The Constitution: A Rallying Point
August 31, 2008 by Aspen Eggimann · Leave a Comment
“Where are we going from here?”
I’ve been wondering this a lot lately, in regards to America. I hear and read theories about the Information Age and what it will bring, I learn about historical cycles predicting what to expect in the future, and observe the numerous political agendas proposed for the nation, yet still this question remains in a large part unanswered.
It may be difficult or nearly impossible to answer with clarity exactly where we are going, or to make a prediction that would quiet the concerns for the future. While pondering the question I read the following quote from Thomas Jefferson:
“Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people.” –Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1802
A written document that immortalizes principles and provides ongoing direction for generations is essential to maintain a strong and free nation.
“The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now.”
– South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905)
The principles remain fast in the document, though the actions of men may not follow those principles. The violation of a constitution was foreseen by the Founders as inevitable; men would lose their perspective and deviate from the Constitution in moments of passion — no matter how much the “chains of the Constitution” bound them down. Having a written constitution does more than bind men for a time, however; its real strength is that it provides a rallying point for the People to turn to when the nation flounders and when guidance is needed.
It’s clear that we have deviated from the Constitution in many ways throughout our history, and recent years have been no different. From the repeal of habeas corpus for specified “enemy combatants” to the Patriot Act, we can see the distance we have come from the founding.
The governments’ disregard of our founding document was brought home to me when I read the following story from Ron Paul:
“In 2002, as war with Iraq loomed, I proposed that congress officially declare war against Iraq, making clear that I intended to oppose my own measure. The point was to underscore our constitutional responsibility to declare war before commencing major military operations, rather than leaving the decision to the president or passing resolutions that delegate to the president the decision-making power over war. The chairman of the International Relations Committee responded by saying, ‘There are things in the Constitution that have been overtaken by events, by time. Declaration of war is one of them. There are things no longer relevant to a modern society. We are saying to the president, use your judgment. [What you have proposed is] inappropriate, anachronistic; it isn’t done any more.’
What a relief that we have people in our government who will keep us posted on which constitution provisions they have decided are no longer ‘relevant!’” [Ron Paul; The Revolution: A Manifesto, pg 53]
As a nation that has disregarded its constitution and now strongly questions its stability and future freedom the question, “Where are we going from here?” demands our attention. We have, through fear and passion, given up much of our freedoms. But it need not continue. For we will decide what is next. By using the Constitution as a rallying point to recall a people we will regain the freedom and prosperity that the Founders fought for.
In the end our freedom and our future lie with those that are watchful, those that will take initiative in restoring the Constitution. As Thomas Edison said, “The strength of the Constitution, lies in the will of the people to defend it.”
If the question remains, “Where are we going from here?”, the answer is “Exactly where we take ourselves.” If Jefferson is right, if moments of passion will pass and those who are watching can rally the people, then let it be back to the Constitution.
Have YOU read and do you understand the Constitution? Will you become a constitutional scholar and help restore the American Republic?
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Copyright © 2008 by The Cause of Liberty. All rights reserved.
Question #7: What are “legitimate foundation” and “legitimate authority” in political philosophy?
June 24, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · Leave a Comment
| 10 Foundational Questions | Introduction | Question #1 | Question #2 | Question #3 | Question #4 | Question #5 | Question #6 |
“The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority. –Alexander Hamilton
Simply put, legitimate foundation means the will of the People at large, while legitimate authority is the express permission granted by the People to the government to perform some function.
Put together, they form the philosophical foundation of the powerful idea that man does not exist for the state, but that the state exists for man.
Legitimate Foundation
The idea that the government should exist according to the will of the People and solely to benefit the People at large was revolutionary in the 18th Century. Previously, governments primarily benefited those governing, or special interests.
The American Founders taught that the will of the People, as expressed through constitutional means, is the only solid, sustainable, and legitimate foundation of republican government.
This does not mean, however, that they were referring simply to the concept of majority rule alone, as we learn from Federalist Paper #51; the idea is to guide the nation by the will of the majority, while protecting minority rights (i.e. preventing the majority from taking private property).
