Just when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse, RBG passes away.
Right in the middle of the worse political chaos in 60 years, the recent death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is taking things up a notch
Given that it’s an election year, Republicans are eager to nominate a new Justice before the election. But past decisions, such as Mitch McConnel having refused to vote on a nomination by outgoing President Barack Obama, are exacerbating the political tension.
We even have political commentators, like CNN’s Don Lemon, calling to “blow up the entire system.”
A few years ago, a comment like this would have been fringe, but in 2020 it’s mainstream.
This raises the question(s), why the extreme reactions and what do they say about the state of the American political system?
In an article, Dan Sanchez notes that, “The presidency, the Supreme Court, and the federal government in general have come to matter far too much to Americans.”
Sanchez further explains, “The central government has grown too big and important. It has too much inescapable power over too many lives. There is too much on the line for any given presidential election and Supreme Court appointment.”
With so much riding on every political decision, it’s no wonder there’s a pervasive “anything goes” mentality leading to street battles and calls to burn down the system.
Sanchez writes to heal our political schism and extinguish the chaos plaguing our streets, a return to our country’s tradition of federalism would do the trick.
It may be worth a try???
Sorin Varzaru says
Oh yeah, the glory days where each state could allow slavery or not, when women were not allowed to vote or do much without a permission slip from the husband, when there was no such thing as gay marriage and when white males were kings. Who wouldn’t want a of that back?
Paul Plante says
Uh, what’s to stop any of that from happening now, Sorin, all over again?
And what was it that caused any of that to change, te rog să-mi spui?
And you are talking about Europe, n’est-ce pas?
Sorin Varzaru says
“Uh, what’s to stop any of that from happening now, Sorin, all over again?”
Until recently, the supreme court. Now, nothing really. Pretty soon I’m expecting life will get a lot more difficult for anyone that is not a white heterosexual male in many states , from north dakota to Missouri and Arkansas
MJM says
I don’t understand how you didn’t hear that you have a President right now that is doing his very best to try and stop the sex slaves from coming across our border. On one hand you say that you want slavery to stop and then on the other hand you say you don’t want the President who is trying to stop it. Which is it ? Obama and Biden didn’t seriously try to stop it, which means they allowed it. The bad part of politics is a dirty stinking business and can’t always be dealt with wearing kid gloves. So Trump may sometimes say things that may starch our shorts a little, but he wants to block the slave traders with a big ol wall. You don’t see the signs all over Our Eastern Shore about sex traffickers ? Please don’t try to tell me walls don’t work. People have been lauding The Great Wall of China for a darn long time. Or are you “one of those” who like to complain but don’t really care ?
Sorin Varzaru says
You seem like an intelligent person based on how you write. You must understand that a huge part of illegal immigration crosses the border legally then overstays. A 6000 miles wall is an exercise in futility. But no worries, the way things are going, we’re not going to have that problem anymore. Mexico might build that wall after all. To keep americans from trying to escape the 4th reich the president is working on.
Ray Otton says
” To keep americans from trying to escape the 4th reich the president is working on.”
As there it is.
Godwin’s law is an Internet adage asserting that states as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches certainty.
So, thanks for playing, we have some nice parting gifts for you.
If you stop by Kelly’s Pub you can pick them up. Just tell them your name and I’m SURE they’ll find something special for you to take home.
Paul Plante says
Boy, can you say that again.
This is the AGE of the POGROM, meaning “to destroy, to wreak havoc, to demolish violently,” against white heterosexual males in the United States of America.
Our end is imminent, and it won’t pretty.
We’ll end up just like Johan de Witt – the ‘Grand Pensionary’ (in effect, prime minister) of the Dutch Republic (incidentally, did you learn about him in grade school over there in the Old Country; if not why not?) – who was killed by a howling mob such as we have in America today, along with his brother in 1672, with there being historical accounts of some among the mob taking parts of the bodies and eating them.
That Sorin, and I am sure you know this well, that is the kind of violence against humanity that mobs are capable of, and we white heterosexual males would be wise, as you say, to not forget it.
