What a conundrum. On the one hand, I am incensed by the arrogance of Obama and his mentors and his minions in their blatant disregard of the Constitution's 'natural born citizen ' requirement of eligibility for the office of the presidency - and that (federal) office only.1 And on the other hand, the Constitution may have already been hulled below the water line; and thus be beyond hope of salvation anyway And, have reached its use-by date, in addition, as well.
Consider, in this regard, what I have just written on a blog regarding the Second Amendment:
from 2012: What's the 'Real' Truth?: 'RT: US Supreme Court declines to challenge New York gun law' - Apr. 15
One Response to RT: US Supreme Court declines to challenge New York gun law
- kibitzer3 says:
April 15, 2013 at 11:51 pm
This is such a substantive constitutional question, which I have never read a good, solid resolution of. On the one hand: The Bill of Rights is directed as a limitation of powers to the federal government, not to the States. The assumption is that the States have their citizens’ rights secured by their State constitutions; and so the States can set their own arrangements regarding such things as gun/self-defense rights, and definitions of ‘free speech’, and such. On the other hand: A juridical attitude given the fancy name of ‘incorporation’ developed in the wake of the 14th Amendment, whereby the terms of such as the Bill of Rights were turned on their head, and made to apply FROM the federal government/Supreme Court rulings TO the States. And thus came about the attitude of our ‘constitutional rights’ as secured by the Bill of Rights, and adjudicated by the federal govt./Supreme Court. So, if the federal govt. was barred by the terms of the B of R from infringing on “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” in the light of that ‘incorporation’ policy the States should be so barred as well. But many students of the Constitution are not happy with that ‘incorporation’ perspective; feeling that the 14th Amendment did NOT establish a situation where ‘the powers formerly reserved to the States or to the people shall now reside in the federal government’ (the in-effect amendment involved). But that has become the default position in so many rulings.
And just so, is the question, of how far the individual States can go in their own decisions regarding such as citizen gun rights and how far they cannot go, muddied. Result: On the one hand, the Supreme Court has (as I understand it) struck down laws that were too strict in this matter, because of the 2nd Amendment now applying, via the incorporation ‘principle’, as well TO the States; but on the other, it fails to review such laws, as in the current New York State case. What’s going on here???
Actually, what’s going on is the need to leave all this 3D business behind, and move up a notch in our consciousness, out of the matrix in which these are sincere but muddled questions. The light of a new day is dawning. Or at least, trying to. I say: Bring it on – and it can’t be fast enough in [the] doing so.
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The conundrum actually goes back to original debates between the Federalists and the anti-Fedoeralists; between how much power had been ceded to the federal government by the Constitution, and how much had not.
I remember having a friendly debate with a poster on a political site who felt that the Bill of Rights applied to the States as well, as a sort of default position - that The People by nature had all those enumerated rights (and more) automatically secured, by 'natural law', and that basic, natural right was just being ratified by the Bill of Rights in relation to the federal government as well. I took the position that our rights were not so automatically ours, had to be secured in our State constitutions; and pointed, in the defense of my position, to a) the wording in Amendment 5: "No person shall be" (such-and-such) "...nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...", and then to b) the same wording in the later (post-Civil War) 14th Amendment, applying the Constitution the other way around, i.e., FROM the federal government TO the States: "...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." My point was that not until the 14th Amendment did certain citizen rights apply TO the States, in this 'due process' matter;2 that until then, their citizens (now also, by the terms of the 14th Amendment, citizens of the United States as well) ran their lives by, and were under the jurisdiction solely of, their State constitutions; just, until then, protected from FEDERAL encroachment on their lives, i.e., their rights and liberties.
