What happened to America?

[JohninRI]

"Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are destined to repeat them" Abraham Lincoln

I'm very interested in finding out your personal views on how we lost control over our governments from Federal to State to Local.  Do you think it was one particular event or a calamity of mistakes? 

I know that most of you are Free Market Anarchists while some, like me, are still Constitutionalists.  But were you always FMAs, or did this view come about because you didn't see that the Constitutions ever protected anyone from government?

What if I could show you that the Constitution never stopped protecting the natural State Citizens?  What if I could show you that it was the American people who left the protections of the Constitutions and that these Constitutions are just as powerful and protecting as they were when this Country was first formed?  Would you listen?

We have all allowed ourselves to become the very same class of citizens as immigrants coming into this country; we have traded our Constitutionally guaranteed rights for government granted privileges and a perceived benefit which may or may not ever be extended to us by these governments; and we did it gladly.  Of course, we didn't know we were doing it at the time and some of us may not even know today that we did it.  Some will rile up against me stating that their constitutionally guaranteed rights can never be taken away.  If you're interested, I'd like to hear from you first.

John in RI

[ReverendRyan]

"Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are destined to repeat them" Abraham Lincoln

Ah, the most misattributed quote in all of the English language. Ironic, eh?

[kola]

in began in 1913.

[David]

I don't believe most here are neccessarily free market anarchists.  Those that are, are active here because it is where we are the most welcome. 

The constitution is a piece of paper.  If those in charge of enforcing it don't enforce it, or have vested interests in selectively ignoring it, it becomes essentually a dead document.  It is very much a law that is not enforced.  Because of the competition for power, and the values of those who interpret the constitution are different, it has not died suddenly, but rather gradually with each passing year. 

We lost control over the gov't because of taxes, and the general reverence people have for gov't.  Taxes are the main culprit because they allow the gov't to simply force its way to grow bigger no matter what the voters want.  Because you essentually do not have the freedom of conscious or of choice in what you do with your money, you cannot easily stop funding gov't.  And they know that.  No organization can survive without funding, but few have the luxury of almost garanteed income.  Money, really is the heart of any gov't.
Because of the general reverence for gov't, even those who do not fear gov't are reluctant to disobey it.  Until large number of people disobey gov't, particularly when it comes to taxes, it will always be an uphill battle against gov't. 

[JohninRI]

No Kola, it actually began in 1789, in the Constitutional Convention.

On September 8, 1789, when Representative Daniel Carroll,  from the District of Columbia Maryland,  presented a petition to Congress from the inhabitants of the District; "offering to put themselves and fortunes under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress in case that town should be selected as the permanent seat of the Government of the United  States."  "The First Federal Congress 1789 - 1791", p.182

[srqrebel]

While I am certainly no historian or social science expert, my working theory is that the constitutional, or "State"-based government that was established by America's founding fathers, was inherently flawed from the start.

That is not at all an indictment of those individuals: When one observes the knowledge base and social structure that preceded them, they in fact took mankind a giant and remarkable step forward from the best previous system of government, namely monarchy. Their creation did, however, fall short of being perfect or even ideal, as could be expected.

The telephone line that Alexander Graham Bell first transmitted sound over, was exceedingly primitive compared to the cellphone and internet technology we use to keep in touch today -- yet it was a giant step forward from the best previous communication technology, namely the telegraph. Yet when it comes to a "system of government", most people are (metaphorically) content to stick with the early telephone -- in this case, a two hundred and thirty year old long obsolete system of government.

The major flaw of this system is the fact that it does not fully honor the natural and inherent self-ownership, and resultant self-dominion, of the volitional individual. While it effectively freed the individual from subjugation to a single, all-powerful tyrant, it simultaneously enslaved him to a more benevolent, yet equally fraudulent "higher authority": The "collective" of individuals within a specific geographic area, commonly called "the State". (Note how the preamble to the US Constitution presumes the general "collective" to have some mystical "authority" over the individual: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.") The early documents of the American State are rife with such language -- take, for instance, the ending of the Declaration of Independence: "A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

The founding fathers were misguidedly focused on freeing the People, or "collective body of individuals" from a single tyrant, rather than freeing the individual to exercise his inherent self-dominion over his life and everything derived therefrom, without interference from anyone.

Since the "State" ostensibly needs a mechanism to impose its "will" upon dissenting individuals, a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" was established. Apparently, the founding fathers had the foresight to determine that even such a broad-based system of government had an impetus toward devolving into tyranny, so they incorporated a system of checks and balances into the Constitution, and left stern warnings behind (i.e. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" ~Thomas Jefferson).

