The Merit or Lack of Merit of a Return to the Constitution

[capob]

--Note, since there appears to be some confusion, I will attempt to clarify. Apart from the first paragraph here, I am not attempting to classify or categorize Ron Paul supporters; so, please don't take the article personally.

--2nd note. Also, do note, I am not idly disparaging the constitution. Just as I say I am trying to promote thinking of logic backed solutions, I, myself, am trying to come up with such solutions. See: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?372891-Persistence-Society-An-indeterminate-and-verbose-plan

I've followed Ron Paul since about 2007 when I donated to his campaign before and during the money bomb. Seeing as the supporters of Ron Paul tend to be very much in favor of the constitution, and seeing as there is a topic on this forum just for the constitution, I would like to see opinions and criticisms of an article I wrote a while ago regarding the constitution:

In disapproval of the current state of affairs, there are various retreats people will follow. My goal here is to refute one of these retreats and force people to start thinking of logic backed solutions. A retreat that I often see is one of "going back to the Constitution". The idea here being that government has strayed from the Constitution and the only thing needed to rectify the state of affairs is to get government back on the path of the Constitution. However, this is a very flawed idea, and I will now go into why.

Before I go into its troubles, I will say that the Constitution has many merits and was quite opportune. In absence of the Constitution, there would have continued to be a confederacy which amounted to a weak union. The federalist papers go into, at length, the problems with a weak union. A weaker union would have made for a less stable America, and less stable environments tend to hinder progress.

From a broad view, the measure of the effectiveness of a system can be taken by measuring the results of that system. In this case, if the current state of affairs, (the results of the implementation of the Constitution), are unfavorable, then why would anyone think that resetting the system would lead to some different outcome? However, this is certainly not enough to satisfy some, so I will go into detail about the Constitution of the United States.

There are a couple cases where things can go awry in the US Constitutional government. For one, government can choose not to follow the Constitution. Even if those in government were composed of all upstanding people who would do nothing contrary to the word of the Constitution, the words of the Constitution allow interpretation that can stray from the intent of the writers. And, when the words are interpreted in either, cases where the writers did not envision the situation, or in cases where the writers did not intend the situation, unintended powers for the federal government can be justified by the word of the Constitution. And, additionally, the lack of a granted power is not a restriction of power.

Based on the words of the Constitution, what limits are there to the powers of the federal government? Well, there are the limitations in article 1, section 9. Then there is the bill of rights. And, in the bill of rights, there is the line "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. ". However, this is one of those lines that Jay, Hamilton, and Madison probably would have argued needn't be there and was there primarily for the comfort of those who feared the federal government would take powers not prescribed for it. For example, in the Federalist Papers:

"Suppose, by some
forced constructions of its authority (which, indeed, cannot easily be
imagined), the Federal legislature should attempt to vary the law of des-
cent in any State, would it not be evident that, in making such an at-
tempt, it had exceeded its jurisdiction, and infringed upon that of the
State?" - IE, hard to imagine the federal government making inheretance tax laws.

"would it not be equally evident that this was an inva-
sion of that concurrent jurisdiction in respect to this species of tax [in regards to land tax], which
its Constitution plainly supposes to exist in the State governments? If
there ever should be a doubt on this head, the credit of it will be entirely
due to those reasoners who, in the imprudent zeal of their animosity to
the plan of the convention, have labored to envelop it in a cloud calcu-
lated to obscure the plainest and simplest truths.
"


Indeed, it was interpreted prior to the bill of rights with that Amendment 10 limitation clause that the federal government's powers were indeed limited in justification to those prescribed by the Constitution, and those not prescribed by the Constitution were state affairs. Even with this amendment, however, there is still nothing explicitly stating that the federal government should not engage in actions which are not prescribed by or prohibited in the Constitution. In other words, it is not a breach of the Constitution for the federal government to form new powers; Instead, these additional powers are simply unsupported by the Constitution. What does it mean to be unsupported by the Constitution? It means that the state, the theoretical party to the Constitution, does not need to bow to the additional powers. However, if a state abides by the new powers of the federal government, then these new powers of the federal government are as effective as the powers given by the Constitution and the remedies the people have are either to move to a different state or to attempt to get their current state to stop bowing to the new powers of the federal government.

