This is the third part in a series by C. Augustus Landis
In Parts I and II of this essay, I argue there is a sameness between manifestos of Karl Marx and the Socialists Democrat Party. Both want to change the established order of things and require changes in our Constitution. The Administrative State, the vast federal bureaucracy, raises serious concerns about separation of powers and rule of law, but progressive advocates of a Living Constitution raise more far-reaching concerns.
Those who believe the Constitution should be interpreted as was written and intended by the framers are known as “originalists.” Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers believed that our security and the strength of our form of governance was based upon a written Constitution and Jefferson said …“Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.” Meaning, the Constitution is a legal document, and as all legal documents always is meant to reflect the intent of the authors. It is to be interpreted by the judiciary in accordance with the intention.
Justice Scalia put the question of interpretation simply by saying “ the ‘Constitution says something and doesn’t say other things.” He and other conservatives and originalist believe as society changes, accommodation is provided for by amendment or by legislatures. .As Hamilton said in Federalist 78, judges should not substitute their own pleasure to the constitutional intentions of the legislature.”
The concept of a living Constitution has been around for more than 100 years. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson wrote “Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice” and “ Society is a living organism and must obey the laws of life.”…and “the need is to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle”. In this view and of other progressives, the Constitution must evolve over time as society changes and looking only at original intent and meaning ignores evolving changes in the meaning of freedom/liberty, equality, social justice, and rights. What Marx called the class struggle between bourgeoise and proletariat, the Socialist Democrats call social and economic justice.
Just as the Civil War was caused by two different views of the Constitution (union vs disunion or slavery) so also may the division of today be defined by the two different views of originalist vs. living interpretation views of the Constitution. Much has been written and debated about these two views of the Constitution ; not so much about how this relates to the Socialist Democrat Party as is needed.
The Republican/Conservative view is considered as originalist and the Socialist Democrat Party must, by definition, require interpretation as provided by a Living Constitution. Amendment and legislation is not in their playbook because of difficulties in process, and changes can be achieved by Administrative State law, and judicial interpretation is sought by new interpretations. Most importantly, as these relate to new rights and new demands for responsibilities of governance.
I n an essay titled A LIVING CONSTITUTION? , Ernest van den Haag, Distinguished Scholar at the Heritage Foundation, defines the difference between the two different views of the Constitution simply as those who wish to conform the Constitution to judicial decisions and to legislation they deem to be desirable without the trouble of going through the amendment process ,and those who wish judicial decisions and legislation to conform to the Constitution until amended.
A Living Constitution interpretation serves the Progressive Socialist Democrats in two of their most important objectives: the elimination of the Electoral College and establishment of the many new rights and obligations of government.
Trent England, a distinguished Constitutional scholar, in a speech deliver delivered to the Center for Constitutional Studies in Washington, DC, argues that the fundamental danger of attacks on the originalist interpretation is that they undermine the Constitution as a whole, and the arguments of a Living Constitution can be turned against any of the constitutional checks and balances that have well served America for well over 200 years. The measure should be whether the Constitution has been effective in encouraging a just, stable, and free government.
The manifesto of the Socialist Democrat Party, as evidenced by statements of nearly two dozen presidential contenders, establishes many new rights: free medical care, guaranteed annual income and standard of living, housing, free college, child care, forgiveness of student debt… and something new added constantly.
Socialism demands a permanent underclass and division by identity.
Res Publica
C. Augustus Landis
David Wilcox says
Thanks for sharing this short piece about a very important matter–the current political environment is raising the level of importance these distinctions. This debate is playing out in may ways today.
Paul Plante says
Quite to the contrary, a “Living Constitution” interpretation DOES NOT serve the Progressive Socialist Democrats in either of their two most important objectives: the elimination of the Electoral College and establishment of the many new rights and obligations of government.