While it is clear in hindsight, they apparently did not foresee several things that ended up having a powerful impact on how events would play out in their posterity: 1) The government they established, being accountable to "the people" only once every two or four years, provided a fertile opportunity for parasitic criminals to wield power over the individual while fraudulently hiding behind a cloak of legitimacy (from career politicians to "protect and serve" weapon-wielding enforcers), thus creating a monster that seeks incessantly to enslave the individual for its own benefit, and 2) The checks and balances they incorporated only served to slow the government's incessant march toward tyranny to a painstakingly incremental pace, rather than decisively stopping tyranny in its tracks.

But the most important thing they overlooked (or failed to understand), was human nature. In addition to subjugating the will of the individual to the "will" of "the people", in direct violation of his inherent self-dominion, they also failed to take into account that human beings only act when motivated, thus the checks and balances they incorporated into their unnatural system of government only served to ensure the complacency of "the people", leaving the individual powerless to retain even the limited freedom "guaranteed" him by the Constitution -- after all, the very nature of the system leaves him at the mercy of "the people", yet the majority of the people are lulled to complacency by the illusion of freedom and social stability that is the natural result of those checks and balances. No amount of stern warnings can ever change that simple fact of human nature.

In recent years those checks and balances have become so extensively undermined as to dramatically accelerate the march toward tyranny. This is the major driving force behind the modern freedom movement. Unfortunately, most of the activists within the movement are intent on restoring some form of checks and balances to the obsolete system of government, the unintended consequence being a return to a slow and tolerable march to tyranny, thereby taking the wind out of the sails of the freedom movement. Note that if the founding fathers had been successful in their entreaties to the King for redress of grievances, we would have remained trapped under an increasingly despotic monarchy. It was the sheer tyranny of the King that enabled the founding fathers to garner sufficient support among the people to throw off his chains. The same still applies today. It is our responsibility to ourselves to design and implement a system of government that finally works in harmony with human nature, and serves to increasingly empower the individual, rather than enslave him.

I would be interested in learning how you can claim that "the Constitution never stopped protecting the natural State Citizens". A piece of paper in itself is powerless to do anything. It can enshrine a system of protection, and serve as an instruction manual -- but if the system itself does not work in harmony with human nature, all the philosophizing in the world cannot make it be effective.

I have been more or less a Free Marketeer since encountering The Neo-Tech Discovery By Dr. Frank R. Wallace as a teenager, but it all started to come together for me in the form an actual massive paradigm shift only during the past six months or so. Prior to that, I was of the mistaken opinion that if we could just return the government to its constitutional roots, we would then be only a small step away from the Free Market civilization I envision, hence that was my focus. To illustrate, I served as the vice chair of the Libertarian Party of Sarasota County, FL during 2006, and donated money to the Ron Paul campaign as recently as last November -- yet by the time the NH primaries came around in January, I did not hesitate to abstain from voting as a matter of efficacy.

[JohninRI]

Hi David

It is very much a law that is not enforced.  Because of the competition for power, and the values of those who interpret the constitution are different, it has not died suddenly, but rather gradually with each passing year.

The Constitution never stopped protecting us.  We (each of us) made another contract which superseded the first.  The only way to alter a contract without court interaction or  both party consent is for both parties to enter into another contract.

We lost control over the gov't because of taxes, and the general reverence people have for gov't.

I disagree with the first part and agree with the second part.  We trusted our government too damn much.  The problem right from the start was that the Anti-Federalists never wanted anything to do with the Federal Government so after the signing of the Constitution they left the running of the government to the Federalists - believing that they had adopted a document which would guarantee that the Federal Government would have nothing to do with the natural State Citizens.

[JohninRI]

I would be interested in learning how you can claim that "the Constitution never stopped protecting the natural State Citizens". A piece of paper in itself is powerless to do anything. It can enshrine a system of protection, and serve as an instruction manual -- but if the system itself does not work in harmony with human nature, all the philosophizing in the world cannot make it be effective.

The piece of paper is a contract enforcible at law for anyone owning the status needed to enforce the provisions.  Do you or anyone else here possess the status?

[K. Darien Freeheart]

The piece of paper is a contract enforcible at law for anyone owning the status needed to enforce the provisions.  Do you or anyone else here possess the status?

I was a Constitutionalist for a while. There was, however, one paradoxically nagging question that kept... Nagging at me.

