"War is the enemy of constitutional liberty...

eyer

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...and also of prosperity. It is impossible to support the American regime’s unconstitutional and aggressive wars and be devoted to the Constitution at the same time."

Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Constitutional Neoconmen, December 13, 2011



DiLorenzo, author of The Real Lincoln; Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe and How Capitalism Saved America, has a new book out:

Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution--and What It Means for Americans Today

Book description (from Amazondotcom):

Two of the most influential figures in American history. Two opposing political philosophies. Two radically different visions for America.

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were without question two of the most important Founding Fathers. They were also the fiercest of rivals. Of these two political titans, it is Jefferson—–the revered author of the Declaration of Independence and our third president—–who is better remembered today. But in fact it is Hamilton’s political legacy that has triumphed—–a legacy that has subverted the Constitution and transformed the federal government into the very leviathan state that our forefathers fought against in the American Revolution.

How did we go from the Jeffersonian ideal of limited government to the bloated imperialist system of Hamilton’s design? Acclaimed economic historian Thomas J. DiLorenzo provides the troubling answer in Hamilton’s Curse.

DiLorenzo reveals how Hamilton, first as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and later as the nation’s first and most influential treasury secretary, masterfully promoted an agenda of nationalist glory and interventionist economics—–core beliefs that did not die with Hamilton in his fatal duel with Aaron Burr. Carried on through his political heirs, the Hamiltonian legacy:

• Wrested control into the hands of the federal government by inventing the myth of the Constitution’s “implied powers”
• Established the imperial presidency (Hamilton himself proposed a permanent president—–in other words, a king)
• Devised a national banking system that imposes boom-and-bust cycles on the American economy
• Saddled Americans with a massive national debt and oppressive taxation
• Inflated the role of the federal courts in order to eviscerate individual liberties and state sovereignty
• Pushed economic policies that lined the pockets of the wealthy and created a government system built on graft, spoils, and patronage
• Transformed state governments from Jeffersonian bulwarks of liberty to beggars for federal crumbs

By debunking the Hamiltonian myths perpetuated in recent admiring biographies, DiLorenzo exposes an uncomfortable truth: The American people are no longer the masters of their government but its servants. Only by restoring a system based on Jeffersonian ideals can Hamilton’s curse be lifted, at last.
 
"Amercan Regime?" Really?


True that the state of modern War on the Boogeyman of the moment is absolutely destructive to individual liberty and prosperity is essential to all liberty-So is the War on Drugs, War on Poverty, but war is the by-product of a unchecked central government authority which is rapidly expanding to every household via social conditioninig to inform on your neighbors, laws for your safety, laws for your health, laws on your parenting- environmental laws, every aspect of existence-even your lightbulbs.

The 10th Amendment is entirely a stop gap to that national agenda and that's why it is demonized by the social media and both parties.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights is the sole authority for the proper maintenance of this republic, not one man's philosophy.

The closest thing we have today is Ron Paul, but the enemies of liberty are busy slandering his name and beliefs as well as his supporters.
 
...and also of prosperity. It is impossible to support the American regime’s unconstitutional and aggressive wars and be devoted to the Constitution at the same time."

Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Constitutional Neoconmen, December 13, 2011

What is Mr. DiLorenzo's Constitutional objection to a majority of Congress authorizing the President's use of military force absent a formal declaration of war -- an authorization that the Supreme Court, in the case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and other War on Terrorism cases, clearly affirms?

"The AUMF authorizes the President to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against “nations, organizations, or persons” associated with the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 115 Stat. 224. There can be no doubt that individuals who fought against the United States in Afghanistan as part of the Taliban, an organization known to have supported the al Qaeda terrorist network responsible for those attacks, are individuals Congress sought to target in passing the AUMF. We conclude that detention of individuals falling into the limited category we are considering, for the duration of the particular conflict in which they were captured, is so fundamental and accepted an incident to war as to be an exercise of the “necessary and appropriate force” Congress has authorized the President to use."

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld

Obviously, if the detention of individuals as the Supreme Court has described it, is a "fundamental and accepted incident to war," then the detention which ultimately led to the case being filed is, in the Court's view, (1) an incident of war AND (2) a lawful authorization of Congress for the use of military force. These two facts exist independently and in spite of the lack of a specific declaration of war by Congress.

