4 posts tagged “u.s. constitution”
Hans Gruen has posted a proposed version of a fictional 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The theme of Gruen’s Amendment is to declare Islam (I prefer Mohammedanism) NOT a religion and instead a political ideology.
Frankly I agree with Gruen’s assessment (particularly radical Islamism); however I fear the American public is not convinced Mohammedanism is more a political ideology than a religion.
One of Gruen’s commenters noted that a call for an Amendment to outlaw Mohammedanism has been thought upon already. There is even a petition going around the Internet to outlaw Mohammedanism. I am going to seek out and sign this petition; however I am fairly certain (at this point) that the lack of Jihad education in America will find this Amendment repugnant.
A grassroots movement in America needs to be started (something like Gabriel's - Act! For America - has began) to spread the word about the ideology of Mohammedanism as opposed to the religious practice of Mohammedanism.
I think a better possibility is to enact an Amendment to the Constitution declaring America a nation with a Judeo-Christian heritage without establishing any particular Jewish sect (Orthodox, Conservative or Reformed) or Christian Denominations (Variations of Protestantism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox etc.) as a State religion.
This would simultaneously deal with Secular Humanism war on Christianity and radical Islam.
I am embarrassed to say I did not realize that December 15 is the anniversary date of the Bill of Rights – the first Ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Mark Alexander points out that on December 15, 2007 it will have been 216 years since the Bill of Rights were ratified. Alexander also has an awesome essay on the emergence of the first Ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
It is an excerpt from the Patriot Post entitled, “To secure these rights …”
JRH 12/17/07
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“To secure these rights...”
By Mark Alexander
Excerpt: Patriot Post Vol. 07 No. 50
14 December 2007
“The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” —Alexander Hamilton
Saturday, 15 December, is the 216th anniversary of the adoption of the Bill of Rights, the first Ten Amendments to our Constitution, as ratified in 1791.
The Bill of Rights was inspired by three remarkable documents: John Locke’s 1689 thesis, Two Treatises of Government, regarding the protection of “property” (in the Latin context, proprius, or one’s own “life, liberty and estate”); in part from the Virginia Declaration of Rights authored by George Mason in 1776 as part of that state’s Constitution; and, of course, in part from our Declaration of Independence authored by Thomas Jefferson.
James Madison proposed the Bill of Rights as amendments to our Constitution in 1789, but many of our Founders objected to listing the Bill of Rights at all, much less as “amendments.” Their rationale was that such rights might then be construed as malleable rather than unalienable, as amendable rather than “endowed by our Creator” as noted in the Constitution’s supreme guidance, the Declaration of Independence.
Alexander Hamilton argued this point in The Federalist Papers, the most comprehensive explication of our Constitution: “I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous... For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?” (Federalist No. 84)
George Mason was one of 55 who authored the U.S. Constitution, but one of 16 who refused to sign it because it did not adequately address limitations on what the central government had “no power to do.” He worked with Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams against the Constitution’s ratification for that reason.
As a result of Mason’s insistence, ten limitations were put on the Federal Government by the first session of Congress, for the reasons outlined by the Bill of Rights Preamble: “The Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution...”
Read in context, the Bill of Rights is both an affirmation of innate individual rights (as noted by Thomas Jefferson: “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time...”), and a clear delineation on constraints upon the central government.
However, as Jefferson warned repeatedly, the greatest threat to such limitations on the central government was an unbridled judiciary: “Over the Judiciary department, the Constitution [has] deprived [the people] of their control... The original error [was in] establishing a judiciary independent of the nation, and which, from the citadel of the law, can turn its guns on those they were meant to defend, and control and fashion their proceedings to its own will... It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power [the judiciary] is independent of the nation... The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.”
In Federalist No. 81 Alexander Hamilton wrote, “[T]here is not a syllable in the [Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution, or which gives them any greater latitude in this respect than may be claimed by the courts of every State.”
That admonition notwithstanding, the federal judiciary has become “a despotic branch.”
Indeed, since the middle of the last century, judicial despots have grossly devitalized the Bill of Rights, asserting errantly that our Founders created a “Living Constitution” amendable by judicial diktat.
For example, the Left judiciary has “interpreted” the First Amendment as placing all manner of constraint upon the exercise of religion by way of the so-called “establishment clause” and based on the phony “Wall of Separation” argument. At the same time, the courts have asserted that all manner of expression constitutes “speech.”
The judiciary and legislatures have undermined the strength of the Second Amendment, a right of which James Madison’s appointee, Justice Joseph Story, referred to as “...the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers...”
Equally derelict is the manner in which the Tenth Amendment has been eroded by judicial interpretation.