If Congress were to vote today to introduce the 28th amendement that said, "The right of the people to live without disturbance from others being paramount, the first and second amendements to the US Constitution are hereby repealed." would that be "Constitutional" if ratified with the proper votes?

The Constitution doesn't give you rights. Being human gives you rights. Thomas Jefferson was opposed to certain sectons of the Bill of Rights, namely the first and second amendements on the reasoning that "The government is restricted to the powers granted to it in the Constitution, it has no authority to ban religion, free speech or the right to own guns". Basically he saw the Bill of Rights as overkill. I feel the same about the entire constitution now. Nobody has the authority to deny another man freedom - paper stating that is useless.

[JohninRI]

If Congress were to vote today to introduce the 28th amendement that said, "The right of the people to live without disturbance from others being paramount, the first and second amendements to the US Constitution are hereby repealed." would that be "Constitutional" if ratified with the proper votes?

Kevin, the People have the Right to alter their Constitution as they have the same Right to abolish it and start anew.

The Constitution doesn't give you rights. Being human gives you rights. Thomas Jefferson was opposed to certain sectons of the Bill of Rights, namely the first and second amendements on the reasoning that "The government is restricted to the powers granted to it in the Constitution, it has no authority to ban religion, free speech or the right to own guns". Basically he saw the Bill of Rights as overkill. I feel the same about the entire constitution now. Nobody has the authority to deny another man freedom - paper stating that is useless.

The Constitution merely guarantees your Rights against encroachment.   James Madison believed and wrote that in order for the Government of the United States to flourish, it must exercise control over the individual State Citizen; but the Federal Constitution gives no such power and indeed if it had, it's very doubtful that the Constitution would have been adopted by the People of the States.

"Here in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they retain everything they have no need of particular reservations"    Federalist Paper #84 attributed to James Madison

No Kevin, the Federal Government was not given ANY power over State Citizens.  Power was acquired over them using the precedent set in the District of Columbia when the Citizens offered to give up their constitutionally guaranteed Rights under contract for the perceived benefits associated with becoming the Capitol City of the Country under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress.

[JohninRI]

srqrebel,

I agree with the points you made about human nature, you're spot on.  I disagree with the checks and balances.  We should have revolted when our courts declared that the people have the right to decide the questions of fact, but not the law.  This is where the checks and balances fell down flat.

However, As I have previously stated. The Constitution itself is as close to perfect as humanly possible to a perfect contract.  It gave the new government no contact whatsoever with the State Citizens who wanted nothing at all to do with it.  That all changed through the individual's own action and the desire for government benefits. 

What did you do when you attained the age of majority?  You ratified everything you or your parents did in your name prior to your attaining this status by registering for the draft and declaring yourself a U.S. Citizen.  What did you do before that?  You applied for and received a social security number thereby making you eligible for future government benefits.  You entered a contract and ratified that contract through declaration that you no longer were a State Citizen and a Citizen of the Country, but were in fact a 14th Amendment "citizen of the United States" subject to the jurisdiction of Congress.

[Lloyd Danforth]

The system required 'Eternal Vigilance' on the part of the people.  They dropped the ball.

[K. Darien Freeheart]

Kevin, the People have the Right to alter their Constitution as they have the same Right to abolish it and start anew.

I'm not sure if this is being used to bolster your opinion that the Constitution is important of if it's intended to bolster mine that it's useless. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the people have the right to abolish it. The Declaration clearly states this but as has been said over and over, the Declaration isn't "law" in the US. This means, in my view, that you admit the Constitution is not the origin of those rights. If it doesn't grant those rights it has no authority to remove them.

It is the agreement of the individuals that give the Constitution it's "power" and not the Constitution itself. When those individuals cease to agree by those terms it is useless. This "we the People" notion is, as you asked, "what went wrong with America" - the notion that individuals all agree on ANYTHING and even more so, that any individual or group of individuals has the right to bind others to those terms.

The Constitution merely guarantees your Rights against encroachment.

More so than all people agreeing not to encroach upon them? The Constitution gets it's power from the agreement of all of the individuals in a society to abide by it. Those who wish to encroach my rights can act contrary to the Constitution therefore it is no more protection than their word not to do it. In a laissez-faire society the same exists but at least there is a clear understanding of what's happening.

The Constitution itself is as close to perfect as humanly possible to a perfect contract.  It gave the new government no contact whatsoever with the State Citizens who wanted nothing at all to do with it.  That all changed through the individual's own action and the desire for government benefits.