For those without Sorin’s continental flair and accordingly, knowledge of these things which we don’t even know about, most of the time, anyway, except for people classically educated like myself in another time, another century and millenium all together, actually, back when the “education” system wasn’t intentionally turning out unquestioning morons and idiots like it does today, “consumers,” not citizens, because, well, okay, okay, I’m getting to it, we don’t need citizens in America today because there is no longer a need for them, because there is nothing for them to do.
It is consumers that we need otherwise life wouldn’t be as good as it is now, when to be a consumer, you don’t have to think, which is not good for you, anyway; all you have to do is spend, and that on very easy credit terms today thanks to the good-heartedness of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and all his friends on the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee, who love us as if we were
their own children, which in a lot of ways when you think on it, we really are.
Anyway, is it true that an angry mob of Dutchmen killed and ate their own prime minister in 1672?
Given that that is a fate awaiting white heterosexual males in this country in the near future as Sorin is warning us about, which warning we should heed, because Sorin, being from Europe where mob violence is fairly commonplace, knows a lot more about it that we could ever hope to, although we are getting some real live demonstrations by howling mobs on the rampage, let’s go look and see!
By way of background, so we can see things the way a European used to political mob violence would see things from a historical perspective, which influences their views depending on which side in any given conflict they were on, and whether they were for the Commies, however reluctantly, or the Fascists, we have as follows:
In 1672 the Dutch Republic was at war with England and France and there were many who thought that Johan de Witt, the ‘Grand Pensionary’ – in effect, prime minister – of the republic had failed, and they in their turn, as these things political go, wanted strong leadership from the young Prince of Orange: Willem III, later William III of England.
Again by way of necessary background so you can tell the players one from another, the House of Orange was the nearest the republic had to royalty, while de Witt and his supporters – including many among the powerful merchant class – were republicans.
An unsuccessful attempt was made on de Witt’s life, and his brother, Cornelis, was arrested on trumped-up charges of plotting to assassinate Willem, which is how these things go in political circles even to this day, what with the spectacle of the circus known and the GREAT TRUMP IMPEACHMENT TRIAL starring Adam Schiff as the GRAND INQUISITOR being just over, but certainly no forgotten.
Getting back to this real-life story of the violence howling mobs on the rampage, especially against white male heterosexuals are capable of, it was while visiting his brother in prison that de Witt was eventually killed, on 20 August, by a mob that had gathered outside – both brothers were hanged and mutilated.
Willem’s complicity in this is unclear, though he failed to prosecute the mob’s ringleaders.
There are accounts of some among the mob taking parts of the bodies, and eating them.
One man is even said to have eaten an eyeball.
In conclusion, although the stories may have been exaggerated, people did often take ‘souvenirs’ of executions back then, such as those who dipped handkerchiefs in the blood of King Charles I.
And the savage murder of a man that history has judged a highly competent leader is regarded by the Dutch as one of the most shameful episodes in their history, and so it should, which makes me wonder whether this POGROM against white male heterosexuals in this country will ever be looked as a shameful episode in our history.
And Sorin, we fellow white male heterosexuals owe you a debt of gratitude for taking the time to get the word out – BEWARE!
Paul Plante says
The importation of slaves from any foreign country is, by a clear implication, held up to the world as equally inconsistent with the dispositions and the duties of the people of America.
A solid foundation is laid for exploding the principles of negro slavery, in which many good men of all parties in Pennsylvania, and throughout the union, have already concurred.
The temporary reservation of any particular matter must ever be deemed an admission that it should be done away.
This appears to have been well understood.
In addition to the arguments drawn from liberty, justice and religion, opinions against this practice, founded in sound policy, have no doubt been urged.
– Tench Coxe, An American Citizen: An Examination of the Constitution of the United States IV, October 21, 1788
Paul Plante says
I do not believe that any state should make a law that permits an ignorant and poverty-stricken white man to vote, and prevents a black man in the same condition from voting.
Such a law is not only unjust, but it will react, as all unjust laws do, in time; for the effect of such a law is to encourage the Negro to secure education and property, and at the same time it encourages the white man to remain in ignorance and poverty.
