The Preamble

[bluesmoke]

Supposed to be. Here is the federal republic originally envisioned by the Federalists that supported the ratification of the Constitution, from The Federalist No. 45:

"The Constitution delegates a few, defined powers to the federal government. The remaining State powers are numerous and indefinite.​

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"Federal powers will be principally exercised on external objects, like war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. Taxation will be the primary federal power over foreign commerce.​

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"The State powers extend to everything that, in the ordinary course of affairs, concerns the lives, liberties, property of the people, internal order, improvement, and the prosperity of the State.​

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"The federal government’s operations will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger. Those of the State governments, in times of peace and security.​

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"Since times of war will probably be small compared to peacetime, the State governments will enjoy another advantage over the federal government. Indeed, the more adequate the federal national defense, the less frequent the danger that might favor its ascendancy over the governments of the States."​

What we have now bears very little resemblance to that original vision, and the mere possibility that the Supreme Court might be guided by it in the case of something like, say, abortion is enough to have Liberals frothing at the mouth.

Like anything, the Constitution was a work in progress leading up to ratification. The Federalist (papers) were a collection essays to promote the Constitution. The Federalist was not the Constitution. It was subject to change by the writing of the Constitution which itself was ever changing, like anything, in its own making.

 

[Bear5131]

People have been "groomed and indoctrinated" to think it has to be a standard to have Political Parties... IF they had not been groomed and indoctrinated, we would not see people claiming to be a member of "any" Political Party (Gang).

I would take Education to Re-Educate People, of the True and Real Divisiveness which is Political Parties.

In America, its ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE... IF, we had a more "Educated Population" and especially in "Civics of American Representative Democracy" who actually were groomed and educated to "Understand legislation", WITHIN a Governing System that Governs by and through Regulatory Governance. People would know more and be better equipped with knowledge and understanding enough not only to know how to Choose elected representatives; people would know how to hold State Representative, both In-State and In-Federal Congress to Account for Themselves and Stand Responsible to The Majority and Minority Their District is Comprised of, ONLY then would State Representative know how to be better at Crafting Legislation.

The same is True for "Senators" - Every State is comprised of People who have a Majority Consensus and a Minority Consensus, and NO Senator can do the Job, without Respect for both the Majority Consensus and the Minority Consensue within their respective State.

We would also, NOT HAVE a Supreme Court with any Judges claiming themselves Democrat or Republican, they would be simply Judgest dealing with the Constitution and the Laws of The Land. Their Decision would deal with how the their summary impacts both the Majority Consensus and the Minority Consensue of Citizens within any given District and any given State.

See Post #85​

We would not have the Wealthy "Buying Groups of Elected People" under the banner of Political Party.

Every Human Being who is alive, have a mixture of Liberal and Conservative thoughts about many varied things within life, and people as life has shown, do gravitate to have variance in their mentality changes when it comes to Liberalism and Conservatism.

Example:
There are people who claim not only "conservative, but some claim racism", and then they have a child who has a Mixed Race "Grandchild' and suddenly, some abandon that crude hard line ideology.

There are people in this country, who don't even know the mixture in their extended families over Centuries, some were "taught" to deny and ignore various races and ethnicity in their Family lineage, and NOW... with the General Public having Unrestricted Access to "Geneology"... are finding out, just how many races and ethnicities are in their historical bloodline lineage.

Its no longer 'white people' claiming only the races and ethnicity they consider based on some white skin popularity, they are finding the long history, is revealing mixtures that span the spectrum of various races over the centures, who mixed and mated and produced offsprings.

We have too many within Society too "Under-educated" and "Miseducated" as to What Represenatative Democracy is
to even be aware of knowing they promote
DIVISIVENESS

People cry and scream that the government does work,
when fact is the people are too Uneducated and Deluded into accepting the Ignorance of Political Parties until they DO NOT know how A REPUBLIC FORM OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT was designed to work.
By
Our Constitutional Based Representative Democracy.​

We really need to get rid of the 17th amendment

 

[Rich2018]

The real socialists, you're seeking, kill those people, NO QUESTIONS ASKED. Go try your bullshit under Putin, and see what happens. I dare you. You'll be running back to us conservatives so ****ing fast it'll snap your neck. Your ideas are foolish stupidity to say the least.

Capitalists also kill people.

 

[Doug64]

Like anything, the Constitution was a work in progress leading up to ratification. The Federalist (papers) were a collection essays to promote the Constitution. The Federalist was not the Constitution. It was subject to change by the writing of the Constitution which itself was ever changing, like anything, in its own making.

No, the Constitution was not a "work in progress" leading up to ratification. It was a written document that its boosters supported by explaining to the voters how it is supposed to work and the principles behind it--which is why it is quoted so often in Supreme Court opinions laying down how the Constitution is supposed to work. The Federalist Papers is our Mishnah to the the Constitution's Torah.