Legitimate Authority
Thomas Jefferson spoke of legitimate authority in the Declaration of Independence when he wrote, “…That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”
The United States Constitution was the first (and to my knowledge the only) constitution to be instigated by, or to have originated in, the People, then ratified by the People. In other words, the People, through their colonial representatives, called for the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Representatives at the Convention represented the People within their respective territories–not the government itself.
They were authorized by the People to do the will of the People. Our Constitution was initiated and created from the bottom up, rather than dictated from the top down. Then, after its creation by the representatives of the People, the Constitution was taken back to the People–once again through their colonial representatives–to be ratified, or accepted.
Previously, the historical norm was for the government–whether through a monarchy, aristocracy, or other form of ruler’s law–to dictate from the top down the laws and constitutional forms that the People must obey. As David Hume wrote in 1752, “Almost all the governments which exist at present, or of which there remains any record in story, have been founded originally either on usurpation or conquest or both, without any pretense of a fair consent or voluntary subjection of the people.”
Why It Matters
To drive the point home with these critical concepts, think of Read more
The New Liberalism
January 25, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · 1 Comment
America faces serious economic challenges. We all know that socialism means to take from the rich to give to the poor. But our nation is faced with a more complex problem than this customary type of wealth redistribution. Our problem is what I refer to as reverse socialism. If we wish our nation to be free for future generations then We the People must fix this problem.
Free enterprise is, among other things, a legal structure that treats all individuals and business entities equally before the law. The proper role of a free enterprise-promoting government is to simply protect unalienable rights — not to favor one man over another through benefits and entitlements.
Our national political debate has become convoluted between two sides with equally flawed premises and goals. The liberals want social programs to benefit the poor, while most mainstream conservatives want the government to serve and protect “big” business, even if it means to favor a large corporation over a small start-up. What neither side seems to recognize is that both are equally as dangerous and detrimental to freedom and prosperity. They both lead to the exact same result, and that is the concentration of too much power in the hands of too few.
Favoring the “Haves”
Most people who believe that wealth redistribution programs are wrong see only the government taking from the “haves” to give to the “have-nots.” But what has been lost in the shuffle of “progressive” social policy is the fact that our legal structure has also has evolved into favoring those with capital over those with little or none. Those who recognize the problem of taxing the wealthy to give to the poor seem to be virtually unaware of the dangers of favoring large corporations over small businesses.
Here are two examples of this reverse socialism. 1. In Cedar City, Utah, when Wal-Mart decided that they wanted to open a store here, the city council waived most of the fees and gave them about 5 acres of land. But the individual citizen who wishes to open a small retail store is subject to all of the mandated regulation and fees, and a land grant to them wouldn’t even be considered. 2. A friend of mine is an owner/operator of his own tractor-trailer. He told me that the biggest trucking companies in the country pay almost half as much for fuel as do the small companies or individual truckers.
Whether you take from the rich to give to the poor, or if you favor the rich over the poor, the effect is the same. In both scenarios you wind up with an unnatural and inequitable economic system with the majority of the wealth concentrated in the hands of a few people.
Here are some statistics to illustrate the state of the American economic system: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2001 the bottom quarter of families in the United States had zero net worth. The bottom 90% of families had less than 20% of the net wealth, and the top 10% owned 80.7% of all the net wealth. Federal Reserve research in 1995 found that the wealth of the top one percent of Americans was greater than that of the bottom 95% and that the net worth of the top one percent was 2.4 times the combined wealth of the poorest 80%.
It hasn’t always been this way. In 1800, census information showed that over 90% of our population were owners of the means of production — mostly small business owners and farmers. In 1900 that statistic was the same — over 90% of us were owners. In 2000, those numbers were exactly reversed — less than 10% of our population are now owners.
Economic power in many cases equates political power. So what we have arrived at is precisely the same thing that has caused all nations throughout history to fall, and that is too much power in the hands of too few. Aristotle wrote that, “The only stable state is the one in which all men are treated equally before the law.” Our nation is unstable because our forms of law have been corrupted.