On a side note, in the bill of rights Amendment 1, where it states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.", this is prohibiting congress, not the states. The other ammendments not specifically stating their application is towards congress are towards both congress and the states, but, in this case, the state has the power to make laws respecting the establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise thereof, etc.

What method might the federal government employ to gain new powers? One method would be the creation of various overstepping laws. This leads to the question, is congress restricted in what laws they can make? There is the "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." statement, the Bill of Rights, and the "but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators." statement; but, the most significant restriction that appeared to me was in this: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land".

The sentence seems to be noting with "which" that the laws of the United States shall be made in pursuance of the Constitution - a sort of restriction limiting congress to only make laws which are in pursuance to the Constitution. However, this can also be interpreted such that it is not a restriction, but rather, by the fact a law was passed, it is consequently in pursuance to the Constitution; ie, any law congress makes is in pursuance to the Constitution. Then, there is a third interpretation seemingly provided by Hamilton with "It will not, I presume, have escaped observation, that it EXPRESSLY confines this supremacy to laws made PURSUANT TO THE Constitution". In other words, only the laws that congress passes which are in pursuance to the Constitution will be supreme law of the land. Another interpretation would be that the laws congress passes which are Of the United States are supreme; in contrast to laws of the District or laws of Lolipop land that congress might make. These last two interpretations do not limit congress to making laws that are in pursuance to the Constitution. As such, congress can go about making laws about what to wear and eat if they wanted.

Madison and Hamilton both argue regarding this topic that the states and the people will check the power of the federal government, Madison goes so far as to introduce the concept that the states, in protection of their own power, would inform the people and the people would then elect different federal level representatives. Well, that might work when you have a mindful and territorial state government, an informed people, and correctly functioning vote tabulators.

There is another part to the sentence in the Constitution mentioned in the above paragraph that peaked my interest: "and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land". What does it mean that treaties made under the authority of the US shall be supreme law of the land? The Constitution does not even attempt to define limits for what can be included in treaties. To define limitations would undermine the sovereignty that appears to be necessary when making treaties. As such, I will consider the meaning to be simply that the treaty was made by the method prescribed in the Constitution.

It would seem the easiest way to subvert the US Government would be through a treaty.

"Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy"
"Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business;"
"He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;"

So, essentially, there can be a secret meeting of senators, presumably constituting a quorum, and the president where the president and at least 2/3 of the senators agree on some treaty which wholly corrupts the system. Further, treaties do not need to be made public; which means if this ever did happen, the citizenry never need be made aware of it.

Then, there is the idea that where the ends are given, the means are justified. That is, since the federal government is authorized "To establish Post Offices and post Roads", it is assumed that the means for setting up these Post Offices are also authorized. Combining this idea with some indeterminate part of the Constitution, like "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes", and you will have the federal government exercising quite extravagant means for quite mundane ends. There is no explicit redress to these encroachments. So, you have a state of affairs where the power of the State would not increase, apart from by amending the constitution, and the power of the Federal Government would likely do nothing but increase. And, as the power of the federal government increased, the power to coerce and/or persuade states would also increase.

Another aspect comes from the Federalist Papers:

"At the expiration of twenty-
five years, according to the computed rate of increase, the number of rep-
resentatives will amount to two hundred, and of fifty years, to four hun-
dred. This is a number which, I presume, will put an end to all fears
arising from the smallness of the body.
"


The idea here being that the number of representatives to the number of representees would stay roughly the same ratio, and this ratio was 30,000/1. The reason behind this proportionality was the idea that power corrupts, the idea that the more people a representative represents, the more powerful that representative is, and the idea that by limiting the amount of people a representative represents, the less likely that representative will be corrupted by power. However, it does not appear the writers of the Constitution or of the Federalist Papers envisioned a country with 300 million people, or a county of 300 million people represented at a ratio of roughly 1 to 680,000. And, even if the ratio were kept and there were ~13k representatives, there would be problems stemming from the size of this body of representatives.

