The Progressive Socialists Script
Source; Treatise from Mangus Colorado;
Please take time to read this rather long Progressive party platform. It clearly shows that the Progressive Socialists have been following the script for over one hundred years. They never gave up and when stalled they gave new word meanings to define who and what they were.
Again, I apologize for the length but it is the war plan we are now fighting. Thank you for reading.
LockPROGRESSIVESMost of the down hill slide on American Freedoms, States rights, and Liberty Started with Teddy Roosevelt - a Republican PROGRESSIVE - then was furthered with Wilson and increased by FDR. The final blows to our Freedoms and Liberties came from LBJ and the War on Poverty - the GREAT SOCIETY . . every Congress and every President since then has added Liberty destroying laws - the EPA, IRS, DOE, FDA, Clean Air and water Act, limits on land use, locking up natural resources. Regulating foods, paint, farming, driving, flying, shipping [Jones act = must be UNION ship], Davis Bacon Act [Requires Union pay on all government construction sites].
It is not the parties it is the desire for more and more power from all of the POLITICAL CLASS - stop passing new laws that can not and will not be enforced. Gun controls are silly it a nut case wants to kill nothing but a well placed piece of lead will stop them. The problem can not be stopped a new law against criminals - they are already criminals so what is going to keep guns out of their hands - answer - NOTHING.
1912 PROGRESSIVE PLATFORM - WHAT THE MODERN PROGRESSIVE IS ABOUT?
This will show all what Progressives really have in mind for America and our way of life. They accomplished a lot of their goals; they are still fighting for some items. Pay attention to the fact that they want to make it easier for the Constitution to be changed {by general vote as in a true Democracy?}
Progressive Platform of 1912
The conscience of the people, in a time of grave national problems, has called into being a new party, born of the nation’s sense of justice. We of the Progressive party here dedicate ourselves to the fulfillment of the duty laid upon us by our fathers to maintain the government of the people, by the people and for the people whose foundations they laid.
We hold with Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln that the people are the masters of their Constitution, to fulfill its purposes and to safeguard it from those who, by perversion of its intent, would convert it into an instrument of injustice. In accordance with the needs of each generation the people must use their sovereign powers to establish and maintain equal opportunity and industrial justice, to secure which this Government was founded and without which no republic can endure.
This country belongs to the people who inhabit it. Its resources, its business, its institutions and its laws should be utilized, maintained or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.
It is time to set the public welfare in the first place.
THE OLD PARTIES
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.
From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
The deliberate betrayal of its trust by the Republican party, the fatal incapacity of the Democratic party to deal with the new issues of the new time, have compelled the people to forge a new instrument of government through which to give effect to their will in laws and institutions.
Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, undismayed by the magnitude of the task, the new party offers itself as the instrument of the people to sweep away old abuses, to build a new and nobler commonwealth.
A COVENANT WITH THE PEOPLE
This declaration is our covenant with the people, and we hereby bind the party and its candidates in State and Nation to the pledges made herein.
THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE
The National Progressive party, committed to the principles of government by a self-controlled democracy expressing its will through representatives of the people, pledges itself to secure such alterations in the fundamental law of the several States and of the United States as shall insure the representative character of the government.
In particular, the party declares for direct primaries for the nomination of State and National officers, for nation-wide preferential primaries for candidates for the presidency; for the direct election of United States Senators by the people; and we urge on the States the policy of the short ballot, with responsibility to the people secured by the initiative, referendum and recall.
AMENDMENT OF CONSTITUTION
The Progressive party, believing that a free people should have the power from time to time to amend their fundamental law so as to adapt it progressively to the changing needs of the people, pledges itself to provide a more easy and expeditious method of amending the Federal Constitution.
NATION AND STATE
Up to the limit of the Constitution, and later by amendment of the Constitution, it found necessary, we advocate bringing under effective national jurisdiction those problems which have expanded beyond reach of the individual States.
It is as grotesque as it is intolerable that the several States should by unequal laws in matter of common concern become competing commercial agencies, barter the lives of their children, the health of their women and the safety and well-being of their working people for the benefit of their financial interests.
The extreme insistence on States’ rights by the Democratic party in the Baltimore platform demonstrates anew its inability to understand the world into which it has survived or to administer the affairs of a union of States which have in all essential respects become one people.
EQUAL SUFFRAGE
The Progressive party, believing that no people can justly claim to be a true democracy which denies political rights on account of sex, pledges itself to the task of securing equal suffrage to men and women alike.
CORRUPT PRACTICES
We pledge our party to legislation that will compel strict limitation of all campaign contributions and expenditures, and detailed publicity of both before as well as after primaries and elections.
PUBLICITY AND PUBLIC SERVICE
We pledge our party to legislation compelling the registration of lobbyists; publicity of committee hearings except on foreign affairs, and recording of all votes in committee; and forbidding federal appointees from holding office in State or National political organizations, or taking part as officers or delegates in political conventions for the nomination of elective State or National officials.
THE COURTS
The Progressive party demands such restriction of the power of the courts as shall leave to the people the ultimate authority to determine fundamental questions of social welfare and public policy. To secure this end, it pledges itself to provide:
1. That when an Act, passed under the police power of the State is held unconstitutional under the State Constitution, by the courts, the people, after an ample interval for deliberation, shall have an opportunity to vote on the question whether they desire the Act to become law, notwithstanding such decision.
2. That every decision of the highest appellate court of a State declaring an Act of the Legislature unconstitutional on the ground of its violation of the Federal Constitution shall be subject to the same review by the Supreme Court of the United States as is now accorded to decisions sustaining such legislation.
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
The Progressive party, in order to secure to the people a better administration of justice and by that means to bring about a more general respect for the law and the courts, pledges itself to work unceasingly for the reform of legal procedure and judicial methods.
We believe that the issuance of injunctions in cases arising out of labor disputes should be prohibited when such injunctions would not apply when no labor disputes existed.
We also believe that a person cited for contempt in labor disputes, except when such contempt was committed in the actual presence of the court or so near thereto as to interfere with the proper administration of justice, should have a right to trial by jury.
SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL JUSTICE
The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in State and Nation for:
Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial accidents, occupational diseases, overwork, involuntary unemployment, and other injurious effects incident to modern industry;
The fixing of minimum safety and health standards for the various occupations, and the exercise of the public authority of State and Nation, including the Federal Control over interstate commerce, and the taxing power, to maintain such standards;
The prohibition of child labor; Minimum wage standards for working women, to provide a "living wage" in all industrial occupations; The general prohibition of night work for women and the establishment of an eight hour day for women and young persons; One day’s rest in seven for all wage workers; The eight hour day in continuous twenty-four hour industries; The abolition of the convict contract labor system; substituting a system of prison production for governmental consumption only; and the application of prisoners’ earnings to the support of their dependent families; Publicity as to wages, hours and conditions of labor; full reports upon industrial accidents and diseases, and the opening to public inspection of all tallies, weights, measures and check systems on labor products; Standards of compensation for death by industrial accident and injury and trade disease which will transfer the burden of lost earnings from the families of working people to the industry, and thus to the community; The protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use; The development of the creative labor power of America by lifting the last load of illiteracy from American youth and establishing continuation schools for industrial education under public control and encouraging agricultural education and demonstration in rural schools; The establishment of industrial research laboratories to put the methods and discoveries of science at the service of American producers; We favor the organization of the workers, men and women, as a means of protecting their interests and of promoting their progress.
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
We pledge our party to establish a department of labor with a seat in the cabinet, and with wide jurisdiction over matters affecting the conditions of labor and living.
