As the EU draws nearer to moving into 'a federalist agenda' - read, really, its desired endgame and goal: a superstate structure; enthroning corporatism, ie, Insiders' power, over democracy* - and as I feel my time in the current paradigm drawing to a close, I would like to revisit a major area of interest of mine; to wit: the American constitution, and form of government. In order to set the record straight, both as to it and my attitude towards it.
A little background. (I think I have shared some of this earlier on, but this is for the sake of bringing everything on the matter - it, and my take on it - up to date.)
For whatever reason(s), I have been a passionate supporter of the American form of government ever since I became aware of such questions. And thus, eg, was I deeply concerned upon reading, in late high school/early university, Whittaker Chambers's 'Witness' - his autobiography, particularly highlighting his role, when still a dedicated communist, in being a courier of federal government secret documents to his Soviet contact from Alger Hiss, in the State Department, and a major player in the development of the UN. The communists seemed to believe in an admirable quality in 'equality', but, as a number of commentators had pointed out (among them Orwell, in his 'Animal Farm'), in reality it amounted to some being more equal than others; plus such a cynical circumstance 'coexisting' with the heavy hand of the state, controlling every aspect of the people's lives, and not allowing for a legitimate exercise of free will. I resolved to keep an eye on the world scene as I continued on my personal path, as a pre-med.
Fast forward to 1969 (through the 50s - when I chose to become a conscientious objector, with the draft still in place from the Korean 'Conflict', and served there for 2 years in non-combat positions - and the 60s, when I worked at various jobs for a living, and continued my reading in various subject areas of interest),** when I was living in Oakland, CA briefly, and came across a right-wing bookstore with an interesting cross-section of materials, including some monthly newsletters of an organization, headquartered in southern California, called The National Health Federation. That was where I first came across information about a move by the federal government to control access to a range of & the strength of food supplements. I continued to keep an eye on that particular move of the federal government over the next few years, until things came to a head for me.
It was occasioned by two moves of 'the feds': the food supplement issue heating up, and the creation of a federal health & safety authority called OSHA. (Actually, there were 3 moves by 'the feds' that got me activated, the third being a suppressing by them of information about the efficacy of a natural, to say non-patentable substance called Laetrile in the treatment of cancer; but that's a subject in its own right.) By then I was asst. managing a small furniture factory, and we started receiving directives from OSHA about h&s measures we needed to implement. I rebelled, inwardly and ultimately outwardly. I couldn't figure out why the federal government thought it had jurisdiction over our small business. We did receive some of our product from a branch in Arizona, but we sold our product only within the state; why would OSHA be involved? That subject area should by rights have been a matter of state h&s regulations or agreements between our company and the union some of our workers were members of; period. We were not engaged in 'interstate commerce'; and even if we were, what right did the feds have to dictate all manner of conditions in the workplace itself? The Constitution granted the federal government jurisdiction over 'interstate commerce'. To a normal mind, as far as I was concerned, that meant, say, the safety of the product - NOT, say, the safety features in the workplace. But it was a part of a larger move, I felt, to take over more and more control, and leave less and less to the states, in the American federal form of government. I saw the danger in that move, to centralization, and thus less and less power to 'the people', to get on with their lives as freely as possible from state intervention. And when there was then a report in the papers that the federal government was going to limit the strength of vitamin E that the public could buy over the counter, (1) I saw red, (2) I quit my job, (3) I wrote a letter to the main local paper saying what I was going to do & why, and (4) I did it. Which was to throw a brick through a window of the IRS office in Oakland, in protest at my taxes being used for nefarious purposes.
When the little dust that was kicked up by my gesture settled (I was refused my day in court, but I had made a statement, and like Thoreau, had spent a night in jail for it), and I had ended up moving back to my home turf of the Los Angeles area, I decided I needed to know better where the country had gotten off track in its understanding of its form of government. To that end, for example I spent some time in the evenings in the UCLA Law library, looking up decisions starting in the 1930s, with the FDR New Deal bringing some new factors into play; which event I suspected was responsible for the change in constitutional fundamentals. I found a decision dating to the late 30s that proved that things were still on track at that time - the Supreme Court (which had escaped being 'packed' by FDR in his try to bring about change that way) holding the line with an 'interstate commerce' decision still true to its roots, in the 'intention' of the Constitution. It was when I was reading an article in a publication by the John Birch Society (The Review of the News; a precursor to its present publication, a monthly called The New American) that I came across a clue to the origin of the change.
It turns out that in the very early 40s the Supreme Court made a decision that turned the First Amendment on its head, from being a prohibition on the federal government (ie, Congress, as the legislative branch) to being a prohibition on the states. The issue was about the desecration of the American flag. Apparently a citizen took his state to the federal Supreme Court complaining that it had found him guilty of what he claimed was a form of free speech. The result, in effect?: 'The States [ie, no longer merely Congress] shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
At this point, let me clarify the matter. The Constitution of the U.S. is a contract between the (newly envisioned) federal government and the several states. It details what the duties of the federal government are, and what they are not. The federal government is a government of limited and delegated powers - "few and defined", in the words of 'the Father of the Constitution', James Madison, in the pages of The Federalist Papers. All the rest remain with the States; as even doubly clarified in the 9th and 10th Amendments, when the state legislatures in ratifying the new contract (from the Articles of Confederation form it was in up to that point) wouldn't sign off on it until it was made crystal clear, with no room for future equivocation, what they were assenting to, and what they were not assenting to. The 9th Amendment:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
The 10th Amendment:
"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."