There are plenty of other aspects I could go into, but it doesn't serve to batter the Constitution when my purpose is only to show it is imperfect and a poor retreat path for those who would claim the federal government was too large. The Constitution relies on the scruples of the men it causes to be employed and the impotency of forces that might subvert it. It does both of these to a lesser extent than many other governments, but, still, it appears insufficient in dealing with the subversion factors of the present.

 

[PierzStyx]

The Constitution relies on the trust that the people will choose moral, honor bound people to represent them and lead the government. You are exactly right that this can be either a strength or a weakness. But the fact is that all liberty form of governments do the exact same. For example libertarianism only works if the people are good and will not band together to overthrow the rights of the minority for the gain of the majority. Anarchism relies on this even more so as there is absolutely no government outside the home itself to protect you and yours. Because liberty requires either an entirely or partially volunteer society the main issue will always be the morality of the people. Thus the problem isn't in The Constitution, it is in the people themselves.

 

[hazek]

The idea of a document binding people to behave in a certain way and them doing so merely because they'd want to do so, while having a huge economic incentive to the contrary is down right ludicrous.


Any centralized power that can be auctioned off will eventually get auctioned off no matter what people you use, it goes against the laws of praxeology and free market economics for them not to do it.

The only solution is to not have a centralized power, period.



Why is this so hard to understand?

If people were angels, we wouldn't need a government and since they're not guess who eventually ends up part of the government.

The Constitution either gave you the government you have or it was powerless to prevent it, in either case it's unfit to fulfill it's intended role.

Get this through your skulls already.

 

[thoughtomator]

Any centralized power that can be auctioned off will eventually get auctioned off no matter what people you use, it goes against the laws of praxeology and free market economics for them not to do it.

The sad truth

 

[hazek]

Because liberty requires either an entirely or partially volunteer society the main issue will always be the morality of the people.

Completely false as I've made a case here: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?370943-A-precise-specific-plan

 

[capob]

Strong Government, Weak Officials

"The only solution is to not have a centralized power, period. "
I would say you are incorrect here. There are many situations in which centralized government would not be auctioned off as a result of the laws of praxeology, but I will only go into one of them, because at the moment, there is only one I'm interested in. This is an article I wrote elsewhere, and might be better taken with another two articles I wrote called: "Logic, Knowledge, Motives, and Society" and "Government and Persistence":

Article:

Strong Government, Weak Officials

There are a couple of concepts which might be applied when forming a government. In order for a society to survive, it must be able to defend itself from domineering societies. As such, the government of the society must have the ability to quickly rally the people to action. However, at the same time, to prevent subversion, the power of internal governmental officials must be very limited. The seeming contradiction of having a powerful government with weak government officials is excepted by having very short terms, very uncertain appointments, and punishments for misdirection while in office.

When you have government officials with long or repeated terms, those government officials carry the power of their office for long periods of time and will tend to use that power to benefit themselves. Even if they can not use the power to directly benefit themselves, there might be some organization that would offer less traceable benefit for that official's power. By limiting the time of an official in office, the total amount of things the official can do is limited, and, thus, the power of the official is limited. Subversion cost time and money in initially subverting the official. After an official is subverted, there is a maintenance fee, but this, I imagine, is less than the initializing cost. So, by limiting the terms of officials, subversion attempts will tend to cost more, due to initializing costs, and the successful subversion attempt will be less beneficial due to the reduced power of the official.

