How to stop a runaway federal government
How to stop a runaway federal government; Henry Lamb; Canada Free Press
For the benefit of the Department of Homeland Security, Southern Poverty Law Center, MSNBC, all progressives, socialists and outright communists – this article is not about anti-government organizations. It is about organizations filled with members who love the United States of America and are sick and tired of watching its leaders ignore the Constitution, trample individual freedom and impose near-despotic rule.
The emergence of tea party and 9/12 groups across the country are just the first bubbles in a pot that has begun to boil. Thousands of groups have formed and are now monitoring local governments, conducting regular education sessions for their members, locating, grooming and funding candidates, and preparing to rid the nation's leadership of all officials who display anti-Constitution tendencies.
In Maine, for example, a group has formed called The Fourth Awakening, which says:
Our purpose is to restore the Republic gifted to us in 1776 by our Founding Fathers whose vision we cherish and whose vision we intend to reclaim in full. In essence we reject the ideology of the Marxist progressives, we reject big government; we reject the subversion of our Constitution, our religious and personal rights. …
This group hopes to create a national movement among the states through which each state will create what they call an "Electoral Assembly" which will provide greater participation by citizens in the oversight of candidate selection, elections, lawmaking, rulemaking and the implementation of government.
While many of the ideas expressed by this group may be unrealistic, their passion for a return to the original Republic designed by the founders is quite clear.
Another group in Wyoming is trying to launch a campaign calling on states to initiate nullification legislation. Nullification is the constitutional theory that since states created the federal union, states have the last word in determining whether they will honor laws created by the federal union.
Thomas Woods explains how states can reject unconstitutional federal laws in "Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century"
This theory has been tested several times in U.S. history. Current efforts are likely to meet the same fate as previous efforts, but the effort is another bubble in the boiling pot of dissatisfaction with the direction of the federal government.
The nullification initiative hit the nail on the head in its explanation for the campaign:
The sovereign states lost congressional representation of states' interests in 1913 with the passage of the 17th Amendment, which removed the constitutional right of each state legislature to choose two representatives of state interests, to be seated in the U.S. Senate.
The 17th Amendment is the problem. The solution is to repeal the 17th Amendment. There is no need for states to create "Electoral Assemblies." There is no need to reinvent the "nullification" wheel. There is a great need to repeal the 17th Amendment, which is likely to be the only realistic way to stop a runaway federal government.
The founders who fought tooth-and-nail for four months in Philadelphia did so because they loved freedom and hated despotism. They knew the only way to prevent a government from becoming despotic was to create multiple power sources and force them to compete, and to require eventual agreement before any new law could be imposed upon the people.
The purpose for having a bicameral legislature was to have two separate constituencies examine proposed legislation. The House of Representatives represented the people; the Senate – chosen by state legislatures – represented the states. These two sources of power had to agree on all legislation before it could go to the president. The president, another power source, had to agree before any proposal could become law. ...
The 17th Amendment obliterated this carefully designed system by removing the states from participation. What remained was a bicameral legislature representing a single constituency, divided only by Party affiliation. Thus began the tug-of-war between two political persuasions for control of the power government possesses. Before the 17th Amendment, the purpose of government was to protect the inherent rights of its citizens and to defend them from all enemies foreign and domestic. After the 17th Amendment, the purpose of government evolved into the enforcement of political theories the ruling Party believed to be most suitable for the people.
Stated differently, before the 17th Amendment, people were free to do whatever they wished so long as their freedom did not infringe upon the rights of others. After the 17th Amendment, the federal government became the mechanism through which the Party in power could impose its ideas about how people ought to live.
A coalition of organizations has now formed and is now spreading across the nation with the single goal of repealing the 17th Amendment. Tea Party and 912 groups as well as property rights and fair tax groups, gun rights groups, and many others are joining forces to repeal the 17th Amendment in order to once again give states a seat at the federal table.
Only by restoring the states to the federal government process can there be any hope of stopping a runaway federal government.
7 comments:
You have not explained anything about how the 17th Amendment is the cause of corruption.
There was all kinds of corruption before the 17th Amendment. Just because we now elect our Senators ourselves, is not what causes corruption.
I suggest you get a clue.
If you want to get rid of corruption, FINE.
One way would be to have congressman, and their staff, be "on the record" all the time.
We can and should know what our Congressmen are saying, and the deals they are making.
They represent us, so we have a right to know what they are saying and doing behind their office doors. When lobbyist come to talk, we should be able to know what our representive says.
Right now, we can only find out what they say when THEY want us to. Well, they work for us, right?
Just like your attorney works for you, just like your real estate agent works for you. They represent us.
Fine. Let us know what they are saying and doing, speaking and acting in our behalf. Have the representitives be on the record at all times.
If they speak to lobbyist, it should be in writing, or recorded on video. Let them have no secrets from us.
That would get rid of the corruption --
No, it will never happen in our life times. But that is how you end corruption-- openness, no back room deals, the light of day.