As a rule, I believe in universal, free suffrage, but I believe that in the South we are confronted with peculiar conditions that justify the protection of the ballot in many of the states, for a while at least, either by an educational test, a property test, or by both combined; but whatever tests are required, they should be made to apply with equal and exact justice to both races.
Source: Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery (1901).
Paul Plante says
A return to our country’s tradition of federalism?
Seriously, what tradition is that?
And I say that after having read the complete set of Federalist Papers through word for word several times, as well as a host of political essays from the period circa 1787 by both so-called “Federalists” and those labeled “Anti-Federalists.”
Reading through these essays, written by people who had experienced the American Revolution first hand, as opposed to reading the book or watching the movie on TV, and who were familiar with the Articles of Confederation and what can be called the “birth” of this nation at the conclusion of the long and bloody war with England to gain our freedom from the tyranny of an English king, it is quite clear, to me anyway, that they feared what the so-called “federal” government would become, essentially a Leviathan that would subsume and swallow the states, rendering state governments a mere novelty, and as subsequent history clearly demonstrates, rightfully so.
To begin at the beginning, which subject is examined in detail in the Federalist papers, we have a shortened version of that history in “An American Citizen: An Examination of the Constitution of the United States I” by Tench Coxe on September 26, 1788, to wit:
When the Declaration of Independence completed the separation between the two countries, new governments were necessarily established.
Many circumstances led to the adoption of the republican form, among which was the predilection of the people.
In devising the frames of government it may have been difficult to avoid extremes opposite to the vices of that we had just rejected; nevertheless many of the state constitutions we have chosen are truly excellent.
Our misfortunes have been, that in the first instance we adopted no national government at all, but were kept together by common danger only, and that in the confusions of a civil war we framed a federal constitution now universally admitted to be inadequate to the preservation of liberty, property, and the Union.
The question is not then how far our state constitutions are good or otherwise – the object of our wishes is to amend and supply the evident and allowed errors and defects of the federal government.
end quotes
Now, if one has studied the subject of federalism in our more modern times, separated as we are from Tench Coxe by 232 years, one finds that once an external threat is removed, federal republics like ours have a tendency to unravel, so to speak, which is exactly what was happening at the end of the Revolution.
In the “Federal Farmer III” political essay by the Federal Farmer on October 10, 1787, the Federal Farmer spoke to that reality as follows:
In considering the practicability of having a full and equal representation of the people from all parts of the union, not only distances and different opinions, customs, and views, common in extensive tracts of country, are to be taken into view, but many differences peculiar to Eastern, Middle, and Southern States.
The Eastern states are very democratic, and composed chiefly of moderate freeholders: they have but few rich men and no slaves; the Southern states are composed chiefly of rich planters and slaves; they have but few moderate freeholders, and the prevailing influence, in them, is generally a dissipated aristocracy: The Middle states partake partly of the Eastern, and partly of the Southern character.
Perhaps, nothing could be more disjointed, unwieldly and incompetent to doing business with harmony and dispatch, than a federal house of representatives properly numerous for the great objects of taxation, &c. collected from the several states; whether such men would ever act in concert; whether they would not worry along a few years, and then be the means of separating the parts of the union, is very problematical.
end quotes
In a preceding essay entitled “Federal Farmer II” on October 9, 1787, the Federal Farmer continued that line of thought as follows:
It is however to be observed, that many of the essential powers given the national government are not exclusively given; and the general government may have prudence enough to forbear the exercise of those which may still be exercised by the respective states.
But this cannot justify the impropriety of giving powers, the exercise of which prudent men will not attempt, and imprudent men will, or probably can, exercise only in a manner destructive of free government.
The general government, organized as it is, may be adequate to many valuable objects, and be able to carry its laws into execution on proper principles in several cases; but I think its warmest friends will not contend, that it can carry all the powers proposed to be lodged in it into effect, without calling to its aid a military force, which must very soon destroy all elective governments in the country, produce anarchy, or establish despotism.
end quotes
Is that where we are now, does one think, reading the above and especially looking at the sound bites in those series of photos and who is saying the words?
