John Jay Hooker Quote

"It is preposterous that the current members of the United States Senate and all of their predecessors for more than 200 years haven't been able to read the Constitution and do what it says."

John Jay Hooker

National Senate Was Essential in the Conquest of State Sovereignty

HT: Mike P from Repeal the 17^th Amendment Discussion Board

The 17th Amendment and the Nationalized Senate; Republicae-Seditionist; Patrick J Buchanan Weblog Forum; May 20, 2008.

On the forum page of the “Patrick J Buchanan Weblog” there is an excellent overview of James Madison’s thoughts that contributed to design of the two distinct houses in Congress, which lasted until 1913. Additionally the author provides a concise of the consequences of the 17^th Amendment.

By Republicae-Seditionist:

With the passage of the 17th Amendment, that is exactly what happened. The Senate was taken out of the hands of the State Legislatures, in a way it was transformed not only into a democratized unit, but it was also nationalized making it little more then a de facto branch within the centralized government. By placing the Senate on the open market of direct elections, the Senate no longer was an institution that could and did counter-balance the House of Representatives, but it was no longer a check on the general federal governments ability define its own sovereignty over the State Republics and thus the People themselves.

More importantly, the more damaging effect was that the Senate was no longer answerable to the State Legislatures. This one act of nationalization of the Senate allowed for the neutralization of all claims, and thus powers, by the States to their former Sovereignty and their ability to uphold that key component of the delegation from the States of a portion of their Sovereignty to the federal government. Since a Senator was now only answerable to the People in direct election, he or she could not easily be chastised, recalled or impeached by the State Legislature. This was an essential power of the individual State legislatures and indeed of the People themselves. As it is, the States have no real representation within Congress itself, because like the House of Representatives, the Senate is now only answerable to the People by the electoral process and are, in a very real sense, on the open market of influences.

Under such a system, there is particularly one type of influence upon the Senate that exceeds all others and that influence is of the federal government. The Senate has, in essence, become nothing more than an arm of the federal government and is far more likely to be in agreement with the desires of the general government instead of the People or the States.

As it is, the Senate is an isolated power that does little but assist in the concentrate the power of the federal government, centralizing its authority and expanding its ability to usurp any power it deems fit and necessary in order to advance its own will without the Consent of the People even though it was the People themselves that elected the Senate.

At present, the States must compete along with other Lobbyist and Special Interests for the ear of the Senate. The Repeal of the 17th Amendment would be an effective measure to decentralize the power of the federal government and would, in a very powerful measure, establish a direct line between the Sovereign State Republics and the general federal government. The States currently must direct their request and concerns to numerous agencies, stepping through a labyrinth of bureaucracies in order to attain an audience. The State Republics have little of the Constitutional Authority or Power as provided and enumerated within the Constitution. In a very real sense, the States have been relegated to sub-components of the general government and thereby answerable to the entire power-structure of the general federal government.

Read the whole posting here.

Comment: The author replies to a comment on the forum and says, “Take the Senate away from the popular vote and restore it to the State Legislatures and we will see a very different function evolve in Congress,” I’d say we would certainly see the deficit reduced straight away.

Even though better than half the US is fed up with Congress few actually understand how the framers formed the government originally, and most believe the propaganda about the “progressive movement” that someway removed the corruption in the US Senate, which is found in almost government education history book through out the country. But considering the enthusiastic Ron Paul is receiving from the 20-30 something age group, with any luck there will be a better understanding of not only our history, but the US Constitution.

Electronic Elections: Vote Fraud in the 21st Century

The Birth of Freedom - Trailer

Join the Boycott Today

How long can you sit back as business after business leaves the State of Ohio? How long can you sit back while second-rate leadership in the Republican led General Assembly raises taxes, increases the size of government, and gives away millions of our tax dollars to pie and the sky fantasies? How long can you sit back as our Republican congressional officials dig this nation deeper and deeper into economic misery through fiscal deficits and oppressive government regulations?

If you have had enough of these RINOs and will not sit back any longer, then join the boycott of the Ohio Republican Party (ORP) and tell ORP “NO” money until republican ideals return to Ohio!

We need to send a big message to Bob Bennett and Kevin DeWine that we are not going to put up with the weak leadership and “liberal” agenda that our elected republican officials are advancing. But it takes two things for the ORP leadership to understand we are serious: a strong voice on the outside, and your withholding of donations from the inside.

We need your support so please join our group so our numbers will grow and we can mount a tough protest in the coming months. At the same time, send a note to Bob Bennett and Kevin DeWine telling them “NOT ONE RED CENT” until republicans ideals return to Ohio.