Even with short terms of office subversion is still readily achieved. This is done by simply limiting the pool of candidates who will go into the office to those who are already subverted. Its fairly well known that many US government offices have a revolving door between the governmental office and an office at a corporation. By vastly enlarging the pool of candidates and, to some degree, randomizing who takes the governmental office, the expense of subverting the entire pool of candidates can become prohibitively expensive. And, this idea of having a large pool with a semi-randomized selection is not too far fetched. Most offices in government do not require deep skill sets, and as such, a great many can gain the minimal skill set required for an office and enter into the pool of candidates. The randomization, while technically very easy to do, can quite easily be manipulated, and this manipulation is something to watch out for.

Punishing officials for misdirection done while in office attempts to ensure governmental officials will not use the office for personal gain. It is ludicrous to exempt former government officials from the liability for the acts they performed while in office. It is so far from equitable it is mind boggling how anyone would agree to a sort of amnesty for acts in office. If someone were to shoot another person in cold blood and kill that person, the punishment for doing so tends to be harsh. Though, are we to say that a leader who intentionally directs a society such that a great many die or are harmed should be exempted from punishment? There is an argument for this exemption. The culpability of the leader serves as an impediment to action due to the fear of the punishment. Potentially, this resulting inaction will prevent officials from meeting urgent societal needs. However, even if this reasoning were sound, it is based on the assumption that punishment will be carried out in a rash manner. This argument is, for the most part, invalid under a punishment system that punishes officials for either the lack of diligent decision making or for acting in opposition to the goal of society; a punishment system that does not simply punish officials for bad outcomes.

With the concept that actions are taken based on logic and knowledge, former government officials should be able to explain their actions. Bad actions can be explained in two ways. Either the action was a result of ignorance or the action was a result of intentional divergence from the moral of society. In the case of ignorance, it might be judged whether the ignorance was acceptable, and punishment dealt depending on the determination. In the case that the bad action was a result of intent, there should certainly be a severe punishment to dissuade others from that type of action.

There might be an argument that by disallowing long or many terms for a single person, the projects that that single person was working on will be abandoned. If a project were so important, then the reasoning for it should be clear, and to say that the next official in the office would ignore the project is folly. Inaction is itself an action, and if a new official ignores, without a stated reason, a clearly beneficial project and instead does nothing, that in itself could have some punishment attached to it. The situation might be likened to a case where a waterworks official was investigating a supported claim that the water had some toxin introduced somewhere in the utility system and then the replacing official completely ignored or stopped the investigation without a stated reason. Just as with other actions, the act of stopping action for some project of a former official should have a stated reason. This idea of having stated reasons for actions is quite important and I will explore it later. If you were to rely on unstated, unwritten reasons for actions of an official, you might as well keep your valuables in some public place and rely on the good nature of the people you live among to prevent theft of those valuables.

Potentially, there could be a sort of tug of war within an office. One official believing X moves the office in some direction, then the new official in that offices believing Y moves the office in the opposite direction. This concept, however, stems from a much more general problem and concept. What would make two logical people have opposing viewpoints? Different knowledge. In most cases, where there is different knowledge, inspection of the knowledge used by the two people can lead to conclusions and remove the opposition. One problem existing currently is a psychological problem in where neither party objectively investigates the knowledge of the opposition; Another problem is neither party has actual knowledge backing their position, but rather faith. Both of these cases can be prevented by specifically regulating against them; that is, for instance, requiring opposing officials to carry out investigations of the opposing official's basis. However, regulation to prevent this sort of tug of war is a large topic in itself that I will not get into here. And, even if there were no system to prevent this sort of tug of war, it, I would imagine, would be exceptionally rare that two opposing officials keep getting appointed; and so, for there to be a stalemate tug of war, there would have to be a fairly even divide among all the candidates in the pool of candidates; in which case, the issue is not a squabble between two, but, more likely, a significant societal issue in which the society might benefit by a stalemate until the best path is determined.