COUNTRY LIFE
The development and prosperity of country life are as important to the people who live in the cities as they are to the farmers. Increase of prosperity on the farm will favorably affect the cost of living, and promote the interests of all who dwell in the country, and all who depend upon its products for clothing, shelter and food.
We pledge our party to foster the development of agricultural credit and co-operation, the teaching of agriculture in schools, agricultural college extension, the use of mechanical power on the farm, and to re-establish the Country Life Commission, thus directly promoting the welfare of the farmers, and bringing the benefits of better farming, better business and better living within their reach.
HIGH COST OF LIVING
The high cost of living is due partly to worldwide and partly to local causes; partly to natural and partly to artificial causes. The measures proposed in this platform on various subjects such as the tariff, the trusts and conservation, will of themselves remove the artificial causes.
There will remain other elements such as the tendency to leave the country for the city, waste, extravagance, bad system of taxation, poor methods of raising crops and bad business methods in marketing crops.
To remedy these conditions requires the fullest information and based on this information, effective government supervision and control to remove all the artificial causes. We pledge ourselves to such full and immediate inquiry and to immediate action to deal with every need such inquiry discloses.
HEALTH
We favor the union of all the existing agencies of the Federal Government dealing with the public health into a single national health service without discrimination against or for any one set of therapeutic methods, school of medicine, or school of healing with such additional powers as may be necessary to enable it to perform efficiently such duties in the protection of the public from preventable diseases as may be properly undertaken by the Federal authorities, including the executing of existing laws regarding pure food, quarantine and cognate subjects, the promotion of vital statistics and the extension of the registration area of such statistics, and co-operation with the health activities of the various States and cities of the Nation.
BUSINESS
We believe that true popular government, justice and prosperity go hand in hand, and, so believing, it is our purpose to secure that large measure of general prosperity which is the fruit of legitimate and honest business, fostered by equal justice and by sound progressive laws.
We demand that the test of true prosperity shall be the benefits conferred thereby on all the citizens, not confined to individuals or classes, and that the test of corporate efficiency shall be the ability better to serve the public; that those who profit by control of business affairs shall justify that profit and that control by sharing with the public the fruits thereof.
We therefore demand a strong National regulation of inter-State corporations. The corporation is an essential part of modern business. The concentration of modem business, in some degree, is both inevitable and necessary for national and international business efficiency. But the existing concentration of vast wealth under a corporate system, unguarded and uncontrolled by the Nation, has placed in the hands of a few men enormous, secret, irresponsible power over the daily life of the citizen; a power insufferable in a free Government and certain of abuse.
This power has been abused, in monopoly of National resources, in stock watering, in unfair competition and unfair privileges, and finally in sinister influences on the public agencies of State and Nation. We do not fear commercial power, but we insist that it shall be exercised openly, under publicity, supervision and regulation of the most efficient sort, which will preserve its good while eradicating and preventing its ill.
To that end we urge the establishment of a strong Federal administrative commission of high standing, which shall maintain permanent active supervision over industrial corporations engaged in inter-State commerce, or such of them as are of public importance, doing for them what the Government now does for the National banks, and what is now done for the railroads by the Inter-State Commerce Commission.
Such a commission must enforce the complete publicity of those corporation transactions which are of public interest; must attack unfair competition, false capitalization and special privilege, and by continuous trained watchfulness guard and keep open equally all the highways of American commerce.
Thus the business man will have certain knowledge of the law, and will be able to conduct his business easily in conformity therewith; the investor will find security for his capital; dividends will be rendered more certain, and the savings of the people will be drawn naturally and safely into the channels of trade.
Under such a system of constructive regulation, legitimate business, freed from confusion, uncertainty and fruitless litigation will develop normally in response to the energy and enterprise of the American business man.
We favor strengthening the Sherman Law by prohibiting agreement to divide territory or limit output; refusing to sell to customers who buy from business rivals; to sell below cost in certain areas while maintaining higher prices in other places; using the power of transportation to aid or injure special business concerns; and other unfair trade practices.
PATENTS
We pledge ourselves to the enactment of a patent law which will make it impossible for patents to be suppressed or used against the public welfare in the interests of injurious monopolies.
INTER-STATE COMMERCE COMMISSION
We pledge our party to secure to the Inter-State Commerce Commission the power to value the physical property of railroads. In order that the power of the commission to protect the people may not be impaired or destroyed, we demand the abolition of the Commerce Court.
CURRENCY
We believe there exists imperative need for prompt legislation for the improvement of our National currency system. We believe the present method of issuing notes through private agencies is harmful and unscientific.
The issue of currency is fundamentally a Government function and the system should have as basic principles soundness and elasticity. The control should be lodged with the Government and should be protected from domination or manipulation by Wall Street or any special interests.
We are opposed to the so-called Aldrich currency bill, because its provisions would place our currency and credit system in private hands, not subject to effective public control.
COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT
The time has come when the Federal Government should co-operate with manufacturers and producers in extending our foreign commerce. To this end we demand adequate appropriations by Congress, and the appointment of diplomatic and consular officers solely with a view to their special fitness and worth, and not in consideration of political expediency.
It is imperative to the welfare of our people that we enlarge and extend our foreign commerce.
In every way possible our Federal Government should co-operate in this important matter. Germany’s policy of co-operation between government and business has, in comparatively few years, made that nation a leading competitor for the commerce of the world.
CONSERVATION
The natural resources of the Nation must be promptly developed and generously used to supply the people’s needs, but we cannot safely allow them to be wasted, exploited, monopolized or controlled against the general good. We heartily favor the policy of conservation, and we pledge our party to protect the National forests without hindering their legitimate use for the benefit of all the people.
Agricultural lands in the National forests are, and should remain, open to the genuine settler. Conservation will not retard legitimate development. The honest settler must receive his patent promptly, without hindrance, rules or delays.
We believe that the remaining forests, coal and oil lands, water powers and other natural resources still in State or National control (except agricultural lands) are more likely to be wisely conserved and utilized for the general welfare if held in the public hands.
In order that consumers and producers, managers and workmen, now and hereafter, need not pay toll to private monopolies of power and raw material, we demand that such resources shall be retained by the State or Nation, and opened to immediate use under laws which will encourage development and make to the people a moderate return for benefits conferred.
In particular we pledge our party to require reasonable compensation to the public for water power rights hereafter granted by the public.
We pledge legislation to lease the public grazing lands under equitable provisions now pending which will increase the production of food for the people and thoroughly safeguard the rights of the actual homemaker. Natural resources, whose conservation is necessary for the National welfare, should be owned or controlled by the Nation.
GOOD ROADS
We recognize the vital importance of good roads and we pledge our party to foster their extension in every proper way, and we favor the early construction of National highways. We also favor the extension of the rural free delivery service.
ALASKA
The coal and other natural resources of Alaska should be opened to development at once. They are owned by the people of the United States, and are safe from monopoly, waste or destruction only while so owned.
We demand that they shall neither be sold nor given away, except under the Homestead Law, but while held in Government ownership shall be opened to use promptly upon liberal terms requiring immediate development.
Thus the benefit of cheap fuel will accrue to the Government of the United States and to the people of Alaska and the Pacific Coast; the settlement of extensive agricultural lands will be hastened; the extermination of the salmon will be prevented and the just and wise development of Alaskan resources will take the place of private extortion or monopoly.
We demand also that extortion or monopoly in transportation shall be prevented by the prompt acquisition, construction or improvement by the Government of such railroads, harbor and other facilities for transportation as the welfare of the people may demand.
We promise the people of the Territory of Alaska the same measure of legal self-government that was given to other American territories, and that Federal officials appointed there shall be qualified by previous bona-fide residence in the Territory.