A “Living Constitution” interpretation DOES NOT change the words of the Constitution as they are written, and that starts with the PREAMBLE, which states “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
That says exactly what it says, and what it says is exactly what it means, and the so-called “Democratic Socialists” can torture the language and the meaning of words all they want and that preamble will remain exactly the same, UNLESS AND UNTIL amended in the manner set forth by the founders back in 1787.
According to the Annotations to the Constitution, under PURPOSE AND EFFECT OF THE PREAMBLE, it clearly states thusly: Although the preamble is not a source of power for any department of the Federal Government, the Supreme Court has often referred to it as evidence of the origin, scope, and purpose of the Constitution.
”Its true office,” wrote Joseph Story in his COMMENTARIES, ”is to expound the nature and extent and application of the powers actually conferred by the Constitution, and not substantively to create them.”
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Now, in a rational world, which this clearly is not, those words above by Joseph Story would have some actual meaning to us in our times today, some 230 years after the fact.
But to the Communists, Marxists and Socialists in this country, those words of Justice Story mean nothing at all.
That is NOT their Constitution.
To the contrary, that is the Constitution of their class enemies, and should they in fact be able to “grab” enough power in the words of Ilhan Omar, since that is how socialists historically have gained power, as they did in Venezuela under the dictator Hugo Chavez, they will do as was done in the Dorr Rebellion and simply substitute a new Constitution of their devising for the one that exists now, although it is presently in the form of a piece of Swiss cheese full of holes with a consistency of Silly Putty that allows it to take any impression the one with power want it to have.
It is nothing more than a bone for contending dogs to fight over.
In Venezuela, which serves as the model government for these Democratic Socialists, there were three main policies implemented by Chavez that produced the current crisis, those being widespread nationalization of private industry, currency and price controls, and the fiscally irresponsible expansion of welfare programs.
As a review of history reveals, although it was never hidden, just overlooked and/or forgotten, one of Chavez’s first actions was to start nationalizing the agriculture sector, supposedly reducing poverty and inequality by taking from rich landowners to give to poor workers.
From 1999 to 2016, his regime robbed more than 6 million hectares of land from its rightful owners.
However, nationalization destroyed production in affected industries because no government has the capacity to run thousands of businesses or the profit motive to run them efficiently.
Instead, just as we are seeing with all of these Democrat presidential contenders who are offering everything under the sun to be free if only they are made president to run things the way their constituents want them to run things, government officials face incentives to please voters by selling products at low prices and hiring more employees than necessary, even when that’s the wrong industry decision.
In an excellent essay on the subject entitled “How Socialism Destroyed Venezuela” by Daniel Di Martino, a Venezuelan expatriate studying economics in Indianapolis, Indiana, dated March 21, 2019, the author provides us the following background on what our future would look like if the Democratic Socialists gain power here, to wit:
As economic theory predicted, as state control of the agricultural industry increased, Venezuela’s food production fell 75% in two decades while the country’s population increased by 33%.
This was a recipe for shortages and economic disaster.
After agriculture, the regime nationalized electricity, water, oil, banks, supermarkets, construction, and other crucial sectors.
And in all these sectors, the government increased payrolls and gave away products at low cost, resulting in days-long countrywide blackouts, frequent water service interruptions, falling oil production, and bankrupt government enterprises.
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Think “GREEN NEW DEAL” by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a bunch of party apparatchiks, those being the full-time, professional functionaries of the Communist Party who hold positions of bureaucratic or political responsibility and are transferred between different areas of responsibility, usually with little or no actual training for their new areas of responsibility, which takes us back to that essay as follows:
Yet taking over the most important sectors of the economy was not enough for the socialist regime.
In 2003, Chavez implemented a foreign currency control scheme where the government set an overvalued exchange rate between the Venezuelan currency and the U.S. dollar.
One goal of the scheme was to reduce inflation by overvaluing the currency, subsidizing imported products.
But the currency control meant the regime had to ration available U.S. dollars to importers since, at an overvalued (cheap) exchange rate, there was more demand for U.S. dollars than supply.
Naturally, a black market for foreign currency emerged and corrupt regime members and lucky individuals assigned cheap U.S. dollars obtained large profits.