The Solutions
The first step to solve the problem of these large discrepancies in wealth distribution is to identify the cause of the inequity. The cause is two-fold, but both aspects of the cause spring from the same root. One reason is that the majority of our citizens have bought into the dependence model of employeeship and government entitlements. The other cause is that we have changed the forms of our Constitution to allow for illegitimate wealth redistribution. This redistribution is allowed by our legal structure in two ways: Taxing the rich to give to the poor, and also by favoring those with capital over those with little or none.
Both of these causes spring from the same root, and that is that we as individual citizens have failed to take personal responsibility both in our individual financial lives and in our public duty to maintain a strong and free Democratic Republic.
Identifying the cause of the problem now leads us to the solution. First of all, we as individuals must take the responsibility to start being a “have,” as opposed to a “have-not.” Taking from the rich and distributing down will simply mean that we all lose, because no wealth is being created; it simply leads to an impoverished mediocrity. But if the 80% of us that were mentioned in those Census Bureau statistics would simply create wealth from the bottom up, then everyone rises together. Those of us who have little capital must employ our mental resources to create wealth. The problem of economic inequity can only be solved from the bottom up — not the top down.
There is one other thing that must be fixed in our political structure if we wish America to remain free. We must renovate our Constitutional forms so that our legal structure will again — as it was created by the Founders in the original Constitution — treat all individuals and entities equally before the law.
It is an improper and dangerous use of government to take from one person to give to another, or to favor one business over another. The proper role of government is to treat everyone equally in the defense of their unalienable rights. When the government steps out of that realm it concentrates too much power in the hands of too few.
Conclusion
We are at a critical point in our nation’s history. History has shown repeatedly that the 200-year mark is where nations must either reinvent and reform themselves, or fall because of their inability to check and balance power. Our chance for an American renaissance is now or never, and We the People have the inescapable responsibility for that rebirth.
We must all, individually, create our own financial freedom and become owners of the means of production. And we must educate ourselves to gain the power to fix our bent governmental forms. Our government must treat all individuals and businesses equally before the law and stop all forms of unnatural, forced redistribution.
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Copyright © 2008 by The Cause of Liberty. All rights reserved.
America is NOT a democracy?!
January 25, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · Leave a Comment
Over the last century, politicians have exploited the word democracy to achieve misguided and subversive ends; we commonly hear our nation referred to as a democracy, which is self-evidently false.
The founders understood what Aristotle taught, that democracy is one of the worst forms of government. As James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper #10, “…democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
To guard against the dangers of democracy, our Constitution wisely instituted a republic, a system of government that calls for a small number of citizens, elected by the citizenry at large, to represent the interests of the people by whom they are elected. The effect, according to Madison, is to “…refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.”
America is a republic, not a democracy, and understanding this one fact alone will help us to significantly transform and improve our culture.
Move the Cause of Liberty by (1) subscribing to the Sentinel, a free weekly newsletter boldly illuminating the principles of freedom in a darkening nation, and (2) pledging your Life, Liberty, and Sacred Honor to the Cause by signing the Declaration of Dependence.
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Copyright © 2008 by The Cause of Liberty. All rights reserved.
Sex & Meth Offender Registries: Unconstitutional & Misguided
January 24, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · 1 Comment
State sex and meth offender registries are clear indications that America is progressively forgetting its constitutional heritage and choosing legalistic security over freedom and virtue. In a recent USA Today article, Donna Leinwand reported that, “States frustrated with the growth of toxic methamphetamine labs are creating Internet registries to publicize the names of people convicted of making or selling meth, the cheap and highly addictive stimulant plaguing communities across the nation. The registries–similar to the sex-offender registries operated by every state–have been approved within the past 18 months in Tennessee, Minnesota and Illinois.”
Although the registries are almost universally considered to be expedient, they are clearly bills of attainder, which are Read more
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