The Rise of the Constitution Party!

HUH? What do you mean "incorporated the amendments"? Please explain.

Incorporation of the Bill of Rights is the legal doctrine by which portions of the U.S. Bill of Rights are applied to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Most of those portions of the Bill of Rights were incorporated by a series of United States Supreme Court decisions in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

The seperation of church and state didn't come from the constitution, it came from unelected men in robes in the last 70 years.
 
The constitution reads that congress shall pass no law.

Taken straight from their main page...

"Join the Constitution Party in its work to restore our government to its Constitutional limits and our law to its Biblical foundations"

Sounds pretty Bible Thumpy to me.
 
Incorporation of the Bill of Rights is the legal doctrine by which portions of the U.S. Bill of Rights are applied to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Most of those portions of the Bill of Rights were incorporated by a series of United States Supreme Court decisions in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

I have to run, but I hope you will expand on this. Hasn't the Bill of Rights always applied to the states? Wouldn't the 2nd Amendment for example be pointless if the states were simply allowed to ignore it and confiscate all guns, like say, in Kalifornia?
 
I think the Constitution Party would turn off liberals and moderates far too much. I think the Libertarian Party would be a much better fit, but I think the best Paul could do would be as an independent leading a new non-partisan movement that revolved around a humble foreign policy, civil liberties, sound money, and a few other issues that could unite disgruntled people of all political stripes.
 
I have to run, but I hope you will expand on this. Hasn't the Bill of Rights always applied to the states? Wouldn't the 2nd Amendment for example be pointless if the states were simply allowed to ignore it and confiscate all guns, like say, in Kalifornia?

From what historians can gather, the bill of rights was an after thought because the people weren't buying into the constitution. A large portion of people didn't recognize that the wording stricly limited the federal government's power. Some of the founders even worried that the bill of rights would weaken the constitution. Why state that congress shall make no law pertaining to religion when the constitution doesn't allow it anyway? Just adding such wording makes one believe the constitution must not enumerate the powers afterall.

At the time of ratification, nobody believed they were creating a new government body that would protect them from a state infringing on those rights. They trusted the state, they didn't trust this new federal government. they didn't think they needed the second amendment to protect them from the state and wanted to make it clear that the federal government could not take away their guns, even if it was redundent and unneccesary.

What is really interesting is where the supreme court gained the ability for judicial review. This is not something granted in the constitution. In fact, the constitution spells out that the supreme court is only supreme over the lower federal courts. SCOTUS gained the power of judicial review through.........judicial review. It's like asking what came first, the chicken or the chicken.
 
Obviously, this issue will be bitterly divided. While I have a lot of respect for the Constitution Party (attended Michael Peroutka's victory party in 2004), I think that the Libertarian Party would be a better match for Paul. Of course, I'm not discouraging you from joining the CP.

I think the constitution party would be more favorable in most peoples eyes then the libertarian party.
 
I think the constitution party would be more favorable in most peoples eyes then the libertarian party.


Definitlely, the LP is seen as a bunch of anarchists, dope smokers and social outcasts. The CP is essentially a paleoconservtive party and they have a state rep as one of their elected officials. I think that is the highest ranking elected official by a third party.
 
Independent

Independents as a voting block will never congeal into a group that votes for the Constitution. The minute someone like Bloomberg jumps in as independent, the ideology of freedom will be high jacked.

Because of the aforementioned problems with the Libertarian party, is don't think it will ever serve our purposes.

You need a party the operates on principle. The Constitution Party is that party!
 
Taken straight from their main page...

"Join the Constitution Party in its work to restore our government to its Constitutional limits and our law to its Biblical foundations"

Sounds pretty Bible Thumpy to me.

Ya, but this works out well for the heathens too, since we will be working within the framework of the Constitution and all. Not to mention, if we can get enough heathens to join the Constitution party, we can get them to tone down the Christian rhetoric a bit. I think it's the perfect channel to through all of RP's support into. Read the platform...it is RP to the core.
 
Definitlely, the LP is seen as a bunch of anarchists, dope smokers and social outcasts.

Another problem it faces is being co-opted by interventionist ideology. Neil Boortz and Glenn Beck "Libertarians". So LP membership is dominated by those who use it to excuse libertine behavior, while the original message of minimal government has been lost because of all the people who are not libertarian calling themselves "Libertarians".
 
"Obviously, this issue will be bitterly divided."

If we fail, this will be the reason. Perhaps we need to start an entirely new party with the express purpose of bringing the heathen libertarians and stuffy religious types together in a common purpose.
 
I have to run, but I hope you will expand on this. Hasn't the Bill of Rights always applied to the states? Wouldn't the 2nd Amendment for example be pointless if the states were simply allowed to ignore it and confiscate all guns, like say, in Kalifornia?

Yes.

Article IV:
Section 2. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.

14th Amendment:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States [...] The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Note that the clause in the 14th Amendment is redundant. But there is an important difference here.

Article IV left it up to the states to follow the Constitution, with the only option for an individual having their rights violated by a state to appeal to the Supreme Court under the judicial review doctrine (which itself is on shaky Constitutional ground).

The 14th Amendment gives the federal government the power to force the states to comply with that clause through legislation and enforcement.
 
Another problem it faces is being co-opted by interventionist ideology. Neil Boortz and Glenn Beck "Libertarians". So LP membership is dominated by those who use it to excuse libertine behavior, while the original message of minimal government has been lost because of all the people who are not libertarian calling themselves "Libertarians".

