“The electioneering would be within each party.” Ah, now that makes a lot of sense. Except, how do you convince the parties to do this? Should the government force them, presuming we had a government that wanted to fix the problem? It would take a movement like the tea party to pull it off, and then it would have to be the darling of the party, not hated for every breath it took. Even so, I like the concept.
“… our forefathers didn't realize how poorly a winner-take-all system would work is that they thought in regional terms.” Yes, they had a regional view, personally, but they had a correct view of the national problem. They rightly anticipated this region would have more stroke than that one, and provided what they hoped would be adequate protection from that.
When South Carolina, in 1832, resisted the Federal Government (As a result of one region overpowering another) the situation showed the flexibility of the Constitution to protect regional rights, after an obvious attempt to force unwanted desires upon a particular region by another. However, the system failed (As mentioned above) when the events of the Civil War unfolded.
I think any system, no matter how we structure it, is only as good as the people who run it. Your description of your friend’s plight seems common. I’ve heard it said that ‘Our system is a rotten one, but it is the best one we have’, thus this discussion. And, we have had a two party system from the first, though not specified in the Constitution.
If you have multiple factions in congress (i.e. Republicans, Democrats, Independents and say another group not as populous as the others) then you are forced into a government that is made up of coalitions. That form of government is inherently weak, for each faction of the coalition in power would constantly be pulling strings to get their own way.
It would make the congress become a committee of committees based on even more committees, making it ultimately more inefficient than it is today. Therefore, I do not dream of multiple parties. Look at the English Parliament. They have to re-arrange their governments every once in awhile, and not necessarily predicated upon election dates. Coalitions fall apart. Others are made. The Prime Minister is forced to call for new elections at odd times.
It reminds me of a flock of geese. They fly beautifully for some time, but then they lose the cohesion that allowed that formation to move so efficiently. They mill around, looking like mass chaos, but then, they pick a leader and they take off again. I think that a poor means of ruling a diverse country. We can't afford a government like that. It's an apt description of what we have now.
Each of us is trying to figure a better way. The way it was, rings truer to me than anything I've seen or heard of. The reason it has failed is not the fault of the way it was written, but the failure of the representatives to properly uphold the Constitution, as it was written, and revised.
So, I conclude that the failure that can be attributed to the Constitution (Not its writers) is that it had no mechanism to stop people's desire to read it differently than written. I say not the writers for they agonized over that very issue and did the best they could. However, the best they could do was still inherently frail, for humans have frailty built into anything they design
No matter what they devised to roadblock purposeful misinterpretation would, itself, be misinterpreted. Considering they could not foretell the future, they did quite well. Hindsight, shows that the Constitution is so perverted it needs to be replaced. Not with a myriad of rules and do’s and don’ts; but with replacement clauses (Mirroring those first written) with language to better roadblock those who purposely abuse it. The strength of the Constitution is its simplicity.
As for your suggestion, I think it would work for a while. But, suppose the mix changes, and becomes more polarized than it is now? That has actually been the situation for much of our history. If that should occur, then we’d have a three-sided peg for a two-sided hole, so to speak. (Poor analogy, sure, but you get the idea.) Our Constitution worked, as long as we allowed it to work. But, as the founders stated (to paraphrase.) once they determine they can vote themselves the wealth of others, it will be over’. And, that is where we are now.
Of the tens of thousands of laws on the books, we are wading through a morass of slimy filth. There is only one solution, and that is a constitutional convention to address the issues at hand. This is why I say we can’t blame the writers of the Constitution, for they foresaw this eventuality, though they could not write the avoidance of it, into the Constitution. They therefore provided that we fix it ourselves. It will require a ‘call’ from the congress. We legally can’t call it on our own, though that might happen.
When will they do that? Maybe never. But, I conclude that it will be only at the threat of another Civil War. They missed the chance back in 1861, which is why I don’t have a lot of respect for Lincoln, like everyone else has. But, if you were president then, would you have not attempted any effort to avoid Civil War? He could have called on congress to call a convention to perhaps stave off death, and none advanced the idea. Why? So, why not now, before we do have blood in the streets?
I’m sorry that lit your fuse, let alone messed with your blood pressure. Maybe one person in a hundred heard about that, and the news smoothed it over so benignly that it just wasn’t much of an issue to anyone except the Brits. Our country took a nosedive that day.
