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Constitutional Rubbish

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statusquobuster

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Americans need a civics lesson. And so do politicians. Of all the wrong and delusional thinking about the US Constitution the one that is most thoroughly incorrect and routinely used for political propaganda purposes is that there are three coequal branches of the federal government.

Please read the rest of my article at:

Constitutional Rubbish
 
OK. Now what?
 
Dr., I've read a few of your articles over at nolanchart. Always good stuff.

You're right, there is no "balance" but it sure sounds good on paper.
 
It's true, the Constitutions does not explicitly state that there is a coequal balance between branches. However, there are many things that the Constitution does not explicitly state many things that we practice in modern political America. The Constitution was purposefully written to be vague so as to allow for interpretation and change over time, flexible construction of initial institutions, and so that the colonies would actually ratify it.

There are several different trains of thought from the constitutional convention as to the strength of each branch. Some favored a strong executive, even to the point of a monarchy, while others favored strong Congressional government that approached a parliamentary style.
 

Oh. Well, you need to find the board for the country you're talking about. The United States Constitution is not vague and not intended to be subject to change via "interpretation". In fact, the mode for changing the Constitution is specifically listed as "the Amendment Process".

Also, the "colonies" didn't ratify it.

The "states" did.

Just in case you missed it, they stopped being "colonies" on July 4, 1776.
 

Oops. Sorry I said "colonies" instead of "states." My argument must be invalid. :rofl Semantic bull****.

However, you are quite wrong on the other points. If you look at the complexion of the just-formed states, citizens and lawmakers were extremely distrustful of strong central governmental powers. This, of course, is one of the reasons that the ineffective and inefficient Articles of Confederation were first adopted, as leaders in each state wished to maintain as much autonomy as possible, especially in areas of economic and trade issues. When the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia on May 25 of 1787, delegates were intended to "fix" the Articles, rather than write a completely new Constitution. However, key players such as Alexander Hamilton and others ensured that deliberations were held in secret and delegates were forbidden to speak about the proceedings. Once the document had been written and agreed upon, it was apparent that it would be quite difficult to have it ratified by the states, due to the inherent distrust of centralized power and because the legality of the convention itself was in question.
Thus, while obviously some clauses and articles of the Constitution are specific, much of the language that details the structure of the three main institutions or branches remains vague to allow for future eventualities and to provide for movement and debate on the future complexion of these branches. For example, the cabinet of the President was mentioned, but the actual structure of that cabinet was not specified, and has changed greatly since George Washington first appointed Secretaries of War, State, and Treasury. Also, the structure of the Supreme Court was never explicitly specified, as well as the implied power of judicial review. So, as you can no doubt see, the basic rules and structure of our government have drastically changed over time--and most of these changes have come through either lower domestic acts of Congress, judicial rulings, or simply executive precedence. All of these movements could be considered "interpretive."
 
The failure of the Congress to exercise it's responsibilities is in part I believe rooted in the fear of individuals in that to do the right thing is less important personally because of the possible risk to re-election. As we hear the Speaker of the House claim they were out of power until now, we know that's not true. The truth is they were sitting back carping about what they saw as wrong but were unwilling to act to correct anything.
Another thing that happens on a regular bases is the reinterpreting of the Constitution. If up is up today it will not become sideways left or right or down tomorrow. The same is true of the written words in the Constitution and yet the Supreme Court will revisit items long since decided.
As for the Executive Branch who ever is in power pushes the envelope as far as possible and often over step their bounds. Today we may be on the precipice of a Constitutional crisis unparalleled in our history with the Obama Administration and the blind followers he has in both Houses of Congress in close agreement on radical changes not in Keeping with the Constitution.

Remember What Obama said on Mar 15, 2008, and I quote: "My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it".
And even with the threat spoken so that every one could clearly hear it, he was not only elected but is going to do everything is his power to fulfill it while a weak compliant Congress will set by and watch it, or worse will be complicit in the implementation of changes we will all be sorry for in the end.
 

In all actuality there has been a constant fluctuation in dominance between the legislative and executive over the years. In the past century and it appears to continue now, Congress has been eager to give-up its power to the President in order to avoid constituent backlash. A major example of this is Fast-Track trade powers that the senate has bestowed upon multiple presidents since the Great Depression. The court is in noway equal to either of the other two branches. One must only look to Brown vs. Board of Education to witness the helplessnes of the Judicial without the action of the Executive.

In the Federalist Papers, it is clearly stated that due to the slow and deliberate process of the Legislative, the Executive was to be the swift enactor of the laws and policies. Hamilton describes this quite succinctly in, I believe, Federalist 70 or there abouts.
 
Yes, it is indeed Federalist 70.
 
Last edited:
Cptnrodent said:
Oops. Sorry I said "colonies" instead of "states." My argument must be invalid. :rofl Semantic bull****.
Click to expand...

Nope, your argument is invalid because it's wrong for the reasons stated.

As everyone can no doubt see, the remaining paragraph of your blather didn't say a word about the amendment process.
 
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Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Nope, your argument is invalid because it's wrong for the reasons stated.

As everyone can no doubt see, the remaining paragraph of your blather didn't say a word about the amendment process.
Click to expand...

As is obvious to anyone reading, the amendment process is clearly a formal, institutionalized method of changing the Constitution. I felt like this didn't need explaining. Instead, I focused on explaining informal, interpretative methods through which the Constitution has changed or expanded over the past 200 or so odd years. There are dozens of these, and they invalidate your argument that the Constitution is not a living document through which interpretation is possible.
 

Yes, you focused on unconstitutional modes of corrupting the law into violation of the constitution, without saying that's what you were trying to explain.

I understood fully.

The Constitution is a piece of paper listing a specific contract, and no, contracts are not changed just because some lying politicians connive with some dishonest judges to get by with violating the contract. All that happens is the contract is violated.

I'm pretty certain that FDR's threat to pack the courts with left-wing looney-toon dishonest judges didn't change the fact that the laws he wanted to impose were unconstitutional, even though the courts that originally ruled against them began to sing a different, and wrong, tune that made the cripple in the wheelchair happier. Yet you're arguing that because the judges suddenly began approving FDR's unconstitutional nonsense that it must have become "constitutional".

No. It only meant the Constitution was being violated.
 
IMO, Scalia put it best during his confirmation hearing. You should read the his entire testimony but here is a sample:


He says several times during his testimony that he does not think a justice should make it up based on his personal views.

IMO, if they do make it up based on their view of fairness, the US Constitution means nothing. It only means what five old people think at any one time.


.
 
Statusquobuster thinks the Libertarian Party has the correct platform. Read the preamble on Statusquo's page, they sound like anarchists. Well in a perfect world their **** would probably work, just like communism would. But it isn't perfect, so governments are setup among men. And Jefferson and Madison were hardly libertarians, because they proposed all kinds of legislation. This is the typical "My party is the truth" while I bash some other party for something they stand for. I'd say there are shades of gray among the parties that support republican forms of government. That doesn't mean that I think liberals and socialists who don't support maximum liberty, and would like to rid us of republican governments by fooling the people into thinking they live in a democracy are anywhere near correct.
 
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