Even worse, the scheme actually increased inflation since overvaluing the currency reduced government oil revenues in Venezuelan currency, leading the regime to print money to cover the ensuing budget deficit.
The socialist regime also implemented price ceilings on hundreds of basic products such as beef, milk and toilet paper.
At artificially low prices, more people were willing to buy these products but the few private factories left — not nationalized — could not profit at the government-capped price, so they reduced or halted their production.
Instead of benefiting the poor, price ceilings predictably resulted in shortages that forced them to stand in lines for hours, while supermarket employees and the well-connected obtained the products they needed.
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Today, that is all hushed up by the Democratic Socialists who want us in the United States of America to believe that they can do all that same stuff here, and this time, they will achieve a different result, because their socialism is “scientific,” afterall, just as it was in Venezuela, where they had German sociologist and political analyst Heinz Dieterich as their guide, which again takes us back to that essay, as follows:
But perhaps the most harmful part of the Venezuelan socialist project is the part that the international media and leftist figures used to praise most frequently: welfare programs.
The socialist regime created social “missions” aimed at tackling poverty, illiteracy, healthcare, and more.
But despite enjoying higher government oil revenues due to a tenfold rise in oil prices from $10 a barrel in 1999 to more than $100 in 2008, the regime financed a growing deficit by printing more currency.
Expansive welfare programs and massive public-works projects provided ever-growing opportunities for still greater corruption.
Printing money to pay for endless state programs unsurprisingly led to high rates of inflation.
Welfare programs that were supposed to help the poor actually increased the cost of living.
A foreign currency control that aimed to reduce inflation only increased it and allowed for massive corruption.
And nationalizations that should have given “power” to workers only left them unemployed and hungry.
So do not make excuses.
As Venezuelans have learned over the past 20 years of socialism, “free things” come at a high price.
Kearn C SCHEMM says
A “living constitution” is no constitution at all. Who would want a “living mortgage” on their house, one that can be reinterpreted at any time to make the words mean nothing. or the opposite of what originally intended? The Constitution, if it is to protect everyone’s rights, must be a document that clearly expresses a citizens rights and duties as well as the government’s powers and the limits on those powers.
Britain has an unwritten, “living Constitution” that is modified by every new law passed. Nothing is unconstitutional, no rights sacred. DO we want to return to that tradition from the “mother country” that we fought a revolution to overturn?
Paul Plante says
Point I is that it is obvious that the term “living Constitution” has no real concrete meaning, and anyway, our Constitution has been dead for some time now, so it is irrelevant what the term really means, and it was Tommy Jefferson who is responsible for the concept of a “living Constitution,” to wit:
One could also reasonably argue that Thomas Jefferson himself presented the idea of evolving Constitutional interpretations.
In an 1816 letter to Samuel Kercheval, excerpted on Panel 4 of the Jefferson Memorial, he wrote
But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.
As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times.
We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
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Sadly, in this country, the progress of the human mind has been backwards, not forward, and here we are today, not knowing if we are afoot or horseback in this sorry nation, and that takes us to FEDERALIST No. 84, Certain General and Miscellaneous Objections to the Constitution Considered and Answered by Alexander Hamilton from McLEAN’s Edition, New York, to the People of the State of New York on how and why it is that OUR Constitution is different from some inferior product the Brits may possess, as follows:
It has been several times truly remarked that bills of rights are, in their origin, stipulations between kings and their subjects, abridgements of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince.
Such was MAGNA CHARTA, obtained by the barons, sword in hand, from King John.
Such were the subsequent confirmations of that charter by succeeding princes.
Such was the PETITION OF RIGHT assented to by Charles I., in the beginning of his reign.
Such, also, was the Declaration of Right presented by the Lords and Commons to the Prince of Orange in 1688, and afterwards thrown into the form of an act of parliament called the Bill of Rights.