Getting back to “Federal Farmer II, we have:
Though we cannot have now a complete idea of what will be the operations of the proposed system, we may, allowing things to have their common course, have a very tolerable one.
The powers lodged in the general government, if exercised by it, must ultimately effect the internal police of the states, as well as external concerns; and there is no reason to expect the numerous state governments, and their connections, will be very friendly to the execution of federal laws in those internal affairs, which hitherto have been under their own immediate management.
There is more reason to believe, that the general government, far removed from the people, and none of its members elected oftener than once in two years, will be forgot or neglected, and its laws in many cases disregarded, unless a multitude of officers and military force be continually kept in view, and employed to enforce the execution of the laws, and to make the government feared and respected.
No position can be truer than this, That in this country either neglected laws, or a military execution of them, must lead to a revolution, and to the destruction of freedom.
Neglected laws must first lead to anarchy and confusion; and a military execution of laws is only a shorter way to the same point despotic government.
end quotes
233 years later, clearly, we are seeing anarchy and confusion in technicolor!
In that same essay, the Federal Farmer spoke thusly:
Thus will stand the state and the general governments, should the constitution be adopted without any alterations in their organization; but as to powers, the general government will possess all essential ones, at least on paper, and those of the states a mere shadow of power.
And therefore, unless the people shall make some great exertions to restore to the state governments their powers in matters of internal police; as the powers to lay and collect, exclusively, internal taxes, to govern the militia, and to hold the decisions of their own judicial courts upon their own laws final, the balance cannot possibly continue long; but the state governments must be annihilated, or continue to exist for no purpose.
end quotes
And that is consistent with the political theories of William Harrison Riker (September 22, 1920 – June 26, 1993), an American political scientist born in Des Moines, Iowa who earned his bachelor’s degree in economics at Indiana’s DePauw University in 1942 and received his Ph.D at Harvard University in 1948.
Riker took on a professorship at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin (then Lawrence College), where he published “The Theory of Political Coalitions” (1962), and in 1962, he became the chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Rochester, where he remained chair until 1977, and remained active until his death.
Among other contributions, Riker is known for work on the theory and history of federalism.
Among his theories on federalism is this, to wit: A strongly centralized party system can undermine federal divisions of authority, so that fully centralized federalism, which is more and more what we have today, regardless of what the founders thought they had put in motion, is often accompanied by a strong governing party, rendering federal divisions “quite meaningless.”
At the time of this nation’s founding, the warring Republican and Democrat parties simply did nor exist, and now, to our detriment as a people, they do.
We have reached a time in our history analogous to Rome in the time of Julius Caesar, where for about 80 years, Roman politics was marked by the confrontation of two factions, the Optimates versus the Populares, with the Optimates favouring the ancestral Roman laws and customs, as well as the supremacy of the Senate over the popular assemblies and the tribunes of the plebs, while the Populares were Roman political leaders who were on the side of “the people” as is indicated by their name, and they were opposed to the optimates who were concerned with the “best men” — the meaning of optimates.
As we will recall from our schoolboy history, that period ended in a long, bloody civil war and the end of the Roman Republic, which history we seem to be repeating.
Getting back to Riker, according to his theories on the subject, measuring the degree of federalism requires measuring the degree of party centralization, and accordingly, Riker measures party centralization according to (1) whether the party that controls the central government also controls the regional governments and (2) the strength of party discipline.
Said another way, with our present two-party system entrenched at all levels of government, so at every level from the local town dog catcher right on up to the president, and everywhere in between, you have either a Democrat or a Republican, our original federal system is long since dead and cannot be recovered.
With respect to our federal system, Riker also answers several other questions, all in the negative:
* Federalism does not promote democratic policy.
* Federalism does not promote democracy by promoting interest in state government.
* Federalism does not help maintain individual freedoms.
* Federalism does not benefit everybody.
It helps a minority at the majority’s expense; but the majority might still keep it as long as the hurt is marginal since the transaction costs of getting rid of federalism are very high.
Another way of saying it is that today, we are entering into that space known as between the rock and the hard place.
And the Four Horsemen now ride!