The question of the EXTENT of federal power over the people is another matter. For example, in the above instance, all that was being secured in the way of power originating FROM the federal government and imposed ON the States was that the States could not be arbitrary in the application of the law; had to act within the law; could not, then, treat the former slaves as chattel, or sub-humans, without rights under the law, but had to treat them as free citizens, with all the rights and privileges of all the other citizens of their State (living within the constitutions of their individual State; although given "all the privileges" and "immunities of citizens of the United States"). But - as these things go; and have, in life - power corrupts; and silently, like a poison gas, the spirit of authority took over, and insidiously - in some harmony, granted, with the nation-building spirit that started, then, in earnest - the lawyers and the judges began thinking along the lines of a default central government, rather than a federation, with that central government needing more power to operate in a changed world. And then a law or two was signed off on by the Supreme Court, under the above-named 'principle' of 'incorporation'. And the rest, as they say, was history.
And now, here we are. And how do we proceed. How best, do we proceed.
Going back to the way things used to be is not the answer. For there is 'a new kid on the block': The New Age. The Golden Age; long prophesied. Here now, for us - this generation of souls - to inherit.
And so, perhaps I should get off my position of anger over the trashing of the Constitution that has occurred with the deft dismissal (by both sides of the political aisle; each for their own reasons) of the 'natural born citizen' requirement for the presidential office, accept it as a fait accompli, and help America move on, into its higher destiny.
Except that it can't inherit that 'higher destiny' from a place of deceit. That is the wrong sort of quality, and consciousness, that characterizes such a destiny (is right up there with such lower-consciousness traits as profit, greed, power and control, and the lust thereafter).
Is definitely not of a 5D nature.
And so.
What to do.
Or be. Or not to be.
That is the question, haunting me, at this time.
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footnotes:
1 That requirement being for the reasons I have given before: that the office would not go to/be occupied by anybody with dual loyalties or allegiances, because of the American common law definition of a 'natural born citizen' - patterned after de Vittel's 'The Law of Nations' - being one with two U.S. citizen parents (and NOT the English common law definition of a 'natural born' subject, as Obama defenders have tried to claim the term means; which would have made no sense, as to the intended, and desired, outcome). And the failure of this generation's political leaders to uphold the Constitution in this matter - as in any constitutional matter; but especially in regards to the powerful position of the president of the nation, and thus as well Commander in Chief of the nation's military forces - is outrageous. And more: it thus destroys the last vestiges of - the very foundation of - the rule of law in the nation.
2 And as well, in the terms of the 14th Amendment, "the equal protection of the laws". That is, that the laws of the State could not be applied discriminately; were to be, then, the equivalent of color blind - all citizens to be equal before the law.
The Southern states got around this requirement, in applying what became known as Jim Crow laws, by stating that they provided 'equal' facilities for their colored citizens; just 'separate'. A fiction - denying the spirit of the law in sustaining merely the narrow letter of it - that could not last, was doomed to give way to the workings of time; as their former 'coloreds' became, more and more, fellow citizens in the mentality of the white majority, took their place in the society right along with all the other citizens of the nation - this special nation, founded on principles of liberty and justice for all.
As happened when the breaking of the colored barrier in major league baseball took place (and Jackie Robinson ended up taking his place among the most celebrated names in Baseball history). Which happened in a private way, not a top-down, government-demanding way, not so incidentally.
And as could have continued to happen that way - that is, The People sorting these sorts of things/social matters out for themselves - without the so-called Civil Rights Act in the mid-Sixties, and the various poisonous offshoots from it, reverse discrimination and so forth. But that's all another story, to say blog, in itself.
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Addendum - April 18
Part of my dilemma disappears when I realize that I have left an important factor out of this discussion: that of the machinations originating (in large part) from England that led to the setting up of the original colonies, and the way that 'legal' documents are worded, and capitalized. For example, it appears that a legal fiction was created after the Constitution was ratified that turned the United States of America into a corporation, and its citizens into legal chattels thereof; all under the aegis of the Temple Bar in London.
I hope it goes without saying that all of that 3D 'control' stuff is, in any New Age worth its salt, null and void. So, whether a State of the United States is written with a capital or not, e.g., is beside the point, in the real - not man-made - New Order of Things.
And I am here - along with many others - to see that the real Thing comes into being, and carries the day. Into the New Day.
And that is, perhaps, my answer.
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