It is evident, therefore, that, according to their primitive signification, they have no application to constitutions professedly founded upon the power of the people, and executed by their immediate representatives and servants.
Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they retain every thing they have no need of particular reservations.
“WE, THE PEOPLE of the United States, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ORDAIN and ESTABLISH this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Here is a better recognition of popular rights, than volumes of those aphorisms which make the principal figure in several of our State bills of rights, and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government.
But a minute detail of particular rights is certainly far less applicable to a Constitution like that under consideration, which is merely intended to regulate the general political interests of the nation, than to a constitution which has the regulation of every species of personal and private concerns.
If, therefore, the loud clamors against the plan of the convention, on this score, are well founded, no epithets of reprobation will be too strong for the constitution of this State.
But the truth is, that both of them contain all which, in relation to their objects, is reasonably to be desired.
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous.
They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted.
For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?
Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?
I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power.
They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government.
This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.
On the subject of the liberty of the press, as much as has been said, I cannot forbear adding a remark or two: in the first place, I observe, that there is not a syllable concerning it in the constitution of this State; in the next, I contend, that whatever has been said about it in that of any other State, amounts to nothing.
What signifies a declaration, that “the liberty of the press shall be inviolably preserved”?
What is the liberty of the press?
Who can give it any definition which would not leave the utmost latitude for evasion?
I hold it to be impracticable; and from this I infer, that its security, whatever fine declarations may be inserted in any constitution respecting it, must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government. 3
And here, after all, as is intimated upon another occasion, must we seek for the only solid basis of all our rights.
There remains but one other view of this matter to conclude the point.
The truth is, after all the declamations we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS.
The several bills of rights in Great Britain form its Constitution, and conversely the constitution of each State is its bill of rights.
And the proposed Constitution, if adopted, will be the bill of rights of the Union.
Is it one object of a bill of rights to declare and specify the political privileges of the citizens in the structure and administration of the government?
This is done in the most ample and precise manner in the plan of the convention; comprehending various precautions for the public security, which are not to be found in any of the State constitutions.
Is another object of a bill of rights to define certain immunities and modes of proceeding, which are relative to personal and private concerns?
This we have seen has also been attended to, in a variety of cases, in the same plan.
Adverting therefore to the substantial meaning of a bill of rights, it is absurd to allege that it is not to be found in the work of the convention.
It may be said that it does not go far enough, though it will not be easy to make this appear; but it can with no propriety be contended that there is no such thing.
It certainly must be immaterial what mode is observed as to the order of declaring the rights of the citizens, if they are to be found in any part of the instrument which establishes the government.
And hence it must be apparent, that much of what has been said on this subject rests merely on verbal and nominal distinctions, entirely foreign from the substance of the thing.
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And there are “living mortgages,” and they are called “variable rate,” but they have nothing to do with our Constitution.
Paul Plante says
Further evidence of the fact that we have a “living” constitution, i.e. one that should have still BOUND the federal government to prevent it from becoming a tyrant in OUR times, as opposed to a “dead” constitution whose validity ended when that generation which framed it passed from the earth, which would leave chaos behind if a constitution of government as the supreme law binding that government were only good for twenty years, is Article I, Section 8 of OUR Constitution, which provides today as it did at the beginning, and all the way through to now, that for better or worse, Congress has the power “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or any Department or Officer thereof,” along with the Commerce Clause, which in our day has been stretched and contorted in the case of Obamacare by the Supreme Court so that now, in addition to merely regulating commerce between the states, the original intent, that clause can now be used by congress, this thanks to the justices of the supreme court, the biggest bastardizers of our Constitution there are in this country, to force people to have to buy something they neither want nor need.
If the Constitution were not a “living” document, then every new generation would be left without a functioning government in place, since governments are constituted not by whim or wish or hope, but by constitutions, and if it were not a living document, then we would be forced by it to still be living in 1789, with no hope of ever advancing as a nation or a people.