Or were you just excited to find a comrade-in-arms who enjoys taking a revisionist view of Constitutional issues that have already been decided?
 
Or were you just excited to find a comrade-in-arms who enjoys taking a revisionist view of Constitutional issues that have already been decided?

Yeah, "excited"...

...'cause those who demand America does not go to war unless - as the Constitution commands - Congress declares war, are really hard "to find". :rolleyes:

And "revisionist"?

A "revisionist" as is one who holds the originality of the Constitution absolute...

...compared to one who favors judicial interpretation and activism, Congressional abdication, and a President's authority to make war, arbitrarily deem "enemy combatants", and assassinate American citizens without due process?

Again:

You should gift the Supremes, Congress, and the President heavily this holiday season...

...for without them to initiate your thinking for you, you really wouldn't have much to contribute to the subject.

Here's another one of those "revisionists"; play particular attention to the intentions of "comrade-in-arms" Madison included therein:

Declaring and Waging War: The U.S. Constitution

by Jacob G. Hornberger, April 2002

Excuse me for asking an indelicate question in the midst of war, but where does President Bush derive the power to send the United States into war against another nation? The question becomes increasingly important given that the president has indicated that once the Afghan War has been brought to a conclusion, he intends to use U.S. military forces to attack other sovereign nations.

It is important to keep in mind that our system of government was designed to be unlike any other in history. First, the federal government was brought into existence by the people through our Constitution. Second, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land that controls the actions of our public officials in all three branches of the federal government. Third, the powers of the federal government and its officials are not general but instead are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution.

Fourth, the government is divided into three branches, each with its own enumerated powers, and one branch cannot exercise the powers of another branch. Fifth, the Constitution expressly constrains democratic, majority rule. Sixth, public officials are not legally permitted to ignore any constitutional constraint on their power but must instead seek a constitutional amendment from the people to eliminate the constraint.

Why did the Founders implement such a weak, divided government? One big reason: they clearly understood that historically the greatest threat to the freedom and well-being of a people comes not from foreign enemies but instead from their own government officials, even democratically elected ones. And they understood that that threat to the citizenry was always greatest during war.

Consider the words of James Madison, the father of our Constitution: “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”

What does our Constitution say about war? Our Founders divided war into two separate powers: Congress was given the power to declare war and the president was given the power to wage war. What that means is that under our system of government, the president cannot legally wage war against another nation in the absence of a declaration of war against that nation from Congress.

Again, reflect on the words of Madison: “The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war [and] the power of raising armies. A delegation of such powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments. The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.”

Therefore, under our system of government although the president is personally convinced that war against a certain nation is just and morally right, he is nevertheless prohibited by our supreme law of the land from waging it unless he first secures a declaration of war from Congress. That was precisely why presidents Wilson and Roosevelt, who both believed that U.S. intervention in World Wars I and II was right and just, nevertheless had to wait for a congressional declaration of war before entering the conflict. And the fact that later presidents have violated the declaration-of-war requirement does not operate as a grant of power for other presidents to do the same.

What about the congressional resolution that granted President Bush the power to wage war against unnamed nations and organizations that the president determines were linked to the September 11 attacks? Doesn’t that constitute a congressional declaration of war? No, it is instead a congressional grant to the president of Caesar-like powers to wage war, a grant that the Constitution does not authorize Congress to make.

Therefore, when a U.S. president wages what might otherwise be considered a just war, if he has failed to secure a congressional declaration of war, he is waging an illegal war — illegal from the standpoint of our own legal and governmental system. And when the American people support any such war, no matter how just and right they believe it is, they are standing not only against their own principles and heritage, not only against their own system of government and laws, but also against the only barrier standing between them and the tyranny of their own government — the Constitution.


Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va.

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0204a.asp

Pay ultra-particualr attention to that last paragraph, for it contains a description of you and your ilk: those who favor a nation of men, not law; those who endorse governmental power over individual liberty...

...tyrants all.
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Tell me something, because perhaps I've just been missing it, but do you believe the practice of judicial review is a legitimate power of the Supreme Court? Do you believe Justice Marshall was or was not on solid legal ground when he declared, "It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department [the judicial branch] to say what the law is"?
 
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Tell me something, because perhaps I've just been missing it, but do you believe the practice of judicial review is a legitimate power of the Supreme Court? Do you believe Justice Marshall was or was not on solid legal ground when he declared, "It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department [the judicial branch] to say what the law is"?