WATERWAYS
The rivers of the United States are the natural arteries of this continent. We demand that they shall be opened to traffic as indispensable parts of a great Nation-wide system of transportation, in which the Panama Canal will be the central link, thus enabling the whole interior of the United States to share with the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards in the benefit derived from the canal.
It is a National obligation to develop our rivers, and especially the Mississippi and its tributaries, without delay, under a comprehensive general plan covering each river system from its source to its mouth, designed to secure its highest usefulness for navigation, irrigation, domestic supply, water power and the prevention of floods.
We pledge our party to the immediate preparation of such a plan, which should be made and carried out in close and friendly co-operation between the Nation, the States and the cities affected.
Under such a plan, the destructive floods of the Mississippi and other streams, which represent a vast and needless loss to the Nation, would be controlled by forest conservation and water storage at the headwaters, and by levees below; land sufficient to support millions of people would be reclaimed from the deserts and the swamps, water power enough to transform the industrial standings of whole States would be developed, adequate water terminals would be provided, transportation by river would revive, and the railroads would be compelled to co-operate as freely with the boat lines as with each other.
The equipment, organization and experience acquired in constructing the Panama Canal soon will be available for the Lakes-to-the-Gulf deep waterway and other portions of this great work, and should be utilized by the Nation in co-operation with the various States, at the lowest net cost to the people.
PANAMA CANAL
The Panama Canal, built and paid for by the American people, must be used primarily for their benefit.
We demand that the canal shall be so operated as to break the transportation monopoly now held and misused by the transcontinental railroads by maintaining sea competition with them; that ships directly or indirectly owned or controlled by American railroad corporations shall not be permitted to use the canal, and that American ships engaged in coastwise trade shall pay no tolls.
The Progressive party will favor legislation having for its aim the development of friendship and commerce between the United States and Latin-American nations.
TARIFF
We believe in a protective tariff which shall equalize conditions of competition between the United States and foreign countries, both for the farmer and the manufacturer, and which shall maintain for labor an adequate standard of living.
Primarily the benefit of any tariff should be disclosed in the pay envelope of the laborer. We declare that no industry deserves protection which is unfair to labor or which is operating in violation of Federal law. We believe that the presumption is always in favor of the consuming public.
We demand tariff revision because the present tariff is unjust to the people of the United States. Fair dealing toward the people requires an immediate downward revision of those schedules wherein duties are shown to be unjust or excessive.
We pledge ourselves to the establishment of a non-partisan scientific tariff commission, reporting both to the President and to either branch of Congress, which shall report, first, as to the costs of production, efficiency of labor, capitalization, industrial organization and efficiency and the general competitive position in this country and abroad of industries seeking protection from Congress; second, as to the revenue producing power of the tariff and its relation to the resources of Government; and, third, as to the effect of the tariff on prices, operations of middlemen, and on the purchasing power of the consumer.
We believe that this commission should have plenary power to elicit information, and for this purpose to prescribe a uniform system of accounting for the great protected industries. The work of the commission should not prevent the immediate adoption of acts reducing these schedules generally recognized as excessive.
We condemn the Payne-Aldrich bill as unjust to the people. The Republican organization is in the hands of those who have broken, and cannot again be trusted to keep, the promise of necessary downward revision.
The Democratic party is committed to the destruction of the protective system through a tariff for revenue only a policy which would inevitably produce widespread industrial and commercial disaster.
We demand the immediate repeal of the Canadian Reciprocity Act.
INHERITANCE AND INCOME TAX
We believe in a graduated inheritance tax as a National means of equalizing the obligations of holders of property to Government, and we hereby pledge our party to enact such a Federal law as will tax large inheritances, returning to the States an equitable percentage of all amounts collected.
We favor the ratification of the pending amendment to the Constitution giving the Government power to levy an income tax.
PEACE AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
The Progressive party deplores the survival in our civilization of the barbaric system of warfare among nations with its enormous waste of resources even in time of peace, and the consequent impoverishment of the life of the toiling masses. We pledge the party to use its best endeavors to substitute judicial and other peaceful means of settling international differences.
We favor an international agreement for the limitation of naval forces. Pending such an agreement, and as the best means of preserving peace, we pledge ourselves to maintain for the present the policy of building two battleships a year.
TREATY RIGHTS
We pledge our party to protect the rights of American citizenship at home and abroad. No treaty should receive the sanction of our Government which discriminates between American citizens because of birthplace, race, or religion, or that does not recognize the absolute right of expatriation.
THE IMMIGRANT
Through the establishment of industrial standards we propose to secure to the able-bodied immigrant and to his native fellow workers a larger share of American opportunity.
We denounce the fatal policy of indifference and neglect which has left our enormous immigrant population to become the prey of chance and cupidity.
We favor Governmental action to encourage the distribution of immigrants away from the congested cities, to rigidly supervise all private agencies dealing with them and to promote their assimilation, education and advancement.
PENSIONS
We pledge ourselves to a wise and just policy of pensioning American soldiers and sailors and their widows and children by the Federal Government. And we approve the policy of the southern States in granting pensions to the ex-Confederate soldiers and sailors and their widows and children.
PARCEL POST
We pledge our party to the immediate creation of a parcel post, with rates proportionate to distance and service.
CIVIL SERVICE
We condemn the violations of the Civil Service Law under the present administration, including the coercion and assessment of subordinate employees, and the President’s refusal to punish such violation after a finding of guilty by his own commission; his distribution of patronage among subservient congressmen, while withholding it from those who refuse support of administration measures; his withdrawal of nominations from the Senate until political support for himself was secured, and his open use of the offices to reward those who voted for his re-nomination.
To eradicate these abuses, we demand not only the enforcement of the civil service act in letter and spirit, but also legislation which will bring under the competitive system postmasters, collectors, marshals, and all other non-political officers, as well as the enactment of an equitable retirement law, and we also insist upon continuous service during good behavior and efficiency.
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ORGANIZATION
We pledge our party to readjustment of the business methods of the National Government and a proper co-ordination of the Federal bureaus, which will increase the economy and efficiency of the Government service, prevent duplications, and secure better results to the taxpayers for every dollar expended.
The Progressive party will favor legislation having for its aim the development of friendship and commerce between the United States and Latin-American nations.
TARIFF
We believe in a protective tariff which shall equalize conditions of competition between the United States and foreign countries, both for the farmer and the manufacturer, and which shall maintain for labor an adequate standard of living.
Primarily the benefit of any tariff should be disclosed in the pay envelope of the laborer. We declare that no industry deserves protection which is unfair to labor or which is operating in violation of Federal law. We believe that the presumption is always in favor of the consuming public.
We demand tariff revision because the present tariff is unjust to the people of the United States. Fair dealing toward the people requires an immediate downward revision of those schedules wherein duties are shown to be unjust or excessive.
We pledge ourselves to the establishment of a non-partisan scientific tariff commission, reporting both to the President and to either branch of Congress, which shall report, first, as to the costs of production, efficiency of labor, capitalization, industrial organization and efficiency and the general competitive position in this country and abroad of industries seeking protection from Congress; second, as to the revenue producing power of the tariff and its relation to the resources of Government; and, third, as to the effect of the tariff on prices, operations of middlemen, and on the purchasing power of the consumer.
We believe that this commission should have plenary power to elicit information, and for this purpose to prescribe a uniform system of accounting for the great protected industries. The work of the commission should not prevent the immediate adoption of acts reducing these schedules generally recognized as excessive.
We condemn the Payne-Aldrich bill as unjust to the people. The Republican organization is in the hands of those who have broken, and cannot again be trusted to keep, the promise of necessary downward revision.