At the time of the Constitution coming into being back in 1787 and after, at the time of the Federalist Papers and a literal host of political essays pro and con, which incidentally are found on a site for high school teachers, as well as here http://thelivyjrfiles.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=20 , it was never said that the Constitution then under consideration was perfect; to the contrary, it was always said and admitted that after long and careful study, that was the best they could come up with to cure the ills of the nation which existed at that time, when the fledgling nation was deeply in debt with no home industry to speak of, and no markets abroad, and the states at each others throats, so that the union of 13 separate states that made it through the revolution together as a union were on the verge of separating the union to become either separate states on their own, or a series of small confederations.
In a A Landholder II by Oliver Ellsworth, this nation’s first chief justice of the Supreme Court, this dated November 12, 1787 and addressed to the Holders and Tillers of Land in America at that time, we are given a good glimpse of the situation existing in America at that time, to wit:
GENTLEMEN, You were told in the late war that peace and independence would reward your toil, and that riches would accompany the establishment of your liberties, by opening a wider market, and consequently raising the price of such commodities as America produces for exportation.
Such a conclusion appeared just and natural.
We had been restrained by the British to trade only with themselves, who often re-exported to other nations at a high advance, the raw material they had procured from us.
This advance we designed to realize, but our expectation has been disappointed.
The produce of the country is in general down to the old price, and bids fair to fall much lower.
It is time for those who till the earth in the sweat of their brow to enquire the cause.
And we shall find it neither in merchant or farmer, but in a bad system of policy and government, or rather in having no system at all.
When we call ourselves an independent nation it is false, we are neither a nation, nor are we independent.
Like thirteen contentious neighbors we devour and take every advantage of each other, and are without that system of policy which give safety and strength, and constitutes a national structure.
Once we were dependent only on Great-Britain, now we are dependent on every petty state in the world and on every custom house officer of foreign ports.
If the injured apply for redress to the assemblies of the several states, it is in vain, for they are not, and cannot be known abroad.
If they apply to Congress, it is also vain, for however wise and good that body may be, they have not power to vindicate either themselves or their subjects.
Do not, my countrymen, fall into a passion on hearing these truths, nor think your treatment unexampled.
From the beginning it hath been the case that people without policy will find enough to take advantage of their weakness, and you are not the first who have been devoured by their wiser neighbors, but perhaps it is not too late for a remedy, we ought at least to make a tryal, and if we still die shall have this consolation in our last hours, that we tried to live.
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One thing I always take away from reading these ORIGINALIST documents, those written not by pundits in our times, but by the people who lived through that revolution and came out on the other side to see the 13 states all separating, because having come together in a time of war, they knew nothing of peaceful co-existence with no external enemy to threaten them, is how knowledgeable those people were about the world around them going back to antiquity, as well as human nature down through the ages of man, and how well they were able to express their thoughts on the subject to their fellow Americans, as Oliver Ellsworth has just done above here, where he states, quite truthfully, as we are seeing in our time with the Russians now on the verge of totally owning “our democracy,” because our democracy is so weak, that from the beginning of time it hath been the case that people without policy will find enough to take advantage of their weakness, and we in our time will not be the first who have been devoured by their wiser neighbors, in this case, Putin and the Russians, thanks to Hillary Clinton and the high technology she provided them to make them stronger so they could then beat us in a cyber-war, as they are doing as I write these words, this according to Bob Mueller, the Wray dude with the FBI and the Democrats, and in our case, due to our national ignorance, perhaps it is too late for a remedy, but as then, and this thanks to the Cape Charles Mirror, we ought at least to make a tryal, and if we still die shall have this consolation in our last hours, that we tried to live.
Ellsworth then continued as follows, to wit:
I can foresee that several classes of men will try to alarm your fears, and however selfish their motives, we may expect that liberty, the encroachments of power, and the inestimable privileges of dear posterity will with them be fruitful topicks of argument.
The first to oppose a federal government will be the old friends of Great Britain, who in their hearts cursed the prosperity of your arms, and have ever since delighted in the perplexity of your councils.
