What we have here is not a failure to communicate (which is a problem we've discussed before), it is a failure to understand or comprehend, on the parts of certain individuals so-inclined, the clear and undeniable principle that consolidation of government power into a single governing entity (per what we have now with the central controlling agency -- the so-called federal government) results, invariably (that is, no matter what angle you're coming at it from), in the destruction of freedom or liberty, and the entire basis on which this Republic was founded.
I don't need to quote founders such as Jefferson to solidify my point, it is as it is. But it's sad, and deeply demoralizing. Although I do take heart in the fact that such State Reps as Oklahoma's own Charles Key (founder of the modern Tenth Amendment movement), et al, are working tirelessly to secure the rights guaranteed to us in the written Bill of Rights per Tenth Amendment Resolutions and their offspring, nullification laws on such things as "federal health care" and "gun legislation," among others. (I know this because I've had email conversations with these legislators.)
Anyway, to those of you who cling to the idea that the fourteenth amendment is useful to securing (individual) liberty, I simply say to you this -- name for me specific incidences of how it has served to do so over the past century and a half post introduction and ratification. I rest my case. Whatever the "good intentions" of its writers, as was predicted by many at the time, it has served to enslave the general American populace to supreme rule via the central government. The history is what it is, I can't change it, and wouldn't if I could.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Isn't this just wonderful?!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Well, you know that I'm pretty much a fan of the 14th. I believe the main fault lies in how it has been wantonly misinterpreted rather than the rather minor deficiencies of wording (chief among these, the omission of the words "at least" from both occurances of "twenty-one years of age", which renders that clause amusingly but hardly fatally altered from the intended meaning...or what I would hope to have been the intended meaning).
My favorite clause, as ever, is the third.
"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."
But that's probably just because...well. Because.
I know, the principle is already found in the main body of the Constitution, but it is not made so explicit. The same is true of most of the rest of the 14th amendment. Only the definition of citizenship and (either ill-worded or oddly constructed) provision of a standard for voting participation represent real changes rather than commonsense clarification.
By the by, the "Indians not taxed" thing, by every measure I'm able to bring to bear, does fully apply to anyone of 'Native American' descent who is not a citizen. I think that's worth something, right? Yes, yes, that one isn't even a change in the language of the original provision, but it's still a good thing, right?
Anyway, more on topic, I doubt that there's a real inability to comprehend that the consolidation of government power is tyrannical. It's just that sometimes tyranny looks like such a promising way of getting the damn trains to arrive on schedule. And combating the tide of destructive immorality centered on the promulgation of abortion is...it really is a very important train.
I see two problems with focusing on banning abortion (completely separate from the issue of how one does so). First, it is too simplistic to assume that, just because abortion is at the center of the adversary's line, it is therefore the lynch-pin of the evil America faces. Second, it is naive to expect that an outright ban will accomplish anything at this stage of the game.
The real focus of the adversary, as ever, is on the destruction of freedom. Abortion is simply in the center of the various evil effects which are brought about by the denigration of the concept of personal responsibility on which all real freedom is founded. Aiming there is like trying to fight a fire by spraying water at the column of smoke...you must extinguish the source of the flames instead.
The second issue is more particular to abortion. Abortion is too easy and too widely accepted at this time. There was a story recently about rural teens using veterinary hormones intended to regulate the production of milk in dairy cattle. It functions much like the "morning after" pill. Many feminine hygiene products can be easily modified to administer a simple saline bath, a common means of abortion. And manual abortions, such as dilation and cuttage, really require nothing more than a wire coat-hanger and a strong stomach. Despite the horror stories professional hysterics tell about botched back-alley abortions, it isn't really that difficult a procedure. Much of what the under-culture now does for sexual gratification is more technically demanding or dangerous.
Which is to say, the current regulation of abortion practice is so deficient that if it were banned outright, it wouldn't even become less safe. We'd hear more horror stories, but mainly just because those are currently verboten in the complicit media.
I'm not recommending that there be a widespread effort to reduce knowledge how of how to perform any sort of abortive procedure (though the destruction of modern society will accomplish that in some degree). The key point of attack is to delegitimize and depopularize abortion. And focusing on communities which already have a moral consensus on the issue is key to doing that.
The states were to be "laboratories of democracy" in a very literal sense. The intention was that some states could showcase particular policies which their citizens thought good, and other states could watch and see how it turned out. Sadly, Americans took up doing the opposite, which is why the Federal government is currently trying to copy the policies of California rather than...any other state.