The Democratic party is committed to the destruction of the protective system through a tariff for revenue only a policy which would inevitably produce widespread industrial and commercial disaster.
We demand the immediate repeal of the Canadian Reciprocity Act.
INHERITANCE AND INCOME TAX
We believe in a graduated inheritance tax as a National means of equalizing the obligations of holders of property to Government, and we hereby pledge our party to enact such a Federal law as will tax large inheritances, returning to the States an equitable percentage of all amounts collected.
We favor the ratification of the pending amendment to the Constitution giving the Government power to levy an income tax.
PEACE AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
The Progressive party deplores the survival in our civilization of the barbaric system of warfare among nations with its enormous waste of resources even in time of peace, and the consequent impoverishment of the life of the toiling masses. We pledge the party to use its best endeavors to substitute judicial and other peaceful means of settling international differences.
We favor an international agreement for the limitation of naval forces. Pending such an agreement, and as the best means of preserving peace, we pledge ourselves to maintain for the present the policy of building two battleships a year.
TREATY RIGHTS
We pledge our party to protect the rights of American citizenship at home and abroad. No treaty should receive the sanction of our Government which discriminates between American citizens because of birthplace, race, or religion, or that does not recognize the absolute right of expatriation.
THE IMMIGRANT
Through the establishment of industrial standards we propose to secure to the able-bodied immigrant and to his native fellow workers a larger share of American opportunity.
We denounce the fatal policy of indifference and neglect which has left our enormous immigrant population to become the prey of chance and cupidity.
We favor Governmental action to encourage the distribution of immigrants away from the congested cities, to rigidly supervise all private agencies dealing with them and to promote their assimilation, education and advancement.
PENSIONS
We pledge ourselves to a wise and just policy of pensioning American soldiers and sailors and their widows and children by the Federal Government. And we approve the policy of the southern States in granting pensions to the ex-Confederate soldiers and sailors and their widows and children.
PARCEL POST
We pledge our party to the immediate creation of a parcel post, with rates proportionate to distance and service.
CIVIL SERVICE
We condemn the violations of the Civil Service Law under the present administration, including the coercion and assessment of subordinate employees, and the President’s refusal to punish such violation after a finding of guilty by his own commission; his distribution of patronage among subservient congressmen, while withholding it from those who refuse support of administration measures; his withdrawal of nominations from the Senate until political support for himself was secured, and his open use of the offices to reward those who voted for his re-nomination.
To eradicate these abuses, we demand not only the enforcement of the civil service act in letter and spirit, but also legislation which will bring under the competitive system postmasters, collectors, marshals, and all other non-political officers, as well as the enactment of an equitable retirement law, and we also insist upon continuous service during good behavior and efficiency.
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ORGANIZATION
We pledge our party to readjustment of the business methods of the National Government and a proper co-ordination of the Federal bureaus, which will increase the economy and efficiency of the Government service, prevent duplications, and secure better results to the taxpayers for every dollar expended.
GOVERNMENT SUPERVISION OVER INVESTMENTS
The people of the United States are swindled out of many millions of dollars every year, through worthless investments. The plain people, the wage earner and the men and women with small savings, have no way of knowing the merit of concerns sending out highly colored prospectuses offering stock for sale, prospectuses that make big returns seem certain and fortunes easily within grasp.
We hold it to be the duty of the Government to protect its people from this kind of piracy. We, therefore, demand wise, carefully thought out legislation that will give us such Governmental supervision over this matter as will furnish to the people of the United States this much-needed protection, and we pledge ourselves thereto.
CONCLUSION
On these principles and on the recognized desirability of uniting the Progressive forces of the Nation into an organization which shall unequivocally represent the Progressive spirit and policy we appeal for the support of all American citizens, without regard to previous political affiliations.
Additional Note:
Pay attention to Madison's words used when describing PROPERTY
Amendment 5 - Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life...; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
It would seem certain that money is property and income is money so therefore - using a variable rate "progressive" system is a clear violation of the "TAKING CLAUSE".
The act of government taking for redistribution would require them paying "JUST COMPENSATION." This would clearly end income tax as we know it. Another reason for repealing the 16th amendment.
Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man’s house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man’s conscience, which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection for which the public faith is pledged by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact. – “Property” in The National Gazette (29 March 1792) James Madison
I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. – Annals of Congress (1794-01-10) James Madison
SOURCE LINK For Additional Note:
https://api.ning.com/files/ZwIi6Kh8TRM8S9mWCh1jVDneJsVihpTmHoGWsswEE..
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Please take time to read this rather long Progressive party platform. It clearly shows that the Progressive Socialists have been following the script for over one hundred years. They never gave up and when stalled they gave new word meanings to define who and what they were.
Again, I apologize for the length but it is the war plan we are now fighting. Thank you for reading.
LockPROGRESSIVESMost of the down hill slide on American Freedoms, States rights, and Liberty Started with Teddy Roosevelt - a Republican PROGRESSIVE - then was furthered with Wilson and increased by FDR. The final blows to our Freedoms and Liberties came from LBJ and the War on Poverty - the GREAT SOCIETY . . every Congress and every President since then has added Liberty destroying laws - the EPA, IRS, DOE, FDA, Clean Air and water Act, limits on land use, locking up natural resources. Regulating foods, paint, farming, driving, flying, shipping [Jones act = must be UNION ship], Davis Bacon Act [Requires Union pay on all government construction sites].
It is not the parties it is the desire for more and more power from all of the POLITICAL CLASS - stop passing new laws that can not and will not be enforced. Gun controls are silly it a nut case wants to kill nothing but a well placed piece of lead will stop them. The problem can not be stopped a new law against criminals - they are already criminals so what is going to keep guns out of their hands - answer - NOTHING.
1912 PROGRESSIVE PLATFORM - WHAT THE MODERN PROGRESSIVE IS ABOUT?
This will show all what Progressives really have in mind for America and our way of life. They accomplished a lot of their goals; they are still fighting for some items. Pay attention to the fact that they want to make it easier for the Constitution to be changed {by general vote as in a true Democracy?}
Progressive Platform of 1912
The conscience of the people, in a time of grave national problems, has called into being a new party, born of the nation’s sense of justice. We of the Progressive party here dedicate ourselves to the fulfillment of the duty laid upon us by our fathers to maintain the government of the people, by the people and for the people whose foundations they laid.
We hold with Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln that the people are the masters of their Constitution, to fulfill its purposes and to safeguard it from those who, by perversion of its intent, would convert it into an instrument of injustice. In accordance with the needs of each generation the people must use their sovereign powers to establish and maintain equal opportunity and industrial justice, to secure which this Government was founded and without which no republic can endure.
This country belongs to the people who inhabit it. Its resources, its business, its institutions and its laws should be utilized, maintained or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.
It is time to set the public welfare in the first place.
THE OLD PARTIES
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.
From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
The deliberate betrayal of its trust by the Republican party, the fatal incapacity of the Democratic party to deal with the new issues of the new time, have compelled the people to forge a new instrument of government through which to give effect to their will in laws and institutions.
Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, undismayed by the magnitude of the task, the new party offers itself as the instrument of the people to sweep away old abuses, to build a new and nobler commonwealth.
A COVENANT WITH THE PEOPLE
This declaration is our covenant with the people, and we hereby bind the party and its candidates in State and Nation to the pledges made herein.
THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE
The National Progressive party, committed to the principles of government by a self-controlled democracy expressing its will through representatives of the people, pledges itself to secure such alterations in the fundamental law of the several States and of the United States as shall insure the representative character of the government.