 

[wist43]

We really need to get rid of the 17th amendment

Amen!!!

 

[bluesmoke]

No, the Constitution was not a "work in progress" leading up to ratification. It was a written document that its boosters supported by explaining to the voters how it is supposed to work and the principles behind it--which is why it is quoted so often in Supreme Court opinions laying down how the Constitution is supposed to work. The Federalist Papers is our Mishnah to the the Constitution's Torah.

The Constitution is a revision of the Federalist and was not devised without changing the content of its writing during the process and promised to be changed later to assure ratification. Hence, the Bill of Rights being the first 11 Amendments. Changes were already contemplated prior to notification, let alone during the process of writing. It's not like they all walked in with the Fed Papers and rubber stamped it.

 

[Rich2018]

Amen!!!

No !!!!


Senators serve the people, they must be elected by them.

 

[Doug64]

The Constitution is a revision of the Federalist and was not devised without changing the content of its writing during the process and promised to be changed later to assure ratification. Hence, the Bill of Rights being the first 11 Amendments. Changes were already contemplated prior to notification, let alone during the process of writing. It's not like they all walked in with the Fed Papers and rubber stamped it.

That's all true and I'm glad the Bill of Rights got tacked on, but a) other than the 2nd Amendment the Bill of Rights didn't actually change anything since the Constitution didn't grant the Federal government power to intervene in thise areas anyway (something its supporters in the debate pointed out when they argued that adding a Bill of Rights was not only unnecessary but dangerous), and b) those modifications were done through the amendment process that was built into the Constitution itself.

 

[bluesmoke]

That's all true and I'm glad the Bill of Rights got tacked on, but a) other than the 2nd Amendment the Bill of Rights didn't actually change anything since the Constitution didn't grant the Federal government power to intervene in thise areas anyway (something its supporters in the debate pointed out when they argued that adding a Bill of Rights was not only unnecessary but dangerous), and b) those modifications were done through the amendment process that was built into the Constitution itself.

Work in progress: "An unfinished project that is still being added to or developed".

The Constitution was a WIP. The writing started with the Fed Papers, which were revised/changed/added to/developed until and through ratification. You've not refuted anything I've said. I'll add that it is a live document subject to further addition and change through Amendment and interpretation, which doing would also be a WIP.

 

[bluesmoke]

The real socialists, you're seeking, kill those people, NO QUESTIONS ASKED. Go try your bullshit under Putin, and see what happens. I dare you. You'll be running back to us conservatives so ****ing fast it'll snap your neck. Your ideas are foolish stupidity to say the least.

What is foolish stupidity is you demanding I live under Putin to prove your point.

 

[bluesmoke]

No, they are the arguments made by those explaining to voters just what the Constitution means and how it is supposed to work, in order to convince the voters to support it. There's a reason why the Federalist Papers are quoted in Supreme Court opinions regularly.


Yup, the Preamble explains what the purposes of the Constitution is, and the rest of the Constitution lays out how those purposes are to be accomplished.

The Federalist is quoted by SC justices only in relation to the Constitution. It is not a standalone document by which decisions are made without regard to the Constitution, but in regard to the Constitution.

The Preamble, BTW, was written after the Constitution.

 

[American]

What is foolish stupidity is you demanding I live under Putin to prove your point.

You love socialism, so go there and live it.

 

[Glitch]

We really need to get rid of the 17th amendment

I would agree to its repeal, providing you can demonstrate that you have solved the problem the Seventeenth Amendment solved. The Seventeenth Amendment didn't just pop-up on a whim. It was the result of decades of corruption by State Governors who sold Senate seats for their own personal gain. Exactly like Gov. Blagojevich did when he sold former Senator Obama's seat after Obama was elected President, except this kind of corruption was common place throughout the US before the Seventeenth Amendment.

Therefore, if you have a fool-proof solution that will prevent Governors from selling Senate seats for their own personal benefit, then and only then would I be willing to support a repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment. Otherwise, not a chance. Why do you think 36 out of 48 States ratified an amendment that would strip themselves from their own constitutional power to appoint Senators and instead give that power to the people if there was a better solution?

 

[Bear5131]

I would agree to its repeal, providing you can demonstrate that you have solved the problem the Seventeenth Amendment solved. The Seventeenth Amendment didn't just pop-up on a whim. It was the result of decades of corruption by State Governors who sold Senate seats for their own personal gain. Exactly like Gov. Blagojevich did when he sold former Senator Obama's seat after Obama was elected President, except this kind of corruption was common place throughout the US before the Seventeenth Amendment.

