789.

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Pfft...the anti federalists warned everybody about this is 1789.
    If only the anti-Feds fought as hard against the Feds as they did the Monarch.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by phill4paul View Post
    If only the anti-Feds fought as hard against the Feds as they did the Monarch.
    It ain't easy to beat charismatic tyrants who are good at appealing to the masses in a democratic republic that was arguably even more populist than it is nao. (depends heavily on how you look at it, of course) Pretty much the same then as it is now.
    Quote Originally Posted by Torchbearer
    what works can never be discussed online. there is only one language the government understands, and until the people start speaking it by the magazine full... things will remain the same.
    Hear/buy my music here "government is the enemy of liberty"-RP Support me on Patreon here Ephesians 6:12



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Pfft...the anti federalists warned everybody about this is 1789.
    This ^. Having agreed that point, it amazes me why people would think that somehow the US Constitution contains magic fairy dust that allows for it to be the only perfect self enforcing rule, law, or system of government ever devised by man. While the utmost exertions of human genius available were employed in its creation, and it is a remarkable document, its creators were well aware that it was only a framework by wich a people determined to be free could remain so if they so chose. Encroachmens resulting in tyranny are not a resultof the failure of the magic fairy dust, but of a people willing to trade liberty for percieved economic security.
    Out of every one hundred men they send us, ten should not even be here. Eighty will do nothing but serve as targets for the enemy. Nine are real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, upon them depends our success in battle. But one, ah the one, he is a real warrior, and he will bring the others back from battle alive.

    Duty is the most sublime word in the English language. Do your duty in all things. You can not do more than your duty. You should never wish to do less than your duty.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Pericles View Post
    Encroachmens resulting in tyranny are not a resultof the failure of the magic fairy dust, but of a people willing to trade liberty for percieved economic security.
    Or coercion. As in Reconstruction.
    All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.
    -Albert Camus

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Pfft...the anti federalists warned everybody about this is 1789.
    First thing I thought too.

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Pfft...the anti federalists warned everybody about this is 1789.
    Yepsters.
    There is no spoon.

  15. #13
    But I fear that Hitler’s assertion — that his ideological concept was the democratic concept — will prove a hard one to refute. The enlightenment of the world from a single, central position, the winning of mass support through convincing arguments, the legitimate road to power by way of the ballot-box, the legitimization by the people itself of power achieved — I fear it is hard to deny that these are democratic stigmata, revelatory perhaps of democracy in a decadent and feverish form, but democratic none the less. I further fear that the contrary assertion — that the totalitarian system as set up by Hitler was not democratic — will prove a hard one to justify. The totalitarian state is the exact opposite of the authoritarian state, which latter, of course, bears no democratic stigmata but hierarchical ones instead. - Ernst von Salomon, The Questionnaire

  16. #14
    That Gödel would find such a flaw in no way surprises me. Gödel had eyes few others could even imagine.

    As for flaws in the Constitution, it requires no Gödel to find them.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.



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