No doubt...almost anyone can call themselves a libertarian these days. We need a new organization!!! We need to keep the mission statement broad enough to accept Christians, Atheists, and Mormons, etc., but keep it specific enough to restore the Constitution!
 
No doubt...almost anyone can call themselves a libertarian these days. We need a new organization!!! We need to keep the mission statement broad enough to accept Christians, Atheists, and Mormons, etc., but keep it specific enough to restore the Constitution!

I'd say go for it, but we are looking at about 4% national support for Paul, and that's polling data before yesterday's slaughter. In truth, you are probably only looking at a couple thousand hardcore Paul activists that are willing to commit the time & money to building a new party.

Look at the CP for example. They are at this full time, they have been for dozen or more years and have a whopping 350K members or thereabouts. Even if you mereged the LP and CP you are talking about 5% of the electorate at best, and thats a real generous number there.

So throw another right wing party onto the heap and how do you think it will fare?
 
seperatation of church and state isn't constitutional.

The constitution reads that congress shall pass no law.

Then after the civil war we incorporated the amendments. This means that schools may pass no law. It also created birthright citizenship and gave personhood to corporations. All of these are screwed up.

The point is, seperation of church and state as it stands today isn't constitutional and Ron Paul doesn't support the idea.

For more information on the Incorporation Doctrine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_doctrine

For strict Constitutionalists and natural rights people, this quote boils it down nicely:
In the 1940's and 1960's the Supreme Court gradually issued a series of decisions incorporating several of the specific rights from the Bill of Rights, so as to be binding upon the States.[8] A dissenting school of thought championed by Justice Hugo Black supported that incorporation of specific rights, but urged incorporation of all specific rights instead of just some of them. Black was for so-called mechanical incorporation, or total incorporation, of Amendments 1 through 8 of the Bill of Rights.[9] Black felt that the Fourteenth Amendment required the States to respect all of the enumerated rights set forth in the first eight amendments, but he did not wish to see the doctrine expanded to include other, unenumerated "fundamental rights" that might be based on the Ninth Amendment. Black felt that his formulation eliminated any arbitrariness or caprice in deciding what the Fourteenth Amendment ought to protect, by sticking to words already found in the Constitution. Although Black was willing to invalidate federal statutes on federalism grounds, he was not inclined to read any of the first eight amendments as states' rights provisions as opposed to individual rights provisions.[9] Justice Black felt that the Fourteenth amendment was designed to apply the first eight amendments from the Bill of Rights to the states, as he expressed in Adamson v. California. [10] This view was again expressed by Black in Duncan v. Louisiana: "'no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States' seem to me an eminently reasonable way of expressing the idea that henceforth the Bill of Rights shall apply to the States."[11]

Many of us (myself included) believe our rights are based on Locke's harm principle, stated in the Declaration of Independence and explicitly expressed in the Ninth Amendment.

People such as Justice Black who believe that state laws that violate the life, liberty, or property of individuals are Constitutional as long as the Bill of Rights is obeyed are agreeing with the Incorporation Doctrine as a compromise to the text of the Constitution and the natural rights that pre-dated government or the Constitution.

Such individuals accept legislation from the bench as a substitute for the Constitution, so as a result they allow unelected Supreme Court elites to invite local governments to abridge their rights, through the judicial review doctrine which the Supreme Court granted itself.

I believe freedom of expression even flying in the face of local laws did not come from the Incorporation Doctrine. It came from the natural rights expressed in the Ninth Amendment.

Based on this argument I believe that laws that preemptively restrict liberty or allow others to relieve an individual of their property, when that individual has not harmed or coerced anyone else, are on their face unconstitutional. That also is what makes me a libertarian. The Constitution is very libertarian when you understand it.
 
The Constitution pary has too much GOD in it for me and the LP, whom I've been a follower of for years, doesn't ever seem to do anything. We need a party with balls and one that understands the constitution and the message of freedom. I nominate naming it the Freedom Party and asking Ron Paul to join as it's premier member as soon as he gets elected president.
Na - never mind. Goddam media won't allow third parties to win.

I truly believe our best bet at this point (near/mid future) is to overtake (RETAKE) the republican party and return it to its roots. Right now as Ron has mentioned the base has shrunk because so many true coservatives are sick of the neo-con BS that has taken over. However, I believe that if we all (Ron Paul supporters) "crashed the party" we could easily overtake it and bring it back in line with its true values.

That's what I'm shooting for anyway. I'm going to look into fielding a "constitutional-republican" or "libertarian-republican" in my district. Or maybe do it myself if need be.
 
I still believe the campaign can gain momentum and be a force in this election, especially if it ends up as a brokered convention. But that is a big "if". So that probably wil not come to pass. What is the best alternative? I feel eventually a 3rd party run - not as LP or Constitution but hopefully with their support. This campaign has awakened quite a few people, from many different backgrounds and beliefs to the message of Liberty. Especially the younger generation. That needs to be nourished and built upon. It also needs to be an open tent. Many disaffected democrats have joined the cause, ans I believe the possibility exists to bring in more, especially the communitarian type democrats (thus the reason that the Constitution party might not be the best idea). The local control aspect of the message needs to be sold hard - it allows everyone to have a hand in creating and living in their ideal community. That can be a very big enticement.
 
I keep seeing people say that the Constitution Party has 350,000+ members. While this is true, it's sort of a mistake. It's from people accidentally joining the American Independent Party in California (CP state affiliate) thinking that they're registering as independents.
 
LP, Can't stand the Constitution. If we build a new LP party we should pull Steven Kubby, and the rest of them that are actually worth it with us.
 
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