In particular, the party declares for direct primaries for the nomination of State and National officers, for nation-wide preferential primaries for candidates for the presidency; for the direct election of United States Senators by the people; and we urge on the States the policy of the short ballot, with responsibility to the people secured by the initiative, referendum and recall.
AMENDMENT OF CONSTITUTION
The Progressive party, believing that a free people should have the power from time to time to amend their fundamental law so as to adapt it progressively to the changing needs of the people, pledges itself to provide a more easy and expeditious method of amending the Federal Constitution.
NATION AND STATE
Up to the limit of the Constitution, and later by amendment of the Constitution, it found necessary, we advocate bringing under effective national jurisdiction those problems which have expanded beyond reach of the individual States.
It is as grotesque as it is intolerable that the several States should by unequal laws in matter of common concern become competing commercial agencies, barter the lives of their children, the health of their women and the safety and well-being of their working people for the benefit of their financial interests.
The extreme insistence on States’ rights by the Democratic party in the Baltimore platform demonstrates anew its inability to understand the world into which it has survived or to administer the affairs of a union of States which have in all essential respects become one people.
EQUAL SUFFRAGE
The Progressive party, believing that no people can justly claim to be a true democracy which denies political rights on account of sex, pledges itself to the task of securing equal suffrage to men and women alike.
CORRUPT PRACTICES
We pledge our party to legislation that will compel strict limitation of all campaign contributions and expenditures, and detailed publicity of both before as well as after primaries and elections.
PUBLICITY AND PUBLIC SERVICE
We pledge our party to legislation compelling the registration of lobbyists; publicity of committee hearings except on foreign affairs, and recording of all votes in committee; and forbidding federal appointees from holding office in State or National political organizations, or taking part as officers or delegates in political conventions for the nomination of elective State or National officials.
THE COURTS
The Progressive party demands such restriction of the power of the courts as shall leave to the people the ultimate authority to determine fundamental questions of social welfare and public policy. To secure this end, it pledges itself to provide:
1. That when an Act, passed under the police power of the State is held unconstitutional under the State Constitution, by the courts, the people, after an ample interval for deliberation, shall have an opportunity to vote on the question whether they desire the Act to become law, notwithstanding such decision.
2. That every decision of the highest appellate court of a State declaring an Act of the Legislature unconstitutional on the ground of its violation of the Federal Constitution shall be subject to the same review by the Supreme Court of the United States as is now accorded to decisions sustaining such legislation.
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
The Progressive party, in order to secure to the people a better administration of justice and by that means to bring about a more general respect for the law and the courts, pledges itself to work unceasingly for the reform of legal procedure and judicial methods.
We believe that the issuance of injunctions in cases arising out of labor disputes should be prohibited when such injunctions would not apply when no labor disputes existed.
We also believe that a person cited for contempt in labor disputes, except when such contempt was committed in the actual presence of the court or so near thereto as to interfere with the proper administration of justice, should have a right to trial by jury.
SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL JUSTICE
The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in State and Nation for:
Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial accidents, occupational diseases, overwork, involuntary unemployment, and other injurious effects incident to modern industry;
The fixing of minimum safety and health standards for the various occupations, and the exercise of the public authority of State and Nation, including the Federal Control over interstate commerce, and the taxing power, to maintain such standards;
The prohibition of child labor; Minimum wage standards for working women, to provide a "living wage" in all industrial occupations; The general prohibition of night work for women and the establishment of an eight hour day for women and young persons; One day’s rest in seven for all wage workers; The eight hour day in continuous twenty-four hour industries; The abolition of the convict contract labor system; substituting a system of prison production for governmental consumption only; and the application of prisoners’ earnings to the support of their dependent families; Publicity as to wages, hours and conditions of labor; full reports upon industrial accidents and diseases, and the opening to public inspection of all tallies, weights, measures and check systems on labor products; Standards of compensation for death by industrial accident and injury and trade disease which will transfer the burden of lost earnings from the families of working people to the industry, and thus to the community; The protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use; The development of the creative labor power of America by lifting the last load of illiteracy from American youth and establishing continuation schools for industrial education under public control and encouraging agricultural education and demonstration in rural schools; The establishment of industrial research laboratories to put the methods and discoveries of science at the service of American producers; We favor the organization of the workers, men and women, as a means of protecting their interests and of promoting their progress.
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
We pledge our party to establish a department of labor with a seat in the cabinet, and with wide jurisdiction over matters affecting the conditions of labor and living.
COUNTRY LIFE
The development and prosperity of country life are as important to the people who live in the cities as they are to the farmers. Increase of prosperity on the farm will favorably affect the cost of living, and promote the interests of all who dwell in the country, and all who depend upon its products for clothing, shelter and food.
We pledge our party to foster the development of agricultural credit and co-operation, the teaching of agriculture in schools, agricultural college extension, the use of mechanical power on the farm, and to re-establish the Country Life Commission, thus directly promoting the welfare of the farmers, and bringing the benefits of better farming, better business and better living within their reach.
HIGH COST OF LIVING
The high cost of living is due partly to worldwide and partly to local causes; partly to natural and partly to artificial causes. The measures proposed in this platform on various subjects such as the tariff, the trusts and conservation, will of themselves remove the artificial causes.
There will remain other elements such as the tendency to leave the country for the city, waste, extravagance, bad system of taxation, poor methods of raising crops and bad business methods in marketing crops.
To remedy these conditions requires the fullest information and based on this information, effective government supervision and control to remove all the artificial causes. We pledge ourselves to such full and immediate inquiry and to immediate action to deal with every need such inquiry discloses.
HEALTH
We favor the union of all the existing agencies of the Federal Government dealing with the public health into a single national health service without discrimination against or for any one set of therapeutic methods, school of medicine, or school of healing with such additional powers as may be necessary to enable it to perform efficiently such duties in the protection of the public from preventable diseases as may be properly undertaken by the Federal authorities, including the executing of existing laws regarding pure food, quarantine and cognate subjects, the promotion of vital statistics and the extension of the registration area of such statistics, and co-operation with the health activities of the various States and cities of the Nation.
BUSINESS
We believe that true popular government, justice and prosperity go hand in hand, and, so believing, it is our purpose to secure that large measure of general prosperity which is the fruit of legitimate and honest business, fostered by equal justice and by sound progressive laws.
We demand that the test of true prosperity shall be the benefits conferred thereby on all the citizens, not confined to individuals or classes, and that the test of corporate efficiency shall be the ability better to serve the public; that those who profit by control of business affairs shall justify that profit and that control by sharing with the public the fruits thereof.
We therefore demand a strong National regulation of inter-State corporations. The corporation is an essential part of modern business. The concentration of modem business, in some degree, is both inevitable and necessary for national and international business efficiency. But the existing concentration of vast wealth under a corporate system, unguarded and uncontrolled by the Nation, has placed in the hands of a few men enormous, secret, irresponsible power over the daily life of the citizen; a power insufferable in a free Government and certain of abuse.
This power has been abused, in monopoly of National resources, in stock watering, in unfair competition and unfair privileges, and finally in sinister influences on the public agencies of State and Nation. We do not fear commercial power, but we insist that it shall be exercised openly, under publicity, supervision and regulation of the most efficient sort, which will preserve its good while eradicating and preventing its ill.
To that end we urge the establishment of a strong Federal administrative commission of high standing, which shall maintain permanent active supervision over industrial corporations engaged in inter-State commerce, or such of them as are of public importance, doing for them what the Government now does for the National banks, and what is now done for the railroads by the Inter-State Commerce Commission.
Such a commission must enforce the complete publicity of those corporation transactions which are of public interest; must attack unfair competition, false capitalization and special privilege, and by continuous trained watchfulness guard and keep open equally all the highways of American commerce.