I’ve given some thought to how to limit the manipulation of press, but I’ve not come with anything that doesn’t run afoul of the 1st amendment. (:-))
I’ve toyed with the idea of a few media types buying the defunct NBC, to propagate conservative views, but then we’d just have another Fox News. And, we’d just have all the emotional turmoil in spades.
So, have you given consideration of how to get out the “Ordinary and Everyday” view? Not conservative, per se, but like this paper, with a chance for anyone to speak. The limitation of this medium is so few read it. What “we the people” need is our own voice, which we have via internet and via good newspapers. But, we need it consolidated, where the everyday Joe’s sit down to listen to it, without all the emotional stuff that is like a hook in the noses of those who are so gullible.
What we have now is like a river flowing underground. It isn’t visible, nor can it be easily measured. Least of all, are views available to the general public without the twisting of the media, as it stands now.
As far as the gloom and doom? Consider the conversations held prior to the adoption of the Constitution. Look at the Federalist Papers themselves. You see there men who were highly concerned about possibilities.
I don’t expect a knock on my door. But, I want to consider the possibilities. And, I am also cognizant of the frog in the boiling water scenario. (My Dad proved that, BTW, when he was a boy. Unless he was pulling our legs. Maybe we should revisit the experiment.) We’ve sat in the water too long. Do we continue to? Is it not better to be proactive, rather than reactive?
As I mentioned in another post, I was nearby when the Branch Davidians were massacred. I stood on a hill and watched history happen. My ex-wife was involved in the police/FBI daily briefings given on TV, so she had firsthand knowledge of how highhanded the government acted.
As for as the power of the government flowing through us? Do you really think that is still the case, in the Federal arena?
All this was foreseen by our forefathers. That is why they would not complete the Constitution without the 2nd Amendment. Notice it is number 2 in a list of 10. That itself shows the importance of the freedom it assured to those framers. To them they really were ‘coming to get our crazy asses’, for we were a weak and war worn nation, like a newborn calf standing on shaky legs and no mother in sight.
Hussein has taken us from the position of world leader to a nation rapidly becoming a third rate power. He plans to rid us of all but a few ‘token’ nukes, by his own words. Suddenly, our strength is such that we must reduce the number of carriers in the Med. He is rapidly building his dream of a “Civilian National Security Force that is just as powerful, just as strong and just as well funded” as our military. See his speech given July 2nd 2008 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fO-us...
Ted, why does he want a “Civilian National Security Force”? Why has Dept. of Homeland Security purchased 2500 armored personnel carriers? Just for Terrorists? Why has he purchased at least 700 million rounds of anti-personnel rounds, for this force? Want to see the PO, on a federal site?
The DHS numbers over 200,000 people which is only part of this force. Only two other departments number that much. That’s not counting the ATF, FBI, NSA, CIA and on and on. When you take those agencies into consideration, you have a vast network of armed organizations that far exceed any government organization expect the military itself.
There are even armed OSHA and EPA agents. I have a friend whose office was raided by armed OSHA agents looking for some records. Imagine! Armed OSHA agents, digging for some mundane records. I myself was in an office a few years ago raided by the ATF. They didn’t pull their guns because we gave them no reason to, but still the Gestapo mentality was there.
Back in April of ’93, I stood on a hill 7 miles from the Branch Davidian Compound and watched the flames. They were miniscule at that distance, but the smoke could be seen a hundred miles away. Several of us had gotten out of our vehicles on a hilltop, expressing everything from amazement to weeping, for we were watching people die. I left in disgust and sadness. That is our government in action. I knew the sheriff there, named Jack Harwell, who always contended that he could have gotten those folks out of there without bloodshed, but the ATF pushed him aside and got some of their own people killed as well as the 83 Davidians.
So, if they have provocation, they will be “coming to get your crazy ass”, and that of anyone else that tries to subvert or resist them. He isn’t building this new “Gestapo” for nothing. Just some of that “hope and change” you folks voted for.
Isn’t it strange that “as the worm turns” things turn themselves inside out? What was once liberal is now archaic, and what was once despicable is now desirable. The younger generations have no concept of that. As Solomon said “there is nothing new under the sun”. What was, will be again, and new generations will discover the ‘truth’ as they see it, which has been ‘truth’ before, and later those same ‘truths’ became lies and decadence.
