People asked Ben Franklin what the Constitutional Convention had given them and Ben is supposed to have replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” There used to be a slogan, “This is a republic, not a democracy, let’s keep it that way.”
Actually, like most conservative statements, this is simply no longer true. The same Supreme Court that made the holy decision to strike down all state laws against interracial marriage which no conservative dares question also decided that the United States is NOT a republic.
The only phrase in the Constitution that gives the Feds the right to interfere with the FORM of state government is the one which requires that all states must maintain “a republican form of government.” Since the outset every state allowed one senator per county, regardless of its size, just as states were allowed equal Senate representation regardless of their population.
This is, in fact, the only part of the Constitution which cannot be changed by amendment.
The Holy Court of Miscegenation ruled that this provision in in all but one (unicameral) state legislature in the fifty states was unconstitutional. The Holy Court ruled that if a state is not a democracy, it is not a republic, so all legislative bodies must be based on population.
Except the Federal one. So the Federal Government is not, and cannot be, a republic.
#1 by Dave on 08/29/2009 - 4:14 pm
Whenever I am dealing with a lawyer, I know I am dealing with a stupid lawyer if he or she believes there actually is something called “law”.
No matter if it is case law, common law, statues, or regulations, it is all the same thing: writings.
Dumb lawyers believe that “the law” actually means something regarding matters before (flesh and blood) authorities, be it courts, commissions, administrative tribunals, whatever.
Smarter lawyers know that “the law” can be (only sometimes) a rough guide to what these authorities actual do and decide.
The smartest lawyers know there is no connection between “law” and how authorities actually behave, decide, and what they really do. These lawyers sell their knowledge of what authorities have the power to do and what they are likely to do, actual and real power being the only thing that matters.
The general public is endlessly confused about this. The public believes in “law”, thinks it exists, and expects justice and is forever disappointed when “justice” inevitably fails to materialize.
But that does not mean that moral courage isn’t important. Moral courage is highly influential. And that is what Ben Franklin was talking about when he answered, “A Republic, if you can keep it”.
Now here’s what the PC crowd never understands: Moral courage is influential for the same reason beauty is influential. Beauty trumps “law” every time.
If I had a dog as ugly as our Politically Correct Establishment, I’d shave the dog’s butt and make it walk backwards.
#2 by backbaygrouch4 on 08/29/2009 - 7:57 pm
“Since the outset every state allowed one senator per county, regardless of its size, just as states were allowed equal Senate representation regardless of their population.” Not true. And, Bob, you have stumbled onto a pet peeve, the perversity of one man, one vote and its pernicious effect on the genius of a two-tiered legislature.
From the 1781 Massachusetts State Constitution, drawn up under the wise tutelage of John Adams:
“There shall be annually elected, by the freeholders and other inhabitants of this commonwealth, qualified as in this constitution is provided, forty persons to be councillors and senators for the year ensuing their election; to be chosen by the inhabitants of the districts, into which the commonwealth may from time to time be divided by the general court for that purpose: and the general court in assigning the numbers to be elected by the respective districts, shall govern themselves by the proportion of the public taxes paid by the said districts; and timely make known to the inhabitants of the commonwealth, the limits of each district, and the number of councillors and senators to be chosen therein; provided that the number of such districts shall never be less than thirteen; and that no district be so large as to entitle the same to choose more than six senators.”
As you can see the State Senate represented property and commerce, in Massachusetts’ case, mostly commerce.. The ports of Boston and Salem produced revenues that weighted the Senate in their favor at the time. The House of Representatives represented individuals, the people. The conflict between these two has been the bane of all Republics and non-Republic governments. Aristotle nailed it over two millennia past. Since the Supreme Court deconstructed the ability of states to have differently composed legislative houses the purpose of bicameralism has been thwarted. Today only the many have representation, though be it with tiny variation. There is no need for a second house at the state level because both houses are drawn up the same way. They have the same constituency.
Some day, perhaps, I will muster the energy to survey the early state constitutions. I am familiar only with that of the Bay State. I suspect that the Founding Fathers across the board had a far better understanding of what it takes to provide a sound basis for governance than the Supreme Court of today does, or has had in the last seventy-five years. Of course they were all grounded in the British heritage and had not been polluted by later arrivals with their servile mien and radical ideologies.
#3 by Simmons on 08/30/2009 - 2:03 am
Reading Gotfried at Takimag puts this in a different light, we WASPs are so superior to the rest of humanity that even when we debase ourselves the rest of the slobs on Earth lap it up.
Do we really have the “moral courage” to be head and shoulders better than the rest of the world? NO.
PC demands that we patronize bug eaters and old wacky women, and so we do to the extreme, thinking that anyday Equality will appear from the heavens and our burdens will be lifted.
So we debase ourselves with PC, our virtues dissolved unable to deal with brats who clamor for democracy when what they want is firm authority.
#4 by Dave on 08/30/2009 - 2:57 am
Backbaygrouch,
It is the racial meaning of the relentless expansion of political rights to nonwhites that concerns us. I don’t how it is possible to have a multi-racial representative government. The founding fathers had no clue either.
#5 by Dave on 08/31/2009 - 12:31 pm
Simmons,
We are all assaulted with the ambient psychological viciousness of the culture, and the “cults” are pools of the succumbed.
This is nothing new. Do you have any idea of how 19th century rural Americans were under the thumb of village tyrants? The Hollywood history we know today has no notion of it.
Urban tyranny is more benign. You can hide.
The “cults” are comprised of failures to cope cases. I see it all the time. They do a lot of damage, but their talent ends there.
#6 by Simmons on 08/31/2009 - 8:39 pm
19th century Americans were alot less conformist than than the average kid today.
My view is informed by either Lothrop or Grant when it was said, “cities do not create men they consume men.”