Many of these men are still among us, and for several years their hopes of a re-union with Britain have been high.
They rightly judge that nothing will so soon effect their wishes as the deranged state we are now in, if it should continue.
They see that the merchant is weary of a government which cannot protect his property, and that the farmer finding no benefit from the revolution, begins to dread much evil; and they hope the people will soon supplicate the protection of their old masters.
We therefore expect that all the policy of these men will center in defeating those measures, which will protect the people, and give system and force to American Councils.
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There, from the pen of someone who lived those times, is the background in existence at the time our Constitution came into being, and its purpose was to RISE US UP from those dismal and abject conditions to make us stronger as a nation and as a people.
To keep us risen up requires a living constitution, or chaos is the result, which is what we had in this nation before we had a constitution.
Paul Plante says
As to “rights,” which are nothing more than a concept, OUR Declaration of Independence, a distinctly and uniquely American production which was a political document, states thusly on that subject, to wit:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness AND that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
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Now, that was a radical political theory 243 years ago, when the known world was ruled by kings, and it makes plain the fact that if you cannot vindicate your rights (“secure these rights”), then you simply do not have any, period, which is why governments are instituted among men.
Thus, our original government, the one the Democratic Socialists want to overthrow, was put in place to SECURE our liberty, which is defined as the “state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views.”
The form or frame of government the Democratic Socialists would impose on us, according to their Manifesto, would strip us of our liberty, because under their system, which is based on skin color, we would no longer enjoy the state of being free within their society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on our way of life, behavior, or political views, because without oppression and coercion and mind and thought control, their system cannot function, which takes us back to American political philosophy as expressed in the Declaration of Independence in 1776, as follows:
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
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The form of government the Democratic Socialists would impose on us would be destructive of those ends, and thus, were they successful somehow in imposing it on us, we would have the right to turn around and abolish it, so why go there in the first place?
But that is looking at things rationally as an American citizen who believes in Republican government would look at things, and the Democratic Socialists do not share those same values, and so, they look at life though an entirely different prism that it is hard for an American citizen to understand, which takes us to p.152 of “World Wars And Revolutions” by Walter Phelps Hall, PhD, of Princeton, copyrighted 1943, where we have as follows:
Fascism is an all-embracing doctrine which demands a one hundred percent surrender of the individual will in the name of mystical nationalism – with ends not clearly defined.
This nationalism is beyond good and evil, and thus is deified.
Therefore, fascism properly should be classed as a kind of religion like communism, the latter based on class-consciousness, the former on nationalism.
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Communism, and its intermediate stage, socialism as advocated by the Democratic Socialists, is a kind of religion based on class-consciousness, so it is a class-based system which is totally inimical (unfriendly, hostile) to Republican government, where all are equal, and thus, their socialism is against OUR Constitution, which states in section 4 of Article IV that “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.”
But that presumes an actual living Constitution, where those words continue to have their original meaning down through time, and there is where it has all broken down, because we do not have a living Constitution, which takes us to a political essay entitled “A VANISHING VIRGINIA CONSTITUTION?” by the Honorable Stephen R. McCullough, a Judge, Court of Appeals of Virginia who also served as State Solicitor General, Office of the Attorney General, Commonwealth of Virginia, with a J.D., 1997, University of Richmond School of Law, where the author states thusly concerning the Constitution of Virginia, to wit:
I. INTRODUCTION
The Constitution is the fundamental law of Virginia.
It is the charter by which our people have consented to be governed; it sets forth the basic rights and principles sought to be maintained and preserved in a free society.
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Now, the key words there are these: principles sought to be maintained and preserved in a free society.
Under the system to be imposed on us by the Democratic Socialists according to their Manifesto, we will no longer have a free society, we will have a coercive and repressive one, and the Constitution of the Commonwealth will be little more than a fading memory, which it actually is right now, as we see by returning to that essay, to wit:
Virginia‘s constitution was first established in 1776, when the rift with the mother country thrust upon Virginia colonists the obligation to establish their own government.