Paul Plante says
A republican, or free government, can only exist where the body of the people are virtuous, and where property is pretty equally divided; in such a government the people are the sovereign and their sense or opinion is the criterion of every public measure; for when this ceases to be the case, the nature of the government is changed, and an aristocracy, monarchy or despotism will rise on its ruin.
Having premised this much, I shall now proceed to the examination of the proposed plan of government, and I trust, shall make it appear to the meanest capacity, that it has none of the essential requisites of a free government; that it is neither founded on those balancing restraining powers, recommended by Mr. Adams and attempted in the British constitution, or possessed of that responsibility to its constituents, which, in my opinion, is the only effectual security for the liberties and happiness of the people; but on the contrary, that it is the most daring attempt to establish a despotic aristocracy among freemen, that the world has ever witnessed.
To put the omnipotency of Congress over the state government and judicatories out of all doubt, the 6th article ordains that “this constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”
By these sections the all-prevailing power of taxation, and such extensive legislative and judicial powers are vested in the general government, as must in their operation, necessarily absorb the state legislatures and judicatories; and that such was in the contemplation of the framers of it, will appear from the provision made for such event, in another part of it; (but that, fearful of alarming the people by so great an innovation, they have suffered the forms of the separate governments to remain, as a blind.)
From this investigation into the organization of this government, it appears that it is devoid of all responsibility or accountability to the great body of the people, and that so far from being a regular balanced government, it would be in practice a permanent ARISTOCRACY.
Centinel I
Centinel
October 5, 1787
Paul Plante says
FEDERALIST No. 39
The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles
For the Independent Journal.
MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
In order to ascertain the real character of the government, it may be considered in relation to the foundation on which it is to be established; to the sources from which its ordinary powers are to be drawn; to the operation of those powers; to the extent of them; and to the authority by which future changes in the government are to be introduced.
On examining the first relation, it appears, on one hand, that the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose; but, on the other, that this assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong.
It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves.
The act, therefore, establishing the Constitution, will not be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act.
That it will be a federal and not a national act, as these terms are understood by the objectors; the act of the people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation, is obvious from this single consideration, that it is to result neither from the decision of a MAJORITY of the people of the Union, nor from that of a MAJORITY of the States.
It must result from the UNANIMOUS assent of the several States that are parties to it, differing no otherwise from their ordinary assent than in its being expressed, not by the legislative authority, but by that of the people themselves.
Were the people regarded in this transaction as forming one nation, the will of the majority of the whole people of the United States would bind the minority, in the same manner as the majority in each State must bind the minority; and the will of the majority must be determined either by a comparison of the individual votes, or by considering the will of the majority of the States as evidence of the will of a majority of the people of the United States.
Neither of these rules have been adopted.
Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act.
In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.
The next relation is, to the sources from which the ordinary powers of government are to be derived.
The House of Representatives will derive its powers from the people of America; and the people will be represented in the same proportion, and on the same principle, as they are in the legislature of a particular State.
So far the government is NATIONAL, not FEDERAL.
The Senate, on the other hand, will derive its powers from the States, as political and coequal societies; and these will be represented on the principle of equality in the Senate, as they now are in the existing Congress.
So far the government is FEDERAL, not NATIONAL.
The executive power will be derived from a very compound source.
The immediate election of the President is to be made by the States in their political characters.
The votes allotted to them are in a compound ratio, which considers them partly as distinct and coequal societies, partly as unequal members of the same society.
The eventual election, again, is to be made by that branch of the legislature which consists of the national representatives; but in this particular act they are to be thrown into the form of individual delegations, from so many distinct and coequal bodies politic.
From this aspect of the government it appears to be of a mixed character, presenting at least as many FEDERAL as NATIONAL features.
The difference between a federal and national government, as it relates to the OPERATION OF THE GOVERNMENT, is supposed to consist in this, that in the former the powers operate on the political bodies composing the Confederacy, in their political capacities; in the latter, on the individual citizens composing the nation, in their individual capacities.
On trying the Constitution by this criterion, it falls under the NATIONAL, not the FEDERAL character; though perhaps not so completely as has been understood.