It might be thought that, by having a large pool of randomly selected candidates for an office, there will be "bad apples" getting into office and causing messes. Well, for one, any intentional mess would have a punishment associated with it, and it can be assumed that those qualifying for the candidates pool would not likely bring about unintentional messes that the other candidates wouldn't also bring about. That is to say, insane people, or people without the ability to use logic to a sufficient extent, are excluded and so the idea that one of these such people would get into office is not worth getting into here.

There is the idea that by having short terms and randomized appointments, extremely well qualified or proven candidates will not get just rewards; that is, extremely well qualified candidates might not get chosen in the random selection or proven candidates, (proven by former terms), will not be re-appointed. For one, even if there weren't other systems for rewarding and promoting people who have shown themselves to be exceptionally beneficial to society, the system of candidate pools can have pools specifically for those who are extremely well qualified or who have proven themselves.

Could this system of randomized selection be combined with other systems? Who would the auditors of officials' actions be and who would determine punishments? How short should terms be? What should pool qualifications be? Who would be in charge of the randomized selection of candidates and who would audit this process? I am certainly skipping on many details that would need exploration, but this is only an introduction.

 

[capob]

"The Constitution relies on the trust that the people will choose moral, honor bound people to represent them and lead the government. You are exactly right that this can be either a strength or a weakness. But the fact is that all liberty form of governments do the exact same. For example libertarianism only works if the people are good and will not band together to overthrow the rights of the minority for the gain of the majority. Anarchism relies on this even more so as there is absolutely no government outside the home itself to protect you and yours. Because liberty requires either an entirely or partially volunteer society the main issue will always be the morality of the people. Thus the problem isn't in The Constitution, it is in the people themselves. "

I do agree with your sentiment that a lot relies on the constitution of the people (ie, their internal, individual constitution). However, it can not be ignored that some people will ruthlessly seek power and step on others to get it. And so, anarchism fails as outside powers usurp the anarchism collective. Libertarianism, as I understand it, can fail the same way, or can fail with a creeping of internal power grabs (ie, government grows slowly, and since there is nothing put in place to stop it, it doesn't get stopped).

 

[osan]

One word: prolix.

 

[capob]

One word followed by many: Illiteracy
If you spent any time thinking about the subject or had done research on the subject, you'd realized that I was rather succinct. If you read books prior on these subjects, you'd realize that people write whole books in regards to this subject. And, yet, you troll my thread with a label prolix. I'll tell you what, if you are too ignorant to read, that's fine, but don't try to spread your ignorance to others.

 

[Pericles]

The core issue is that the intended series of checks on federal power has been abandoned.

The system was designed so that either the SCOTUS or a majority of the states could declare a federal law unconstitutional. This prevents a monopoly of power, which is the road to tyranny.

The other check is the militia system. By having the capability of a universal militia, the founders put in Machiavelli's dictum in THE PRINCE "Good arms and good laws go together. Where the people have recourse to good arms, no Prince dare make a bad law."

The hierarchy of laws is simple
(A) US Constitution
(B) Treaties ratified by the Senate
(C) Constitutional federal laws
(D) State Constitutions
(E) State laws made in accordance with US and State Constitutions
(F) Local laws made in accordance with US and State Constitutions

What is broken is the enforcement mechanism, which depends on an informed and active citizenry. Which depends on a system of education......... that teaches the responsibilities of citizenship. Socialists realize that controlling the education system of a country ultimately leads to control of the country.

 

[BKom]

One word: prolix.

Yeah, here's an article I've written on the tendency to be overly verbose: "DON'T DO IT."

Did you enjoy my article? I haven't posted it anywhere else, so please be thankful that I've reproduced it here in its entirety.

All those words to say one thing - No piece of paper was ever invented that will stop a bullet or a thief. The only thing that stops those two things is people willing to take them on. Government isn't necessarily a vehicle for doing this, but it can be if enough people are expected to understand this tenet of being a person on this planet.