We got judicial review cuz Jefferson hated Adams and Marshall baited Jefferson to accept judicial review in trade for a favorable SCOTUS ruling.

Marshall was correct when he claimed that SCOTUS gets to define the law but every judge I know works to circumvent law with orders that violate law. Judges know that most lawyers wont challenge the violations, and I know from personal experiences that judges do not suffer challenges gladly.
 
Wasn't our involvement in World War II pretty instrumental in bringing us out of the Great Depression?

Or was I asleep in class that day....

The Great Depression began in 1929 and unemployment would eventually hits its peak around 25% in 1933...

...the same year recovery from the Great Depression began.

By 1940, unemployment had dropped to 15%.

Declaring war on Japan and the ensuing war effort would bring unemployment down to just below 10%...

...today, unemployment sits (at kindest) around 8-9%.

So, we were well on our way "out of the Great Depression" when the Imperial Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941...

...a full 8 years after recovery began.
 
The first big power vacuum a most brilliant John Marshall recognized and fell into, while looking like a hero when he did. He stood up to Congress telling them the SCOTUS was not entitled to power not granted to it by the Constitution.

In doing so he usurped the unmentioned, and un-contemplated power of judicial review, the first of thousands of penumbras the court would "discover" on the road to unconstitutional Judicial Supremacy.

We got judicial review cuz Jefferson hated Adams and Marshall baited Jefferson to accept judicial review in trade for a favorable SCOTUS ruling.

Marshall was correct when he claimed that SCOTUS gets to define the law but every judge I know works to circumvent law with orders that violate law. Judges know that most lawyers wont challenge the violations, and I know from personal experiences that judges do not suffer challenges gladly.

I am as opposed to "judicial activism" as the next guy, but it would seem inescapable to me that a government, populated by fallible men of diverse political philosophies who designed and set in operation a new government by way of a Constitution written and adopted by themselves, would soon be faced with the necessity of reconciling government conduct and enactment of statutory laws in apparent conflict with that same Constitution.

To which of the three branches should this duty have fallen, and what should members of that branch have done in light of such a responsibility having been allegedly "un-contemplated" by the very document they are supposedly trying to protect? Was it the duty of that branch to stand impotently mute until such time as a co-equal branch did or did not provide a solution?

Was not that solution (and the concept of judicial review itself) embodied in the language of Article III, Sec. 2 which states: "In all the other Cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." It seems to me that the central thrust of such language was to grant the Judiciary power to resolve conflicts between the specifics of statute law and the over arching principles and spirit of Constitutional law which (not so coincidentally) also established the legislative function and process.

Surely there can be no more substantive question of law than whether a particular law passed by Congress, in whole or in part, violates the very Constitution itself. "Unmentioned and un-contemplated"? I don't think so.

Neither did the Court when it considered this very question in Marbury:

"Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each. [5 U.S. 137, 178] So if a law be in opposition to the constitution: if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law: the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty."

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=5&page=137

The Court in Marbury makes no vain claims of infallibility for itself or other judicial officers in the exercise of judicial duty -- merely noting the essence of that duty and where it appropriately lies.

Arguably, the Court felt it's judicial duty to be so self-evident that a more expansive description or contemplation of its enumerated power as described in Article III, Sec. 2 was unnecessary.
 
Tell me something, because perhaps I've just been missing it, but do you believe the practice of judicial review is a legitimate power of the Supreme Court?Do you believe Justice Marshall was or was not on solid legal ground when he declared, "It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department [the judicial branch] to say what the law is"?

A unanimous SCOTUS ruled that if an Act of Congress conflicted with the Constitution, the Judiciary must stand for the Constitution and against that Act of Congress as unconstitutional.

Hamilton said as much in F78:

A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges as, a fundamental law. It, therefore, belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.

Marshall concurred in MvM:

So, if a law [e.g., a statute or treaty] be in opposition to the Constitution, if both the law and the Constitution apply to a particular case, so that the Court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the Constitution, or conformably to the Constitution, disregarding the law, the Court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty. If, then, the Courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the Legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.

The Constitution commands that only Congress has the power to declare war...

...that fundamental law cannot be altered by any Act of Congress short of an Amendment, and any federal judge who decides different is ruling against the Constitution.

Which is the basic lunacy we find ourselves in...

