Economic Nullification is an intriguing concept explained by Locke Smith (gotta be a nom de plume). Washington's recent Bridge Loan to Nowhere is what pushed him over the edge:
The bailout of General Motors and Chrysler – appalling in its own right – is a sure sign that whatever feeble constitutional and political constraints that had kept the government in check are gradually disappearing. We know our rights as citizens are being trampled when the government can take resources from the productive sector of our economy and provide them to unproductive, money losing companies, organizations and individuals.This got me thinking... There's gotta be some way short of armed rebellion or tax resistance to stop this out of control monster our experiment in democracy has turned into. Both parties have hijacked government and turned it into a trillion dollar Pez dispenser.
Then I read an article in Reason Magazine written by Brian Doherty containing depressing boilerplate about the decline and fall of the GOP. Near the end he noted the recent death of conservative intellectual Father Richard John Neuhaus:
My favorite Neuhaus moment involved a now mostly forgotten intra-right wing controversy that is worth remembering: In 1996 he ran a symposium in his magazine First Things which seriously raised the question (in the context, mostly, of judicial decisions about abortion) of whether the U.S. government had so exceeded both its legitimate mandate and any meaningful democratic controls that conscientious citizens should no longer owe it their allegiance.Those are strong words, but appropriate I think. So my question is, what can we do about it? Taking up arms is unwarranted and ineffective. Tax revolt will just land people in jail. So what's left short of these options?
Not so much in memory of Neuhaus, but in respect for its own soul, the GOP needs to ask itself whether a government that so exceeds its constitutional mandates is one the American people have any reason to respect—and to realize the extent to which it is complicit in the out-of-control, improvident, destructive beast the U.S. government is.
Progressives instinctively understand: Destroy the system from within. You don't bring it all down with bombs, cannons and conflagration; you do it by millions of persistent little nibbles and snarks from furtive, scurrying pseudo-intellectual rats and amoral cockroaches. It's a shameful, inglorious revolution, with all that darting, crouching, and sneaking, but it is effective. Just look at Europe or American academia.
Idea #1. Ransack the Republican National Committee headquarters and publicly hang the country club leadership or behead them and mount their brainless heads on pike poles at the building entrance. If that's too harsh, we could simply chase them out with torches and pitchforks. But seriously, a major ideological insurrection needs to happen, a revolution of ideas, resulting in a takeover by youngsters under 30, constitutionalists without bow ties and libertarians who don't talk like robots from outer space.
Idea #2. Recruit a phalanx of small-government constitutional lawyers to launch a blunderbuss of lawsuits and injunctions against the federal government, tying it in knots trying to defend the unconstitutionality of its wildly out of control actions.
This would ultimately fail, but the modern day Boston Massacre could spark a debate in this country and actually get people reading the constitution and writings of the founding fathers. Reporters may actually wake up and start asking real questions and talking about substantive issues...
The GOP (indeed, all Americans) needs to ask itself whether a government that so exceeds its constitutional mandates is one the American people have any reason to respect—and to realize the extent to which it is complicit in the out-of-control, improvident, destructive beast the U.S. government is.
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/01/power_to_the_people_economic_n.html
http://reason.com/news/show/130999.html
8 comments:
no arguement redneck ron
If banks are nationalized for a short period of time and are made to issue credit the way they should and then became provatized agian, isn't this better than just letting hem fail and spiralling into a full blown depression?
Also, I don't understand why any country, founded hundreds of years ago should have to follow that old constitution to the letter.
I mean, do you actually believe that god wrote the constitution as well as the bible? Because if humans wrote it, humans can error, and human can't look into the future. Changing the constitution isn't (but certainly can be) necessarily a bad thing.
It's not a matter of changing it; it's a matter of actually following it, which neither the Demicans nor the Republicrats do anymore. The constitution is a doormat in front of the capitol.
Men are born with inalienable rights; it is immoral and a violation of natural law to violate those rights.
There is a process to change this document, but we're so stupid the pols don't even need to go to the trouble.
If I put a gun to your head, took your money and gave it to someone else, I would rightly be put in jail. The government does it and it's called compassion.
The constitution was written to combat what the founding fathers knew first hand was the basic problem of all governing systems to date. Over time they tended to erode the golden goose of free individuals acting in their own best interest.
We can get all emotional about the inherent inequality resulting from such a system. But that would be entertaining the fantasy that chipping away at the golden goose is once again...a good thing. That would be entertaining the fantasy that you can place focus on special groups without chipping away at the whole.
Theres a reason the constitution that led to America overtaking Britain as an economic power in the 1880's is not 885 pages long. They knew they couldn't address petty strife and unfairness without taking away from the whole.
SteveH
does anyone seriously think we've been following our constitution "to the letter." if we had been, we wouldn't be in the sad state in which we currently find ourselves.
i think it's going to take an economic catastrophe of immense proportions before we see any real progress from either party.
thankfully, i see an economic catastrophe in our future.
I've been reading "The 5000 Year Leap" by Cleon Skousen. It is an awesome book that explains our constitution and the ideas behind it. He sources all his information and it is packed with writings and quotes from the founders.
I can't help but keep thinking just how dangerous this book is to the current perversion our government has turned into.
If every voter read this book our politicians and judges would be in big trouble. This is how far we've come: A book explaining the founding principles of our nation could almost be labeled subversive in the current climate.
"If every voter read this book our politicians and judges would be in big trouble..."
that's certainly true. it's probably also true that if every voted read ANY book our politicians would be in trouble.
you need to pass a test to get a drivers license, but the dumbest, least informed people are allowed (and even encouraged) to vote. how about a voter's license????
Tocqueville said it best:
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
":...a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it."
We are there, dudes.
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.