Even the fact that “a small number of people who believe that they are superior to the rest of us use their positions to divide and conquer” is as old as man is. Yet neither you (With all your eloquence) nor I, can cause this generation to stop and think, to reconsider or even look for themselves at the repetition of their actions, when seen historically. Or to see this elitist superiority is the sign of little people who magnify themselves to the level of importance. Of course some few will listen and even take up the cause, but the “tide rushes on”.
“The blind lead the blind and they both fall in a ditch.” That too, is a “vain repetition”. It makes you feel as if you are on a roller coaster, and the one at the controls “is bent upon destruction”. You want to put your foot on the ground and try to brake it before it hits the next slope, but that is of course impossible, even in concert.
You might think such things are fatalistic, but only without consideration of God and what and who he is. I’ve read his book, and by doing so, I can see the end. And, that end is near IMHO. Therefore with good cause Paul wrote “ For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?”
Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to “strive for the right, as we see that right”. Living in the hope of not only salvation but the freedoms to proclaim and live it. It would be easy to drop into fatalism, and give up, but rather it is our duty to our God and Lord to “endure to the end”, and to “keep the faith” and let our “light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
Even so “come Lord Jesus”.
Until then we should and will "Cling to ... [our] guns and religion". Life is almost as precious as freedom, but not quite. "Give me liberty or give me death" rings faintly but convincingly "down the dusty halls of time". Like the song so wonderfully said "As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free”.
“I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred … camps … Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel … He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave, So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave, Our God is marching on.”
ALLAN SIMS 3 months, 1 week ago on 131 Sheriffs refuse to enforce unconstitutional laws.
131 Sheriffs refuse to enforce unconstitutional laws.
“The electioneering would be within each party.” Ah, now that makes a lot of sense. Except, how do you convince the parties to do this? Should the government force them, presuming we had a government that wanted to fix the problem? It would take a movement like the tea party to pull it off, and then it would have to be the darling of the party, not hated for every breath it took. Even so, I like the concept.
“… our forefathers didn't realize how poorly a winner-take-all system would work is that they thought in regional terms.” Yes, they had a regional view, personally, but they had a correct view of the national problem. They rightly anticipated this region would have more stroke than that one, and provided what they hoped would be adequate protection from that.
When South Carolina, in 1832, resisted the Federal Government (As a result of one region overpowering another) the situation showed the flexibility of the Constitution to protect regional rights, after an obvious attempt to force unwanted desires upon a particular region by another. However, the system failed (As mentioned above) when the events of the Civil War unfolded.
I think any system, no matter how we structure it, is only as good as the people who run it. Your description of your friend’s plight seems common. I’ve heard it said that ‘Our system is a rotten one, but it is the best one we have’, thus this discussion. And, we have had a two party system from the first, though not specified in the Constitution.
If you have multiple factions in congress (i.e. Republicans, Democrats, Independents and say another group not as populous as the others) then you are forced into a government that is made up of coalitions. That form of government is inherently weak, for each faction of the coalition in power would constantly be pulling strings to get their own way.
It would make the congress become a committee of committees based on even more committees, making it ultimately more inefficient than it is today. Therefore, I do not dream of multiple parties. Look at the English Parliament. They have to re-arrange their governments every once in awhile, and not necessarily predicated upon election dates. Coalitions fall apart. Others are made. The Prime Minister is forced to call for new elections at odd times.
It reminds me of a flock of geese. They fly beautifully for some time, but then they lose the cohesion that allowed that formation to move so efficiently. They mill around, looking like mass chaos, but then, they pick a leader and they take off again. I think that a poor means of ruling a diverse country. We can't afford a government like that. It's an apt description of what we have now.
ALLAN SIMS 3 months, 1 week ago on 119 Could this explain the holes in our southern border?
119 Could this explain the holes in our southern border?
Yeah, I think so. I'd hate to be a rancher down there. See you in other strings.
ALLAN SIMS 3 months, 1 week ago on 131 Sheriffs refuse to enforce unconstitutional laws.
131 Sheriffs refuse to enforce unconstitutional laws.
Each of us is trying to figure a better way. The way it was, rings truer to me than anything I've seen or heard of. The reason it has failed is not the fault of the way it was written, but the failure of the representatives to properly uphold the Constitution, as it was written, and revised.