 

[Pericles]

One word followed by many: Illiteracy
If you spent any time thinking about the subject or had done research on the subject, you'd realized that I was rather succinct. If you read books prior on these subjects, you'd realize that people write whole books in regards to this subject. And, yet, you troll my thread with a label prolix. I'll tell you what, if you are too ignorant to read, that's fine, but don't try to spread your ignorance to others.

A suggestion: An initial summary paragraph would tell the reader straight away what he is going to read, and suggest to him whether or not you have an intriguing argument to make, that will attract his attention. You writing style went from point to point, and in my view would be better served by a unifying tie to bind the paragraphs together. After a couple of paragraphs containing points not of interest to the reader, some will abandon the task.

 

[The Free Hornet]

If you spent any time thinking about the subject or had done research on the subject, you'd realized that I was rather succinct.

You were verbose and misguided:

Seeing as the supporters of Ron Paul tend to be very much in favor of the constitution, and seeing as there is a topic on this forum just for the constitution, I would like to see opinions and criticisms of an article I wrote a while ago regarding the constitution:

In disapproval of the current state of affairs, there are various retreats people will follow. My goal here is to refute one of these retreats and force people to start thinking of logic backed solutions. A retreat that I often see is one of "going back to the Constitution". The idea here being that government has strayed from the Constitution and the only thing needed to rectify the state of affairs is to get government back on the path of the Constitution. However, this is a very flawed idea, and I will now go into why. [it's your cherry-picked idea]

At best, you are mistaking what people say for what they mean. What people desire is a limited government with less control of the states and individuals, less or no taxation, end to undeclared neverending military engagements or "authorizations", and a restoration of our civil liberties. That these can be taken away by various machinations (e.g., Lincoln did it, Wilson did it, FDR did it, and G.W. Obama are doing their best to finish it off) is not the point.

If you read Ron Paul's stance on the issues, you will note it is far more complicated than you made out, "the only thing needed to rectify the state of affairs is to get government back on the path of the Constitution.". Flawed premise is flawed?

Somebody here posted a criticism of the constitution with frequent use of the "f-word". It was quiet entertaining and did not, IIRC, besmirch Ron Paul supporters as overly simplistic.

My advice is to stick to criticizing the constitution which is a known document. Real people are more complicated and hard to pin down.

 

[BuddyRey]

This is the idea I have such a hard time getting across to Joe & Jane Fox news viewer. They genuinely believe they have a *duty* to support Mitt Romney, and that I'm some kind of traitor or Obamaite for refusing to do so. They've let it all become about personalities instead of principles.

Whoever wins the election, the State wins and the people lose. It doesn't matter which slavemaster you pick, they'll never allow you to choose *NOBODY* as your slavemaster.

 

[cucucachu0000]

It doesn't matter what you have written down on a piece of paper if the government didn't follow any of the Constitutions rules it can break the rules on any other constitution. It's not the Constitutions fault It's up to the people to hold their government to those rules. Thats what I'm trying to do now.

 

[soulcyon]

I think the OP is somewhat mistaken. We're not for "going back to the Constitution" entirely, 1) because there is no way we could've understood the real intent of the writers regarding our current state of affairs and 2) Drastic changes like that will cause problems for a majority of the population. We are in a transience state, and what (at least me) we desire is an alternate interpretation of the Constitution - namely limited government.

We could argue semantics, what the Constitution really means and/or the history of the decisions our country has made - but that discussion will bear no fruit. Let us look to the future, while still learning from the mistakes of the past. We don't need to reinvent the wheel (of the state) to move forward, there are more practical options

 

[capob]

The core issue is that the intended series of checks on federal power has been abandoned.

The system was designed so that either the SCOTUS or a majority of the states could declare a federal law unconstitutional. This prevents a monopoly of power, which is the road to tyranny.

The other check is the militia system. By having the capability of a universal militia, the founders put in Machiavelli's dictum in THE PRINCE "Good arms and good laws go together. Where the people have recourse to good arms, no Prince dare make a bad law."

