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Title: No, The American Founders Were Not Libertarians
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URL Source: http://thefederalist.com/2017/05/02 ... can-founders-not-libertarians/
Published: May 2, 2017
Author: Jonathan Ashbach
Post Date: 2018-01-25 08:43:41 by A K A Stone
Keywords: None
Views: 3236
Comments: 148
Libertarians are still trying to claim the American Founding as theirs. One occasionally hears the argument that the principles of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence are libertarian. One of the most recent instances of this claim resides in Nikolai Wenzel’s first-rate defense of libertarianism in “Selfish Libertarians and Socialist Conservatives?” (Stanford: 2017). Yet a closer look at the Founders’ thought about government makes clear that it was anything but libertarian. Wenzel notes there are different types of libertarianism. He clarifies that “unless I specify otherwise, I will use the term libertarian to mean minarchy.” Minarchist libertarianism holds that government exists only to protect individuals’ rights. “A libertarian government is forbidden from doing almost everything,” Wenzel states. “In fact, a libertarian government is empowered to do only one thing: defend individual rights.” Wenzel’s argument for a libertarian Founding rests largely on the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Indeed, his claims do seem superficially persuasive. The Constitution limits the federal government to the exercise of a few specific powers. Surely, this is a classic instance of libertarian philosophy limiting the sphere of government, is it not? As Wenzel argues, “By and large, the enumerated powers granted to the federal government under Article I, section 8, are in line with libertarian philosophy.” He recognizes that elements of the Constitution violate libertarian principles, but his overall evaluation is that “The U.S. Constitution was largely a libertarian document.” The Declaration, argues Wenzel, is more explicitly libertarian. It declares that all possess natural rights and that governments are created to protect those rights. “There, then,” says Wenzel, “is the political philosophy of the Declaration: The purpose of government is to protect rights. Period.” He calls this “a minimalist philosophy with which any libertarian would agree.” The Fatal Flaw: A Different Understanding of Rights So far, all of this sounds quite convincing, but there is a fatal flaw in Wenzel’s argument. Both libertarians and the American Founders describe the purpose of government as the protection of rights. But by “rights” they mean two very different things. For Wenzel, respecting others’ rights simply means refraining from coercion. The state exists only to protect rights, and therefore, “the state itself may not engage in any coercion, except to prevent coercion.” He argues that participants in immoral trades, such as “The drug pusher, the prostitute, and the pornographer,” do not violate others’ rights “as long as they do not coercively impose their wares on others.” Nor does the polygamist. Wenzel’s coauthor Nathan Schlueter points out the problem with this position: “Libertarianism essentially denies that…moral harms exist and maintains that the only real injustice is coercion. Accordingly, it promotes a legal regime in which some individuals are legally entitled to harm others in noncoercive ways.” Wenzel assumes that only coercion violates rights. The Founders profoundly disagreed. A Second Look at the Founding Creed Think again about the alleged libertarianism of the Founding documents. Wenzel makes a common mistake in assuming that the limitation of the national government to a few specific enumerated powers reflects libertarian belief. But this limitation has nothing to do with libertarianism. It has everything to do with federalism. The federal government was only created to fulfill certain limited, particular purposes. It was not created to do everything the Founders believed government should do. Most of those functions—and, on the whole, those less compatible with libertarianism—were entrusted to the states. The fact that the enumerated powers of the federal government are largely consistent with libertarianism does not mean the Founders were libertarians. It means nothing at all, in fact. It is a conclusion based on only half the data. Actually, the enumeration of federal powers is more an accident of history than anything else. James Madison’s original proposal was that the national government simply possess blanket authority “to legislate in all cases to which the separate States are incompetent.” The Constitutional Convention ultimately chose to list its powers, believing this was less liable to abuse, but this decision was by no means dictated by the Founders’ beliefs about government. As for the Declaration, it does not say that government exists only to protect individuals’ life, liberty, and property. A libertarian right to be free of coercion is not intended here. Instead, the Declaration states that life and liberty are included “among” the natural rights of mankind, as is something else referred to as “the pursuit of happiness.” The right to happiness was not simply sweet-sounding rhetoric. It was the centerpiece of the Founders’ political theory. Government for the Common Good The Founders’ political theory was not libertarian, because they believed that the preeminent human right was happiness. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, for example, states: “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness” (emphases added). As the language makes clear, the rights of man could be expressed as a list of rights that includes life, liberty, and property. But the great right that encompassed all others was the right to pursue (or even obtain!) happiness. Assertions of this right to happiness appear in many Founding-Era writings, including other state constitutions. The purpose of government, in turn, was to help people achieve happiness by promoting their good. Delegate to the Constitutional Convention James Wilson wrote one of the most thorough expositions of the Founding philosophy—his famous “Lectures on Law.” In them, he explains that the purpose of government is to promote the well-being of those subject to it: “Whatever promotes the greatest happiness of the whole,” that is what government should do. Once again, this sort of talk is commonplace. Twelve of the 13 original states adopted a constitution in the Founding Era. Every one of these states described the purpose of government as promoting the well-being of citizens. The New Hampshire constitution of 1784 is typical, holding that “all government…is…instituted for the general good.” What Conservative Governance Means Because the general good includes the moral good, this meant discouraging immoral behavior. Wenzel speaks of voluntary drug and sexual matters as beyond the purview of a libertarian government. But such laws were universal in early America. Thus Mark Kann writes in “Taming Passion for the Public Good” that “the state’s right to regulate sexual practices…was undisputed” in early America, and Wilson notes bigamy, prostitution, and indecency as offenses subject to punishment on Founding political theory. Similarly, in “Federalist” 12, Alexander Hamilton cites the beneficial impact on morals as a justification for federal taxation of alcoholic imports. The Founders used government to discourage other noncoercive activities, as well. In 1778, Congress recommended to the states “suppressing theatrical entertainments, horse-racing, gambling, and such other diversions as are productive of idleness, dissipation, and a general depravity of principles and manners.” In his book, “The People’s Welfare,” William Novak details the extensive regulation of everything from lotteries and usury to Sunday travel, coarse language, and poor relief that was the norm during the Founding Era. The American Founders believed that government exists to protect rights, just as libertarians do. But their understanding of rights was radically different from the libertarian understanding. Libertarians like Wenzel believe that protecting rights means prohibiting coercion. The Founders believed that protecting rights meant seeking the moral and material well- being of society. The American Founding was conservative, not libertarian. Libertarians will have to look elsewhere to support their beliefs. Jonathan Ashbach is a PhD student in politics at Hillsdale College. Jonathan has worked in the hospitality industry and as assistant editor for the Humboldt Economic Index. His work has also been published on Patheos and Christianity Today.
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#1. To: A K A Stone (#0)
Ah, so he's a former night clerk who spent his spare time wiping up loads in some roach motel and who is now trying to become a Hillsdale theocon. The Founders were most certainly libertarians. But they had an Enlightenment ideal of liberty. To them, liberty meant freedom from a distant tyrant ruling their lives. It meant a Bill of Rights that guaranteed liberty from any central government that did anything more than keep up a few trade roads and bridges and some common defense against the machinations of England/France/Spain to reclaim this continent for themselves. Nearly all the coinage of the era bore the image of Lady Liberty (mere pols were not allowed on coins). The French gave us the Statue of Liberty because that was considered the hallmark of the American Revolution. At the very least, the Deists of the Founding era were much closer to modern libertarians than to the theocons of Hillsdale. And most of the Founders would not be allowed to attend Hillsdale if they were alive today. Not religious enough.
You're not that dumb are you? Libertarian means amoral. They were not libertarians. That is a silly notion.
Nope. While I agree the U.S. Constitution appears to be a Libertarian-leaning document, that says nothing about those who wrote it. After all, this document merely defined and limited the newly-formed federal government. What about the states the Founders were from? Some states had their own religion, limited free speech, ignored the fourth amendment, limited freedom of assembly, and many more. Why would a Libertarian allow such practices in their own state, many of which survived until the early to mid- 1900's?
Seriously? What dictionary is that taken from? libertarians are no more or less amoral than the rest of society. Some states had their own religion, limited free speech, ignored the fourth amendment, limited freedom of assembly, and many more. Why would a Libertarian allow such practices in their own state, many of which survived until the early to mid- 1900's? States' rights, "laboratories of democracy", etc. And there was always the great unsettled American West for those who didn't want to obey any states' laws. The Founders founded a federal government. While many were instrumental in their own state governments as well (Jefferson, Patrick Henry, etc.), the Founders refers only to their founding of the federal government. And, yes, the Founders were quite willing to grant powers to their own state governments that they explicitly forbade to the federal government in the Constitution and in the Bill of Rights. There is a problem of anachronism here. What we mean by libertarian (or conservative or liberal) was not something you could just use to describe the primary philosophy of the Founders. But I would call them libertarians before I would call them either liberal or conservative in the modern sense of those much-abused terms. As you look at the late Enlightenment era with the American revolution and the French revolution, you see a very common conception of liberty as that of men who are free to do as they wish as long as it does not impinge on the equal right of fellow-citizens to do as they wish. Recently, someone mentioned on the forum Jacobites, an obscure reference for most of us. After James II was deposed in 1688 and replaced by his daughter Mary II, ruling jointly with her husband and first cousin (James's nephew) William III, the Stuarts lived in exile, occasionally attempting to regain the throne. The strongholds of Jacobitism were parts of the Scottish Highlands and the lowland north-east of Scotland, Ireland, and parts of Northern England (mostly within the counties of Northumberland and Lancashire). Significant support also existed in Wales and South-West England. The Jacobites believed that parliamentary interference with the line of succession to the English and Scottish thrones was illegal. Catholics also hoped the Stuarts would end the discrimination against recusants. In Scotland, the Jacobite cause became intertwined with the clan system. Who were these recusants? Catholics who refused, upon threat of execution, to attend the worship services of the Church of England. Many priests were executed, many others fled. However, this is a fundamentally libertarian issue. They wanted freedom to worship as they chose, not to be forced by law to worship and offer fealty to the state church of the king of England. One can look to the French Revolution as well, with its emphasis on the Rights of Man, a declaration of natural rights and a constitution that seem to copy a fair portion of the sentiments expressed in America's Declaration and its constitution. We have to understand these historical events and figures on their own terms, not try to distort them into paragons of some modern political philosophy to which they never subscribed. They were, as we are, creatures of their own era and the great issues of their time.
I don't buy that. It took U.S. Supreme Court rulings to force the states to become less oppressive.
I'm not going to comment a lot on this. I think many confuse being Libertine with being Libertarian, though.
Libertarian ideas are largely immoral. But most libertarians are amoral and don't know the difference. Like legalizing harmful drugs. Like open borders. Like faggot pretend marriage. A libertarian came and visited us in high school many moons ago. He was an idiot. Libertarian equals amoral thinking. They equate moral and immoral.
More accurately, it took the Court and the judicial power it claimed for itself, entirely apart from the Constitution, in Marbury v. Madison to impose constitutional protections to state laws as well as the federal government. It was always inconsistent to recognize that citizens had a list of natural rights inherent to all human beings and then allow states to abuse those rights willynilly. The Court resolved this contradiction over time, weakening states' rights in favor of individual rights.
Such an ignorant statement.