Join the boycott today by first sending an email to saynotoorp at gmail. Together we can bring change to Ohio, but we can only do it together. Please join today.

"Let's Destroy the Economy by Turning it Over to Left-Geek Bureaucrats in 2008 Act"

Cap and Destroy; By Larry Thornberry; The American Spectator; 6/3/2008.

HT: Collecting My Thoughts

“Yesterday the U.S. Senate began what it insists on calling "debate" (more like serial dopey speeches designed for home consumption) on the worst piece of legislation introduced into that body in the new century. Perhaps worse than anything in the last century as well.

“There's nothing good to be said about the disingenuously named Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008. A better name would be the Let's Destroy the Economy by Turning it Over to Left-Geek Bureaucrats in 2008 Act.

“The heart of Lieberman-Warner is a cap and trade system that would turn decisions on how much and what kind of energy to use in the private sector over to government. This is the approach, you'll recall, that worked so well in the Soviet Union that that dismal country's first five-year plan lasted 74 years before the whole sorry business caved-in on its own command and control butt. If adopted, this would be the most fundamental change in the nature of this country in the country's history.

“Perhaps we could call this the New New Deal. The first New Deal, cooked up by a lot of smart but impractical professors and hack politicians in FDR's administration, succeeded in making the Great Depression deeper and longer than it otherwise would have been. The current plan, more ambitious than all of FDR's alphabet soup groups, could put paid to the entire economy, and thus to America as we've known it.”

Comment: Oligarchs at work is an understatement; this is disastrous. This is disastrous to liberty, freedom, and our prosperity. The hour is well past the time to repeal the 17^th Amendment.

Gene Epstein on Gold, the Fed, and Money

Via EconTalk:

June 02, 2008, Featuring Gene Epstein

“Gene Epstein, Barron's economics editor, talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the virtues of the gold standard relative to fiat money. Epstein argues that privately issued money, backed by gold, would lead to an economy with much greater price stability and fewer and milder recessions.”

TIME: 1:07:23

PODCAST/AUDIO LINK HERE.

Comment: Very informative discussion especially the portions concerning the Federal Reserve and money supply.

South America Union Born

Could a North American Union be next?

Brazil: South America Union Born; By The Associated Press; 24 May 2008.

Via the New York Times:

“A new South American union was created as leaders of the continent’s 12 independent nations signed a treaty creating the organization and set out to devise a continental parliament. Some view the union, known as UNASUR, as the region’s version of the European Union. Brazil, which organized the meeting in Brasília, where the union was born, wants it to help coordinate defense affairs across South America.”

Comment: Will we lose our sovereignty next?

Federalism, the Supreme Court, and the Seventeenth Amendment: The Irony of Constitutional Democracy

Federalism, the Supreme Court, and the Seventeenth Amendment: The Irony of Constitutional Democracy, by Ralph Rossum, was recommended by Ken M, member of the Repeal the 17^th Amendment Discussion Board.

From Amazon Books:

Book Description
Abraham Lincoln worried that the "walls" of the constitution would ultimately be levelled by the "silent artillery of time." His fears materialized with the 1913 ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment which eliminated federalism's structural protection, altering the very nature and meaning of federalism. This is the provocative argument of Ralph A. Rossum's new book which considers the forces unleashed by an amendment to install the direct election of U.S. Senators. Far from expecting federalism to be protected by an activist court, the framers, Rossum argues, expected the constitutional structure, and particularly election of the Senate by state legislatures, to sustain it. In "Federalism, the Supreme Court, and the Seventeenth Amendment" Rossum challenges the fundamental jurisprudential assumptions about federalism. He also provides a powerful indictment of the controversial federalist decisions recently handed down by an activist U.S. Supreme Court seeking to fill the gap created by the Seventeenth Amendment's ratification and protect the original federal design. Rossum's masterful handling of the development of federalism restores the true significance to an amendment previously consigned to the footnotes of history. It demonstrates how the original federal design has been amended out of existence; the interests of states as states abandoned; and federalism left unprotected, both structurally and democratically. It highlights the ultimate irony of constitutional democracy: that an amendment, intended to promote democracy, even at the expense of federalism, has been undermined by an activist court intent on protecting federalism, at the expense of democracy.

About the Author
Ralph A. Rossum is Director of the Rose Institute of State and Local Government and Professor of American Constitutionalism at Claremont McKenna College. He is author of seven books, including "American Constitutional Law", (with G. Alan Tarr).