Yes, I know that you like it. Heck, I have to admit that I like some of the language too, most of it even. I'd like it a lot better if the original intent of the article were being followed. Speaking of which,...
talk about obliterating the intent of the fourteenth amendment and the spirit in which it was written, if what we've seen over at Loyal to Liberty ain't it, I don't know what is. But anyway, you know what the founders said,
"Wise statesmen and patriots will not always be at the helm." Or something like that. Boy did they nail that one down! Not that it was all that difficult to predict.
BTW, I agree with you that the proper way to approach this issue is to change peoples' minds about it; that it's too widely accepted at this point to reverse Roe at the federal level. Even if that were desirable from a whole view perspective.
These people'd do well to read someone like Dr. Norman Geisler on this issue of abortion. Geisler points out that the common folk (not the power brokers) who defend "a woman's right to choose" are generally led to believe that they're taking a morally sound position on it. They're wrong, of course, but their motives are not always impure as some should like to believe and insult them with such accusations. Anyway,...
If I were one of these people advocating for such, I'd get off of my high horse, take a step back and say to myself "hmmm., I wonder what would be the best and most effective way to achieve my ends," and "hmmm., is there a chance in hell that my advocating for the consolidation of power in the central government will ever effect the overthrow of Roe/re-establishment of God-ordained life, liberty, property?"
Answer: An emphatic NO!
Therefore...
Well, I have to admit that when the Constitutional design of federalism, letting the national government have only that authority strictly necessary to regulate the interactions between the State and other national governments themselves, is attacked as "pro-choice"...it makes being pro-choice seem a good deal more sensible.
That is, of course, the devilish cunning of naming the abortion movement thus. Even when people generally wake up to the obvious evil of abortion, they've been brainwashed to think of tyranny as the only possible alternative.
Oops. Yahoo strikes again.
I just went over and read Dr. Keyes's follow-up post on the subject, as well as the comments to the entry.
I think Dr. Keyes's reasoning is way too simplistic. Which is not to say that he doesn't possess a very good understanding of the original intent of the founders in the constitution overall, but that he somehow misses (or dismisses as it were) key differences between the America of 1789 and the America of 2009. Specifically such changes as the advent of women's suffrage, federal determination of voting age and other qualifications, the racial makeup of America now vs. then, virtual open-ended immigration, and so forth and so on.
I've mentioned these things to him before, but he doesn't seem particularly inclined to want to acknowledge them per the incohesiveness such radical changes tend to engender in societies and their political institutions. But what truly honest person is he who can say with a straight face that the diminution of political power in the state and local governments has not created, predictably, a situation in which we find ourselves powerless to control the central government's appetite for committing open genocide against its own people and their offspring, depriving them of life, liberty and property?
P.S. I'm tempted to tell them to take their cause up with the U.N. or the international human rights commission. Take it straight to the top, don't ya know.
That is...an interesting argument. But I believe that a vocal pro-life (and hopefully pro-freedom) advocacy on the international stage does serve a significant purpose distinct from "taking it to the top".
Which is not clearly the case with attempts to impose regulation of abortion at the national level. Even as perverse as the Roe v. Wade decision is, it still intrinsically recognizes that the national government is even less authorized than the state legislatures to impose restrictions on individual cases of abortion. All invocations of the so-called 'incorporation doctrine' nominally accept that the doctrine is applying to the states restrictions which are already binding on the national government.
Yes, in practice the doctrine has been repeatedly applied to many cases such that the national government is actually doing what the states can only be restricted from doing on the presumption that they are bound by some restriction on the Federal government's activities, but that's because you have lawyers acting as judges, a clear violation of the fundamental principles of conflict of interest. When the entire basis for impartial administration of the law is ignored so pervasively, you can hardly expect decisions to make any sense except by understanding them to reflect nothing more than personal whims.
But the simple fact that the incorporation doctrine is generally applied in a logically contradictory manner doesn't seem like a good reason to base all one's efforts to restore Constitutional government on logically inconsistent interpretations of the incorporation doctrine. Actually, it seems like a good reason to reject the incorporation doctrine as completely as possible.
But that's just me.
hai friend i really happy to see your blogs with good content,videos,amazing images i am regular visitor of your blog, i request to add my blogs as link....
online-marketing-today
Travel,Transport,Business
Health,Real Esate,Shopping
Post a Comment