The Free Talk Live BBS
Free Talk Live => The Show => Topic started by: Branlin on June 11, 2011, 09:42:49 PM
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She said, in response to a caller who was citing the constitution, that she doesn't get her freedoms from the constitution.
Neither does anyone else, as the male host more or less pointed out.
Obviously, the American experiment in freedom has been a massive failure. We now know that no government can be restrained by a piece of paper.
However, the founders (some of them, at least) believed at the time that the government they were setting up was to protect liberties. The constitution, and more specifically the Bill of Rights, does not grant freedoms as Michelle seems to think. If you actually read it, it was supposed to be a restriction on the government's powers. As a Supreme Court case stated some 30 years ago, the B of R is a "charter of negative liberties."
"Congress shall make no law . . . "
"Shall not be infringed . . . "
"The right of the people to be secure . . . "
etc., etc.
It does not grant freedoms, but instead orders the government to recognize -- and not infringe upon -- those inherent freedoms.
If one reads the writing of the founders, they believed that rights, endowed by our Creator, apply to ALL HUMAN BEINGS, regardless of where they happened to be born. All humans were entitled to be free, but some men (governments) would interfere with those rights, and America was to be a place to escape to where government would protect those rights.
As we now know it didn't work in practice, but the ideas were sound. The constitution does not grant rights, as anyone knows who has actually read it.
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The weakness of the Constitution was the complacency of the people. If us commoners had held the politicians to the thing it would have worked.
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The weakness of the Constitution was the complacency of the people. If us commoners had held the politicians to the thing it would have worked.
This...Which is the same sentiment echoed by many of the 'founders'. Trees of Liberty and all of that.
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If one reads the writing of the founders, they believed that rights, endowed by our Creator, apply to ALL HUMAN BEINGS, regardless of where they happened to be born. All humans were entitled to be free, but some men (governments) would interfere with those rights, and America was to be a place to escape to where government would protect those rights.
Then it is really weird that many of the founders had slaves, and the constitution allowed for slavery.
I'm just saying...
Not to be insensitive, but at the time, blacks were somewhere just above cattle and just under 'savages' on the creators scale, with beasts at the bottom, God at the top, and white people just under 'H'im.
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If the "founders" had really cared about liberty, they would never have given the state the power to make laws. The Constitution was a total betrayal of the principles of the Revolution and a massive coup for the political class, who were finding their privilege threatened by the new lack of central authority. The Bill of Rights was just the last gasp of the revolutionary spirit.
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The weakness of the Constitution was the complacency of the people. If us commoners had held the politicians to the thing it would have worked.
This is the typical copout. It's like saying people would be be angels if they weren't sinful. It doesn't really bring any reality to the table. If government were expected to work, it would have to account for the nature of people, and the voters in particular.
The fact is that government is pushed on us based on the proposition that people are not angels, and are prone to irresponsibility. Democracy/republic is based on the proposition that the same people who cannot control themselves can maintain "good government." As someone once said, if you cannot be responsible for yourself, you have little chance of being responsible for others. This is only one reason why democracy/republic does not work.
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If one reads the writing of the founders, they believed that rights, endowed by our Creator, apply to ALL HUMAN BEINGS, regardless of where they happened to be born. All humans were entitled to be free, but some men (governments) would interfere with those rights, and America was to be a place to escape to where government would protect those rights.
Then it is really weird that many of the founders had slaves, and the constitution allowed for slavery.
I'm just saying...
Not to be insensitive, but at the time, blacks were somewhere just above cattle and just under 'savages' on the creators scale, with beasts at the bottom, God at the top, and white people just under 'H'im.
Except wops, micks, greasers and pollocks.