I have to say, at least in theory I agree with you. The Constitution MINUS human nature, is perfect. You admit that "the people" can change the Constitution and then go on to say that is was indeed the people that demanded government benefits and changed it. This changeable nature (including judicial review) is THE perfect vector for attack. Better, I think, to allow Natural Law to take it's course and not bother with redundant attempts to legitimize inborn, inalienable rights.

No Kevin, the Federal Government was not given ANY power over State Citizens

But it was given the power, under certain circumstances, to assume it. If the government was forbidden from assuming power over the individuals it would not be able to do it EVEN at the request of "the people." Furthermore, where it may not have been actively given power over a state citizen, it did so "passively" by forbidding some people (slaves, for instance) the ability to exercise the "rights they gained" by agreeing to that same contract. The Federal government may not have put 24 year-olds into chains, but it DID forbid them from holding governmental positions themselves. It also forbid people not born within "its" borders. NOT doing something is doing something too.

[Jacobus]

srqrebel,

The Constitution itself is as close to perfect as humanly possible to a perfect contract. 

I like Lysander Spooner's take on the Constitution:

http://www.lysanderspooner.org/notreason.htm

See, in particular, No Treason No. VI: The Constitution of No Authority

What did you do when you attained the age of majority?  You ratified everything you or your parents did in your name prior to your attaining this status by registering for the draft and declaring yourself a U.S. Citizen.  What did you do before that?  You applied for and received a social security number thereby making you eligible for future government benefits.  You entered a contract and ratified that contract through declaration that you no longer were a State Citizen and a Citizen of the Country, but were in fact a 14th Amendment "citizen of the United States" subject to the jurisdiction of Congress.

I love people who refuse to register for the draft or burn their SS cards (which, for most people are given at birth and never applied for) or don't pay taxes.

But don't think that the government's courts will protect you if this is the path you follow.  The government doesn't have rules it has to follow. 

[JohninRI]

I'm not sure if this is being used to bolster your opinion that the Constitution is important of if it's intended to bolster mine that it's useless. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the people have the right to abolish it. The Declaration clearly states this but as has been said over and over, the Declaration isn't "law" in the US. This means, in my view, that you admit the Constitution is not the origin of those rights. If it doesn't grant those rights it has no authority to remove them.

That is the exact argument used against having a Bill of Rights. Madison and Hamilton, had always maintained that a "Bill of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous" because "They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted;" and "would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted;" and "would furnish to men disposed to usurp. A plausible pretense for claiming that power." Federalist Paper # 84

First of all, taking the first two articles from the The Constitution's language does not changed the fact that they would still be guaranteed through the Ninth, but only for those who still possessed their Rights and who did not contract them away. Secondly, the Constitution derives its power from the consent of the governed.  If you or anyone else objected openly and on the record in a Remonstrance against the removal of the Rights being recognized then you would have preserved your access to those Rights and would not have acquiesced them away.

More so than all people agreeing not to encroach upon them? The Constitution gets it's power from the agreement of all of the individuals in a society to abide by it. Those who wish to encroach my rights can act contrary to the Constitution therefore it is no more protection than their word not to do it. In a laissez-faire society the same exists but at least there is a clear understanding of what's happening.

Any agreement or contract whether it be a Constitution or a laissez-faire society is still only as good as the parties to it and the ability to enforce if necessary.

Better, I think, to allow Natural Law to take it's course and not bother with redundant attempts to legitimize inborn, inalienable rights.

Natural Law only exists in one's mind.  If there is no meeting of the minds as to what constitutes the complete Natural Law, then controversies will still and always come down to the better weapons.

btw:  inalienable Rights can't be taken from a person, but they can be contracted away through free will of the parties.

Furthermore, where it may not have been actively given power over a state citizen, it did so "passively" by forbidding some people (slaves, for instance) the ability to exercise the "rights they gained" by agreeing to that same contract. The Federal government may not have put 24 year-olds into chains, but it DID forbid them from holding governmental positions themselves. It also forbid people not born within "its" borders. NOT doing something is doing something too.

Here is where you are fuzzy.  The 14th Amendment recognized that these Federal "citizens of the United States" could reside in Federal Government owned territory or in the sovereign States, and that they would be under concurrent jurisdiction of both the State and the Fed.  But nowhere does it give power over the State Citizens inhabiting the sovereign States.   JURISDICTION is everything!