Colonel Hogan
Madness
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2005
- Posts
- 18,372
Is that your forté - Just sayin'?
*looks around*
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Is that your forté - Just sayin'?
So, in the 212 years since the ruling in Marbury, why do you think not a single federal judge has been criminally convicted or impeached for committing the gross abuse of power known as judicial review?
Two centuries of cowardice by EVERY President and EVERY Congress is NOT a credible explanation.
All most every example of over-reaching lamented about by the far right, finds its authority in the Commerce Clause. Yet there has never been an attempt to modify the Clause by Amendment.
All most every example of over-reaching lamented about by the far right, finds its authority in the Commerce Clause. Yet there has never been an attempt to modify the Clause by Amendment.
Not to mention a host of other transgressions against the will of the people committed by SCOTUS. Race. Abortion. Taxes. Welfare. Gay rights.
The mechanism for change is all right there in Article V. What are you waiting for? Do it or STFU.
Because the very people charged with such a duty benefit from the continual expansion of Federal power and bureaucracy. Those that feed at the trough that finance the campaigns all benefit from influence, or at a minimum, assurances that their neighbor's rather than their ox shall be gored.
No government ever voluntarily reduces it's own power. The States were supposed to be a check on the power of the monster they created since it was charged with doing their bidding, not the other way around.
In my view, that check was lost when Senators were elected by popular vote and not subject to immediate recall if they displeased their State legislatures, where the real power was supposed to reside.
Okay, so if I follow your argument, it is the U. S. Senate which has consistently thwarted the will of the people expressed through the voting by representational districts comprising both the House of Representatives and individual state legislatures.
Except history demonstrates that it hasn't worked out that way. That's far too simplistic.
Does the government reduce its power when it lowers taxes? Did it reduce its power when it freed the slaves and gave women the right to vote? Who knew what those crazy demographic segments would do with such power?
If "governments" never reduce their power, I would have thought the individual white guys who historically made up those governments would have done a far better job of STRENGTHENING rather than relaxing their grip on the reins.
The word "regulate" is a very interesting one constitutionally, especially considering its meaning through the eras of American history.
Today, for instance, many consider it to mean rule over, whereas in the past so many then used it as well run, regulated like a well-oiled machine, for example.
Think about a well-regulated militia in that regard and the difference that interpretation makes to how Amendment II is argued so much today.
The meaning of words change over time as culture changes. It's almost impossible to understand what the framers actually meant without understanding how they defined the words they employed. Quite an interesting niche itself that, I imagine.
I think one could make a reasonable argument that, given any particular piece of legislation, the framers may not have always completely understood one another at the time they were "framing."
And if Nancy Pelosi truly believes we have to pass something to actually find out what's in it, that may not represent a great deal of progress over the passage of time.
Revisiting you hypothesis re: well-regulated militia. Is it not possible that in the Constitutional Convention a representative from an Eastern Seaboard state was most concerned with the maintenance of a militia and curtailing excesses by the central government while a representative of a frontier state was more concerned with personal firearm ownership and killing indians to facilitate westward expansion? Could these different representatives have "defined" the purpose of the Second Amendment differently? That seems possible to me.
Did it happen? Hell, I don't know.
Just sayin.'![]()
The Senate was designed to be not swayed by the whims of the population at large. We have the opposite of that now. Schools now teach that we live "in a democracy" and they are not far wrong.
It is arguably true that the government created by and for those that owned the land in which they were establishing their government was nearly exclusively white males, the fact that those persons set up the government has nothing at all to do with the government taking on a life and a bureaucracy and patronage of its own.
I am sure many anti-suffragettes and anti-abolitionists foresaw where we might be now, but that is besides the point. The Government itself does not care who votes to allow it continual power increases, only that it does. The fact that previously marginalized people have a voice speaks to the better angels of those detestable old white male landowners, but it is not prima fascia evidence that the government itself is in anyway anything but on an ever increasing trajectory of taking power unto itself.
What can you do in America these days on your own land (assuming you are not one of the few residents of Eyer-ville) without having permission from local, county, state and federal government agencies?
Having some individual groups of citizens with more power than they here-to-fore had affects the balance of power between citizen groups, not the citizens in aggregate vs the government. Short of starting over, citizens can only nibble away at the rate of increase.
After all, we are just talking about a few "reasonable" laws and regulations and standards and agencies on top of a few more "reasonable" laws and regulations and standards and agencies...
You seem to be just babbling now. Would you like a few minutes to yourself?
Just piping in to take exception with the implication of "representational districts".
Back to lurking.
I'm alone now, thanks.
Just piping in to take exception with the implication of "representational districts".
Back to lurking.
I'm not following your presumed implication, much less the exception. Care to help?
In a word gerrymandering.
In a word gerrymandering.
While I freely acknowledge your points, I am not certain where you would collectively have us go as a society. The massive growth of this nation in two or three hundred years and the once unfathomable mobility of nearly everyone in it creates a reality and need for regulation that simply could not have been foreseen or forestalled once it occurred.
The "freedom," if it can be so inappropriately termed, to die of smallpox cannot simply be sustained in an age where vaccines exist and the quarantine of infected persons can prevent epidemics.
Okay, so if that is too extreme an example, let's ratchet it down. I remember as a kid burning leaves we raked up from the yard every fall. I understand why many municipalities with air quality issues don't allow that anymore. Should we really exorcise ourselves over that loss of freedom?
How could you best quantify your gripe for me? What are the losses that most get under your skin? As specific as possible, please.
In a word gerrymandering.
Subsididarity.