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Now, however the liberals and the Democratic Socialists want to cut the cake, the fact of the matter is that all our federal Constitution did was establish the form or frame of our federal government – it did not prescribe or define or limit what rights we would have under that frame of government, which was put in place to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, which takes us back to that essay, as follows:
A rather modest affair when compared to our modern Virginia Constitution, Virginia‘s initial charter of government consisted of two documents: a Declaration of Rights and a constitution proper that set forth the more mechanical aspects of operating a government.
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Mark those words: a constitution proper that set forth the more mechanical aspects of operating a government.
That is what our federal Constitution is.
As to rights as defined by the Virginia Constitution, that essay states as follows:
Chiefly the handiwork of George Mason, the Declaration of Rights called for, among other protections, the separation of powers, religious liberty, freedom of the press, and protections for persons accused of crimes.
One writer notes that this Declaration of Rights is, indeed, a remarkable production.
As an intellectual effort, it possesses exalted merit.
It is the quintessence of all the great principles and doctrines of freedom which had been wrought out by the people of England from the earliest times.
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But my goodness, people, the English owned slaves, so any of their principles and doctrines for freedom were “racist,” intended only for white people, so the “people of color” like AOC and Rashida Tlaib and Saikat Chakrabarti who form the backbone of the democratic Socialists reject those principles and doctrines out of hand.
Our American values that we hold dear are not their values, period, as is made incandescently clear in their Manifesto, as follows:
2016 was a game changing year for leftists and progressives.
We are finally reemerging as a vital and powerful force after an extended period of stagnation and demoralization, and we face a political landscape more favorable than perhaps at any time since the 1960s.
For roughly 30 years after the end of World War II, the United States and non-Communist Europe experienced solid economic growth, declining inequality, expanding social services and increasing working-class power, coupled with landmark advances toward racial, gender and sexual equality.
In countries such as France and Sweden, labor and socialist movements even made significant (if fleeting) progress toward a democratic socialist transition.
Though these gains were tainted in countries such as the United States by the racialized and gendered manner in which they were distributed, this period represents the high-water mark of working-class strength and security in the 20th century.
The Rise of Neoliberalism
Starting in the 1970s, however, in a movement that would become known as neoliberalism, economic elites in these countries began mobilizing politically to lower taxes for the rich and corporations, to eviscerate democratic decision-making both in the workplace as well as at the ballot box, to slash spending on essential social services such as education and social security, to deregulate industries across the economy and to open up flows of capital across national borders.
These “reforms” enabled corporations to evade virtually all forms of accountability either to the workers they employed or to the communities in which they operated.
In the United States neoliberalism was aided by racialized attacks on social service provision in which African American and Latino recipients of welfare and other anti-poverty programs were portrayed as an “undeserving poor” whose lifestyle was being subsidized by (white) taxpayers (even though whites constituted the largest group of welfare beneficiaries).
The success of neoliberalism across the United States and Europe differed based upon the relative strength or weakness of left-wing political parties and trade unions – leaving working people in traditional bastions of social democracy such as Sweden relatively better off than working people in countries such the United States where trade unions and the Left have been weak historically.
But by the early 2000s the historic gains made across these countries in the post-World War Two period had been rolled back dramatically.
This, combined with the fall of Soviet and East European Communism and the marketization of the Chinese economy by the early 1990s, led most pundits and politicians to proclaim the ultimate triumph of neoliberalism: “there is no alternative” to the free market became the mantra of policy makers around the world.
Insurgent Responses to Neoliberalism
Given the profound and sustained defeats suffered by the Left and progressive movements during this period, by the mid- 2000s socialists and progressives in the United States and Europe could boast of virtually no examples of successful resistance to neoliberalism.
Many turned their eyes to South America, which during this time was practically the only democratic leftist political stronghold in the world.
Only a few short years later, however, the situation in Europe and the United States looked completely different: the Left had finally galvanized significant support in the electoral arena, and had pulled the terms of political debate significantly leftward through creative social movement organizing.