Therefore, if you have a fool-proof solution that will prevent Governors from selling Senate seats for their own personal benefit, then and only then would I be willing to support a repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment. Otherwise, not a chance. Why do you think 36 out of 48 States ratified an amendment that would strip themselves from their own constitutional power to appoint Senators and instead give that power to the people if there was a better solution?

If the 17th prevented it how did blagobitch sell it?

 

[Glitch]

If the 17th prevented it how did blagobitch sell it?

Because the Seventeenth Amendment only prevents Governors from picking Senators during their normal terms, requiring a popular vote from the State residents instead. It does not prevent Governors from appointing Senators outside of their normal term, such as when a Senator dies, or is elected to another office. If the position becomes vacant before the term would have expired normally, the Governor makes the appointment.

It should be noted that the State legislature is suppose to research the Governor's appointment and either approve or reject the nomination, but 99% of the time State legislatures can't be bothered to do their job and just give Governor's permission to appoint whomever they please.

 

[Indydave]

the genius of the Preamble is it establishes the founders commitment to individual freedom and the responsibilty of each of us to each other and thus to the nation

 

[bluesmoke]

It doesn't matter whether it's direct or representative, a democracy is a system where the majority gets what it wants. To the extent that a system has institutions and procedures in place to prevent that, it isn't democratic. And the Constitution (and the state constitutions) are full of them.


Nope, it doesn't, I have no problem envisioning a republic with a monarch as the chief executive. If we passed an amendment making the presidency a life-long, inherited position--a king--and left everything else the same, we'd still be a republic.

Majority rule is a means for organizing government and deciding public issues. It is not imposition of the majority on the basic rights and freedoms of a minority group or individual. If a democracy chose a system where individual rights were not protected, it would no longer be a functioning democracy.

A modern republic has no ruling king. If it did, it wouldn't be a republic. If a republic/democracy rule by the people chose monarchical rule, it would no longer be a functioning republic.

Maybe you can provide a link to what supports your theory.

 

[weaver2]

the genius of the Preamble is it establishes the founders commitment to individual freedom and the responsibilty of each of us to each other and thus to the nation

So few people understand that.

 

[Rich2018]

the genius of the Preamble is it establishes the founders commitment to individual freedom and the responsibilty of each of us to each other and thus to the nation

I have a hard time accepting any part of the Constitution as a work of "genius".

 

[Doug64]

Work in progress: "An unfinished project that is still being added to or developed".

The Constitution was a WIP. The writing started with the Fed Papers, which were revised/changed/added to/developed until and through ratification. You've not refuted anything I've said. I'll add that it is a live document subject to further addition and change through Amendment and interpretation, which doing would also be a WIP.

By your definition, no contract containing provisions for its possible amendment is a finished product, no matter if it simply waiting for the final signatures to become legally binding. I'm sorry, but that's nonsense.

The Federalist is quoted by SC justices only in relation to the Constitution. It is not a standalone document by which decisions are made without regard to the Constitution, but in regard to the Constitution.

True. So what?

Majority rule is a means for organizing government and deciding public issues. It is not imposition of the majority on the basic rights and freedoms of a minority group or individual. If a democracy chose a system where individual rights were not protected, it would no longer be a functioning democracy.

The Merriam-Webster definition of a democracy: "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections"

Note that there isn't s single word in that definition about basic rights and freedoms of a minority group or individual. The more minorities or individuals are protected from impositions by their nation's majority, the less of a democracy that nation is. Likewise, the more a government is designed to hinder if not prevent a majority from getting what it wants, the less of a democracy it is.

 

[Doug64]

A modern republic has no ruling king. If it did, it wouldn't be a republic. If a republic/democracy rule by the people chose monarchical rule, it would no longer be a functioning republic.

The key word is "ruling"--if the monarch isn't sovereign, then that government isn't a monarchy. Here's G.K. Chesterton on Great Britain's monarchy post World War I (and though he doesn't say it, why Great Britain is no longer a monarchy), in What I Saw in America.