Thus the business man will have certain knowledge of the law, and will be able to conduct his business easily in conformity therewith; the investor will find security for his capital; dividends will be rendered more certain, and the savings of the people will be drawn naturally and safely into the channels of trade.
Under such a system of constructive regulation, legitimate business, freed from confusion, uncertainty and fruitless litigation will develop normally in response to the energy and enterprise of the American business man.
We favor strengthening the Sherman Law by prohibiting agreement to divide territory or limit output; refusing to sell to customers who buy from business rivals; to sell below cost in certain areas while maintaining higher prices in other places; using the power of transportation to aid or injure special business concerns; and other unfair trade practices.
PATENTS
We pledge ourselves to the enactment of a patent law which will make it impossible for patents to be suppressed or used against the public welfare in the interests of injurious monopolies.
INTER-STATE COMMERCE COMMISSION
We pledge our party to secure to the Inter-State Commerce Commission the power to value the physical property of railroads. In order that the power of the commission to protect the people may not be impaired or destroyed, we demand the abolition of the Commerce Court.
CURRENCY
We believe there exists imperative need for prompt legislation for the improvement of our National currency system. We believe the present method of issuing notes through private agencies is harmful and unscientific.
The issue of currency is fundamentally a Government function and the system should have as basic principles soundness and elasticity. The control should be lodged with the Government and should be protected from domination or manipulation by Wall Street or any special interests.
We are opposed to the so-called Aldrich currency bill, because its provisions would place our currency and credit system in private hands, not subject to effective public control.
COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT
The time has come when the Federal Government should co-operate with manufacturers and producers in extending our foreign commerce. To this end we demand adequate appropriations by Congress, and the appointment of diplomatic and consular officers solely with a view to their special fitness and worth, and not in consideration of political expediency.
It is imperative to the welfare of our people that we enlarge and extend our foreign commerce.
In every way possible our Federal Government should co-operate in this important matter. Germany’s policy of co-operation between government and business has, in comparatively few years, made that nation a leading competitor for the commerce of the world.
CONSERVATION
The natural resources of the Nation must be promptly developed and generously used to supply the people’s needs, but we cannot safely allow them to be wasted, exploited, monopolized or controlled against the general good. We heartily favor the policy of conservation, and we pledge our party to protect the National forests without hindering their legitimate use for the benefit of all the people.
Agricultural lands in the National forests are, and should remain, open to the genuine settler. Conservation will not retard legitimate development. The honest settler must receive his patent promptly, without hindrance, rules or delays.
We believe that the remaining forests, coal and oil lands, water powers and other natural resources still in State or National control (except agricultural lands) are more likely to be wisely conserved and utilized for the general welfare if held in the public hands.
In order that consumers and producers, managers and workmen, now and hereafter, need not pay toll to private monopolies of power and raw material, we demand that such resources shall be retained by the State or Nation, and opened to immediate use under laws which will encourage development and make to the people a moderate return for benefits conferred.
In particular we pledge our party to require reasonable compensation to the public for water power rights hereafter granted by the public.
We pledge legislation to lease the public grazing lands under equitable provisions now pending which will increase the production of food for the people and thoroughly safeguard the rights of the actual homemaker. Natural resources, whose conservation is necessary for the National welfare, should be owned or controlled by the Nation.
GOOD ROADS
We recognize the vital importance of good roads and we pledge our party to foster their extension in every proper way, and we favor the early construction of National highways. We also favor the extension of the rural free delivery service.
ALASKA
The coal and other natural resources of Alaska should be opened to development at once. They are owned by the people of the United States, and are safe from monopoly, waste or destruction only while so owned.
We demand that they shall neither be sold nor given away, except under the Homestead Law, but while held in Government ownership shall be opened to use promptly upon liberal terms requiring immediate development.
Thus the benefit of cheap fuel will accrue to the Government of the United States and to the people of Alaska and the Pacific Coast; the settlement of extensive agricultural lands will be hastened; the extermination of the salmon will be prevented and the just and wise development of Alaskan resources will take the place of private extortion or monopoly.
We demand also that extortion or monopoly in transportation shall be prevented by the prompt acquisition, construction or improvement by the Government of such railroads, harbor and other facilities for transportation as the welfare of the people may demand.
We promise the people of the Territory of Alaska the same measure of legal self-government that was given to other American territories, and that Federal officials appointed there shall be qualified by previous bona-fide residence in the Territory.
WATERWAYS
The rivers of the United States are the natural arteries of this continent. We demand that they shall be opened to traffic as indispensable parts of a great Nation-wide system of transportation, in which the Panama Canal will be the central link, thus enabling the whole interior of the United States to share with the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards in the benefit derived from the canal.
It is a National obligation to develop our rivers, and especially the Mississippi and its tributaries, without delay, under a comprehensive general plan covering each river system from its source to its mouth, designed to secure its highest usefulness for navigation, irrigation, domestic supply, water power and the prevention of floods.
We pledge our party to the immediate preparation of such a plan, which should be made and carried out in close and friendly co-operation between the Nation, the States and the cities affected.
Under such a plan, the destructive floods of the Mississippi and other streams, which represent a vast and needless loss to the Nation, would be controlled by forest conservation and water storage at the headwaters, and by levees below; land sufficient to support millions of people would be reclaimed from the deserts and the swamps, water power enough to transform the industrial standings of whole States would be developed, adequate water terminals would be provided, transportation by river would revive, and the railroads would be compelled to co-operate as freely with the boat lines as with each other.
The equipment, organization and experience acquired in constructing the Panama Canal soon will be available for the Lakes-to-the-Gulf deep waterway and other portions of this great work, and should be utilized by the Nation in co-operation with the various States, at the lowest net cost to the people.
PANAMA CANAL
The Panama Canal, built and paid for by the American people, must be used primarily for their benefit.
We demand that the canal shall be so operated as to break the transportation monopoly now held and misused by the transcontinental railroads by maintaining sea competition with them; that ships directly or indirectly owned or controlled by American railroad corporations shall not be permitted to use the canal, and that American ships engaged in coastwise trade shall pay no tolls.
The Progressive party will favor legislation having for its aim the development of friendship and commerce between the United States and Latin-American nations.
TARIFF
We believe in a protective tariff which shall equalize conditions of competition between the United States and foreign countries, both for the farmer and the manufacturer, and which shall maintain for labor an adequate standard of living.
Primarily the benefit of any tariff should be disclosed in the pay envelope of the laborer. We declare that no industry deserves protection which is unfair to labor or which is operating in violation of Federal law. We believe that the presumption is always in favor of the consuming public.
We demand tariff revision because the present tariff is unjust to the people of the United States. Fair dealing toward the people requires an immediate downward revision of those schedules wherein duties are shown to be unjust or excessive.
We pledge ourselves to the establishment of a non-partisan scientific tariff commission, reporting both to the President and to either branch of Congress, which shall report, first, as to the costs of production, efficiency of labor, capitalization, industrial organization and efficiency and the general competitive position in this country and abroad of industries seeking protection from Congress; second, as to the revenue producing power of the tariff and its relation to the resources of Government; and, third, as to the effect of the tariff on prices, operations of middlemen, and on the purchasing power of the consumer.
We believe that this commission should have plenary power to elicit information, and for this purpose to prescribe a uniform system of accounting for the great protected industries. The work of the commission should not prevent the immediate adoption of acts reducing these schedules generally recognized as excessive.
We condemn the Payne-Aldrich bill as unjust to the people. The Republican organization is in the hands of those who have broken, and cannot again be trusted to keep, the promise of necessary downward revision.
The Democratic party is committed to the destruction of the protective system through a tariff for revenue only a policy which would inevitably produce widespread industrial and commercial disaster.