To name but a few electoral examples, in Greece the left-wing Syriza party came to power in 2014, in Spain the left-wing Podemos party emerged from antiausterity protests in 2014 and only two years later it was the third largest party in the country.
Even more surprising were the rise of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the British Labor Party in 2015 and the phenomenal success of Bernie Sanders’ “political revolution” during the 2016 United States’ presidential election.
These electoral successes have been paralleled by, and to a large degree made possible by, the rise of a new generation of progressive social movements committed both to thoroughgoing critiques of capitalism, racism, sexism, xenophobia and other forms of oppression, as well as to the creation of an ecologically sustainable, democratic and egalitarian future.
To take the United States as one example, the progressive offensive against neoliberalism began in earnest with the Occupy protests of 2011 and the resistance to Governor Scott Walker’s anti-labor offensive in Wisconsin, which put the issue of inequality at the center of U.S. political discourse and cultivated a new generation of activists that have been crucial in more recent movements.
In the wake of Occupy, powerful new movements arose to challenge brutal immigration policies (The Dreamers), the shamefully low federal minimum wage (Fight for $15), the epidemic of police brutality and structural racism (Black Lives Matter) and inequality (the Sanders Political Revolution) to name a few.
These movements have opened up space for a serious discussion of capitalism, male dominance and racism in our society that has not existed in decades, and which provides unique opportunities for the growth of a democratic socialist movement that emphasizes the interconnectedness of all of the struggles and the structural character of the reforms needed to make real and lasting change.
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And that brings us right up to today.
So where do we go from here?
Does anyone know?
Paul Plante says
Having been a very diligent student of the United States Constitution ever since a night in VEET NAM back in 1969 when I was ordered to take part in what would have been a massacre of Vietnamese women and children, I am going to say that there is no other document in history whose history and purpose are so clearly defined, and when one actually sits down and reads that history, including and starting with each word of each Federalist Papers, and one considers oneself a “strict constructionist,” as I do myself, one can come to no other conclusion but that the United States Constitution is the very essence of a “living constitution,” as opposed to a “dead constitution,” and the proof of that is found right in the beginning in the Preamble, which states as follows, to wit: “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” where “posterity” means all future generations of people.
And here is what separates a living constitution like ours from a dead constitution – the realization that the meaning of the term “blessings of liberty” in our times today where there are some 330 million people in the United States of America means far different that it did when there were 3 million people living in a largely agricultural society in what was a wilderness in many cases.
There is where the controversy comes in – with respect to the meaning of the word, liberty.
“My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing!”
There is nothing in there about any kind of “rights,” such as gay rights, whatever on earth those might be, or the right to have housing provided for you, or the right to a “living wage.”
Those are societal demands.
That the purpose of the Constitution was to guard our liberty against the encroachments of the federal government is made clear right in the beginning in FEDERALIST. No. 1, General Introduction, by Alexander Hamilton for the Independent Journal to the People of the State of New York, as follows:
Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.
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Now, that is the actual history of those times out of which OUR Constitution came, so that EVERYBODY in the country today who was born after the time in which Alexander Hamilton wrote those words cannot change that history around to suit their own purposes today, like rejecting the Constitution out of hand because it supposedly is a “racist” document intended to keep the “people of color” down, which is horse****.
Getting back to Federalist No. 1 and “liberty”:
To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives.
An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty.
An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good.
It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust.
On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.
History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.
In the course of the preceding observations, I have had an eye, my fellow citizens, to putting you upon your guard against all attempts, from whatever quarter, to influence your decision in a matter of the utmost moment to your welfare, by any impressions other than those which may result from the evidence of truth.
You will, no doubt, at the same time, have collected from the general scope of them, that they proceed from a source not unfriendly to the new Constitution.
Yes, my countrymen, I own to you that, after having given it an attentive consideration, I am clearly of opinion it is your interest to adopt it.
I am convinced that this is the safest course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness.