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Title: Thomas Sowell: July 4th
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://townhall.com/columnists/thom ... well/2011/06/28/july_4th/print
Published: Jul 1, 2011
Author: Sowell
Post Date: 2011-07-01 18:36:32 by wakeup
Keywords: None
Views: 5986
Comments: 23

The Fourth of July may be just a holiday for fireworks to some people. But it was a momentous day for the history of this country and the history of the world. Not only did July 4, 1776 mark American independence from England, it marked a radically different kind of government from the governments that prevailed around the world at the time -- and the kinds of governments that had prevailed for thousands of years before.

The American Revolution was not simply a rebellion against the King of England, it was a rebellion against being ruled by kings in general. That is why the opening salvo of the American Revolution was called "the shot heard round the world."

Autocratic rulers and their subjects heard that shot -- and things that had not been questioned for millennia were now open to challenge. As the generations went by, more and more autocratic governments around the world proved unable to meet that challenge.

Some clever people today ask whether the United States has really been "exceptional." You couldn't be more exceptional in the 18th century than to create your fundamental document -- the Constitution of the United States -- by opening with the momentous words, "We the people..."

Those three words were a slap in the face to those who thought themselves entitled to rule, and who regarded the people as if they were simply human livestock, destined to be herded and shepherded by their betters. Indeed, to this very day, elites who think that way -- and that includes many among the intelligentsia, as well as political messiahs -- find the Constitution of the United States a real pain because it stands in the way of their imposing their will and their presumptions on the rest of us.

More than a hundred years ago, so-called "Progressives" began a campaign to undermine the Constitution's strict limitations on government, which stood in the way of self-anointed political crusaders imposing their grand schemes on all the rest of us. That effort to discredit the Constitution continues to this day, and the arguments haven't really changed much in a hundred years.

The cover story in the July 4th issue of Time magazine is a classic example of this arrogance. It asks of the Constitution: "Does it still matter?"

A long and rambling essay by Time magazine's managing editor, Richard Stengel, manages to create a toxic blend of the irrelevant and the erroneous.

The irrelevant comes first, pointing out in big letters that those who wrote the Constitution "did not know about" all sorts of things in the world today, including airplanes, television, computers and DNA.

This may seem like a clever new gambit but, like many clever new gambits, it is a rehash of arguments made long ago. Back in 1908, Woodrow Wilson said, "When the Constitution was framed there were no railways, there was no telegraph, there was no telephone,"

In Mr. Stengel's rehash of this argument, he declares: "People on the right and left constantly ask what the framers would say about some event that is happening today."

Maybe that kind of talk goes on where he hangs out. But most people have enough common sense to know that a constitution does not exist to micro-manage particular "events" or express opinions about the passing scene.

A constitution exists to create a framework for government -- and the Constitution of the United States tries to keep the government inside that framework.

From the irrelevant to the erroneous is a short step for Mr. Stengel. He says, "If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it certainly doesn't say so."

Apparently Mr. Stengel has not read the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Perhaps Richard Stengel should follow the advice of another Stengel -- Casey Stengel, who said on a number of occasions, "You could look it up."

Does the Constitution matter? If it doesn't, then your Freedom doesn't matter.

Thomas Sowell Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute

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#1. To: All (#0) (Edited)

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wakeup  posted on  2011-07-01   18:37:08 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: wakeup, 4 (#1)

Apparently Mr. Stengel has not read the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Perhaps Richard Stengel should follow the advice of another Stengel -- Casey Stengel, who said on a number of occasions, "You could look it up."

Does the Constitution matter? If it doesn't, then your Freedom doesn't matter.

Bump this!

Thanks, Mr.Sowell.

Lod  posted on  2011-07-01   21:49:28 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: Lod (#2)

Does the Constitution matter? If it doesn't, then your Freedom doesn't matter.

Exactly. That is what it comes down to. Either we are a nation of laws or of the arbitrary rule of petty and venal men. Good men, decent men, do not seek to lord it over others and force them to obey their arbitrary dictats. However, petty and small minded men do. In their arrogance, brought on by their stupidity and ego, they think that they and only they are most fit to direct the lives of all.

"Necessity' is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." ~ William Pitt

"Most of the almost innumerable books, pamphlets, and other publications issued by the sponsors of the mental health program are purposely and craftily disingenuous, disguising its real and ultimate purpose: ... the ultimate reduction of every individual in this world, except the favored few who conceive of themselves as possessed of an incomparable genius in their ability to direct the affairs of others, into... a common servile obeisance to his master, the State...." Mental Robots, by Dr. Lewis Albert Alesen

Original_Intent  posted on  2011-07-01   22:02:45 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: Original_Intent (#3)

Good men, decent men, do not seek to lord it over others and force them to obey their arbitrary dictats. However, petty and small minded men do. In their arrogance, brought on by their stupidity and ego, they think that they and only they are most fit to direct the lives of all.

Well said, and Amen.

Thank you!

Lod  posted on  2011-07-01   22:25:19 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#9. To: Lod, Original_Intent (#4)

Good men, decent men, do not seek to lord it over others and force them to obey their arbitrary dictats. However, petty and small minded men do. In their arrogance, brought on by their stupidity and ego, they think that they and only they are most fit to direct the lives of all.

".....The political aristocracy who wrote the Constitution did not intend for the masses to take part and become the sovereigns you think you are. No, neither you nor your ancestors were ever party to the contract called the Constitution of any of the colonies nor of the United States. I have quoted the case in my New History of America which I quote only a small part here,

"to this: that the States, in making the Constitution, intended to give up the power of self preservation."

Lastly, the Court at page 491, said this of the People who made the constitutions:

"The people of the States who made the Constitution, considered themselves as the sovereign, and the Government as the subject. They were the principal -- it the agent. That this is also true none will dispute."

We all know it is not us people who made the Constitutions but the select few as stated by the Court at page 520, to wit:

"But, indeed, no private person has a right to complain, by suit in court, on the ground of a breach of the Constitution. The Constitution, it is true, is a compact, but he is not a party to it. The States are the parties to it. And they may complain. If they do they are entitled to redress. Or they may waive the right to complain." END OF QUOTE.

The only way to control the masses is to institute constitutional war powers to institute a different, but constitutional, set of parameters upon the people. Once the war powers are adopted they can change the statutes to fit the ends they want to achieve. They do it slowly so as to not give a clue to the masses. The war powers act of 1862 allowed the President and Congress to constitutionally change the statutes that guaranteed the people, in juries, to rule on both the law and the facts. Not only were the statutes changed that took away the power to judge the law but it also took away the right to be judged by your peers. The meaning of peers will be very evident when reading the next part of Whiting's Book and shows why today you have no such protections because the enemy can have no such protections. Even to the point that the jury is not aware of the slow indoctrination over the years that they really do have the right to judge the law, but not under the Rule of Necessity in the Rules of military Rule.] ......"

[Turning to Whiting's separate section Titled, The Return of the Rebellious States to the Union, we see the mindset of government, our enemy, as so aptly stated by Albert J. Nock in his book, Our Enemy, The State. It shows that the people of the south and the north became enemies of the United States, AKA Congress, because the southern states could not be admitted back into the Union and have disabilities different to the north. So Congress overrode President Johnson's veto of the War Powers after Johnson decreed the War Powers over, and then Congress declared that in order to have all states on equal footing they would continue the emergency war powers to include ALL the people in the States of the Union to be enemies, subject to the Confiscation Acts of 12 Stat 319. The section on Reconstruction of the Union shows that the southern States were forced into submitting to the United States, thereby showing, for all to see, that the Constitution is of "No Authority" as stated by eminent Jurist Lysander Spooner.

The south had sought to be free from the Union as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, that whenever government ceased to be what it was supposed to be, they had the right to secede. Such was not the case and shows the fraud of the Constitution for what it is. For if the abuses could not be remedied the South sought to only do what the Constitution stated, and that was to form a new government. They did not want to overthrow the old government. This also proves that the Treaty of 1783 still is supreme over the constitution which the treaty created. This I brought forth in my book The New History of America by quoting from the First Circuit Court of the United States operating in North Carolina in 1796.] fallacy.htm

FALLACY & MYTH of the PEOPLE BEING THE SOVEREIGN -- And that the Constitution was for the Common Man

www.biblebelievers.org.au/fa llacy.htm [this really needs to be read from the top!]

AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt  posted on  2011-07-02   9:17:00 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#21. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#9)

".....The political aristocracy who wrote the Constitution did not intend for the masses to take part and become the sovereigns you think you are. No, neither you nor your ancestors were ever party to the contract called the Constitution of any of the colonies nor of the United States. [sic]

...The States are the parties to it.

What Constitution of the colonies? Nevermind that. The Preamble says, "We the People"..."and our Posterity" -- not "We the States"..."and a number of State add-ons sometime later".

GreyLmist  posted on  2011-07-09   1:13:08 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


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