YESS, JDG!

I took me 40 years of study, research, observation, practice & the reading of Paine, Nock,
Spooner, Mencken, & more recently, Galambos, Snelson, Molyneux & dozens of others to finally realize that, even “at the very top level”, NO coercive, theft/force-based State is necessary.

The State ensures lasting war, poverty and servitude and prevents lasting peace, prosperity & freedom. And THIS TIME, now that the politicians and bureaucrats of the State have nuclear, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, when the State collapses THIS time, it can very well destroy society and pre-maturely extinct the human species.

All good points, but I always worry about changing things without any logical alternative, where the law of unintended (perverse) consequences may come into play. Unfortunately, I cannot think of a logical alternative, other than disinterring the bones of some of our Founding Fathers and using the DNA to clone some statesmen.
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Hello, jdg,

The post ends with the following question: "Can any men hold their principles high enough to avoid the pitfalls of power, particularly ultimate power?"

I believe that George Washington did and thus proved that he "could". I cannot see how you could misunderstand my reply. Perhaps the fact that my reply directly to the post got stacked up at the bottom, "chronologically", of what was at that moment entire collection of comments.

I happen to admire George Washington more than any other American. No he was not perfect. Nobody is. But, on balance, he was the best.

Just my opinions.

I agree with your definitions. "Government" is the businesses of protection service and dispute resolution. Neither really needs to be either a monopoly or a "State" (non-private) entity, except at the very top level to prevent wars between competing protection services (a problem which AR considered fundamental to libertarianism, but which I think is avoidable). I do think there needs to be that minimal "State" to hold things together, but most people should never need to see it.

I'm not sure I do either. But the existing judicial branch, as I see it, is very political, in two meanings. First, the Justices of the Supreme Court (except Thomas and sometimes Scalia) don't really try to follow the text; they decide what they feel like doing, for political reasons, and then invent rationalizations. Of course, the other branches do this too, but the Supreme Court gets to edit their results. (It's less often that a president disobeys a Supreme Court ruling, but it happens.)

But more to the point, to the extent there is any outside check on the Supreme Court, Congress controls it -- both by its (never used) power to impeach Justices and by its power to change the number of seats and then "pack" the court -- a threat that FDR successfully used to get New Deal legislation upheld, especially the National Labor Relations Act, and which Obama used to bully Chief Justice Roberts into his last-minute decision to uphold ObamaCare.

A removal power that's in the hands of voters, rather than Congress, would be much more difficult to use as a weapon this way. But somebody has to have that power, or the Court simply becomes a committee of absolute rulers, a Politburo. Please, suggest a better alternative.

Not fall sway, but just the opposite in that he walked away from the power.

State running business? It's called Facism. It is bad!

I don't think I like the idea of turning the Federal judiciary into a political branch. You seem to imply that the recall would be based on objectivism. Unfortunately, I don't have that much faith in the electorate.

The separation of powers has turned out to be a great idea that doesn't work, and a new constitution could probably do well without it.

The first and biggest usurpation was by Jackson himself, when he told the army to go ahead and carry out the Indian Removal Act after the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. Because of the separation of powers, he was neither stopped nor punished, then or later. And on that day, we ceased to have a "government of laws and not of men."

As I see it, in a rightful government, the courts should be supreme and should have the power to fire a President who disobeys their orders. And in case they abuse that power, the justices should be subject to recall by voters.

No document can be self-enforcing. But various methods have been tried to make a governing council self-perpetuating, sometimes surrounded by ideological filters to prevent it from ever changing. The Soviet Union had this and it served its purpose fairly well. I'm not sure if such a mechanism would help or hurt a libertarian or Objectivist community, but I would like to see it tried.

I would not, however, try to apply this to a "Gulch" community that has to live under a government by others, because the government will simply blackmail the in-group, and the rest of the members will have no way to replace them.

I consider the founding fathers as a group that reoccurs on earth once in a millennium BUT they were elitists and only considered "The People" to be free, white male property owners that were literate and over 21. I happen to think that was the fatal flaw in their vision and that is why we were destined to fail.

Absolutely not. Create thought police and you'll be sorry as soon as someone else controls them.

If you want to create a privately owned town of all "pure" thinkers, that might conceivably work, except what do you do if someone is born into that town and doesn't agree with your values? This has worked for religious communities where all property was communal, but Objectivism would seem to forbid any such arrangement. So you wind up violating the property rights of the dissident even then.

Did what? If you're saying he did fall sway to the evils Adams spoke of, I beg to differ.

When the peace was signed in 1783, Washington went before Congress and gave a very moving farewell speech, resigning his commission and retiring from public life, he hoped forever.

It was only when civil unrest made the government unable to continue operating that he allowed Adams, Hamilton, and the others to talk him into coming back and chairing the Convention. All the active politicians of that time were so factionalized that he was the only person everyone would trust. And all things considered, he did a good job.

Both clauses have corresponding articles in the Federalist (#39 and #41) explaining that they don't in fact mean what they've been ruled to mean today.

If the present system can be salvaged, we need an amendment adding those explanations to the Constitution.

Thanks very much. In this pig-race to disaster, it really helps us keep on pluggin' along!
About the State (so many) self-destructing, do we really have some way of preventing that at this juncture? We are approaching the point at which Gov's creditors will smarten up and stop buying the debt -- so again because WE have no choice except to "allow" it. Some of the survivors may live through it; I wonder only if they'll have learned, or whether another Rulership will seem their only salvation.

Objectivist living demands a raised level of conscious awareness - something which can be sustained in a small population for maybe up to a generation, or two if you're lucky, but is definitely not scalable to a large population.

Correct. I'd just like to have seen the exact draft Rand had in mind.

I think Adams was referring to 'self-control' over the temptations of ones emotions; vanity, pride, etc. When one loses control over their actions inspired by their emotions, only physical intervening force can hinder them.
This is a matter of character; integrity with ethical & moral principles & values.
The hypocrisy & corruption of our present leaders & representatives are shameful at best while at the same time they are representative of our society as a whole.
Another quote: "It's hard to soar like an eagle when you're flying with a bunch of turkeys."
And we all know that we can't legislate morality.
Law describes a society. Law does not prescribe the behavior of an individual or a society.
Here's a link to a concept on 'morality' - http://planet-hughes.net/Morality/

Best regards.

I will be content if it works 'pretty well' and 'for a while'. One of the problems with the Constitution is that it was created for an obscure, low technology, rural culture. We are not that now. If we can revamp the Constitution to compensate for the change to the world power, high tech, affluent urban society it is trying to manage, then we will be OK - maybe for as long as another century (and who knows what we will be like then?).

I am not looking for 'perfect'; I am willing to return to 'good enough'.

Jan

Jan

Narragansett was Rand, of course, so his Constitution would attempt to limit such a government to the three functions mentioned in the “Politics’ Branch of Rand’s Philosophy (military to protect life and property from initiation of force from outside, police to protect life and property from the initiation of force from within and court system to mediate disputes between individuals &/or groups).

'tis possible to find some truth in the Bible. It's a big book. :-)

Sure agree with your final sentence!

Perhaps we’d be a little more free without the, general welfare clause and the necessary and proper clause, ‘tho probably not much. Even without the mis-interpretation of those two, the CONstitution still gives the State the power to tax without limit, control the money supply and commit our children to wars.

Any place where men can go and survive, is a place where men can fight. Sad, but true. To ignore that would be to fake reality. And "nobody stays in the Gulch by faking reality in any manner whatever."

Galt & Washington both turned down that offer of political power.