The hierarchy of laws is simple
(A) US Constitution
(B) Treaties ratified by the Senate
(C) Constitutional federal laws
(D) State Constitutions
(E) State laws made in accordance with US and State Constitutions
(F) Local laws made in accordance with US and State Constitutions

What is broken is the enforcement mechanism, which depends on an informed and active citizenry. Which depends on a system of education......... that teaches the responsibilities of citizenship. Socialists realize that controlling the education system of a country ultimately leads to control of the country.

Lots of things to contest here. Did you read the article?
You ->"The core issue is that the intended series of checks on federal power has been abandoned."
What "series"?
Article -> "however, there is still nothing explicitly stating that the federal government should not engage in actions which are not prescribed by or prohibited in the Constitution."
If you are considering the states ability to point out an infringement by the federal government a check, you might as well say cameras are checks to robbery. No, it is the force behind what occurs when the camera captures a robbery, not the camera itself. As I stated in the article, the option is for the state to stop following laws that are infringing. But, you come up with the boilerplace SCOTUS unconsitutional stuff. Where in the constitution does it mention "unconstitutional"? or more to the point, that the supreme court shall be in charge, through their moral obligation, of decreeing laws unconstitutional and revoking them?


"The other check is the militia system. By having the capability of a universal militia, the founders put in Machiavelli's dictum in THE PRINCE "Good arms and good laws go together. Where the people have recourse to good arms, no Prince dare make a bad law."
Although a good idea, this is hardly true. It would be better to say, as long as the people held good arms and the power to use them on the prince, the prince will make no laws that would enrage them to do so. Of course, it can take a lot to get people enraged, and then you have the frog in hot water example.


"
The hierarchy of laws is simple
(A) US Constitution
(B) Treaties ratified by the Senate
(C) Constitutional federal laws
(D) State Constitutions
"

Come on. First of all, why did you feel the need to list them? Second of all, even on this minor point, you are wrong.

Constitution - "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;"

For one, there is nothing stopping a treaty from altering the terms in the constitution. And, if you had read the article, you might understand just how treaties can be misused to grant US Feds or, say, the UN unlimited powers. For two, state constitutions or laws aren't under the constitution, they are beside it. That is, they are supposed to deal with separate subjects and thus there is no hierarchy. You could argue that a state can't make laws contrary to the constitution, and I would say, yes they can, but they would be contrary the the constitution and overlapping in subject, just like if laws from congress overlapped onto the state's jurisdiction.

I could go on, but not worth my time I'm afraid.

 

[maninblack]

I've migrated to the belief that central government is unnecessary and always ends in roughly the same way. Will we ever learn that? Who knows but probably not. The herd mentality is tough to break.

 

[capob]

A suggestion: An initial summary paragraph would tell the reader straight away what he is going to read, and suggest to him whether or not you have an intriguing argument to make, that will attract his attention. You writing style went from point to point, and in my view would be better served by a unifying tie to bind the paragraphs together. After a couple of paragraphs containing points not of interest to the reader, some will abandon the task.

For the amount of text (not a lot), I figured describing the aim was good enough.

"You writing style went from point to point, and in my view would be better served by a unifying tie to bind the paragraphs together."

If the points were not of interest to the reader, I don't see how the subject is of interest to the reader, unless the reader is simply looking for new reasons a return to the constitution is a fallacy. In which case, my target with the article was not those people. It would serve, however, to have those people express any additions or contradictions.

-Though, I would agree that the paragraphs could be better tied together; and thank you for the suggestion.

 

[Indy Vidual]

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What is broken is the enforcement mechanism, which depends on an informed and active citizenry. Which depends on a system of education......... that teaches the responsibilities of citizenship. Socialists realize that controlling the education system of a country ultimately leads to control of the country.

+1984
A return to truly following the U.S. Constitution would be much better than what we have now.
Then the debates about even less Gov, might actually matter.