The God of the Machine - Tranche 31
Posted by mshupe 8 months, 2 weeks ago to Government
Chapter XV, Excerpt 1 of 1
The Fatal Amendments
The Bill of Rights is integrally of the Constitution. The only objection offered was that enumeration of rights might be construed as limiting them to the issues named . . . implying the European idea of “liberties” instead of American liberty. The test may be applied to any amendment by general questions: Does the amendment deny rights? Does it weaken the bases by impairing states? As the structure cracks, disrupting the private economy, the zealous amenders will be plied more furiously.
By the American theory the government is the agent of the citizen; it is absurd to hold that a person may not sue his agent. The Fourteenth Amendment confirmed Federal citizenship and civil rights, but it would have been better if the Bill of Rights had been explicitly extended to bind state governments. The proper use of power and the proper agency for its use are entirely different. The Fifteenth Amendment perpetuated the destruction. It deprived states of an indispensable attribute of sovereignty.
The formal stroke was the Seventeenth Amendment, which took the election of Senators out of the State Legislatures. The “Social Security swindle” is only validated by the income tax amendment. The appearance of an enormous bureaucracy was the natural phenomenon of a structureless nation. Politics became lucrative. The cost and display of government is always in inverse ratio to the liberty and prosperity of it citizens. Political power has a ratchet action; it only works one way.
The Fatal Amendments
The Bill of Rights is integrally of the Constitution. The only objection offered was that enumeration of rights might be construed as limiting them to the issues named . . . implying the European idea of “liberties” instead of American liberty. The test may be applied to any amendment by general questions: Does the amendment deny rights? Does it weaken the bases by impairing states? As the structure cracks, disrupting the private economy, the zealous amenders will be plied more furiously.
By the American theory the government is the agent of the citizen; it is absurd to hold that a person may not sue his agent. The Fourteenth Amendment confirmed Federal citizenship and civil rights, but it would have been better if the Bill of Rights had been explicitly extended to bind state governments. The proper use of power and the proper agency for its use are entirely different. The Fifteenth Amendment perpetuated the destruction. It deprived states of an indispensable attribute of sovereignty.
The formal stroke was the Seventeenth Amendment, which took the election of Senators out of the State Legislatures. The “Social Security swindle” is only validated by the income tax amendment. The appearance of an enormous bureaucracy was the natural phenomenon of a structureless nation. Politics became lucrative. The cost and display of government is always in inverse ratio to the liberty and prosperity of it citizens. Political power has a ratchet action; it only works one way.
Can the destruction of the ratchet’s pawl be accomplished without the focused application of the enormous energy of physical force? Talking it to death isn’t working. The ratchet keeps turning.
Ayn Rand’s “mindless face of a thug with a club in his hand” keeps taking with only his unfocused brain and “gut feelings” as his guides. His only absolute being nothing is absolute.
America’s revolution was the first and last “reasoned revolution”. All other revolutions in history merely served to replace one form of dictatorship with another.
America desperately needs another.
I still focus on the Sixteenth. That provided infinite fiscal power to the Federal Government and thus, infinite power.
That being said, I would suggest that people who take welfare benefits from the government should forfeit their right to vote while taking such benefits.
"based on the premise that rights were bestowed by government"
I completely agree with you there. If one presupposes that government - rather than a Creator as noted in the Declaration of Independence - is the source of rights, then all rights are no longer inalienable because they didn't originate with the individual in the first place.
As an engineering principle, the Founders placed the States in a balance between the centrifugal force exerted by the States which would tend to tear America apart and the centripetal force exerted by the Federal government which would, if unopposed, result in a totalitarian America.
The States were originally designed as laboratories of Democracy. They were to set their own rules for elections free from the heavy hand of the central government. This allowed other States to copy the best practices of other States.
The fifteenth amendment took that power away. Citizens and elections were federalized. It weakened the States – the Seventeenth Amendment ended the Republic.
The results are obvious, the current President rules by Executive Order ignoring Congress and the People.
How? Here's the text of the Amendment:
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
Now you can argue that a specific SCOTUS case interpreted this to mean that the Federal Government could override certain voting laws, but the text itself doesn't. I'm not buying this argument without significantly more explanation.
“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.”
Those so-called “reserved” powers include all authority and functions of local and state governments, policing, education, the regulation of trade within a state, the running of elections and many more..."
The powers reserved by the States included "the running of elections..." The Founders sought to find a middle ground between an all powerful government like England and the near anarchy of the articles of Confederation.
The Federal Government had no right to interfere in the inner workings of the sovereign States.
That they did do with the Fifteenth Amendment, the FBI, the Department of Education, the EPA, etc. only shows how far America and Americans have come to living under a Despotic government.
https://www.history.com/news/federali...