So, I conclude that the failure that can be attributed to the Constitution (Not its writers) is that it had no mechanism to stop people's desire to read it differently than written. I say not the writers for they agonized over that very issue and did the best they could. However, the best they could do was still inherently frail, for humans have frailty built into anything they design
No matter what they devised to roadblock purposeful misinterpretation would, itself, be misinterpreted. Considering they could not foretell the future, they did quite well. Hindsight, shows that the Constitution is so perverted it needs to be replaced. Not with a myriad of rules and do’s and don’ts; but with replacement clauses (Mirroring those first written) with language to better roadblock those who purposely abuse it. The strength of the Constitution is its simplicity.
As for your suggestion, I think it would work for a while. But, suppose the mix changes, and becomes more polarized than it is now? That has actually been the situation for much of our history. If that should occur, then we’d have a three-sided peg for a two-sided hole, so to speak. (Poor analogy, sure, but you get the idea.) Our Constitution worked, as long as we allowed it to work. But, as the founders stated (to paraphrase.) once they determine they can vote themselves the wealth of others, it will be over’. And, that is where we are now.
Of the tens of thousands of laws on the books, we are wading through a morass of slimy filth. There is only one solution, and that is a constitutional convention to address the issues at hand. This is why I say we can’t blame the writers of the Constitution, for they foresaw this eventuality, though they could not write the avoidance of it, into the Constitution. They therefore provided that we fix it ourselves. It will require a ‘call’ from the congress. We legally can’t call it on our own, though that might happen.
When will they do that? Maybe never. But, I conclude that it will be only at the threat of another Civil War. They missed the chance back in 1861, which is why I don’t have a lot of respect for Lincoln, like everyone else has. But, if you were president then, would you have not attempted any effort to avoid Civil War? He could have called on congress to call a convention to perhaps stave off death, and none advanced the idea. Why? So, why not now, before we do have blood in the streets?
ALLAN SIMS 3 months, 1 week ago on 119 Could this explain the holes in our southern border?
119 Could this explain the holes in our southern border?
That should have been Whoa, instead of Wow. It's funny what your fingers do when your brain goes to sleep.
ALLAN SIMS 3 months, 1 week ago on Obama's Speech
Obama's Speech
Ah, the essence of Obama.
ALLAN SIMS 3 months, 1 week ago on 119 Could this explain the holes in our southern border?
119 Could this explain the holes in our southern border?
Wow, boy. Steady now.
I’m sorry that lit your fuse, let alone messed with your blood pressure. Maybe one person in a hundred heard about that, and the news smoothed it over so benignly that it just wasn’t much of an issue to anyone except the Brits. Our country took a nosedive that day.
ALLAN SIMS 3 months, 1 week ago on 131 Sheriffs refuse to enforce unconstitutional laws.
131 Sheriffs refuse to enforce unconstitutional laws.
I’ve given some thought to how to limit the manipulation of press, but I’ve not come with anything that doesn’t run afoul of the 1st amendment. (:-))
I’ve toyed with the idea of a few media types buying the defunct NBC, to propagate conservative views, but then we’d just have another Fox News. And, we’d just have all the emotional turmoil in spades.
So, have you given consideration of how to get out the “Ordinary and Everyday” view? Not conservative, per se, but like this paper, with a chance for anyone to speak. The limitation of this medium is so few read it. What “we the people” need is our own voice, which we have via internet and via good newspapers. But, we need it consolidated, where the everyday Joe’s sit down to listen to it, without all the emotional stuff that is like a hook in the noses of those who are so gullible.
What we have now is like a river flowing underground. It isn’t visible, nor can it be easily measured. Least of all, are views available to the general public without the twisting of the media, as it stands now.
As far as the gloom and doom? Consider the conversations held prior to the adoption of the Constitution. Look at the Federalist Papers themselves. You see there men who were highly concerned about possibilities.
I don’t expect a knock on my door. But, I want to consider the possibilities. And, I am also cognizant of the frog in the boiling water scenario. (My Dad proved that, BTW, when he was a boy. Unless he was pulling our legs. Maybe we should revisit the experiment.) We’ve sat in the water too long. Do we continue to? Is it not better to be proactive, rather than reactive?
As I mentioned in another post, I was nearby when the Branch Davidians were massacred. I stood on a hill and watched history happen. My ex-wife was involved in the police/FBI daily briefings given on TV, so she had firsthand knowledge of how highhanded the government acted.
As for as the power of the government flowing through us? Do you really think that is still the case, in the Federal arena?
ALLAN SIMS 3 months, 1 week ago on The Constitution’s limit on Congress
The Constitution’s limit on Congress
For telling the truth?
