Thoughts Aloud

In the lengthy comment section of the recent “Iowa Values” post, Chris has made some valid observations about some of my inconsistencies, which deserve a more fulsome response than there is room for there:

I completely understand your viewpoint is strictly based on your interpretation of the constitution as well as your own no doubt studious review of other relevant materials such as federalist papers et al. I’ll not begrudge you your opinion as I for a large part agree. Your even right that in the view as a constitutionalist if your view is correct SCOTUS can’t change that. One thing I am content with is letting the people decide if there is an issue. It appears Iowa doesn’t take your view. It’s possible that farther along the process the citizens of other states will see it more seriously. It’s out there. (I don’t see that happening.) In that case any of the candidates in question will be denied the nomination and the argument will be vindicated. If one of them does win the nomination the argument is defeated and therefore moot.

Well, I certainly am not content with letting the people decide if there is an issue with the Constitution. This is not a democracy. The will of the majority cannot change the meaning of the Constitution either. If folks consider a feature of the Constitution outdated and in need of revision, it has built in mechanisms for its Amendment. As designed, it simply cannot be changed by legislative statute, judicial fiat, executive action, or popular opinion. It means what it says, or it is entirely meaningless, and worth less than the parchment on which it was written.

The simple fact is that the majority of the sheeple in America are too ignorant of the very purpose of the Constitution in our Republic, to be trusted with interpreting the original intent of its 18th century verbiage. Their minds are too malleable by lawyerly disinformation, and susceptible to grandiose concepts like ‘Living Constitution.’ It would seem to me irreverent and rather foolhardy, to decide that since voters are inclined to ignore blatant violations of it, such transgressions don’t really matter.

I disagree entirely that if Republican Primary voters don’t challenge the attempt to usurp the office of POTUS, the issue is moot. On the strength of Trump’s efforts alone, 25% of polled Iowa voters acknowledged that Cruz’ birth in Canada was an issue for them. The Democrats have yet to take their turn at bat. Rubio might get a pass, because they might not wish to delve too deeply into the controversial ‘anchor baby’ issue; but they spent way too much effort trying to prove Obama was born in the USA, to ignore Cruz’ Canadian birth certificate.

Dave I find it perplexing that on these same pages you advocate for the tearing down of the system post haste so we can start rebuilding again yet this particular issue you hold on to as though any deviation is certain death to the republic. I understand your reverence to the constitution but I think you have missed the possibility that were such a collapse in the system come about our constitution could be it’s most obvious victim. There are many that would like to see the same collapse to rid us of that constitution. Probably many more than would wish to leave it in as written form. That’s why I have from neutral to opposition regarding a convention of states. It’s my position that the constitution is correct and need only be adhered to despite some 20th century amendments that are detrimental because I know those won’t be addressed.

I acknowledge that the current state of my now somewhat tenuous attachment, to my lifelong patriotic fervor and esteem for our Constitution, is probably confusing when juxtaposed with my newfound interest in anarchy. I suppose old habits are hard to break, and I have spent way to much of my lifetime studying and pontificating on our Founding history and Freedom documents, to just let them go out of my mind. Interestingly, even though it no longer matters, because I acknowledge the Progressives have won and our Constitution is now a dead letter, my blood still boils every time I hear the blasphemous term ‘Living Constitution.’ 🙂

The same is true of the ‘natural-born citizen’ (NBC) issue. I spent so much time in the past several years studying the issue, and debating with young Obot lawyers, that it is like a ringside bell that brings me charging off my stool with my dukes up. I probably spent just as much time trying to convince Birthers that the birth certificate issue was a red herring, to keep the focus off the fact that Obama was ineligible simply because his father was not an American, and he was born a subject of Great Britain, wherever the blessed event occurred. Once acquired, it is impossible to unlearn such facts, and difficult to ignore them, even now.

As I have said elsewhere, the audacity and arrogance displayed by Cruz in particular, who absolutely knows better, to try to slink past his ineligibility with smarmy lawyerly obfuscation, irritates me to no end. I just can’t help it. BTW: I took the trouble to look up the question of Trump’s mother’s citizenship, and found that she was naturalized four years before he was born in NY, so Trump is unquestionably a NBC. I now wonder if Cruz was aware of her naturalization when he dramatically brought up her foreign birth in the debate. While looking over that site, of the delightful grandmother calling herself ‘Clinical Thinker,’ I found a couple more articles worth perusing. One is a recent article discussing why Cruz isn’t a NBC.  The other is a great 2010 article covering the four SCOTUS rulings that have addressed the definition of NBC. The comments to it are informative as well. I wish I had encountered her site back then. I would have enjoyed collaborating with such a Clinical Thinker. 🙂

Yes, I understand that the convenient fiction that our Constitution protects our rights, will disappear with the collapse of the system. Yet, that is all it is – a fiction. Nothing of real value would be lost. Most of its intended restraints on the Federal government are already meaningless, and routinely ignored by its apparatchiks and their clueless ‘subjects’ alike.

Take the 2nd Amendment for example, arguably the best known ‘right’ enshrined in the Constitution. Try to calculate the time, money, and effort expended over the years by the NRA, et al, and their millions of dedicated members, to defend it. Yet, how few places remain in America, where an honest peaceable citizen can strap on a gun in public, without undergoing an extensive background check, to acquire a government permit or license to do so. Why do sheeple agree to apply for them? A permit is evidence of a revocable privilege granted by one’s rulers, not an inalienable right of a freeman.

You mentioned in another post that I was actually looking for someone to turn things around and fix what’s broken. Guilty as charged because a major collapse would be no guarantee of what would be rebuilt in it’s place. If you can show me any country that has suffered a political and/or economic collapse and come out better for it in the 20th or 21st century I will rethink my position. The intellect and honor no longer exists to rebuild what we had.

Germany and Japan come immediately to mind. Taiwan; South Korea; arguably even China and Russia turned around failing states, by simply adopting a more capitalistic economic system, and deciding to somewhat befriend America. There are others in South America and among the former satellites of the Soviet Union.

Why should we even try to rebuild what we had? The United States has now dropped to only eleventh place, in the economic freedom ranking of the countries of the world. There is absolutely nothing I perceive in the unsustainable and unpayable debt burden, with which we have saddled our posterity, that could possibly reverse that trend, no matter who is elected to the office of POTUS.

It will collapse, sooner rather than later. When it does, the easiest way to repudiate the debt, would be to erase the Federal government that owes it. Texas, et al, could become vibrant economies as independent nation states, not paying any tribute to the oligarchs running DC. That would certainly be a step in the right direction; but I am more interested in exploring the concept of enjoying unbridled capitalism in stateless anarchy. Without a coercive government, empowered to initiate violent force against its citizens/subjects, no constitution is necessary. 🙂 â—„Daveâ–º

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