In several cases, and particularly in the trial of controversies to which States may be parties, they must be viewed and proceeded against in their collective and political capacities only.
So far the national countenance of the government on this side seems to be disfigured by a few federal features.
But this blemish is perhaps unavoidable in any plan; and the operation of the government on the people, in their individual capacities, in its ordinary and most essential proceedings, may, on the whole, designate it, in this relation, a NATIONAL government.
But if the government be national with regard to the OPERATION of its powers, it changes its aspect again when we contemplate it in relation to the EXTENT of its powers.
The idea of a national government involves in it, not only an authority over the individual citizens, but an indefinite supremacy over all persons and things, so far as they are objects of lawful government.
Among a people consolidated into one nation, this supremacy is completely vested in the national legislature.
Among communities united for particular purposes, it is vested partly in the general and partly in the municipal legislatures.
In the former case, all local authorities are subordinate to the supreme; and may be controlled, directed, or abolished by it at pleasure.
In the latter, the local or municipal authorities form distinct and independent portions of the supremacy, no more subject, within their respective spheres, to the general authority, than the general authority is subject to them, within its own sphere.
In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be deemed a NATIONAL one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.
It is true that in controversies relating to the boundary between the two jurisdictions, the tribunal which is ultimately to decide, is to be established under the general government.
But this does not change the principle of the case.
The decision is to be impartially made, according to the rules of the Constitution; and all the usual and most effectual precautions are taken to secure this impartiality.
Some such tribunal is clearly essential to prevent an appeal to the sword and a dissolution of the compact; and that it ought to be established under the general rather than under the local governments, or, to speak more properly, that it could be safely established under the first alone, is a position not likely to be combated.
If we try the Constitution by its last relation to the authority by which amendments are to be made, we find it neither wholly NATIONAL nor wholly FEDERAL.
Were it wholly national, the supreme and ultimate authority would reside in the MAJORITY of the people of the Union; and this authority would be competent at all times, like that of a majority of every national society, to alter or abolish its established government.
Were it wholly federal, on the other hand, the concurrence of each State in the Union would be essential to every alteration that would be binding on all.
The mode provided by the plan of the convention is not founded on either of these principles.
In requiring more than a majority, and principles.
In requiring more than a majority, and particularly in computing the proportion by STATES, not by CITIZENS, it departs from the NATIONAL and advances towards the FEDERAL character; in rendering the concurrence of less than the whole number of States sufficient, it loses again the FEDERAL and partakes of the NATIONAL character.
The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both.
In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal; in the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national; and, finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor wholly national.
MJM says
Well I don’t get all into older history and how so many other things that helped us write our Constitution. W have all learned from all of that. I concern myself with current history. Yes I am intelligent Sorin and so are you. I notice you didn’t address what I said; that this President is addressing the illegal immigration and sex trafficking problem more directly than any predecessor. You threw me a curve ball of most illegal immigration is an overstaying visa or other means. While that is a great big problem, it is also easier to deal with once the wall is completed. The laws will become stiffer is the plan. He plans to stop waffling over whether or not to let those that enter illegally be granted pardons. That would be unfair to those who migrate legally and he says he’ll stop the pardons. He does his best to keep promises. Going forward people overstaying will be thrown out and the wall will make it harder to get back in. Once someone has been tossed for overstaying, do we think the laws combines with a wall will make it easy or harder for anyone to get back in ? The wall will control that flow and the laws can then be more effective. All the border guards say so that I have seen interviewed.
Back to my original statement re: sex trafficking. This is a completely different topic. These are not overstayed visas. These are coyotes that bring children with them that then claim to be the child’s parent. When they enter at a border gate they are interviewed. They are often given DNA tests. Unrelated coyotes are sent packing. It’s terrible that these youngsters then enter our social services system, but the alternative is being in the sex trade. It is being addressed on this end. How and why the child left the parent on the other end ? Well no one has all the answers. My point is that this President is addressing this entire situation more effectively than any predecessor. Trump is pressing for the solution while his opponents are perpetuating the problem by not addressing it. They are harming legal immigrants and poor unskilled laborers by flooding the market with more of them and are tying it together with mail in voting (not absentee) to simply harvest more votes.