We demand the immediate repeal of the Canadian Reciprocity Act.
INHERITANCE AND INCOME TAX
We believe in a graduated inheritance tax as a National means of equalizing the obligations of holders of property to Government, and we hereby pledge our party to enact such a Federal law as will tax large inheritances, returning to the States an equitable percentage of all amounts collected.
We favor the ratification of the pending amendment to the Constitution giving the Government power to levy an income tax.
PEACE AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
The Progressive party deplores the survival in our civilization of the barbaric system of warfare among nations with its enormous waste of resources even in time of peace, and the consequent impoverishment of the life of the toiling masses. We pledge the party to use its best endeavors to substitute judicial and other peaceful means of settling international differences.
We favor an international agreement for the limitation of naval forces. Pending such an agreement, and as the best means of preserving peace, we pledge ourselves to maintain for the present the policy of building two battleships a year.
TREATY RIGHTS
We pledge our party to protect the rights of American citizenship at home and abroad. No treaty should receive the sanction of our Government which discriminates between American citizens because of birthplace, race, or religion, or that does not recognize the absolute right of expatriation.
THE IMMIGRANT
Through the establishment of industrial standards we propose to secure to the able-bodied immigrant and to his native fellow workers a larger share of American opportunity.
We denounce the fatal policy of indifference and neglect which has left our enormous immigrant population to become the prey of chance and cupidity.
We favor Governmental action to encourage the distribution of immigrants away from the congested cities, to rigidly supervise all private agencies dealing with them and to promote their assimilation, education and advancement.
PENSIONS
We pledge ourselves to a wise and just policy of pensioning American soldiers and sailors and their widows and children by the Federal Government. And we approve the policy of the southern States in granting pensions to the ex-Confederate soldiers and sailors and their widows and children.
PARCEL POST
We pledge our party to the immediate creation of a parcel post, with rates proportionate to distance and service.
CIVIL SERVICE
We condemn the violations of the Civil Service Law under the present administration, including the coercion and assessment of subordinate employees, and the President’s refusal to punish such violation after a finding of guilty by his own commission; his distribution of patronage among subservient congressmen, while withholding it from those who refuse support of administration measures; his withdrawal of nominations from the Senate until political support for himself was secured, and his open use of the offices to reward those who voted for his re-nomination.
To eradicate these abuses, we demand not only the enforcement of the civil service act in letter and spirit, but also legislation which will bring under the competitive system postmasters, collectors, marshals, and all other non-political officers, as well as the enactment of an equitable retirement law, and we also insist upon continuous service during good behavior and efficiency.
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ORGANIZATION
We pledge our party to readjustment of the business methods of the National Government and a proper co-ordination of the Federal bureaus, which will increase the economy and efficiency of the Government service, prevent duplications, and secure better results to the taxpayers for every dollar expended.
The Progressive party will favor legislation having for its aim the development of friendship and commerce between the United States and Latin-American nations.
TARIFF
We believe in a protective tariff which shall equalize conditions of competition between the United States and foreign countries, both for the farmer and the manufacturer, and which shall maintain for labor an adequate standard of living.
Primarily the benefit of any tariff should be disclosed in the pay envelope of the laborer. We declare that no industry deserves protection which is unfair to labor or which is operating in violation of Federal law. We believe that the presumption is always in favor of the consuming public.
We demand tariff revision because the present tariff is unjust to the people of the United States. Fair dealing toward the people requires an immediate downward revision of those schedules wherein duties are shown to be unjust or excessive.
We pledge ourselves to the establishment of a non-partisan scientific tariff commission, reporting both to the President and to either branch of Congress, which shall report, first, as to the costs of production, efficiency of labor, capitalization, industrial organization and efficiency and the general competitive position in this country and abroad of industries seeking protection from Congress; second, as to the revenue producing power of the tariff and its relation to the resources of Government; and, third, as to the effect of the tariff on prices, operations of middlemen, and on the purchasing power of the consumer.
We believe that this commission should have plenary power to elicit information, and for this purpose to prescribe a uniform system of accounting for the great protected industries. The work of the commission should not prevent the immediate adoption of acts reducing these schedules generally recognized as excessive.
We condemn the Payne-Aldrich bill as unjust to the people. The Republican organization is in the hands of those who have broken, and cannot again be trusted to keep, the promise of necessary downward revision.
The Democratic party is committed to the destruction of the protective system through a tariff for revenue only a policy which would inevitably produce widespread industrial and commercial disaster.
We demand the immediate repeal of the Canadian Reciprocity Act.
INHERITANCE AND INCOME TAX
We believe in a graduated inheritance tax as a National means of equalizing the obligations of holders of property to Government, and we hereby pledge our party to enact such a Federal law as will tax large inheritances, returning to the States an equitable percentage of all amounts collected.
We favor the ratification of the pending amendment to the Constitution giving the Government power to levy an income tax.
PEACE AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
The Progressive party deplores the survival in our civilization of the barbaric system of warfare among nations with its enormous waste of resources even in time of peace, and the consequent impoverishment of the life of the toiling masses. We pledge the party to use its best endeavors to substitute judicial and other peaceful means of settling international differences.
We favor an international agreement for the limitation of naval forces. Pending such an agreement, and as the best means of preserving peace, we pledge ourselves to maintain for the present the policy of building two battleships a year.
TREATY RIGHTS
We pledge our party to protect the rights of American citizenship at home and abroad. No treaty should receive the sanction of our Government which discriminates between American citizens because of birthplace, race, or religion, or that does not recognize the absolute right of expatriation.
THE IMMIGRANT
Through the establishment of industrial standards we propose to secure to the able-bodied immigrant and to his native fellow workers a larger share of American opportunity.
We denounce the fatal policy of indifference and neglect which has left our enormous immigrant population to become the prey of chance and cupidity.
We favor Governmental action to encourage the distribution of immigrants away from the congested cities, to rigidly supervise all private agencies dealing with them and to promote their assimilation, education and advancement.
PENSIONS
We pledge ourselves to a wise and just policy of pensioning American soldiers and sailors and their widows and children by the Federal Government. And we approve the policy of the southern States in granting pensions to the ex-Confederate soldiers and sailors and their widows and children.
PARCEL POST
We pledge our party to the immediate creation of a parcel post, with rates proportionate to distance and service.
CIVIL SERVICE
We condemn the violations of the Civil Service Law under the present administration, including the coercion and assessment of subordinate employees, and the President’s refusal to punish such violation after a finding of guilty by his own commission; his distribution of patronage among subservient congressmen, while withholding it from those who refuse support of administration measures; his withdrawal of nominations from the Senate until political support for himself was secured, and his open use of the offices to reward those who voted for his re-nomination.
To eradicate these abuses, we demand not only the enforcement of the civil service act in letter and spirit, but also legislation which will bring under the competitive system postmasters, collectors, marshals, and all other non-political officers, as well as the enactment of an equitable retirement law, and we also insist upon continuous service during good behavior and efficiency.
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ORGANIZATION
We pledge our party to readjustment of the business methods of the National Government and a proper co-ordination of the Federal bureaus, which will increase the economy and efficiency of the Government service, prevent duplications, and secure better results to the taxpayers for every dollar expended.
GOVERNMENT SUPERVISION OVER INVESTMENTS
The people of the United States are swindled out of many millions of dollars every year, through worthless investments. The plain people, the wage earner and the men and women with small savings, have no way of knowing the merit of concerns sending out highly colored prospectuses offering stock for sale, prospectuses that make big returns seem certain and fortunes easily within grasp.