...when a federal court rules that a formal Congressional "Declaration of War" is not required by the Constitution for the President to go to war (see Doe v Bush).

The intentions of the framers of laying all responsibility of going to war on Congress is blatantly clear, and Congress can no more legally contract out its Constitutional obligation for that matter than the Supreme Court can abet it in doing so.
 
Wasn't our involvement in World War II pretty instrumental in bringing us out of the Great Depression?

Or was I asleep in class that day....

World War II destroyed American competition for many years. If we destroyed China and India we'd have good times once more.
 
The Great Depression began in 1929 and unemployment would eventually hits its peak around 25% in 1933...

...the same year recovery from the Great Depression began.

By 1940, unemployment had dropped to 15%.

Declaring war on Japan and the ensuing war effort would bring unemployment down to just below 10%...

...today, unemployment sits (at kindest) around 8-9%.

So, we were well on our way "out of the Great Depression" when the Imperial Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941...

...a full 8 years after recovery began.

It wasn't a rhetorical question. You could have just said, "Yep. You were asleep." ;)
 
I do not think the aim of the founders was to create a judicial supremacy over the legislative process, or the result of that process. To my mind the language you posted and I've highlighted above indicates a least the hint of congressional supremacy.

The legislative branch proved to be weaker than the FFs had anticipated. The executive more powerful and the judicial more invasive.

* shrug *
 
It wasn't a rhetorical question. You could have just said, "Yep. You were asleep." ;)

Yes, I could've...

...but, I am a very kind, thoughtful, and considerate person.

I do not think the aim of the founders was to create a judicial supremacy over the legislative process, or the result of that process. To my mind the language you posted and I've highlighted above indicates a least the hint of congressional supremacy.

We must always remember that Congress (acting on behalf of We, the People) created all the branches of federal government...

...and that Congress is the only branch that legally can propose Amending the Constitution (as they initially exercised in Philadelphia in 1787).

Congress has so much enumerated power because they are the Constitutional agents of the People (House of Representatives) and the States (Senate).

The theoretical order of constitutional hierarchy:

The law (constitution) of Nature naturally rules all...

...the law of society (the individual) comes next.

The law of the state (individuals banding together) follows...

...and lastly, the constitution of government to serve man.

The United States Congress (the People represented) is the practical application of the theoretical order of the state constituting government to serve man...

...thus, government (which all three branches compose) is subservient to the People, who're subservient to the foundational principle of each individual's liberty, who're are, in turn, subservient to the laws of Nature.

It's as if today the natural order our founders and framers understood so intimately has been completely, and intentionally, reversed...
 
Something that continues to this day, and in the end dooms our freedom.

From what I know thus far it seems to me that the judiciary's original role was MEDIATOR and finder of fact in disputes tween sovereign authorities. And they were never meant to participate in triangulation with parties in disputes. Triangulation is what juries exist for. Courts have never had enforcement power. They have no money, they have no enforcement officers.

What we've done is convert the counselling arm of government into the supreme executive arm of government. That is, we made a panel of advisors a board of kings.
 
Yes, I could've...

...but, I am a very kind, thoughtful, and considerate person.



We must always remember that Congress (acting on behalf of We, the People) created all the branches of federal government...

...and that Congress is the only branch that legally can propose Amending the Constitution (as they initially exercised in Philadelphia in 1787).

Congress has so much enumerated power because they are the Constitutional agents of the People (House of Representatives) and the States (Senate).

The theoretical order of constitutional hierarchy:

The law (constitution) of Nature naturally rules all...

...the law of society (the individual) comes next.

The law of the state (individuals banding together) follows...

...and lastly, the constitution of government to serve man.

The United States Congress (the People represented) is the practical application of the theoretical order of the state constituting government to serve man...

...thus, government (which all three branches compose) is subservient to the People, who're subservient to the foundational principle of each individual's liberty, who're are, in turn, subservient to the laws of Nature.

It's as if today the natural order our founders and framers understood so intimately has been completely, and intentionally, reversed...

Its more like the executive and legislative arms of government abdicated their policy making powers, and the Supremes grabbed the power.
 
The U.S. government reached its present size in response to popular demand. There was no conspiracy. Republican politicians learn that every time they go beyond vague campaign rhetoric to "put the government on a diet," to actually cutting spending programs.
 
CHAPTER ONE

WAR IS A RACKET

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?


http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
 
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