ALLAN SIMS 3 months, 1 week ago on No more compromise
No more compromise
Excellent article.
All this was foreseen by our forefathers. That is why they would not complete the Constitution without the 2nd Amendment. Notice it is number 2 in a list of 10. That itself shows the importance of the freedom it assured to those framers. To them they really were ‘coming to get our crazy asses’, for we were a weak and war worn nation, like a newborn calf standing on shaky legs and no mother in sight.
Hussein has taken us from the position of world leader to a nation rapidly becoming a third rate power. He plans to rid us of all but a few ‘token’ nukes, by his own words. Suddenly, our strength is such that we must reduce the number of carriers in the Med. He is rapidly building his dream of a “Civilian National Security Force that is just as powerful, just as strong and just as well funded” as our military. See his speech given July 2nd 2008 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fO-us...
Ted, why does he want a “Civilian National Security Force”? Why has Dept. of Homeland Security purchased 2500 armored personnel carriers? Just for Terrorists? Why has he purchased at least 700 million rounds of anti-personnel rounds, for this force? Want to see the PO, on a federal site?
The DHS numbers over 200,000 people which is only part of this force. Only two other departments number that much. That’s not counting the ATF, FBI, NSA, CIA and on and on. When you take those agencies into consideration, you have a vast network of armed organizations that far exceed any government organization expect the military itself.
There are even armed OSHA and EPA agents. I have a friend whose office was raided by armed OSHA agents looking for some records. Imagine! Armed OSHA agents, digging for some mundane records. I myself was in an office a few years ago raided by the ATF. They didn’t pull their guns because we gave them no reason to, but still the Gestapo mentality was there.
Back in April of ’93, I stood on a hill 7 miles from the Branch Davidian Compound and watched the flames. They were miniscule at that distance, but the smoke could be seen a hundred miles away. Several of us had gotten out of our vehicles on a hilltop, expressing everything from amazement to weeping, for we were watching people die. I left in disgust and sadness. That is our government in action. I knew the sheriff there, named Jack Harwell, who always contended that he could have gotten those folks out of there without bloodshed, but the ATF pushed him aside and got some of their own people killed as well as the 83 Davidians.
So, if they have provocation, they will be “coming to get your crazy ass”, and that of anyone else that tries to subvert or resist them. He isn’t building this new “Gestapo” for nothing. Just some of that “hope and change” you folks voted for.
ALLAN SIMS 3 months, 1 week ago on 131 Sheriffs refuse to enforce unconstitutional laws.
131 Sheriffs refuse to enforce unconstitutional laws.
Isn’t it strange that “as the worm turns” things turn themselves inside out? What was once liberal is now archaic, and what was once despicable is now desirable. The younger generations have no concept of that. As Solomon said “there is nothing new under the sun”. What was, will be again, and new generations will discover the ‘truth’ as they see it, which has been ‘truth’ before, and later those same ‘truths’ became lies and decadence.
Even the fact that “a small number of people who believe that they are superior to the rest of us use their positions to divide and conquer” is as old as man is. Yet neither you (With all your eloquence) nor I, can cause this generation to stop and think, to reconsider or even look for themselves at the repetition of their actions, when seen historically. Or to see this elitist superiority is the sign of little people who magnify themselves to the level of importance. Of course some few will listen and even take up the cause, but the “tide rushes on”.
“The blind lead the blind and they both fall in a ditch.” That too, is a “vain repetition”. It makes you feel as if you are on a roller coaster, and the one at the controls “is bent upon destruction”. You want to put your foot on the ground and try to brake it before it hits the next slope, but that is of course impossible, even in concert.
You might think such things are fatalistic, but only without consideration of God and what and who he is. I’ve read his book, and by doing so, I can see the end. And, that end is near IMHO. Therefore with good cause Paul wrote “ For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?”
Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to “strive for the right, as we see that right”. Living in the hope of not only salvation but the freedoms to proclaim and live it. It would be easy to drop into fatalism, and give up, but rather it is our duty to our God and Lord to “endure to the end”, and to “keep the faith” and let our “light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
Even so “come Lord Jesus”.
Until then we should and will "Cling to ... [our] guns and religion". Life is almost as precious as freedom, but not quite. "Give me liberty or give me death" rings faintly but convincingly "down the dusty halls of time". Like the song so wonderfully said "As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free”.
“I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred … camps … Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel … He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave, He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave, So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave, Our God is marching on.”
Peace to you.