A Constitutional Anniversary to Forget

Guest Post by Antonius Aquinas

constitutionstupid

While not a jubilee year, last week marked the 230th anniversary of the US Constitution.  Naturally, most of its devotees enthusiastically praised the document which by now is seen on a par with Holy Writ itself.  An editorial from Investor’s Business Daily provides an example of such hagiography:

The Constitution’s beauty is that it not only delineates our rights

as Americans, but expressly limits and defines government’s ability

to interfere in our private lives.   This equipoise between citizens’

duties, responsibilities and rights makes it the defining document

or our nation’s glorious freedom.

 

But America is wonderful largely because of the Constitution and

those who framed it . . . .

 

What we have is too precious to squander . . . .*

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Most of the piece laments about the widespread ignorance of its sacred contents among the denizens in which it rules over and encourages the unlearned “to bone up a bit on your constitutional heritage . . . .”  The editorial fails, as do most others on the Right, to understand that it is not a lack of knowledge of the Constitution’s contents among the populace which lies at the heart of America’s social, economic, and political problems, but the very document itself.

One of the main reasons why the Constitution continues to be so widely venerated is due to the deliberate distortion of history that its “founders” promoted and that generations of its sycophants have continued to perpetuate to this very day.  The official narrative runs that the Constitution was enacted because of widespread popular support for a change to the supposed inadequacies and deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation.

This is a myth.  Instead, the Constitution was a coup deliberately schemed by the leading political and mercantile classes to set up a powerful central government where ultimate authority rested in the national state.  The use of the term “federal” to describe what was created in Philadelphia in those fateful days was a ruse much like the banksters and politicos used “Federal Reserve” to describe the central bank created in 1913.  It was neither “federal” – a decentralized monetary order – nor a “reserve” of gold, but a monetary institution which could create money out of thin air and eventually eliminate the gold standard.

It was a similar political maneuver 230 years ago as a new American national state was established and touted as a decentralized form of government where power was evenly divided between state and national levels and between the different branches of the government itself  – “separation of powers.”  In actuality, however, the “federal system” was the elevation of central power at the expense of local authority which had previously existed.  Section VI of the Constitution says it all:

The Constitution and the laws of the United States  . . .

shall be the supreme law of the land; and the

judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the

Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

Elementary political science has shown and plain common sense knows that any person or institution given “supreme authority” will misuse and abuse such power.  Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely is an undeniable dictum of human nature.  A truly decentralized system of governance would not contain a plank as “supreme law of the land” as part of its foundation.  Instead, real federalism would be dispersed, as it existed in the past in such political arrangements as confederacies, leagues, and, certainly, under the much maligned feudal social order.

Even the Constitution’s celebrated Bill of Rights is flawed and has proven to be ineffective in protecting basic human freedoms.  It is the federal government which enumerates and interprets what freedom individuals should possess.  Thus, the meaning and extent of individual liberties will be in the hands of federal jurists and courts who will invariably rule on cases in favor of the state.  The ensnaring of individual rights within the central government’s authority did away with the venerable common law which was a far greater defender of liberty than federal courts.

Just as important, the enactment of the Constitution, which brought all the individual states under it suzerainty, did away with one of the most significant checks on state power – “voting with one’s feet.”  When there are multiple governing authorities, if one jurisdiction becomes too oppressive, its subjects can move to freer domains.  This still happens on a local level as high tax and regulatory states such as California and New York have lost demographically to freer places like Nevada and Texas.  Yet, from the Federal Leviathan there is no escape, except expatriation.

Unless and until Americans and all the other peoples of the Western world who live under constitutional rule recognize that it is the type of government which is the cause of most of the political turmoil, social unrest, and economic malaise  which they face, there is no hope of turning things around.

*”Sturdy Constitution, ” Investor’s Business Daily, Week of September 18, 2017, A20.

 

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Aodh Mor MacRaynall
Aodh Mor MacRaynall

I hates the Yankee nation and everything they do;
I hates the declaration of independence too.

by the way, for you haters:
I won’t be reconstructed and I don’t care a damn!

CCRider
CCRider

Outstanding! Finally an anthem I can stand up for when played.

Vixen Vic
Vixen Vic

I love this song. I’m a Southern Rebel and will be until the day I die. Unfortunately, the rest of the country is being treated, not as bad as the South, but bad enough by Washington. I say bring back the U.S. Confederation.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Wonder what nations the author considers better and why he hasn’t moved there?

TampaRed
TampaRed

i thought that there would be many comments here but i suspect that most people consider him to be as full of crap as i do so they just aren’t commenting–

Hagar
Hagar

Not so much total crap as not too many constitutional scholars of which I am not one. True, the Constitution with amendments is flawed…as would any document enacted by mankind. Missing from the article is the 1871 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES replacing the 1787 Constitution for the United States. The Act of 1871 created a state within a state, (Washington DC), a corporation, now known as ‘the Swamp’. If the 9th and 10th Amendments were in force, and the 17th Amendment was repealed then maybe we could have our country back. Just saying…..

Gilnut
Gilnut

The Constitutional Convention was only the political coup, it took the “Civil” War and 500k+ American lives to cement the military coup. It’s been downhill since, Nov 6 1865 (the date the last Confederate troops surrendered, Lee only surrendered for the Army of Virginia.)

Ghost

suzerainty… that’s a funny sounding word.

Ghost

Yesterday my husband and I went to the Pilot Knob Battlefield to see a real live Civil War Reenactment in full dress. I was rather surprised at the turnout… thousands of people, some of them attending in period dress! (I made a catty Carol Burnett remark about wearing the curtains and a lady nearby said I was dating myself.)

I bought a bottle of ice-cold water for one dollar from a boy scout, troop #423. And, then later, I bought a glass of locally brewed draft beer for $5. None of the vendors at the State Park seemed to be overpriced and I picked up a nice little trinket or two for gifts for tots for just about what the things were worth! There really is something nice about being in a country community.

I asked my husband if he saw any black people in the crowd. He said he didn’t think he saw even one. He and I figure if the BLM folks ever sent a bunch of thugs down to disrupt what is obviously a beloved community event (this reenactment has been done for decades in these parts… it is a kind of bizarre story about a few thousand Confederate soldiers being sent to “take” control of St. Louis. They couldn’t even get past this little berm of Union soldiers. Anyway, I think protestors would probably find out pretty quick about conceal/open carry popularity by the good country folks in these hills.

http://www.battleofpilotknob.org/reenactment.html

Vixen Vic
Vixen Vic

Maggie, these definitely happen all over the South. We have one near me for the Battle of Aiken each year. Lots of people attend. Haven’t had any protests — yet.

Nancy in Craven
Nancy in Craven

I suggest interested readers check out AmericasRemedy.com. John Ainsworth gives a compelling explanation about the Acts of Reconstruction and how the 14th Amendment forever changed the course of history. While the Constitution has its flaws the 14th was a fatal blow, effectively destroying the 10th.

I notice some of you are from North Carolina just as I am. Are you aware that in Sec.5. of the NC state constitution “every citizen of the State owes paramount allegiance to the Constitution and government of the United States” ?

Also, did you know that the military removed a duly elected governor and replaced him with one of their choosing?

The Acts of Reconstruction are still controlling many of our state governments when necessary. And you thought the War of Northern Aggression was over?

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