Tooconservative ---- It was always inconsistent to recognize that citizens had a list of natural rights inherent to all human beings and then allow states to abuse those rights willynilly. yes, the Founders were quite willing to grant powers to their own state governments that they explicitly forbade to the federal government in the Constitution and in the Bill of Rights. There is a problem of anachronism here. What we mean by libertarian (or conservative or liberal) was not something you could just use to describe the primary philosophy of the Founders. But I would call them libertarians before I would call them either liberal or conservative in the modern sense of those much-abused terms. Well put... And as usual, by touting out his silly argument that States were supposedly given the power to ignore our inalienable rights, misterwhite once again displays his socialist/statist leanings.. Thanks..
It is not ignorant. It is extremely truthful. Libertarians never embrace virtue. Then they champion immorality as it is virtuous.
Amoral, not immoral. And Libertarianism IS amoral.
Thank you misterwhite. They certainly are amoral.
Maybe true. However, there is a difference between libertines and libertarians.
I begin to think you don't grasp the difference between amoral and immoral. You keep saying 'amoral' when you seem to intend 'immoral'. Oxford Concise Dictionary:
Libertarians take no moral position on abortion, gambling, prostitution, porn, suicide, or age of consent. They simply say the government should not be involved in those areas. To me, that's an amoral position. By definition.
However, this is a fundamentally libertarian issue. They wanted freedom to worship as they chose, not to be forced by law to worship and offer fealty to the state church of the king of England. One can look to the French Revolution as well, with its emphasis on the Rights of Man, a declaration of natural rights and a constitution that seem to copy a fair portion of the sentiments expressed in America's Declaration and its constitution. We have to understand these historical events and figures on their own terms, not try to distort them into paragons of some modern political philosophy to which they never subscribed. They were, as we are, creatures of their own era and the great issues of their time. You're basically right in this analysis. Here's really the problem: when WE in OUR time, talk about "liberty" and get impassioned about it, what WE mean, really, broadly speaking, is SEXUAL liberty and the liberty to do DRUGS. Nobody in 1787, and I really mean NOBODY, thought that homosexual sodomy was a matter of "liberty". THAT was simply depravity, and "liberty" was exalted, while libertinism - specifically debauchery - was criminal. Drugs were not something anybody thought about legislating against in those days. These were not issues "lurking" that the Founders figured would be dealt with later (FIRST let's get a country, then we'll worry about these things) - slavery is THAT issue - but drugs were not on the cards, and nobody had sexual libertinism in mind when he used the word "liberty". WE obsess about sex as a society, and skin color; and some of us (more here than elsewhere, about drugs: two of these issues were not in the empire of liberty in 1787. Slavery WAS on people's minds - John Adams, for example, saw it for what it was: a violation of the whole principle of equality. The further South one went, the less that view was held. SOME of the Founders recognized slavery as a true issue of liberty. Not one of them - not John Adams, not anybody living back then - even considered that homosexual sodomy or polygamy were matters within the empire of Liberty at all.
To me, that's an amoral position. By definition. That isn't universal because thee are, for instance, libertarians that are very pro-life. Perhaps a majority of Libertarian Party members are still pro-life (though the leadership is not). But there are many kinds of libertarians and they emphasize different aspects of libertarian philosophy. For instance, a majority of libertarians embrace the Non-Aggression Principle. These are essentially pacifists who do believe in a right to self-defense, the so-called natural-rights libertarians. But that is just one flavor of libertarian. You also have the Objectivists, people who advocate for Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy. You have anarcho-capitalists. And Left-libertarians. And lots of others. The libertarians are by no means a monolithic group. They're a herd of cats.
Nobody in 1787, and I really mean NOBODY, thought that homosexual sodomy was a matter of "liberty". THAT was simply depravity, and "liberty" was exalted, while libertinism - specifically debauchery - was criminal. Certainly not Thomas Jefferson who authored the very strict laws against sodomy in his home state of Virginia. Yet he would not have imagined trying to codify this as federal law. Neither would any of the other Founders.
In 1778, Congress recommended to the states “suppressing theatrical entertainments, horse-racing, gambling, and such other diversions as are productive of idleness, dissipation, and a general depravity of principles and manners.” In his book, “The People’s Welfare,” William Novak details the extensive regulation of everything from lotteries and usury to Sunday travel, coarse language, and poor relief that was the norm during the Founding Era. The 'era' above ended with the ratification of the first ten amendments in 1791.. After this date, States were "bound" to the "supreme Law of the Land", --- "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." Unfortunately, many States ignored the supremacy clause, and it took the civil war (and the 14th Amendment) to LEGALLY resolve the issue. Our rights are still being infringed by unconstitutional state 'laws', -- that attempt to regulate morals, drugs, guns, -- you name it.....
Sure. But Congress knew they had no power to pass federal legislation in these areas. Certainly, they still had the right to free speech and to advocate public policy back in the States even if they knew they couldn't enact statutes like that at the federal level. The Founders clearly knew that there was a fundamental contradiction in declaring the natural rights of man but still allow slaves to be held in perpetuity while yet counting them as three-fifths of a person for Census purposes so as to grant to the Southern slave states an increase in the number of seats they held in the House. This was an inducement to the South to join the Union. But sooner or later, there was going to be a resolution. Unfortunately, we killed 800,000 soldiers in the Civil War and then allowed 1.4 million or more former slaves to die of neglect and bad hygiene in post-war concentration camps throughout the South.
You say that as if you've ever met any of us. Which, obviously, you have not.
No I certainly mean amoral.
To me, that's an amoral position. By definition. Exactly misterwhite.
Yet you felt comfortable characterizing the Founders as Libertarians.
True. He, and they - all of them - would have known that their state had its laws and enforced them, so there was no need for the federal government to be involved in criminal law matters. None of them would have imagined that sodomy would be IMPOSED on the states by the Federal judiciary. Had they foreseen THAT, we would have a different judicial system.
Oh no, the longer cartoon with the 24 types was really very funny and right on target. You should post the whole thing.
I would say it matters how you define a Libertarian. If it it means you are free to live your moral life without a lot of government influence, then they were Libertarians.
I don't need to meet people to comment on the principles of Libertarianism. And those principles advocate minimal government intervention. A Libertarian, for example, doesn't need to favor abortion or oppose abortion. A Libertarian simply believes the government should not be involved in the decision. That is an amoral (or non-moral, if you prefer) position.
Hah! Like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. "If it means you are free to live your moral life without a lot of government influence, then they were Libertarians." Libertarianism is not about morality. Libertarianism is about keeping the government away from the individual. If the individual leads a moral life or an immoral life, Libertarians don't care. That makes them amoral. Which was the point.
Some people want the freedom to use drugs, but I want the freedom to raise my young and impressionable children in a drug-free environment. Now what?
Granted, --- "An immoral person commits acts that violate society's moral norms." But an amoral person, while understanding these norms, rejects the concept that a 'moral majority' can dictate what is right and wrong for everyone. Many rules that are made by a majority restrict the non violent activities,-- the basic human rights of everyone else. Legislating morality is unconstitutional.. --- Reasonably regulating public activities is a power given by the people to State/local governments..
Prison. Build a wall with razor wire around your place so the kids don't escape. It's for the children! Some people want the freedom to use drugs, but I want the freedom to raise my young and impressionable children in a drug-free environment. Now what? --- misterwhite Why does misterwhite imagine that others using drugs (in private, because of reasonable regulations against public use) will affect his impressionable kids? Why can't be raise his kids to be aware of the dangers of drug usage? -- What, he needs laws to protect his kids from his bad parenting?
Liberty is a gift from God? I'm sticking with the "Hostilitarian" perspective on that: I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN -- Thomas Jefferson
You seem to object more to what you consider a lack of morality by libertarians. Surely you are not complaining foremost that libertarians completely lack any sense or consciousness of morality.
Yet you felt comfortable characterizing the Founders as Libertarians. What do you think your point is? The Founders themselves were far from being a monolithic group. Look how quickly the Federalist and Antifederalist factions squared up to fight it out politically. Many of the Founders were quite concerned to prevent other Founders from taking the country in a particular direction.
Great points. You could elaborate at book length on these topics, the big Philosophy Of Government issues.
Philosophically, yes. Absolutely. Otherwise, it is a mere privilege to be granted by a government arbitrarily and revoked at any time. The Declaration took the same position, that King George III was taxing us without representation and was running roughshod on the colonies, making him a tyrant. The Declaration radically argued (for the era) that a lawful monarch could become a tyrant and therefore abdicate the fealty of his subjects (the colonial rebels, i.e. the Founders). Even if you're an atheist, you should insist that God is the Author of our natural rights, as enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Otherwise, you don't have any rights, just privileges granted, the same way a drivers license is a privilege granted by the state. A right is far more valuable than a privilege.
Hey dumbass yes I'm talking to you dumbass murder and Steeling are immoral and they are illegal I guess they should be legal huh dumbass?
One man's stupid idea is always someone else's great point. Meh.
Many rules that are made by a majority restrict the non violent activities,-- the basic human rights of everyone else. Legislating morality is unconstitutional.. --- Reasonably regulating public activities is a power given by the people to State/local governments.. A K A ---- Hey -------- ------ ----- murder and Steeling are immoral and they are illegal I guess they should be legal --- ------? Murder and 'Steeling' are violent criminal acts that every government has made illegal. The people of the USA gave them that power. Our various levels of government have never been given the power to legislate morality.. Only a dumbass would think that govts could even define what is 'moral'. much less make constitutional laws that criminalize 'sinful' acts..
What an admission you made. Every country legislated morality.
You speak out of both sides of ylur ass. Stealing is immoral and it is illegal everywhere. You lose. Checkmate.
Yo boss, --- I loose. Maybe I'll celebrate your triumph by joining you in a cocktail, seeing it's almost 5pm here.. When did you get started, at lunch?
Now what? Now what? Well, as always, there being no solution to an either/or problem, the disagreement is resolved by power.
And that would be the power of the majority of people acting through their elected representatives.
Yes. And today we might label some as liberals and some as conservatives, yet you you you chose to label all of them "Libertarians With Exceptions". Why not "Conservatives With Exceptions"?
Maybe I'll celebrate your triumph by joining you in a cocktail, seeing it's almost 5pm here.. When did you get started, at lunch? Of course you lose. You made a stupid statement that was easily demonstrated as false. If getting some cocktails makes you feel better then go ahead get drunk if that is your thing.
The conservatives of the era were all royalist Tories. And back then, some of them actually would pack up and move out of the country. Many moved to Toronto. Which we then burned (retaliation for burning D.C.). The Founders were the biggest radicals of their era. Only the later French Revolution (Reign of Terror) was more radical until you get to the many revolutions around 1850 when the power of Europe's monarchs were finally broken, in large part because of America's ongoing "bad example". The Founders were not conservatives. They were fairly radical Englishmen living in English colonies.
Got it. The conservatives were a monolithic group. Probably the liberals, too. Only Libertarians can claim not to be monolithic.
None of them are actually monolithic but some come closer. Republicans in Blue states are nowhere close to conservatives from the Bible Belt. Similarly, the liberal-Left Xlinton faction of the Dems (probably still a voting majority) is much more numerous than the noisier Bernie Bros Bolsheviki. And libertarians are a mixed bag too. So were the Founders. That was kinda the point I was making. I'll repeat my point: the Founders were far and away the most radical political thinkers of the entire Enlightenment era. And their republic endures today, well over two centuries later, something you can't say for other democratic countries (excepting Britain). The others all fell into dictatorship or conquest at one point or another or they are far younger governments than ours is. Our relative isolation helped but our political system, despite its many flaws, is more resilient than the parliamentary democracies.
Rarely. Generally it's settled by money power, except in revolutionary circumstances.
Being conquered by an aggressive and stronger foe doesn't count as a failure of democracy. Denmark and Holland were conquered by Nazi Germany in 1940. Truth is, they were going to be conquered by Nazi Germany regardless of the structure of their governments, and regardless of the structure of the German government. When it's elephant versus peanut, peanut always looses, and that loss isn't attributable to some fault in the government model, but to a fault in the aggressive minds of the invader that caused them to invade. After all, the American federal constitutional model failed and was conquered, in 1865, but the other half of the country wielding the same federal constitutional model. The difference between the twin brothers was a matter of muscle strength, not of system.
I don't agree though I grasp your argument. You overstate it to support your premise.
I'll post the statement again. Feel free to easily demonstrate that it is false, -- seeing that you haven't done so yet; -- your opinion on what is,-- or is not 'immoral' is not proof.. Our various levels of government have never been given the power to legislate morality.. Only a dumbass would think that govts could even define what is 'moral'. much less make constitutional laws that criminalize 'sinful' acts..
Let's parse: "the Founders were far and away the most radical political thinkers of the entire Enlightenment era." I can't agree with that. The Jacobins were far more radical - in a bad way. I would agree with you that the Founders were on the cutting edge of practical, realistic, workable political thinking. The Jacobins were bat-shit crazy - we have to renumber the years and rename the months? Really? And bloodthirsty. The result was that they provoked a reaction that consumed them and their movement, and most people were very grateful for more executive Consulate to bring stability, and ultimately for an Emperor. The Founders were revolutionary, but practical. The Jacobins were more radical. "And their republic endures today, well over two centuries later," And that is where the practicality of the founders kicks in. The Jacobins were a lot more radical, but their Red Terror provoked a reaction and their own demise in the reaction that came a year and a half later (the White Terror, which was a whole lot less terrifying...unless you were a Jacobin). So yes, in a reasonably bounded sense I agree with you: the Founders were as radical as anybody could be in that era and produce a survivable government. There were greater radicals, who followed the logic of their movement down the road to proto-communism, mass-execution of the nobility, erasure of religion, and even renaming the months; but that was too extreme to survive. And now I'll say something uncomfortable to me: among the Founders, were those clear visionaries like John Adams who understood that American slavery was an evil that was incompatible with the ideals of the Revolution. He was right. But the practical reality was that the abolition of slavery - with all of the immediate evaporation of wealth that would come with that - was simply too radical for the Enlightenment generation. Adams was morally right, but it could not really be done in 1776. Had Adams prevailed on the moral point, the country would have been stillborn. The South would have remained British, and the North would have been conquered. Slavery was an evil that had to be addressed in another day. There are similar issues today that are simply a bridge too far for the people of our times, though eventually mankind will get there (example: the treatment of animals). " something you can't say for other democratic countries (excepting Britain)." Well, it depends on what you mean by "democratic countries". If you mean countries that have an elected legislature and some sort of franchise for some people, the oldest would be Iceland, whose Altding dates to the 9th century, a whole lot older than British "democracy". The Dutch Republic also predates this era. Britain wasn't really a democracy until the Reform Act of 1832, which is when the British people, properly speaking, got representation in Parliament. Before that, the franchise for Parliament was about 10% of the British population, and that was essentially the same level of voting as were represented in the French and British Parliaments and peerages of the middle ages. Britain was not a democracy in 1776. It was a country in which the merchant class, in the 1600s, overthrew the absolute monarchy and placed a check over it through a Parliament of what amounted to the new nobility. In truth, democracy proper, as we would call it, precedes the Enlightenment. The original American colonies - Virginia with its house of Burgesses, Massachusetts with its General Orders, Connecticut with its written constitution (first in the world) were more democratic than anything that existed anywhere else in the world at the time. Without royal governance, and with all of the demands of immediate action imposed by the frontier, the practical realities of colonial life created local democracies up and down the American seaboard, with the election of all officials. And though the landholding requirement for voting was a bit of a barrier, unlike in England and the rest of Europe, the ready availability of cheap land in America made the franchise quasi universal for white men anyway, in the 70-80% range. Nothing like that existed in England until after the Reforms that started in 1832. So, in truth, the democratic structure of American government is not a product of the Enlightenment at all, but of frontier conditions in the century preceding it. The American democratic government form already existed, the Founders did not create it. What they did was to replace the monarchy with our tripartite government at a national level, bringing into reality the vision of Montesquieu, and that really was Enlightenment thinking. But the state government that was the base model and center of American power, was completely sui generis to British America, and grew up from local conditions that had no precedent in modern Europe.
Your point is more valid that you even know. The oldest continuous democratic government in the world is the government of the State of Massachusetts. The second oldest is the government of the State of Connecticut. Virginia would be the oldest, dating back to 1619, but it's continuity was interrupted by the military occupation in 1865.
Our system is, because at root it is a kritarchy: the really permanent branch of government is the judiciary.
A new form of tyranny, just without the usual abusive monarch. Fundamentally reactionary. And it didn't last because it wasn't just radical, it was rabid. You can't compare the madness of the Reign of Terror with America's Founding. Anyway, that's my story, I'm sticking to it while wrapping myself in the flag. It is a workable argument. I'd mostly go along. And the late medieval state called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. A few other examples exist. But none were truly durable or remotely comparable to the founding of the American republic. Face it, we're very special. I think you overlook the influence of Calvin's Geneva and the rising availability of quality Greek manuscripts in Europe. Even in England, the wags would say of our rebellion, "Cousin America has eloped with a Presbyterian parson". Not inaccurate though. The Presbyterians were a hotbed of rebels and all of the colonels (except one) in Washington's army were Presbyterian. The primary rebel families all used those Geneva bibles with the seditious footnotes that good King James I hated so much that he commissioned his Authorized Version to displace it. And it did eventually but not in time to help prevent the American Revolution. However, this does point back to your point about the Revolution having many foundations in the issues of the day back in England. We find it easy to think of the Founders as Americans. They weren't. They were rebels against the crown but they were Englishmen through and through and very much men of their era, just as we all are. We're kind of talking around the same points really.
I did know about Massachusetts (darn them). Didn't know that CT was #2 though.
And CT has the distinction of having the oldest WRITTEN constitution (hence the "Constitution State" on the quarter). Massachusetts Bay Colony (and the Massachusetts diaspora (specifically, CT, which was settled by Puritans who left Boston in 1637 because they found it too LIBERAL. LOL!)) also had the first universal public school system in the world. All the way back in the 1620s they were teaching every boy and girl to read, because everybody had to be able to read the Bible. Those "embattled farmers" who stood at Lexington Bridge and "fired the shot heard round the world" were actually, as a group, probably the best-educated people in the world. The men in fancy red uniforms facing them were mostly illiterate. That "rabble" had as much formal education as the English Parliamentarians. The whole population did. This is something that ought to be noted, and that definitely contributed to American victory, though it is rarely commented upon. The British Army marching through the American colonies, and their Prussian allies, were the functional equivalent of a bunch of Kongo illiterates marching around in modern America, trying to control the population. The same was true when British warships were engaging the American ships. The British soldier and seaman was an illiterate ignoramus. Every farm that he marched past in New England had a family in it as well-educated as the nobility of England or France. There was no comparison. The highest concentration of human brainpower on the planet in 1776 was the "rustic" population of New England. When in 1777 the English marched their army under "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne, and they were surrounded at Saratoga by New England and New York Minuteman farmers, it was an army of well-armed illiterates who NEEDED officers to guide them, versus a "rustic" army of fully literate men who were able to communicate with each other and back home, etc., in writing. The Redcoats were actually the Rubes. New England was, in fact, a FAR more educated people than London or Paris. It wasn't even close. One of the reasons that the American Revolution was able to stay on the rails of reason, while the French - and later the Russian - revolutions went berserk and animal - is because the Americans were an advanced, literate population, at least North of the Mason-Dixon line. The French peasants and Russian proles were neither, and were carried along much more easily by mob passions. The point: the English were more poorly educated and intellectually inferior to their American adversaries. They were incapable of independent action, and limited by the abilities of their officers. And it showed both in the development of American government FROM THE BEGINNING (in the 1620s) all the way forward. America, at least New England, was the far more educated place in 1776 than England. The English in England were very much like the South: they had an educated and elite gentry, but the average Englishman was as dumb as dirt.
Writing, piffle. It seems obvious you're cleverly trying to sidestep the (initially) unwritten Iroquois constitution which predated our own by a few centuries. I thought it odd you omitted it. NYSlimes: IROQUOIS CONSTITUTION: A FORERUNNER TO COLONISTS' DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES, 6/28/87 That same impluse operated as America spread west and the American Sunday School Union similarly promoted universal literacy across the plains and mountains. Unsung heroes, really. But they had the example of Massachusetts to consider. There was a time when MA really was the universally recognized as a thought leader to the entire country, the indispensable state. Now I suppose people would argue that it is NYC or LA. But no one would mention Boston unless they're one of those asshole Patriots fans (which I am). While their literacy was remarkable for a colony, there were areas of high literacy in Europe and in Britain. I don't think your argument holds up. It didn't take that much education to know that it was easier and safer to hide behind trees and play sniper to terrorize the Redcoats and reduce their numbers. The Brit officers complained bitterly about those dishonorable rebels. Those darned colonists refused to follow the European code of honor for soldiers where the two armies were expected to dutifully line up in the open wearing colorful livery and allow the enemy to take clean shots at them with flintlocks and cannon shot. Anything else was cowardice. That little tradition cost the Brits very dearly. I don't think they ever recovered their morale. You'll recall how much our own military complains about some wily natives resisting our "visits" to their countries and using guerilla tactics against us, resulting in our rather dismal counter-insurgency campaigns. During the Revolution, we were the wily natives with no regard for the honorable traditions of European war. Of course, we would have lost immediately if we had made war according to the customs of the Old World. You are definitely hitting the nail on the head. Hence the remarks of our Founders that our nation can only exist for long with an informed and educated electorate.
The Americans were not the first ones to come up with the idea of a voting council of leaders. Scandinavia mostly had that. So did the Indians. In fact, pretty much everywhere that there are primitive people it starts that way. But once populations get big, through land ownership and greater and lesser wealth, those systems become traditional, while real power reposes with rich houses - who become the nobility. OR the tribe is in an "exciting" location and faces violence from other tribes. Then, the trauma of war creates a warrior caste, and if they are victorious, THEY become the nobility. Sparta had its council, of course, but in the end it was dominated by military captains. Rome marched to war under the banner of SPQR - Senatus Populusque Romani - The Senate and People of Rome - who, by the end, where the two least significant parts of the whole imperial system.
The end of republics is typically that the voice of the people becomes the voice of The Person. In other words, things drift toward demanding to be ruled by a tyrant. We're not immune. The presidency is already far too powerful.
We're not immune. The presidency is already far too powerful. I think Trump is finding out that his power is greatly exaggerated. I'd say that our checks and balances are working in that aspect. Overall however, government power has been increased to the point that even a benign dictatorial type presidency may not be able to save the Republic.
And if Ron Paultard managed to get as lucky as it takes to win the Power Ball lottery, and win the position of POTUS, with a 6% backing, HE'D GET EVEN LESS DONE THAN TRUMP. I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
I support Trump. You're such a fanatical crazy, he wouldn't want your support.
That wasn't my point... dumb dumb. I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
Most of the time, youre incapable of making a valid point, and don't even know it...
If the willful KOOKIFONIAN says so. I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
We're not immune. The presidency is already far too powerful. But the true driving force behind it is that people find it very, very difficult to vote, of their own volition, to do what is necessary for the common good. Everybody has self interest, of course, and government must reasonably accomodate individual desires and self-interests. Dictatorships that don't are eventually overthrown. But once you have a republic, more people are happy, but a set of people are still in misery, and when self- interest of the electoral majority runs its course, the result is that the interest of the more to have backs to crack to make their lives better than the overall resources warrant, this leaves those at the bottom in as great, and often greater, misery than ever. Then, there is a larger and larger constituency for somebody to overturn the oligarchy. And when it comes, it comes from the organized military and paramilitary ranks, who are organized, armed, and much closer to the bottom than to the top. Dictators, Emperors and Presidents-for-Life do a better job, for awhile anyway, at addressing the needs of the bottom than democracies do. Why? First, because they're closer to the bottom - army ranks are not filled with middle and upper class people. Second, because they understand that restless and suffering masses are relatively cheap to appease, and offer a wide base of supporters who are angry and resentful of those above them, and thus more likely to support the Emperor. When the students were crushed iin Tiananmen Square, the army initially balked. And so fresh units were called in, from the provinces, military composed of farmer kids who had had hard lives their whole lives and who never had a hope in hell of being as privileged as these protesting students. THEY were perfectly willing to drive their tanks right over the students and gun them down. Of course, once any sort of peace is restored, unless you maintain an absolute reign of terror (which the Kims have managed to do in Korea but nobody else has managed for very long), things settle down to normal economic activity, and those same interests that accumulate money want a say, and gradually, they get it. Eventually they get power. Then they neglect those below them again and the cycle resets. The only way to have stable, permanent anything would be for people to act like Jesus called for people to act. But who really wants to do THAT?
You sound kinda pessimistic. But then, so were the Founders so you're in good company.
TooConservative: Nicely done.
But they never applied that radical thinking to their own states. They created the U.S. Constitution -- a radical document that defined and limited the newly formed federal government only. It would have been very easy to extend the federal Bill of Rights to the states when it was written. The Founders chose not to.
A tip of the hat to Bill Cosby: "Suppose way back in history if you had a referee before every war, and the guy called the toss. Let’s go to the Revolutionary War." "Capt. Hartman of the British, this is Capt. Soble of the settlers. Capt. Soble of the settlers, this is Capt. Hartman of the British. "Call the toss, there, British. British call heads. It's tails. You lose the toss, British; the settlers win. What we do, settlers? All right. The settlers say that during the war, they will wear any color clothes that they want to, shoot from behind the rocks and trees and everywhere; says your team must wear red and march in a straight line."
First, its should be noted that America has always been unique among Republics in all of history. THE "voice" of the American Republic was as unified a nation was ever going to be given its commonality of faith, culture, and Western-European heritage. The genesis and facilitator of THE End of the American Republic has always been the erosion of Judeo-Christian values, i.e., ethics and morality based on Biblical principles and honor. The Secular Humanism rebellion and its hijacking of America via public school and academic indoctrination has gradually unloosened this mooring. The ouster of prayer and God in Public School was THE breaking point. By introducing wide-spread immigration from nations that did not share the Judeo-Christian moral and ethics AND culture also attributed heavily to our demise and full tyranny in the near future. America America was broken by the late 1960s, and now splintered irrevocably. Conveniently now, ONLY a Strong Man (or gubmint) can truly keep this nation of relative mongrels and mutts together. This will sound cliche to Unbelievers, but this Republic -- even America -- was bound to inevitably drift toward chaos, then Tyranny by abandoning God and Bible-based morals and ethics. Most laws are about the HONOR SYSTEM in any case -- meaningless if as according to Secular Himanism, "everything is relative."
Our relative isolation helped but our political system, despite its many flaws, is more resilient than the parliamentary democracies. It's on its Death Bed, Jim. But yes, the Founders were radical. So radical especially in the sense that they eschewed any sniff of creating an American royalty class from which to rule generations like 99% of nations on the planet. Best intentions and execution of a Republic ever. Best laws and protections ever (better late than never on the actual implementation.) Too bad Secular Humanism ruined it in under 200 years.
If that were so, the Republic would have burnt itself out within decade. America was a Judeo-Christian based Republic that was libertarian around the edges. Tough, perilous balancing act, but we'd pulled it off. For about 200 years. We now see just how fragile it was. The Republic is not even a "Republic" any more, the facade of a "representative constitutional republic" exposed as a charade. The "Republic" part of USA is currently trashed and on Life-Support.
They were still Englishmen with all the baggage of the era. At the risk of stating the obvious, they were the richest and most desired colony in the world with unimaginable wealth on the continent. And they instituted a government that entirely lacked a monarch. That alone made them extreme radicals. It is worth mentioning that Cromwell did execute his king, Charles I, (rightfully IMO) and then made himself the Lord Protector (dictator for life) of England and Britain. So that did provide an example well-known to the Founders of rule by non-monarchs but the Founders couldn't have desired to overthrow a tyrant just to replace him with a different tyrant. They wanted an entirely new order, a Novus ordo secularum, a "new order of the ages". And our fiat currency still contains that motto from the Great Seal of the United States. The Founders were very much men of the Enlightenment and very much Englishmen.
We've had great fun from the beginning, ridiculing the Redcoats for behaving according the Euro codes of honor. We consider it much less humorous when guerillas and terrorists refuse to recognize and behave according to the civilized rules of war to which we subscribe. Like when they use car bombs and IEDs against our troops when they are in foreign countries. Funny when we do it, not so much when others do it to our soldiers. But there is the advantage of insurgencies.
Forbidding titles was wise. Placing a high bar to prove treason was another notable contrast with the European monarchies. There were many features of the early Republic that showed how aware they were that the monarchies of Europe, even in countries like England with a parliament, were quite corrupt and easily brushed aside.
It ain't over until we say it's over. And it ain't over. We were just saved from Hitlery's reign of terror by the electoral college that the Founders implemented. Nope, it ain't over by any means.
Upupupupupupup.... "Many"?? No. Some noted ones? Yes. They DID however subscribe to Biblical principles. IOW, Jesus presented as only a moral teacher and philosopher. Yes. To the few Founders (The usual suspects: Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, etal.) who were purely Deists.
Simply the evolution of war. WWII did not use the trench warfare tactics of WWI. Guerilla warfare is not war. Where are the uniforms, for example? Any combatant out of uniform receives no protection from the Geneva Convention.
Neither illegal, immoral, or unethical. UNLESS ABUSED, like many things. Washington wasn't his customers' babysitter.
There were many features of the early Republic that showed how aware they were that the monarchies of Europe, even in countries like England with a parliament, were quite corrupt and easily brushed aside. Nicely explained.
We were just saved from Hitlery's reign of terror by the electoral college that the Founders implemented. Ok. Technically we have a temporary respite. Trump is the blood transfusion phase of the Republic, that's all. The die is cast, Jim. We're on life support until a Democrat wins the WH. And then all hell breaks loose and we get a Hitlery in everything but name.
What part of "warfare" did you miss?
You're dumb. The Geneva convention doesn't protect anyone. In war you kill the enemy any way you want to.
Achmed laughs at your fancy-ass Geneva Convention. So does his cousin, Abdul. And their 15 sons, all named Mohammad.
But they never applied that radical thinking to their own states. --- They created the U.S. Constitution -- a radical document that defined and limited the newly formed federal government only. It would have been very easy to extend the federal Bill of Rights to the states when it was written. The Founders chose not to. ---- misterwhite It mystifying why misterwhite insists that the Constitution only applied to the feds, -- when the supremacy clause clearly says the opposite. The only reason that makes any bit of logical sense, -- is that white/paulsen WANTS States to have the power to legislate morality, -- to be able to infringe upon our basic rights to guns, booze, etc... Not that such a power is truly logical, -- it's a socialistic dream.. Comments?
You're a dumb ass. Do you want murder to be legal?
The only reason that makes any bit of logical sense, -- is that white/paulsen WANTS States to have the power to legislate morality, -- to be able to infringe upon our basic rights to guns, booze, etc... Not that such a power is truly logical, -- it's a socialistic dream.. Comments? tpaine posted on 2018-01-27 12:04:10 ET Reply Trace Private Reply Edit #97. To: tpaine (#96) You're a dumb ass. Do you want murder to be legal? Can anyone here explain why A K A Stone could conceivably imagine that his remark above has any relationship to my post preceding?
Or that the courts should not apply the Bill of Rights to foreigners. We hear that a good bit. I personally don't like it but either we "are endowed by their [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights" or we aren't. And that applies to anyone on U.S. soil.
Perhaps because of your constant claim that "the power to legislate morality" isn't so (at least in the context of American Law.) AND because murder is a matter of morality made illegal through Constiutional Law, the Bill of Rights, and/or legislation. Otherwise, yes, there ARE many who would indeed murder as a matter of "TCOB."
He's trying to revisit the points he was making yesterday. The thread has grown a lot and wandered a bit since then.
Can anyone here explain why A K A Stone could conceivably imagine that his remark above has any relationship to my post preceding? Answer the question I posed, Then you will receive your answer.
Yes this is what prompted my response.
Murder is wrong regardless of any government decree or legislation. Even someone who is an atheist knows that it's wrong. Yet the government allows murder in certain situations - such as abortion. That's because libtards have legally defined (via court case law) that life isn't life until It reaches a certain age or development... JUST LIKE YOU DO WITH CALLING ADDICTION A DISEASE. You libtards get your way by calling unborn babies, non life, illegals undocumented and injecting heroin in your arm a disease. Are you getting it yet, closet libtard? Yellow or fake news and propaganda is why WE ARE MOVING LEFT. You are part of the problem. I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
Or allow 0bama to send his robot drones to bomb civilian weddings if they thought there was a chance a terror suspect might be there. And then circle back around to bomb it again when locals came to help the victims. For that matter, in wars like Iraq where we have invaded a country for no good reason, we kill anyone who opposes us. Yet we have not declared a war and can provide no casus belli that we would recognize if some other country did the same thing to us. And the Founders did warn us against such wars, as well as presidents like Ike who warned of the military-industrial complex. And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind? Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... [America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice. That darned John Q. Adams sounds kind of like a ... libertarian. Needless to say, quoting Adams infuriates the neocon element.
Answer the question I posed, Then you will receive your answer. No, murder should not be legal, because everyone has a right to life. Our right to life is not a question of morality or religious beliefs.. Can anyone here explain why A K A Stone could conceivably imagine that his remark above has any relationship to my post preceding? (By the way, an extended answer is at; --- https://libertysflame.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=54377 --- )
Yes this is what prompted my response. --- A K A Stone And your comment? -- Do you agree with misterwhite?
Our right to life is not a question of morality or religious beliefs.. Can anyone here explain why A K A Stone could conceivably imagine that his remark above has any relationship to my post preceding? Yes you are correct. It would be immoral. So obviously should be and is illegal.
Yes for the tenth time I want the state to have the power to make murder illegal because it is immoral. Why don't you get it? Sure the government shouldn't be able to tell you to go to church or anything like that. But they do legislate morality and they should.
Our right to life (thus laws against murder) are not a question of morality or religious beliefs..
--- they do legislate morality and they should. --- A K A Stone You WANT States to have the power to legislate morality, -- to be able to infringe upon our basic rights. Sad comment, -- thanks for your admission.
Someone who has their head up their asshole (that would be you) their opinion is just a fart and they don't matter.
Yes I want them to be able to make murder illegal. But people with their heads up their asshole have a different view. They want every immoral act to be unconstitutional. So they distort and lie to try to make imaginary points.
It would be constitutional if an amendment was passed that required everyone to go to church. I don't support that but it would clearly be constitutional. Because there are zero limits on what kind of amendment can be adopted.
Your opinion that you WANT States to have the power to legislate morality, --- matters.. Luckily not many agree with misterwhite or you...
You have no say they will do what they do. If your cult ran things murder and rape would be legal. Because in your imaginary constitution there is an imaginary about laws being moral would be illegal.
I don't support that but it would clearly be constitutional. Because there are zero limits on what kind of amendment can be adopted. A K A Stone That one is worth bookmarking. Thanks.
--- there are zero limits on what kind of amendment can be adopted. A K A Stone Then in your opinion an amendment to repeal the 2nd would be constitutional? Or do you claim that as a fact?
A K A Stone Then in your opinion an amendment to repeal the 2nd would be constitutional? Or do you claim that as a fact?
Or do you claim that as a fact? Unfortunately it would pass constitutional muster. Is your position that repealing prohibition was unconstitutional? Anything can be changed via the amendment process. Maybe I'm mistaken. Can you quote from the constitution where repealing amendments is not allowed?
Or do you claim that as a fact? It is a fact. Every word of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and every decision issued by the Supremes can be amended by 37 states agreeing to do so. If you want to repeal the Second, bring back slavery, establish a communist regime or a Nazi government, outlaw white people, whatever, get your 37 states. And you don't need Congress either. If you're sure you have the 37 states, you can convene a constitutional convention just like the one that wrote and ratified our constitution originally.
You're welcome. Can you explain what types of amendments to the constitution are not allowed and source it? The constitution is not a perfect document. Unlike the holy Bible.
If you want to repeal the Second, bring back slavery, establish a communist regime or a Nazi government, outlaw white people, whatever, get your 37 states. And you don't need Congress either. If you're sure you have the 37 states, you can convene a constitutional convention just like the one that wrote and ratified our constitution originally. Tooconservative Now you are going to be accused of hating the second amendment. Neither you or I support that but recognize the fact that by amendment they can do whatever they damn well please and it would be constitutional. Now if they had some kind of clause in their that all amendments and laws had to be MORAL then we could have a fighting chance as if it was immoral to disarm the citizenry.
You're debating with a nitwit. A self proclaimed constitutional scholar... and the most constitutionally protected person he knows. I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
I thought he relied on the text of the document. I was mistaken. He shows faux support for the constitution.
Only by idiots. The Constitution provides for amendment for any and all purposes. No section of it is declared off-limits to being amended. 37 states. All you need.
It's fun to recall how we got the last amendment to the Constitution. It had been entirely forgotten by everyone, being two hundred years old. A student wrote a paper about it, got a bad grade, made it his job to get the states to ratify it, and finally succeeded. It was submitted by Congress to the states for ratification on September 25, 1789, along with eleven other proposed amendments. While ten of these twelve proposals were ratified in 1791 to become the Bill of Rights, what would become the Twenty-seventh Amendment and the proposed Congressional Apportionment Amendment did not get ratified by enough states for them to also come into force with the first ten amendments. The proposed congressional pay amendment was largely forgotten until 1982 when Gregory Watson researched it as a student at the University of Texas at Austin and began a new campaign for its ratification. Watson's role has been widely popularized, since his original paper proposing the idea received a poor grade (although a current Professor at Texas, Zachary Elkins, engineered a grade change in 2017 in light of Watson's accomplishments). The amendment eventually became part of the United States Constitution on May 5, 1992, completing a record-setting ratification period of 202 years, 7 months, and 10 days. Apparently, he took that bad grade personally. His "campaign" to get it ratified mostly consisted of writing letters to state legislators around the country. But where else in the world could an unconnected nobody get a constitutional amendment ratified? Nowhere. It's a great little story. The Twenty-seventh Amendment to the Constitution
Most immigration is from Latin America, and they do share Judaea-Christian ethic.
If you want to repeal the Second, bring back slavery, establish a communist regime or a Nazi government, outlaw white people, whatever, get your 37 states. And you don't need Congress either. If you're sure you have the 37 states, you can convene a constitutional convention just like the one that wrote and ratified our constitution originally. If you can get a bunch of crazies to repeal the Second, bring back slavery, establish a communist regime or a Nazi government, outlaw white people, whatever, in 37 states, --- sure, they could claim they were amending our Constitution, --- but in reality they would be destroying the constitutional principles our republic is built on. Our Republic would cease to exist upon a 'ratification' of this type... The inalienable rights protected by our Constitution cannot be 'amended away...
Only when someone argues that the principles of the Constitution can be ignored, do I plead for and rely upon common sense. The inalienable rights protected by our Constitution cannot be 'amended away'...
It seems that way but I have been surprised over the years that the Left never tried to repeal the Second Amendment. You know how badly they want to.
I'd bet they realize that even a serious attempt to do so would start a guerilla style war, at least...
Or they're just waiting for a chance to hold a majority on the Court to revisit the Second Amendment and suddenly discover that it only applied to colonial militias after all. You know their line of argument on this; we've heard it often enough. After all, there was no rational or legal basis for Roe v. Wade or for sodomy marriage. That didn't stop the Court from imposing them as constitutional law. Say, this thread has been quite the success. I'm sure you're enjoying the topics raised.
They don't do it for the same reason that the Right doesn't amend the Constitution to outlaw abortion: they don't have the votes, and they know it.
After all, there was no rational or legal basis for Roe v. Wade or for sodomy marriage. That didn't stop the Court from imposing them as constitutional law. Say, this thread has been quite the success. I'm sure you're enjoying the topics raised. Right, but a Republican-controlled court gave us Roe, Casey, Kelo and sodomy marriage.
-- this thread has been quite the success. I'm sure you're enjoying the topics raised. You got it; -- considering that the original purpose was to knock libertarianism, gotta love how it's turned out.. Btw, -- maybe someone should start a thread about the constitutionality of laws requiring vasectomy or prohibiting church marriages.
Why do you lie about faggot pretending to be married? I know because you are a Catholic and Catholics are largely leftists. The Republican appointees are the only ones who voted against it you fucking dumb ass Catholic false god worshipper. Every one of your fellow thief democrats voted for it. So get your head out of Hillary's ass. Everyone knows it was the heretic catholics who gave us faggot marriage. Just like all thos Catholic fag articles you ignored to cover for your faggot pedophile fake church cult.
Everyone knows that it was the Republicans who gave us abortion on demand. Everyone knows that it was the Republicans who gave us eminent domain for private actors. Everyone knows it was the Republicans who gave us sodomy marriage. Everyone knows this because the Republicans have controlled the Supreme Court continuously - with a few months break of a tie (in which nothing happened) - since 1969. You lie and twist and rage and scream to try to distract attention from the fact that YOU support all of this by continuing to support the Republican party. You are part of the problem. Instead, you attack God, the people of God, everything and everybody, like a petulant child having a tantrum. Look in the mirror: you are the problem. You are loyal to evil, and it is impossible to have any sort of reasonable conversation with you, because you're an abusive jerk. Therefore, the world YOU MADE by being a Republican and supporting them, galls you, but you're incapable of opening your eyes, and you are incapable of getting out of the box you've put yourself in, and you bite every hand offered to you in friendship or alliance, because we will not bend the knee in respect to your party, the Republican Party. It is evil, and you are evil for being part of it, and stupid for being unable to see what everybody knows. That's the truth.
That is what you do when you talk about the Bible. You also do it with faggot prete d marriage when you lie and say the republicans gave it to us when they were the only ones who opposed. No protestants voted for gay marriage. How many fat loving Catholics did. I guess according to moron or liar Vic the way to change it would to appoint more democrats huh? No dumb ass liar you would have to appoint more Republicans. I'm ot saying all Republicans are good because they are not, many suck more then you do.
The pope isnt god. In fact if im allowed ill request that the heat from his lying body heats my room.
Im just being accurate. I know about half or ore of the elected Republicans suck. But you would pick a murdering thief for President over a born again Christian. Yes I'm saying what you said again. You prefer murderering thieves like axillary over christians like Ted Cruz. Oh did I mention you are a thief at heart also. Expecting people who work to give to idle hands. In total disrespect and disobedience to gods word. Did I also mention that I love you and wish the best for you, but sometimes you can be so stupid for someone as gifted as you are. I react this way to you out of frustration that you ignore truth, that you dont6 back pledge the evil in the Catholic church. No everything they do is not evil they do do some good also. But a few good works doesn't cut the muster.
Looked over my post to you, Vic. I believe I know what your point is, but don't want to speculate. However in this case I must... Are you justifying the Illegal Invaders from Central America and Mexico based on their supposed shared/common Judeo-Christian ethic with that of our Founders?
I believe I know what your point is, but don't want to speculate. However in this case I must... Are you justifying the Illegal Invaders from Central America and Mexico based on their supposed shared/common Judeo-Christian ethic with that of our Founders? No, I'm not justifying illegal immigration at all. I am saying that it could be worse. We could be like Europe, overrun with illegal, and legal, immigration from the very part of the world and that tried to storm Europe by force several times and failed. The Muslim world does NOT share the common Judaeo-Christian ethic as the European world it's invading. We face a much more benign situation. Latinos are as Judaeo-Christian as Anglos. There's a difference in language, to be sure, and some cultural differences, and of course the biggest issue is the matter of how much poverty we want to import. But at least - thank God - the Mexicans coming across the Border have the same basic ancient moral values, rooted in the same ancient religion. The differences are real, but they're on the level of culture, not on the level of fundamental beliefs about God and right and wrong. Everything that's morally wrong in America, also wrong in every country between America and Tierra del Fuego. We're facing a difficult cultural and economic situation, but not the erasing our religious culture, at least not from Latino immigration. We ARE facing the erasing of our religious culture, but that is coming from within, from Americans themselves, native citizens, abandoning the Faith. The Mexican immigrants, illegals included, are as a whole more likely to be practicing Christians than the general native born population. THAT really is a problem, but we have to lay that problem at the feet of Western philosophy, not immigration. The same is true in Europe. The rise of Islam is notable there, but that is because of immigration, not conversion. Western European have largely abandoned Christianity, and this is once again due to Western philosophy. They haven't replaced it with Islam, they've replaced it with practical atheism, or "agnostic apathism" (my word): "I don't know, and I don't care". If the birth rate were still good, that wouldn't matter, but European birth rates are in the sewer, far below replacement. Which means that the population is hollowing out - and being replaced by Muslim immigrants from North Africa in particular. Also from Turkey and the Levant. That DOES mean that Judaeo-Christian beliefs and moral systems ARE imperiled by the immigration - the natives have lost theirs, and the rising numbers of Muslims are pushing forward theirs instead. So, that was what my comment was aimed at: Latino immigration isn't unhinging our Judaeo-Christian culture - if anything, it's prolonging its life. The whiter and more European the population, the more it has followed Europe into atheism, or at best "apathism".
I don't buy this "Christian love" business. Words mean things, and that's not love.
But it does cut the cheese! ‹/rimshot› BTW, I always heard it was "cut the mustard". Which makes no more sense than "cut the muster". So we can turn to online resources and google up the correct answer. We'll try Urban Dictionary. The chief mustard maker or Mustardeer would make their mustard in large oaken barrels, allowing each barrel to mature for a number of months. This maturing of the mustard produced a thick, leathery crust at the top of the barrel which would need to be removed before the contents could be tested. The consistency of the crust would be such that a specialised cutting implement was required to remove it. Initially a modified scythe was used but this often lead to the crust being 'dragged' at certain points and falling into the rest of the mustard causing it to lose some of its distinctive flavour. Over many years a specialised blade was developed that had an extremely thin leading edge which widened towards the centre and then tapered at the trailing edge although not to a sharp point. This allowed the blade to skim the majority of the topcrust off, leaving a very thin slice which would be left on to protect the mustard. Due to the coarse, leathery nature of the topcrust the blade, over time, would develop dull spots along it's length and thus required constant monitoring. When it was time to remove the topcrust the senior Mustardeer would instruct his apprentice to pass him the blade and would attempt to slice thorough the top leathery layer. The Mustardeer would know immediately if the blade was not sufficiently keen enough to complete the task and he would pass the blade back to the apprentice and say to him "I'm sorry, but That Doesn't Cut the Mustard" The phrase has since passed into common usage describing anything that does not meet a certain standard. Okay, that sounds completely ridiculous. Let's try again with PhraseFinder. To succeed; to come up to expectations. Why cutting mustard was chosen as an example of high quality is unclear. As always in such circumstances, there are no shortage of guesses. Some of these allude to the literal difficulty of cutting mustard in its various forms; for example: - Mustard seed, which is hard to cut with a knife on account of its being small and shiny. There is no evidence to support these derivations and they give the impression of having been retro-fitted in an attempt at plausibility. Another supposed explanation is that the phrase is simply a mistaken version of the military expression 'cut the muster'. This appears believable at first sight. A little research shows it not to be so. Muster is the calling together of soldiers, sailors, prisoners, to parade for inspection or exercise. To cut muster would be a breach of discipline; hardly a phrase that would have been adopted with the meaning of success or excellence. This line of thought appears to have been influenced by confusion with the term 'pass muster', which would have the correct meaning, but which could hardly be argued to be the origin of 'cut the mustard'. The OED, which is the most complete record of the English language, along with all of the other reference works I've checked, don't record 'cut the muster' at all. The fact that documented examples of 'cut the mustard' are known from many years before any for 'cut the muster' would appear to rule out the latter as the origin. There has been an association between the heat and piquancy of mustard and the zest and energy of people's behaviour. This dates back to at least 1672, when the term 'as keen as mustard' is first recorded. 'Up to mustard' or just 'mustard' means up to standard in the same way as 'up to snuff'. 'Cutting' has also long been used to mean 'exhibiting', as in the phrase 'cutting a fine figure'. Unless some actual evidence is found for the other proposed explanations, the derivation of 'cutting the mustard' as an alternative way of saying 'exhibiting one's high standards' is by far the most likely. Whatever the coinage, the phrase itself emerged in the USA towards the end of the 19th century. The earliest example in print that I've found is from the Kansas newspaper The Ottawa Herald, August, 1889: He tried to run the post office business under Cleveland's administration, but "couldn't cut the mustard." The use of quotation marks and the lack of any explanation of the term in that citation imply that 'cut the mustard' was already known to Kansas readers and earlier printed examples may yet turn up. So now I'm not sure if AKA thinks the Catholics are skipping out on lining up for muster so they can sneak off to supervise their apprentices sharpening blades for cutting rank mustard scum out of a barrel. So, no one knows what it means but we've all heard it. And about all we do know is that it was in a newspaper back in 1889 in Kansas. There is a ready explanation.
But it does cut the cheese! ‹/rimshot› But seriously folks...TC's next gig will be at the Ramada Inn on Rt 130 over the weekend... I will never look at my Gulden's the same ever again after this.
We could be like Europe, overrun with illegal, and legal, immigration from the very part of the world and that tried to storm Europe by force several times and failed. The Muslim world does NOT share the common Judaeo-Christian ethic as the European world it's invading. We face a much more benign situation. Relatively speaking, yes, the Illegal La Raza Invasion is better than a Death Cultist Muzzie Invasion. But then all we're doing is choosing just which poison kills us, and how quickly. Latinos are as Judaeo-Christian as Anglos. There's a difference in language, to be sure, and some cultural differences, and of course the biggest issue is the matter of how much poverty we want to import. But at least - thank God - the Mexicans coming across the Border have the same basic ancient moral values, rooted in the same ancient religion. Disagree totally. These people are NOT "Anglos" in racial composition, DNA, or especially history, but mostly descendants of Mayan, Inca, or other native ancient South American tribes, tinged with European blood. (Q: IF they consider themselves "Anglo," why then do they refer to themselves as "brown"?) Regarding their collective "morality" and religious "roots"; Their "religion" may technically be the Catholic sect of "Christianity," but in practice ARE THEY? Their first acts upon arriving over the US border is illegal trespassing into OUR "house" as they violate our sovereignty. Then soon followed by squatting, theft, lies, and then thereafter, covetousness and entitlement. Taking and demanding what is NOT theirs to take. They are fundamentally SOCIALIST. These are NOT "moral" or "Christian" attributes. No, most illegal Mexicans and South Americans share little with us, whether language, culture, education, or anything else. Why must the American taxpayer and those who've paid the price of freedom in sacrifice, sweat and blood FURTHER underwrite and subsidize the lifestyle for Illegals' families and the ridiculous "chain migration" when THEY themselves are struggling and/or deprived of government benefits? Immigrants who go through the proper immigration channels and process? Now THEY share a sameness in values or morals with Americans. Everything that's morally wrong in America, also wrong in every country between America and Tierra del Fuego. We're facing a difficult cultural and economic situation, but not the erasing our religious culture, at least not from Latino immigration. That's quite a broad-sweeping indictment of the US, which frankly is so provincial that your assertion may well apply to the largely secular coastal populations of the US, but not the largely Protestant-based "Flyover Country" and the American South. We ARE facing the erasing of our religious culture, but that is coming from within, from Americans themselves, native citizens, abandoning the Faith. On this we agree. The Mexican immigrants, illegals included, are as a whole more likely to be practicing Christians than the general native born population. THAT really is a problem, but we have to lay that problem at the feet of Western philosophy, not immigration. Yes, Western secular-humanist philosophy is a serious problem that is poisoning our culture. This philosophy has even affected the same "moral Christian" Mexicans/South Americans who at one time did not violate our border simply because they knew it was wrong. Because one attends church, does it necessarily mean they are "practicing Christianity"? Many Mexicans -- like Americans -- sadly attend church purely out of habit or tradition. Conversely, many who do not attend church ARE Christian or moral. Western European have largely abandoned Christianity, and this is once again due to Western philosophy. They haven't replaced it with Islam, they've replaced it with practical atheism, or "agnostic apathism" (my word): "I don't know, and I don't care". Spot on. "Agnostic Apathism" -- excellent and apropos term for most Euros. If the birth rate were still good, that wouldn't matter, but European birth rates are in the sewer, far below replacement. Which means that the population is hollowing out - and being replaced by Muslim immigrants from North Africa in particular. Also from Turkey and the Levant. That DOES mean that Judaeo-Christian beliefs and moral systems ARE imperiled by the immigration - the natives have lost theirs, and the rising numbers of Muslims are pushing forward theirs instead. I don't quite understand the importance of necessarily increasing populations. Especially during an age of technology and robotics that replace manual labor. To what end does it improve the standard of living or maintain the peace if a nation is balkanized by those who are tribal and won't assimilate to their adopted country? Unchecked immigration -- especially from nations who have little in common with their host (like hordes of Muslims in Europe or Mexican/SAs in the US) become an inevitable Time-Bomb. Yes, the bottom line is both the US and Europe ARE "imperiled." Irrevocably. Inevitably. So, that was what my comment was aimed at: Latino immigration isn't unhinging our Judaeo-Christian culture - if anything, it's prolonging its life. The whiter and more European the population, the more it has followed Europe into atheism, or at best "apathism". I respect your opinion. However I think you're off base (Surprise surprise!) Due to a Christianity that still wields influence within society and culture (more at the provincial and enclave level obviously), America can stave off this oncoming runaway "Apathism" freight train that threatens to derail OUR version of the best of Western Civ -- at least for a bit longer than Europe. MY Bottom Line: Yes, the most "white" of Europe also seems to be the more "Agnosticly Apathist," rejecting their Christian roots, instead worshiping Nothingness or Gaia, creating a spiritual vacuum which their newly acquired Muzzie hordes will fill. Meanwhile, "Latino immigration," aka ILLEGALS from the Mexican border -- are a Globalists' tool, their mechanism that helps them as well as America's Socialists to KILL American sovereignty, security, identity as "Americans", our traditions and heritage -- and with it, Constitutional Law and future elections. The Illegal hordes have been a fatal parasite of countless millions that Democrats have already illegally used as an electoral Poison Pill. Illegals' alleged "Christianity" is so diluted and flabby that it is a non-factor in helping bolster ANY energy and strength into the fabric of America. It is an illusion. Instead, they have helped DIVIDE America, lowered our standard of living FOR MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS, and in the process helped Democrats promote Communism/Socialism.
Jonathan has worked in the hospitality industry and as assistant editor for the Humboldt Economic Index. His work has also been published on Patheos and Christianity Today.
#2. To: Tooconservative (#1)
The Founders were most certainly libertarians.
#3. To: Tooconservative (#1)
The Founders were most certainly libertarians.
#4. To: A K A Stone (#2)
Libertarian means amoral.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.
#5. To: misterwhite, A K A Stone, Vicomte13 (#3)
After all, this document merely defined and limited the newly-formed federal government. What about the states the Founders were from?
Jacobitism was a political movement in Great Britain and Ireland that aimed to restore the Roman Catholic Stuart King James II of England and Ireland (as James VII in Scotland) and his heirs to the thrones of England, Scotland, France and Ireland. The movement took its name from Jacobus, the Renaissance Latin form of Iacomus, which in turn comes from the original Latin form of James, "Iacobus." Adherents rebelled against the British government on several occasions between 1688 and 1746.
#6. To: Tooconservative (#5)
States' rights, "laboratories of democracy", etc.
#7. To: A K A Stone (#0)
#8. To: no gnu taxes (#7)
#9. To: misterwhite (#6)
I don't buy that. It took U.S. Supreme Court rulings to force the states to become less oppressive.
#10. To: A K A Stone (#2)
Libertarian means amoral.
#11. To: Tooconservative, y'all (#5)
Some states had their own religion, limited free speech, ignored the fourth amendment, limited freedom of assembly, and many more. Why would a Libertarian allow such practices in their own state, many of which survived until the early to mid- 1900's? --- misterwhite
#12. To: Hank Rearden (#10)
#13. To: Hank Rearden (#10)
Libertarian means amoral.
Such an ignorant statement.
#14. To: misterwhite (#13)
#15. To: A K A Stone (#8)
Libertarian ideas are largely immoral. But most libertarians are amoral and don't know the difference.
#16. To: A K A Stone, misterwhite, Hank Rearden (#14)
(Edited)
Thank you misterwhite. They certainly are amoral.
USAGE
Immoral means ‘failing to adhere to moral standards.’ Amoral is a more neutral, impartial word meaning ‘without, or not concerned with, moral standards.’ An immoral person commits acts that violate society's moral norms. An amoral person has no understanding of these norms, or no sense of right and wrong. Amoral may also mean ‘not concerned with, or outside the scope of morality’ (following the pattern of apolitical, asexual). Amoral, then, may refer to a judicial ruling that is concerned only with narrow legal or financial issues. Whereas amoral may be simply descriptive, immoral is judgmental.
#17. To: Tooconservative (#16)
You keep saying 'amoral' when you seem to intend 'immoral'.
#18. To: Tooconservative (#5)
Who were these recusants? Catholics who refused, upon threat of execution, to attend the worship services of the Church of England. Many priests were executed, many others fled.
#19. To: misterwhite (#17)
Libertarians take no moral position on abortion, gambling, prostitution, porn, suicide, or age of consent. They simply say the government should not be involved in those areas.
#20. To: Vicomte13 (#18)
(Edited)
Here's really the problem: when WE in OUR time, talk about "liberty" and get impassioned about it, what WE mean, really, broadly speaking, is SEXUAL liberty and the liberty to do DRUGS.
Well, maybe a few in Rhode Island but even there they wouldn't have said so publicly.
#21. To: All (#0)
The Founders used government to discourage other noncoercive activities, as well.
#22. To: tpaine (#21)
(Edited)
In 1778, Congress recommended to the states “suppressing theatrical entertainments, horse-racing, gambling, and such other diversions as are productive of idleness, dissipation, and a general depravity of principles and manners.”
Unfortunately, many States ignored the supremacy clause, and it took the civil war (and the 14th Amendment) to LEGALLY resolve the issue.
#23. To: A K A Stone (#0)
What exactly is a libertarian?
"Libertarianism is the political philosophy that people have the authority to determine and pursue their own self-interest, and that government is only authorized to restrict freedom when the freedom of two people are in conflict with each other."
DACA Shithole Dreamers - Make America Great Again?
#24. To: misterwhite, A K A Stone (#13)
Amoral, not immoral. And Libertarianism IS amoral.
#25. To: Tooconservative (#16)
#26. To: misterwhite (#17)
Libertarians take no moral position on abortion, gambling, prostitution, porn, suicide, or age of consent. They simply say the government should not be involved in those areas.
#27. To: Tooconservative (#19)
"The libertarians are by no means a monolithic group."
#28. To: Tooconservative (#20)
Certainly not Thomas Jefferson who authored the very strict laws against sodomy in his home state of Virginia. Yet he would not have imagined trying to codify this as federal law. Neither would any of the other Founders.
#29. To: hondo68 (#23)
#30. To: misterwhite (#27)
characterizing the Founders as Libertarians.
#31. To: Hank Rearden (#24)
You say that as if you've ever met any of us. Which, obviously, you have not.
#32. To: no gnu taxes (#30)
I would say it matters how you define a Libertarian.
#33. To: hondo68 (#23)
and that government is only authorized to restrict freedom when the freedom of two people are in conflict with each other."
#34. To: Tooconservative (#16)
USAGE Immoral means ‘failing to adhere to moral standards.’ Amoral is a more neutral, impartial word meaning ‘without, or not concerned with, moral standards.’ An immoral person commits acts that violate society's moral norms. An amoral person has no understanding of these norms, or no sense of right and wrong.
#35. To: misterwhite (#33)
Now what?
DACA Shithole Dreamers - Make America Great Again?
#36. To: hondo68, y'all (#23)
hondo68 (#23) ---- government is only authorized to restrict freedom when the freedom of two people are in conflict with each other."
#37. To: A K A Stone (#0)
(Edited)
#38. To: A K A Stone (#25)
No I certainly mean amoral.
#39. To: misterwhite (#27)
"The libertarians are by no means a monolithic group."
#40. To: tpaine (#34)
Legislating morality is unconstitutional.. --- Reasonably regulating public activities is a power given by the people to State/local governments..
#41. To: VxH (#37)
Liberty is a gift from God?
#42. To: tpaine (#34)
Legislating morality is unconstitutional.
#43. To: Tooconservative (#40)
No it is a stupid idea and not a point at all.
#44. To: A K A Stone (#43)
#45. To: A K A Stone (#42)
-- An amoral person, while understanding these norms, rejects the concept that a 'moral majority' can dictate what is right and wrong for everyone.
#46. To: tpaine (#45)
#47. To: tpaine (#45)
Our various levels of government have never been given the power to legislate morality.. Only a dumbass would think that govts could even define what is 'moral'. much less make constitutional laws that criminalize 'sinful' acts..
#48. To: A K A Stone (#47)
Stealing is immoral and it is illegal everywhere. You lose. Checkmate.
#49. To: misterwhite (#33)
Some people want the freedom to use drugs, but I want the freedom to raise my young and impressionable children in a drug-free environment.
#50. To: Vicomte13 (#49)
Well, as always, there being no solution to an either/or problem, the disagreement is resolved by power.
#51. To: Tooconservative (#39)
The Founders themselves were far from being a monolithic group.
#52. To: tpaine (#48)
Yo boss, --- I loose.
#53. To: misterwhite (#51)
Why not "Conservatives With Exceptions"?
#54. To: Tooconservative (#53)
The conservatives of the era were all royalist Tories.
#55. To: misterwhite (#54)
(Edited)
Got it. The conservatives were a monolithic group. Probably the liberals, too.
#56. To: misterwhite (#50)
And that would be the power of the majority of people acting through their elected representatives.
#57. To: Tooconservative (#55)
The others all fell into dictatorship or conquest
#58. To: Vicomte13 (#57)
After all, the American federal constitutional model failed and was conquered, in 1865, but the other half of the country wielding the same federal constitutional model. The difference between the twin brothers was a matter of muscle strength, not of system.
#59. To: A K A Stone (#52)
You made a stupid statement that was easily demonstrated as false.
#60. To: Tooconservative (#55)
I'll repeat my point: the Founders were far and away the most radical political thinkers of the entire Enlightenment era. And their republic endures today, well over two centuries later, something you can't say for other democratic countries (excepting Britain). The others all fell into dictatorship or conquest at one point or another or they are far younger governments than ours is. Our relative isolation helped but our political system, despite its many flaws, is more resilient than the parliamentary democracies.
#61. To: Tooconservative (#55)
The others all fell into dictatorship or conquest at one point or another or they are far younger governments than ours is.
#62. To: All (#60)
Our relative isolation helped but our political system, despite its many flaws, is more resilient than the parliamentary democracies.
#63. To: Vicomte13 (#60)
I can't agree with that. The Jacobins were far more radical - in a bad way. I would agree with you that the Founders were on the cutting edge of practical, realistic, workable political thinking.
And now I'll say something uncomfortable to me: among the Founders, were those clear visionaries like John Adams who understood that American slavery was an evil that was incompatible with the ideals of the Revolution. He was right. But the practical reality was that the abolition of slavery - with all of the immediate evaporation of wealth that would come with that - was simply too radical for the Enlightenment generation. Adams was morally right, but it could not really be done in 1776. Had Adams prevailed on the moral point, the country would have been stillborn. The South would have remained British, and the North would have been conquered. Slavery was an evil that had to be addressed in another day. There are similar issues today that are simply a bridge too far for the people of our times, though eventually mankind will get there (example: the treatment of animals).
If you mean countries that have an elected legislature and some sort of franchise for some people, the oldest would be Iceland, whose Altding dates to the 9th century, a whole lot older than British "democracy". The Dutch Republic also predates this era.
The American democratic government form already existed, the Founders did not create it. What they did was to replace the monarchy with our tripartite government at a national level, bringing into reality the vision of Montesquieu, and that really was Enlightenment thinking. But the state government that was the base model and center of American power, was completely sui generis to British America, and grew up from local conditions that had no precedent in modern Europe.
#64. To: Vicomte13 (#61)
The oldest continuous democratic government in the world is the government of the State of Massachusetts. The second oldest is the government of the State of Connecticut.
#65. To: Tooconservative (#64)
I did know about Massachusetts (darn them). Didn't know that CT was #2 though.
#66. To: Vicomte13, tpaine (#65)
And CT has the distinction of having the oldest WRITTEN constitution (hence the "Constitution State" on the quarter).
Massachusetts Bay Colony (and the Massachusetts diaspora (specifically, CT, which was settled by Puritans who left Boston in 1637 because they found it too LIBERAL. LOL!)) also had the first universal public school system in the world. All the way back in the 1620s they were teaching every boy and girl to read, because everybody had to be able to read the Bible.
Those "embattled farmers" who stood at Lexington Bridge and "fired the shot heard round the world" were actually, as a group, probably the best-educated people in the world. The men in fancy red uniforms facing them were mostly illiterate. That "rabble" had as much formal education as the English Parliamentarians. The whole population did.
When in 1777 the English marched their army under "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne, and they were surrounded at Saratoga by New England and New York Minuteman farmers, it was an army of well-armed illiterates who NEEDED officers to guide them, versus a "rustic" army of fully literate men who were able to communicate with each other and back home, etc., in writing. The Redcoats were actually the Rubes. New England was, in fact, a FAR more educated people than London or Paris. It wasn't even close.
One of the reasons that the American Revolution was able to stay on the rails of reason, while the French - and later the Russian - revolutions went berserk and animal - is because the Americans were an advanced, literate population, at least North of the Mason-Dixon line. The French peasants and Russian proles were neither, and were carried along much more easily by mob passions.
#67. To: Tooconservative (#66)
It seems obvious you're cleverly trying to sidestep the (initially) unwritten Iroquois constitution which predated our own by a few centuries. I thought it odd you omitted it.
#68. To: Vicomte13 (#67)
Rome marched to war under the banner of SPQR - Senatus Populusque Romani - The Senate and People of Rome - who, by the end, where the two least significant parts of the whole imperial system.
#69. To: Tooconservative, y'all (#68)
The end of republics is typically that the voice of the people becomes the voice of The Person. In other words, things drift toward demanding to be ruled by a tyrant.
#70. To: tpaine (#69)
I think Trump is finding out that his power is greatly exaggerated.
#71. To: GrandIsland (#70)
#72. To: tpaine (#71)
I support Trump.
#73. To: GrandIsland (#72)
That wasn't my point...
#74. To: tpaine (#73)
Most of the time, youre incapable of making a valid point, and don't even know it...
#75. To: Tooconservative (#68)
The end of republics is typically that the voice of the people becomes the voice of The Person. In other words, things drift toward demanding to be ruled by a tyrant.
#76. To: Vicomte13, tpaine (#75)
#77. To: Tooconservative (#66)
Vicomte13:
The point: the English were more poorly educated and intellectually inferior to their American adversaries. They were incapable of independent action, and limited by the abilities of their officers. And it showed both in the development of American government FROM THE BEGINNING (in the 1620s) all the way forward. America, at least New England, was the far more educated place in 1776 than England. The English in England were very much like the South: they had an educated and elite gentry, but the average Englishman was as dumb as dirt.
It didn't take that much education to know that it was easier and safer to hide behind trees and play sniper to terrorize the Redcoats and reduce their numbers. The Brit officers complained bitterly about those dishonorable rebels. Those darned colonists refused to follow the European code of honor for soldiers where the two armies were expected to dutifully line up in the open wearing colorful livery and allow the enemy to take clean shots at them with flintlocks and cannon shot. Anything else was cowardice. That little tradition cost the Brits very dearly. I don't think they ever recovered their morale.
#78. To: Tooconservative (#55)
I'll repeat my point: the Founders were far and away the most radical political thinkers of the entire Enlightenment era.
#79. To: Tooconservative (#66)
#80. To: Tooconservative, Vicomte13 (#68)
The end of republics is typically that the voice of the people becomes the voice of The Person. In other words, things drift toward demanding to be ruled by a tyrant.
#81. To: Tooconservative, Vicomte13, misterwhite (#55)
(Edited)
I'll repeat my point: the Founders were far and away the most radical political thinkers of the entire Enlightenment era. And their republic endures today, well over two centuries later, something you can't say for other democratic countries (excepting Britain)....
#82. To: A K A Stone (#0)
Libertarians are still trying to claim the American Founding as theirs.
#83. To: misterwhite, Vicomte13 (#78)
But they never applied that radical thinking to their own states.
They created the U.S. Constitution -- a radical document that defined and limited the newly formed federal government only. It would have been very easy to extend the federal Bill of Rights to the states when it was written. The Founders chose not to.
#84. To: misterwhite (#79)
What we do, settlers? All right. The settlers say that during the war, they will wear any color clothes that they want to, shoot from behind the rocks and trees and everywhere; says your team must wear red and march in a straight line."
#85. To: Liberator, tpaine, A K A Stone, sneakypete (#80)
The Secular Humanism rebellion and its hijacking of America via public school and academic indoctrination has gradually unloosened this mooring. The ouster of prayer and God in Public School was THE breaking point. By introducing wide-spread immigration from nations that did not share the Judeo-Christian moral and ethics AND culture also attributed heavily to our demise and full tyranny in the near future.
Many key Founders were Deists and did not subscribe to traditional Christian theology. Look sometime at the Jefferson bible for an example. He cut/pasted NT passages into his own bible, one that eliminated all references to Jesus as divine and all miracles. IOW, Jesus presented as only a moral teacher and philosopher. People like to talk about Jefferson and the Declaration (which he did plagiarize from a letter circulating among rebellious Presbyterians) but they don't like to recall the Jefferson bible. Similarly they love that story about George Washington chopping down that cherry tree but they really don't like for anyone to mention that George Washington was also very wealthy because he was the biggest distiller of whiskey in North America, a regular peddler of the demon rum.
#86. To: Liberator (#81)
But yes, the Founders were radical. So radical especially in the sense that they eschewed any sniff of creating an American royalty class from which to rule generations like 99% of nations on the planet.
#87. To: Liberator (#82)
We now see just how fragile it was. The Republic is not even a "Republic" any more, the facade of a "representative constitutional republic" exposed as a charade. The "Republic" part of USA is currently trashed and on Life-Support.
#88. To: Tooconservative (#85)
Many key Founders were Deists and did not subscribe to traditional Christian theology....
#89. To: Tooconservative (#84)
We've had great fun from the beginning, ridiculing the Redcoats for behaving according the Euro codes of honor.
#90. To: Tooconservative (#85)
...They really don't like for anyone to mention that George Washington was also very wealthy because he was the biggest distiller of whiskey in North America, a regular peddler of the demon rum.
#91. To: Tooconservative (#86)
Forbidding titles was wise. Placing a high bar to prove treason was another notable contrast with the European monarchies.
#92. To: Tooconservative (#87)
It ain't over until we say it's over. And it ain't over.
#93. To: misterwhite (#89)
Guerilla warfare is not war.
#94. To: misterwhite (#89)
Guerilla warfare is not war. Where are the uniforms, for example? Any combatant out of uniform receives no protection from the Geneva Convention.
#95. To: misterwhite (#89)
Any combatant out of uniform receives no protection from the Geneva Convention.
#96. To: Tooconservative, y'all, whitepaulsen (#83)
Tooconservative (#55) --- I'll repeat my point: the Founders were far and away the most radical political thinkers of the entire Enlightenment era.
#97. To: tpaine (#96)
#98. To: A K A Stone, yall (#97)
It's mystifying why misterwhite insists that the Constitution only applied to the feds, -- when the supremacy clause clearly says the opposite.
#99. To: tpaine (#96)
It mystifying why misterwhite insists that the Constitution only applied to the feds, -- when the supremacy clause clearly says the opposite.
#100. To: tpaine, A K A Stone (#98)
Can anyone here explain why A K A Stone could conceivably imagine that his remark above has any relationship to my post preceding?
#101. To: tpaine (#98)
Can anyone here explain why A K A Stone could conceivably imagine that his remark above has any relationship to my post preceding?
#102. To: tpaine (#98)
You're a dumb ass. Do you want murder to be legal?
#103. To: Tooconservative (#99)
s that white/paulsen WANTS States to have the power to legislate morality, -- to be able to infringe upon our basic rights
#104. To: Liberator, tpaine, A K A Stone (#100)
...murder is a matter of morality made illegal through Constiutional Law, the Bill of Rights, and/or legislation.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.
#105. To: Deckard (#104)
Yet the government allows murder in certain situations - such as abortion.
#106. To: Deckard, A K A Stone, tpaine, Liberator, Vicomte13 (#104)
(Edited)
Yet the government allows murder in certain situations - such as abortion.
Warning Against the Search for "Monsters to Destroy," 1821
John Quincy Adams
#107. To: A K A Stone, yall (#102)
Do you want murder to be legal?
#108. To: A K A Stone (#103)
-- white/paulsen WANTS States to have the power to legislate morality, -- to be able to infringe upon our basic rights.
#109. To: tpaine (#107)
No, murder should not be legal, because everyone has a right to life.
#110. To: tpaine (#108)
And your comment? -- Do you agree with misterwhite?
#111. To: A K A Stone (#109)
It would be immoral.
#112. To: A K A Stone (#110)
(Edited)
white/paulsen WANTS States to have the power to legislate morality, -- to be able to infringe upon our basic rights. ----- And your comment? -- Do you agree with misterwhite?
#113. To: tpaine (#111)
#114. To: tpaine (#112)
(Edited)
You WANTS States to have the power to legislate morality, - - to be able to infringe upon our basic rights.
#115. To: tpaine (#112)
#116. To: A K A Stone, yall (#113)
#117. To: tpaine (#116)
#118. To: A K A Stone, yall, (#115)
It would be constitutional if an amendment was passed that required everyone to go to church.
#119. To: All (#118)
#120. To: A K A Stone (#115)
--- there are zero limits on what kind of amendment can be adopted.
#121. To: tpaine (#119)
Then in your opinion an amendment to repeal the 2nd would be constitutional?
#122. To: tpaine, A K A Stone (#120)
Then in your opinion an amendment to repeal the 2nd would be constitutional?
#123. To: tpaine (#118)
#124. To: Tooconservative (#122)
It is a fact. Every word of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and every decision issued by the Supremes can be amended by 37 states agreeing to do so.
#125. To: A K A Stone (#123)
The constitution is not a perfect document. Unlike the holy Bible.
#126. To: GrandIsland (#125)
#127. To: A K A Stone (#124)
Now you are going to be accused of hating the second amendment.
#128. To: A K A Stone, tpaine (#126)
(Edited)
The Twenty-seventh Amendment (Amendment XXVII) to the United States Constitution prohibits any law that increases or decreases the salary of members of Congress from taking effect until the start of the next set of terms of office for Representatives. It is the most recent amendment to be adopted, but one of the first proposed. No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
#129. To: Liberator (#80)
#130. To: Tooconservative, y'all (#122)
(Edited)
It is a fact. Every word of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and every decision issued by the Supremes can be amended by 37 states agreeing to do so.
#131. To: A K A Stone (#126)
I thought he relied on the text of the document.
#132. To: tpaine (#130)
The inalienable rights protected by our Constitution cannot be 'amended away...
#133. To: Tooconservative (#132)
I have been surprised over the years that the Left never tried to repeal the Second Amendment.
#134. To: tpaine (#133)
I'd bet they realize that even a serious attempt to do so would start a guerilla style war, at least...
#135. To: Tooconservative (#132)
It seems that way but I have been surprised over the years that the Left never tried to repeal the Second Amendment. You know how badly they want to.
#136. To: Tooconservative (#134)
Or they're just waiting for a chance to hold a majority on the Court to revisit the Second Amendment and suddenly discover that it only applied to colonial militias after all. You know their line of argument on this; we've heard it often enough.
#137. To: Tooconservative (#134)
(Edited)
--- they're just waiting for a chance to hold a majority on the Court to revisit the Second Amendment and suddenly discover that it only applied to colonial militias after all. You know their line of argument on this; we've heard it often enough. --- After all, there was no rational or legal basis for Roe v. Wade or for sodomy marriage. That didn't stop the Court from imposing them as constitutional law.
#138. To: Vicomte13 (#136)
#139. To: A K A Stone (#138)
Everyone knows it was the heretic catholics who gave us faggot marriage. J
#140. To: Vicomte13 (#139)
You lie and twist
#141. To: Vicomte13 (#139)
you attack God, the people of God,
#142. To: Vicomte13 (#139)
Therefore, the world YOU MADE by being a Republican and supporting them, galls you, but you're incapable of opening your eyes, and you
#143. To: Vicomte13 (#129)
Most immigration is from Latin America, and they do share Judaea-Christian ethic.
#144. To: Liberator (#143)
Looked over my post to you, Vic.
#145. To: A K A Stone (#142)
Did I also mention that I love you and wish the best for you
#146. To: A K A Stone, Vicomte13, Liberator, redleghunter, hondo68 (#142)
But a few good works doesn't cut the muster.
Doesn't Cut the Mustard
This phrase originates from the Old English craft of Mustard making. What's the meaning of the phrase 'Cut the mustard'?
What's the origin of the phrase 'Cut the mustard'?
- Mustard plants, which are tough and stringy and grow densely.
- Culinary mustard, which is cut (diluted) and made more palatable by the addition of vinegar.
- Dried mustard paste, which was reputedly used to coat meat and then dried to form a crust.
#147. To: Tooconservative, A K A Stone, Vicomte13, redleghunter, hondo68 (#146)
But a few good works doesn't cut the muster.
#148. To: Vicomte13 (#144)
No, I'm not justifying illegal immigration at all. I am saying that it could be worse.
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