In Federalist No. 45, Madison outlines the clear limits on central government power established in the Constitution: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”
Alexander Hamilton added in Federalist No. 81 “...the plan of the [Constitutional] convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United States.”
There was a very bloody War Between the States fought over offense to the Constitution’s assurance of States’ Rights.
All is not lost, however.
Sunday, 16 December, is the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party (1773). The “radicals” from Marlborough, Massachusetts, who threw 342 chests of tea from a British East India Company ship into the Boston Harbor in protest of tyrannical rule, did so noting, “Death is more eligible than slavery. A free-born people are not required by the religion of Christ to submit to tyranny, but may make use of such power as God has given them to recover and support their... liberties.”
Three years later, this rebellion had grown to such extent that our Founders were willing to give up their fortunes and lives, attaching their signatures to a document that declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Judicial and political despots, take note.
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The Patriot is a publication of Publius Press, Inc. Copyright © 1981-2007 Publius Press, Inc. The Patriot is protected speech pursuant to the "unalienable rights" of all men, and in accordance with the First (and Second) Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.
In part one sources report that the Bush Administration denies a concept of a “North American Union;” i.e. some notion of a federated union of Canada, America and Mexico. The notion as far as the United States is concerned is extra-Constitutional if it goes forward without an Amendment to the Constitution.
If there are proponents lurking in the shadows promoting geopolitical transformation, they are probably thinking of accomplishing such a Union via a Treaty ratified by the Senate. The problem is such a Union extends beyond treaty agreements between sovereign nations. Such a Union would affect Constitutional Law in America. I am saying a Union transformation would or could change traditional interpretations of American Liberty, Civil Rights, and Free Speech and so on.
I personally did not buy into the notion of a “North American Union” when I first read about it about a year ago. Yet there are things that have occurred that could have justified President Bush’s entrance into Iraq. Intelligence data widely implied the existence of WMD in Iraq prior to the invasion; however neither the radioactive nor the chemical cache of WMD was located. Bush made poor efforts to explain this phenomenon when there was credible evidence that explained the WMD disappearance.
There is a huge appearance that the CIA and Richard Armitage set up Plamegate and the conviction I. Scooter Libby. There is evidence that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald was full aware that Armitage was the person that leaked Valerie Plame’s name to discredit the WMD reason to invade Iraq.
Now here are some names that are preparing a report for the Bush White House and the Democratic controlled Congress on “… the benefits of integrating the U.S., Mexico and Canada into one political, economic and security bloc.”: “A powerful think tank chaired by former Sen. Sam Nunn and guided by trustees including Richard Armitage, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Harold Brown, William Cohen and Henry Kissinger”.
Is it Conspiracy Theory or transforming geopolitics in the shadows?
Here is a week old WorldNetDaily report that comes under the heading of “What’s going on behind the geopolitical doors?” President Bush has signed a document that is supposed to integrate economic standards between the European Union and America. The document is a commitment yet it was not ratified by the Senate as is called for by the U.S. Constitution for International Treaties and Agreements.
Couple this so-called “Transatlantic Economic Integration” document with all the back door media reports of a “North American Union” (linking Canada, America and Mexico as a national entity), Joe Public has to begin to wonder “What’s the deal?”
This Transatlantic Economic Integration document actually creates a “Transatlantic Economic Council.” It is co-chaired by a Cabinet level American (Alan Hubbard) and an EU “vice-President of the European Commission in charge of enterprise and industry.”
The Transatlantic Economic Council could be an entity as simple as standardizing practices, property rights (e.g. intellectual rights such as Copy Right) and so on. The thing that draws suspicion is the lack of Senate oversight and confirmation. This is eerily comparable to the shadow behind closed doors talks of the North American Union; this also seems to be a President Bush initiative without Senatorial oversight and confirmation.
Clearly all the international nations share geopolitical alliances in one form or another. Yet it is also clear that there are many conflicts of interest between these geopolitical nations, especially as to their view of President Bush. It is the differences that cause a huge confusion for me. There is the appearance that President Bush is attempting to hammer out some sort of United Western Confederation without American Constitutional consent and there is the appearances from which America’s International allies believe President Bush’s geopolitical strategy is unilateral rather than multi-lateral. Unilateralism seems to be a huge point of contention for the EU, Mexico and to varying degrees also with Canada.
This secretive Bush strategy coupled with the EU, Canada and Mexico paradox of cooperation and denunciation is almost like a mystical mystery that Joe Public may not comprehend until it is too late to weigh in. It all seems to be un-American in its extra-Constitutionality (somewhat like a Democratic Party ploy).
So what is going on here?