Thus very clearly, the U.S.'s form of government is a federal form of government, with clearly delineated powers between the entities. But the clarity began to change; with this decision about the desecration of the American flag, and apparently with its precedent set in a bit of legerdemainist legalese called 'incorporation'. Bear with me a moment more.
I got a further handle on this matter, of the/a change having taken place in the American form of government by sleight of hand, by reading a book by former federal Judge Robert H. Bork titled 'The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law'. It's a convoluted story, but the essence of it is that (1) there are those who side with the concept of 'original intent' and those who believe in the Constitution as 'a living document', subject to change by judicial 'interpretation' as socio-political circumstances change, rather than always by the amending process allowed for; and (2) the change being talked about here happened with a liberal interpretation of the 14th Amendment's 'due process' clause, whereby that amendment triggered, by a liberal attitude called 'incorporation', the turning of the Constitution upside down, and making it the aforesaid prohibition by the federal government on the states, rather than the other way around, as it was from its inception.
The relevant clause:
Section 1. "...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
The 14th Amendment was occasioned by the aftermath of the Civil War, when the federal government began to rein in the Southern states. The purpose of this clause was twofold: (1) to make sure that the Negroes (in this particular case; but more broadly, all citizens of the United States) were not subject to repressions outwith the law; and (2) that law had to be color blind, ie, no respecter of persons. All citizens of the U.S. were to be treated/protected equally by the law, were equal before the law.
What has happened is that liberals have driven a coach and horses through this wording and its intent, and made of it a wholesale turning upside down of the Constitution, as I've indicated herein. The only way this upturning could have been effected legally would have been to have an amendment that said something like:
"The powers formerly reserved to the States, or to the people, shall now reside in the federal government."
That has never happened. Legally. But it has, effectively. And it has been a usurpation. And a dangerous usurpation at that.
So many Americans think it has always been this way: that they get their rights from the Constitution. Wheareas the truth is that they get their basic rights secured by their state's constitution (closer to home, as it were, and thus more fitting to them, & more easily dealt with); and the federal Constitution is primarily a limitation on the powers of the federal government: to be reined in thereby when it gets too powerful - tries, to get too powerful.
As in our day and age.
Judge Bork felt that it was too late (a judicially-minded take on 'settled law') to do anything about the mess of our federal form of government that the 'principle' or 'concept', or, more accurately, 'gimmick' of 'incorporation' had made, in making the federal government and its Supreme Court the guarantor of various domestic issues. But what it has done is to make it impossible to be clear about who has what power.
For example, in the true, federal form of government that the U.S. is supposed to be, the question of, say, abortion has nothing to do with the federal government. The Supreme Court has no business ruling on it. That is one of those powers that "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" - that is, in their several states. (As laboratories, to try things out in, and maybe be picked up by other states as well. Or not.)
None of the federal government's business.
And constitutionalists - and true conservatives - need to bring that clarity back into being.
I say "true conservatives" because there are some 'conservatives' that would like to have the power of the federal government forcing everybody in the country to toe THEIR particular line, through a Supreme Court ruling about some aspect of our social life together. But that is to play into the hands of their political enemies, the liberals, who prefer to use the power of the Supreme Court to enforce their particular socio-political proclivities onto everybody in the whole country in one fell swoop, not have to bring about such change state by state (ie, they are statists in inherent mentality; aka collectivists).
But that's precisely the value of a federal form of government: that nobody can take over command of the whole country by a centralized form of control.
Bush was leading in that direction. (Potential result: fascism.)
Obama is leaning in that direction. (Potential result: socialism.)
It's time for change, all right.
Fundamental change.
That is to say as well: getting back to fundamentals, and the grand experiment in self-rule called the American Republic.
In sum.
The Constitution of the United States, if it is to be amended, needs to be amended by due process of law - not cynical shifting of the goal posts, by declaring it 'a living document', subject to the personal socio-political proclivities of a majority of The Supremes at any given time in history. That way is to make of the Supreme Court a political football. That is not rule of law. That is tyrant's rule. Is subject to such rule.
And I may have to be called out of retirement, and don my shield, and mount my steed, and go tilting at it once again. Because I will not live under tyrannical rule.
I will live free.
And so should you.
If you knew - really - what was best for you.
And us.
As spiritual beings having a human experience.
To learn lessons therefrom.
And give of our best, to transformation.
For the better. Not the worse.
As we are in the process of doing at this time.
On this lovely planet, crying out for us to give it our best.
Freely.
Before the brutes take over.
The brute in us.
The brute part in us all.
To be overcome.
For a purpose.
Seeing's as how the universe has purpose, and that purpose is Good.
But we need training wheels to help get us there.
Like the rule of law.
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* the strength and range of food supplements drastically curtailed EU-wide, because of the power of the pharmaceutical industry to eliminate that part of its competition that it couldn't buy out; etc. etc.
** I'm leaving out a major piece of my story, to do with trying during this period of time to let the president know of the value of our doing away with money, and moving into a new order of things on planet Earth; but that telling is for another time. And which doing, in fact, happens to be now. But back to this particular blog, and its subject.
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