I do agree that the Federal government has way overstepped its bounds. The Constitution specifically states with respect to voting laws that these are determined by the individual State Legislatures. To me, that means that neither the governors nor the State Supreme Courts have power to overturn them such as they did in 2020 with mail-in ballots. etc. in key States. But I don't see anything in the Fifteenth Amendment that interferes with that except to constrain those State Legislatures from creating voting laws which infringe on the natural right to vote. If you could elaborate on why you feel that is an unreasonable constraint upon the States, I'd be interested.
I'd also note that because it passed as an Amendment, it does specifically grant the Federal Government the authority to intervene if there is a question. Whether or not that intervention is warranted can certainly be a matter for discussion, but the process was followed properly.
"The Federal Government had no right to interfere in the inner workings of the sovereign States."
In certain cases, it does, however. The Supremacy Clause specifically states this. Now have some of the provisions of the Constitution (Commerce Clause, General Welfare Clause, etc.) been twisted by Federal Courts to usurp power and place what should be in the hands of the States in the hands of Federal Bureaucrats? Undeniably. But those should be discussed specifically and individually.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"
"it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
"He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only."
"He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers."
"He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries."
"For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government,"
"For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:"
"For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever."
(emphasis mine)
Should each State have the power to set the conditions as to who shall have the right to vote and who shall not?
Should the Federal Government have the power to set the conditions as to who shall have the right to vote and who shall not?
And why?
Now on to your next questions... HOW and WHO are very different portions of the question and you seem to be conflating them. (Maybe due to a lack of focus...?)
"Should each State have the power to set the conditions as to who shall have the right to vote and who shall not?" (emphasis mine)
A voter can disqualify himself/herself if they are a felon (and foreigners don't qualify as citizens in the first place). The Constitution provides that the States have the power to determine how the voting should take place, but States do not have the authority to prevent an otherwise eligible voter from participating (the actual text of the Fifteenth Amendment).
"Should the Federal Government have the power to set the conditions as to who shall have the right to vote and who shall not?" (emphasis mine)
Again, no, but with one caveat: the Federal government has specifically-delegated authority over naturalization/citizenship. So they do control policy as to when a naturalized citizen becomes eligible to vote. But just like with the standards for prosecution, the Federal Government must prove that someone is ineligible before they can prohibit them from voting.
States have a similar burden but have it easier in that they can institute jurisdictional guidelines to verify that the person can vote in that particular precinct. This is primarily to determine if they are eligible to vote for specific candidates as a result of geographical gerrymandering. So States do have the authority to authenticate a voter's participation at a particular location, but that's as far as they are legally able to go.
So key was it that Jefferson forgot to include in the Declaration of Independence?
Yes, Great Britain had usurped the right to vote from the colonists in the 1700's. Remember, it is the primary duty of government to protect natural rights. A government which fails to do so repeatedly is ripe for dissolution by its citizens. I'm not sure how this could be made any clearer than the Declaration makes it.
"Again, you prove my point that voting rights are not primary."
Please take a few minutes and define and defend the notion of "primary" and "secondary" rights, because even the Supreme Court has ruled that such do not exist. (Just this week a federal court overturned a Massachusetts firearms law which applied different requirements for permitting and said that such would create an untenable condition of "secondary" rights.)
"Among the attributes of logic..."
It's not my duty to defend your hypothesis. That remains with you and you alone. You are the one(s) contending that there are so-called "primary" and "secondary" rights. I dispute that such exist at all. And instead of defining and defending your hypothesis, you keep attacking me and saying that I can't read, I don't understand "context" or that I need to "focus." Maybe if you spent a little less time with ad hominem and a little more examining your premises...
That would imply that voting is not a right but a privilege. There should be no conflation of the right itself and the process by which that right is exercised! The distinction is salient. I re-affirm and cite the Declaration of Independence: voting is a natural right.
The implementation of the voting process lies with the States individually, YES. That is as per the Constitution. The Federal Government has only the legitimate authority to review if the State is preventing people who are otherwise eligible from voting in the first place. It was a very real thing in the decades following the Civil War: many blacks in the South were prevented from voting either through intimidation or outright murder. The Fifteenth Amendment was put in place to re-iterate to the States - especially the Southern ones - that they could not legally suppress the vote of otherwise legal voters.
(Please note that I do not subscribe to the legal theory that this means we need to make voting easier such as with mail-in ballots or drop boxes.)
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
"As stated much earlier, voting is not a primary right."
You can state it. I refuse to assent to such a characterization. As I pointed out - there are no rights which exist in the vacuum of a single individual. Not one. If you can show me otherwise, I'm happy to acknowledge the point.
"Voting rights are contingent on a man-made political structure."
Voting is the method by which the political structure is dictated - not the other way around.
From the Declaration: "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them..." (emphasis mine)
That's the first paragraph and emphasizes that the people chose, i.e. voted, to dissolve the existing "political bands," i.e political structure, which at that time consisted of a parliament dominated by a monarchy. Thus the People voted to eliminate one governmental infrastructure in search of another (even though it would take them fifteen years to finalize on it).