Seeker:
I am not sure if you are speaking to me or the writer of the article. But I do have, in part, a good understanding about the level of corruption within the US Senate.
As to your solution, transparency, while I don't think anyone would argue that we need more transparency at every level of government, it would be virtually impossible to know what is said between a politician and say a lobbyist 24 hours a day 7 days a week; impossible.
But the founders understood this and this why they created a system of checks and balances using two models; federalism and bicameralism. The states and the national government checked one another under the structure of federalism, while the senate, representatives of the states, check the constituency of the people in the house through the structure of bicameralism.
I suggest you read some of the journal articles I have posted to the right side of the blog page and review the data that is presented.
Also, prior to 1913 back to the creation of the Constitution there were only 9 actual cases of corruption in the US Senate...do you want to take a stab at how many there has been since 1913?
You still haven't explained anything about electing Senators makes them corrupt.
By that logic, we shouldn't elect representitives either.
Oh, and governors have been corrupt. Stop electing them.
Mayors have been corrupt, let's have them appointed.
Alderman have been corrupt, stop those elections.
In fact, let's not have elections AT ALL, because elections cause corruption.
And I'm sure there are millions of people out there, who are sitting home thinking "Dayum, we should let someone else chose our Senators. We are too stupid to do it. Where do I sign so that I never again chose my Senator".
In other words, your idea is goofy as they come.
There may be some negatives that come from electing Senators.
Here is a clue, genius, there are positive and negative consquences of everything. Not everything is just magically wonderful.
We used to have only white men with property vote. We ended that. Men without property could vote.
But there are drawbacks to that.
We used to have slaves. We ended that.
But there are drawbacks to that.
We used not allow women to vote. We stopped that.
But there are drawbacks to that.
We used to require a test to vote -- you had to be able to read and answer questions. We got rid of that. There are draw backs to that.
We used to any car on the highway that could move under its own power. We put in safety rules.
There are drawbacks to that.
We used to let kids go to school who weren't immunized, so that epidemics of deadly diseases were possible. We stopped that.
But there are drawbacks to that.
We used to let anyone who dared to practice medicine, do so. We stopped that. But there are drawbacks to that.
I could go on.
There are drawbacks to everything.
Grown ups realize that. It's called maturity.
But you probably are doing less damage to life on this planet, by this lunatic effort to repeal the 17th Amendment. No one is going to support that. People will just not vote for something that takes away their vote.
But you don't grasp that.
This is like giving a baby a rattle. Something to keep you busy so you don't crawl out in traffic and hurt yourself.
This is worth considering:
"Changing the system for electing senators made monitoring the behavior of senators more difficult and thereby permitted more legislation advancing causes of particular interest groups. In addition, the rise of a national economy changed the traditional structure of relationships between politicians and interest groups. Interest groups extended beyond state boundaries, necessitating new legislation to further their goals. Finally, the Seventeenth Amendment was not uniformly supported throughout the country; it was strongest in regions that stood to gain financially from the reform." (Todd Zywicki; Senators and Special Interests: A Public Choice Analysis of the Seventeenth Amendment; p. 1033)
Jim
Seeker & Brian, repealing the 17th is not about special interests vs. the public in Congress, it's about special interests vs. the public in the House, and special interests vs. the state governments in the Senate.
And as for popularity we were considered "fringe" a few years ago, but there are dozens of people on our side now, including major candidates, many of whom become politicians.
Did you say you have "dozens of people with us now, some of whom become politicians'?
Are you kidding, or are you mentally handicapped?
Forget the value of your idea (which is near zero). You have a dozen people?
Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a Constitutional AMendment passed? Really, do you?
A dozen people??? This is hilarious. SOme of whom may become politicians?
Is this some kind of joke? Are you kidding me?
First, go find out how hard it is to pass and Constitutional Amendment. Ask the women who tried to pass the ERA.
There were MILLIONS of people who wanted the ERA. MILLIONS. Many thousands of those were politicians.
Came close to passing, but didn't pass.
YOu need to have an outpouring, and huge and passionate demand for something, before it can even HOPE to succeed as a Constitutional Amendment.
You have a dozen people? DO you realize how goofy that is?
Look there are important things we need in our constitution -- taking away people's right to vote for their Senators is NOT one of them.
There may be draw backs to letting people vote AT ALL. So what, we aren't going to vote on things to take away our vote.
You won't get millions upon millions of people voting to take away their own vote.
Try to grasp that central truth in your head.
Me:
"there are dozens of people on our side now, including major candidates, many of whom become politicians."
Seeker:
"dozens of people with us now, some of whom become politicians'?"
"A dozen people???"
Very clever.
And BTW the ERA would have turned the *other* half of the 1st Amendment into an ACLU/NAACP/ADL/Rev. Barry/Bill Donahue/GLAAD/Jesse Jackson "hate speech" hackfest.
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