The genuine popularity of constitutional monarchs, in parliamentary countries, can be explained by any practical example. Let us suppose that great social reform, The Compulsory Haircutting Act, has just begun to be enforced. The Compulsory Haircutting Act, as every good citizen knows, is a statute which permits any person to grow his hair to any length, in any wild or wonderful shape, so long as he is registered with a hairdresser who charges a shilling. But it imposes a universal close-shave (like that which is found so hygienic during a curative detention at Dartmoor) on all who are registered only with a barber who charges threepence. Thus, while the ornamental classes can continue to ornament the street with Piccadilly weepers or chin-beards if they choose, the working classes demonstrate the care with which the State protects them by going about in a fresher, cooler, and cleaner condition; a condition which has the further advantage of revealing at a glance that outline of the criminal skull, which is so common among them. The Compulsory Haircutting Act is thus in every way a compact and convenient example of all our current laws about education, sport, liquor and liberty in general. Well, the law has passed and the masses, insensible to its scientific value, are still murmuring against it. The ignorant peasant maiden is averse to so extreme a fashion of bobbing her hair; and does not see how she can even be a flapper with nothing to flap. Her father, his mind already poisoned by Bolshevists, begins to wonder who the devil does these things, and why. In proportion as he knows the world of to-day, he guesses that the real origin may be quite obscure, or the real motive quite corrupt. The pressure may have come from anybody who has gained power or money anyhow. It may come from the foreign millionaire who owns all the expensive hairdressing saloons; it may come from some swindler in the cutlery trade who has contracted to sell a million bad razors. Hence the poor man looks about him with suspicion in the street; knowing that the lowest sneak or the loudest snob he sees may be directing the government of his country. Anybody may have to do with politics; and this sort of thing is politics. Suddenly he catches sight of a crowd, stops, and begins wildly to cheer a carriage that is passing. The carriage contains the one person who has certainly not originated any great scientific reform. He is the only person in the commonwealth who is not allowed to cut off other people’s hair, or to take away other people’s liberties. He at least is kept out of politics; and men hold him up as they did an unspotted victim to appease the wrath of the gods. He is their King, and the only man they know is not their ruler. We need not be surprised that he is popular, knowing how they are ruled.

 

[Doug64]

A modern republic has no ruling king. If it did, it wouldn't be a republic. If a republic/democracy rule by the people chose monarchical rule, it would no longer be a functioning republic.

To add to the fun, here's what Chesterton has to say about the US president, more of a true king than any modern constitutional monarch:

The popularity of a President in America is exactly the opposite. The American Republic is the last mediaeval monarchy. It is intended that the President shall rule, and take all the risks of ruling. If the hair is cut he is the haircutter, the magistrate that bears not the razor in vain. All the popular Presidents, Jackson and Lincoln and Roosevelt, have acted as democratic despots, but emphatically not as constitutional monarchs. In short, the names have become curiously interchanged; and as a historical reality it is the President who ought to be called a King.

But it is not only true that the President could correctly be called a King. It is also true that the King might correctly be called a President. We could hardly find a more exact description of him than to call him a President. What is expected in modern times of a modern constitutional monarch is emphatically that he should preside. We expect him to take the throne exactly as if he were taking the chair. The chairman does not move the motion or resolution, far less vote it; he is not supposed even to favour it. He is expected to please everybody by favouring nobody. The primary essentials of a President or Chairman are that he should be treated with ceremonial respect, that he should be popular in his personality and yet impersonal in his opinions, and that he should actually be a link between all the other persons by being different from all of them. This is exactly what is demanded of the constitutional monarch in modern times. It is exactly the opposite to the American position; in which the President does not preside at all. He moves; and the thing he moves may truly be called a motion; for the national idea is perpetual motion. Technically it is called a message; and might often actually be called a menace. Thus we may truly say that the King presides and the President reigns. Some would prefer to say that the President rules; and some Senators and members of Congress would prefer to say that he rebels. But there is no doubt that he moves; he does not take the chair or even the stool, but rather the stump.

 

[bluesmoke]

You love socialism, so go there and live it.

I am opposed to a socialist govt. I'm in favor of the capitalist/govt mixed economy and democratic rule. Your fantasy of who I am is what is confusion.

 

[bluesmoke]

By your definition, no contract containing provisions for its possible amendment is a finished product, no matter if it simply waiting for the final signatures to become legally binding. I'm sorry, but that's nonsense.


True. So what?


The Merriam-Webster definition of a democracy: "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections"

Note that there isn't s single word in that definition about basic rights and freedoms of a minority group or individual. The more minorities or individuals are protected from impositions by their nation's majority, the less of a democracy that nation is. Likewise, the more a government is designed to hinder if not prevent a majority from getting what it wants, the less of a democracy it is.

The Constitution is a living document. It is not immutable. It stands until changed. The Constitution did not go to stone after signature. By design, it is amendable. It is not a final, non-amendable product.

What is the "...reason why the Federalist Papers are quoted in Supreme Court opinions regularly." that is a standalone justification for a SC decision, not given support by the Constitution?

Which definition of democracy is also within the definition of a republican form of govt.

It is the democracy of majority rule that incl the protection of individual and minority rights.

 

[bluesmoke]

The key word is "ruling"--if the monarch isn't sovereign, then that government isn't a monarchy. Here's G.K. Chesterton on Great Britain's monarchy post World War I (and though he doesn't say it, why Great Britain is no longer a monarchy), in What I Saw in America.

OK. Are you just adding info to the discussion or is there something I said you disagree with?