Paul Plante says
If you had read the original post, MJM, it concludes thusly:
Sanchez writes to heal our political schism and extinguish the chaos plaguing our streets, a return to our country’s tradition of federalism would do the trick.
end quotes
What tradition of federalism might he be talking about?
You say that you don’t get all into older history and how so many other things that helped us write our Constitution, so how can you possibly address that statement?
You say you concern yourself with current history, to which I respond “current history” of exactly what?
Do we have a tradition of federalism in this country we can fall back on?
Do you even know?
Do you care?
Paul Plante says
There is a saying in political science circles that those who do not know the political history of the nation they are citizens of are nothing more than ignorant A-HOLES not worthy of the time of day, and being a compassionate type of person, I really try hard not to think that way myself, but as the days go by, and I see the the state of benighted ignorance this nation is rapidly descending into, especially with the advent of TWITTER,
As to the Federalist Papers, they are the basis of the specific frame of Constitutional government we have in this country, and as such, they are quoted from by the United States Supreme Court in that context.
So anybody making a statement about our frame of government that does not agree with the Federalist Papers has taken an unsubstantiated or wrong position.
And that goes directly to Sanchez writing that to heal our political schism and extinguish the chaos plaguing our streets, a return to our country’s tradition of federalism would do the trick.
To which I respond that can’t be done with the present Constitution, which as Jemmy Madison makes crystal clear above in FEDERALIST No. 39, to wit:
The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both.
In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal; in the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national; and, finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor wholly national.
end quotes
The key words in there, and they can’t be argued with or dismissed by the sophisters of today, are these: “in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal….”
Said another way, the states are basically political eunuchs as Jemmy makes abundantly clear as follows:
The difference between a federal and national government, as it relates to the OPERATION OF THE GOVERNMENT, is supposed to consist in this, that in the former the powers operate on the political bodies composing the Confederacy, in their political capacities; in the latter, on the individual citizens composing the nation, in their individual capacities.
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Thus, as Alexander Hamilton made incandescently clear in FEDERALIST No. 15, “The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union,” for the Independent Journal to the People of the State of New York, we have a national government, not a federal government, so there is not tradition of federalism we can go back to.
Hamilton starts out as follows, to wit:
IN THE course of the preceding papers, I have endeavored, my fellow-citizens, to place before you, in a clear and convincing light, the importance of Union to your political safety and happiness.
I have unfolded to you a complication of dangers to which you would be exposed, should you permit that sacred knot which binds the people of America together be severed or dissolved by ambition or by avarice, by jealousy or by misrepresentation.
In the sequel of the inquiry through which I propose to accompany you, the truths intended to be inculcated will receive further confirmation from facts and arguments hitherto unnoticed.
If the road over which you will still have to pass should in some places appear to you tedious or irksome, you will recollect that you are in quest of information on a subject the most momentous which can engage the attention of a free people, that the field through which you have to travel is in itself spacious, and that the difficulties of the journey have been unnecessarily increased by the mazes with which sophistry has beset the way.
It will be my aim to remove the obstacles from your progress in as compendious a manner as it can be done, without sacrificing utility to despatch.
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Talk about the “mazes with which sophistry has beset the way,” we are clearly deep in the heart of one today in this country, which brings to mind another old saying, to wit: If you are lost and don’t know where you are, or where you are going, any direction you take is as good as any other.
Next Hamilton made clear his subject matter in that paper, to wit:
In pursuance of the plan which I have laid down for the discussion of the subject, the point next in order to be examined is the insufficiency of the present Confederation to the preservation of the Union.
It may perhaps be asked what need there is of reasoning or proof to illustrate a position which is not either controverted or doubted, to which the understandings and feelings of all classes of men assent, and which in substance is admitted by the opponents as well as by the friends of the new Constitution.
It must in truth be acknowledged that, however these may differ in other respects, they in general appear to harmonize in this sentiment, at least, that there are material imperfections in our national system, and that something is necessary to be done to rescue us from impending anarchy.
The facts that support this opinion are no longer objects of speculation.
They have forced themselves upon the sensibility of the people at large, and have at length extorted from those, whose mistaken policy has had the principal share in precipitating the extremity at which we are arrived, a reluctant confession of the reality of those defects in the scheme of our federal government, which have been long pointed out and regretted by the intelligent friends of the Union.
We may indeed with propriety be said to have reached almost the last stage of national humiliation.
There is scarcely anything that can wound the pride or degrade the character of an independent nation which we do not experience.
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Talk about we may indeed with propriety be said to have reached almost the last stage of national humiliation in this sick and very troubled nation today with there scarcely being anything that can wound the pride or degrade the character of an independent nation which we do not experience, here we are today, because people in this nation have lost their way as citizens so that they no longer have an identity beyond being considered idiots, morons and just plain fools, which takes us back to Hamilton, as follows:
This is the melancholy situation to which we have been brought by those very maxims and councils which would now deter us from adopting the proposed Constitution; and which, not content with having conducted us to the brink of a precipice, seem resolved to plunge us into the abyss that awaits us below.
Here, my countrymen, impelled by every motive that ought to influence an enlightened people, let us make a firm stand for our safety, our tranquillity, our dignity, our reputation.
Let us at last break the fatal charm which has too long seduced us from the paths of felicity and prosperity.
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And how relevant those words are again today!
Moving along, Hamilton makes it crystal clear to anyone with even the most minimal of intellectual capacity that it is the federal nature of the Articles of Confederation that was our main problem to be overcome with a national system to replace it, which is what we now have, to wit:
It is true, as has been before observed that facts, too stubborn to be resisted, have produced a species of general assent to the abstract proposition that there exist material defects in our national system; but the usefulness of the concession, on the part of the old adversaries of federal measures, is destroyed by a strenuous opposition to a remedy, upon the only principles that can give it a chance of success.
While they admit that the government of the United States is destitute of energy, they contend against conferring upon it those powers which are requisite to supply that energy.
They seem still to aim at things repugnant and irreconcilable; at an augmentation of federal authority, without a diminution of State authority; at sovereignty in the Union, and complete independence in the members.
They still, in fine, seem to cherish with blind devotion the political monster of an imperium in imperio.
This renders a full display of the principal defects of the Confederation necessary, in order to show that the evils we experience do not proceed from minute or partial imperfections, but from fundamental errors in the structure of the building, which cannot be amended otherwise than by an alteration in the first principles and main pillars of the fabric.
The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing Confederation is in the principle of LEGISLATION for STATES or GOVERNMENTS, in their CORPORATE or COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as contradistinguished from the INDIVIDUALS of which they consist.
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Thus, we can see that what Sanchez is advocating, a return to our country’s tradition of federalism, won’t do any tricks at all, because it was then a recipe for failure, just as it would be again today, which takes us back to Hamilton, as follows:
Abandoning all views towards a confederate government, this would bring us to a simple alliance offensive and defensive; and would place us in a situation to be alternate friends and enemies of each other, as our mutual jealousies and rivalships, nourished by the intrigues of foreign nations, should prescribe to us.
But if we are unwilling to be placed in this perilous situation; if we still will adhere to the design of a national government, or, which is the same thing, of a superintending power, under the direction of a common council, we must resolve to incorporate into our plan those ingredients which may be considered as forming the characteristic difference between a league and a government; we must extend the authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens, the only proper objects of government.
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Hamilton then proceeds with further analysis based on the character of people, to wit:
here was a time when we were told that breaches, by the States, of the regulations of the federal authority were not to be expected; that a sense of common interest would preside over the conduct of the respective members, and would beget a full compliance with all the constitutional requisitions of the Union.
This language, at the present day, would appear as wild as a great part of what we now hear from the same quarter will be thought, when we shall have received further lessons from that best oracle of wisdom, experience.
It at all times betrayed an ignorance of the true springs by which human conduct is actuated, and belied the original inducements to the establishment of civil power.
Why has government been instituted at all?
Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.
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That applies in spades, today!
Such is our nation’s political history.
Too bad so many people today are so ignorant of it.