We hold it to be the duty of the Government to protect its people from this kind of piracy. We, therefore, demand wise, carefully thought out legislation that will give us such Governmental supervision over this matter as will furnish to the people of the United States this much-needed protection, and we pledge ourselves thereto.
CONCLUSION
On these principles and on the recognized desirability of uniting the Progressive forces of the Nation into an organization which shall unequivocally represent the Progressive spirit and policy we appeal for the support of all American citizens, without regard to previous political affiliations.
Additional Note:
Pay attention to Madison's words used when describing PROPERTY
Amendment 5 - Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life...; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
It would seem certain that money is property and income is money so therefore - using a variable rate "progressive" system is a clear violation of the "TAKING CLAUSE".
The act of government taking for redistribution would require them paying "JUST COMPENSATION." This would clearly end income tax as we know it. Another reason for repealing the 16th amendment.
Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man’s house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man’s conscience, which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection for which the public faith is pledged by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact. – “Property” in The National Gazette (29 March 1792) James Madison
I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. – Annals of Congress (1794-01-10) James Madison
SOURCE LINK For Additional Note:
https://api.ning.com/files/ZwIi6Kh8TRM8S9mWCh1jVDneJsVihpTmHoGWsswEE..
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Convulsions Re: BREXIT & The Struggle For The Western Nation
Convulsions over BREXIT and the struggle for the Western Nation
Theresa May’s Conservative government is at odds with Parliament. The majority of MPs want Britain to remain in the European Union and so are at odds with their Brexit-majority voters.
By Melanie Phillips, JPOST
The West is convulsing as a new world order struggles to be born. Nowhere is that convulsion currently proving more agonizing and potentially catastrophic than in the United Kingdom.
The fundamental division is between, on the one hand, nationalists who want to defend the nation and its core values and, on the other, those who believe these must be superseded by trans-national institutions and laws.
In the first camp are millions of ordinary people throughout the West in revolt against the steady undermining of their countries and cultures, alongside the nations of Eastern Europe, Israel, and Donald Trump’s America.
In the opposing camp are the intelligentsia who loathe and despise the ordinary people, alongside Western Europe’s political establishment, the radical Islamic world, and all who want to destroy Donald Trump’s vision for America.
In Britain, this titanic civilizational battle has produced a political and constitutional crisis over Brexit that threatens to break the country apart.
Theresa May’s Conservative government is at odds with Parliament. The majority of MPs want Britain to remain in the European Union and so are at odds with their Brexit-majority voters. And virtually the entire country is in a state of war with itself.
Both “Remainers” and “Brexiteers,” however, are united on one thing: opposition to the faux-Brexit deal Mrs. May has struck with the EU. This would leave the UK still under the thumb of the EU but worse off even than now.
Not only would Britain still be bound by EU rules, it might only be able to leave the EU henceforth if the EU allowed it to do so – which it would obviously never do.
If Parliament rejects this travesty, the prospect looms of no-deal – or leaving the EU without agreeing the terms. No-deal is routinely described as “going off the edge of the cliff,” and is accompanied by apocalyptic warnings of planes falling out of the sky, supplies of medicines drying up and the country starving to death.
These and corresponding predictions of economic Armageddon are ludicrously exaggerated and make zero allowance for a crucial factor: the need for EU nations to make an accommodation with the UK, issue by issue, in order to avoid the enormous damage to their own economies that would otherwise result.
The suspicion is running high that the invidious choice with which Britain is accordingly being presented – catastrophic deal or apocalypse now from no-deal – has been engineered to terrify people into a second referendum, on the hallowed EU principle that if the people don’t deliver the correct result the first time they must vote again until they do.
The country is set to stumble yet further into chaos and uncharted constitutional territory. None of the further possible scenarios – Parliament votes for the deal, it votes against the deal, Mrs. May resigns, she does not resign, there is a general election, an attempted renegotiation or a second referendum – offers any prospect of resolving the issue.
The impasse and its roiling passions threaten to break British politics apart. If Brexit is betrayed, millions of British voters will never trust the democratic process again.
It is the greatest political and constitutional crisis in living memory. And although many Remainers are motivated not by ideology but more prosaically by fear of the costs of leaving the EU, the issue at its core is whether Britain should become again an independent, self-governing nation.
ACROSS THE English Channel, France’s President Emmanuel Macron has made plain what he thinks of that concept. With almost sociopathic disdain for the supreme sacrifice made by free nations during the two world wars, he chose the anniversary of the 1918 armistice to condemn nationalism for being a “betrayal of patriotism” because it held “our interests first. Who cares about the others?”
This was not only incoherent but a travesty of nationalism – which is merely to feel part of a shared national project based on a common culture and bounded by a territorial border.
But then, according to his own estimation, Macron is no less than a combination of Napoleon and Jupiter, and clearly regards the trans-national EU as the instrument of his imperial and godly ambitions.
Meanwhile, the people of his own country have been rioting against his ruinous policies. Both Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has come to grief over her promotion of uncontrolled immigration, have displayed contempt not only for their own citizens but also for life and liberty abroad.
For both Germany and France are leading the EU’s attempt to circumvent America’s renewed sanctions against Iran and thus continue to further fund and empower the terrorist and genocidal Iranian regime.
This is not just due to greed over trade. It also results from a deeply amoral way of thinking: that other nations possess neither intrinsic value nor demerits and deserve neither respect nor resistance but are merely to be used as instruments of cynical self-interest.
Macron was taking issue with President Trump’s remarks a few weeks previously when, declaring himself to be a nationalist, he said: “A globalist is a person that wants the globe to do well, frankly not caring about our country so much. And you know what? We can’t have that.”
Cue hysteria against Trump, matched only by hysteria over Brexit.
Trump is in fact trying to forge a new world order based on what was once accepted wisdom – the defense of the West and the nation-state that embodies its values. Israel is a vital component of this emerging order as the paradigm nation-state totally committed to its defense and survival.
Some in this new alliance make uncomfortable bedfellows: Hungary’s President Viktor Orbán with his “illiberal democracy,” or the “modernizing” Saudi crown prince whose reputation has been stained by the Khashoggi murder.
The key strategy, however, is to identify correctly the principal threats to life and liberty at any one time and defeat rather than appease them. That is to put your own nation and its values first and to ally with those who share the same perception of the enemy.
But many in the West no longer believe in putting their own nation first. Hence the current turmoil. And Britain, the ancient national cradle of political liberty, is experiencing the worst turmoil of all.
The Brexit vote put rocket fuel behind the fight against cultural suicide in both America and Europe. If Brexit is reversed, the damage done to this defense of the culture will be incalculable.
Which is why everyone who cares about the survival of Western civilization should view the political meltdown currently taking place in Britain with the greatest possible concern.
The writer is a columnist for The Times (UK)
Theresa May’s Conservative government is at odds with Parliament. The majority of MPs want Britain to remain in the European Union and so are at odds with their Brexit-majority voters.
By Melanie Phillips, JPOST
The West is convulsing as a new world order struggles to be born. Nowhere is that convulsion currently proving more agonizing and potentially catastrophic than in the United Kingdom.
The fundamental division is between, on the one hand, nationalists who want to defend the nation and its core values and, on the other, those who believe these must be superseded by trans-national institutions and laws.
In the first camp are millions of ordinary people throughout the West in revolt against the steady undermining of their countries and cultures, alongside the nations of Eastern Europe, Israel, and Donald Trump’s America.
In the opposing camp are the intelligentsia who loathe and despise the ordinary people, alongside Western Europe’s political establishment, the radical Islamic world, and all who want to destroy Donald Trump’s vision for America.
In Britain, this titanic civilizational battle has produced a political and constitutional crisis over Brexit that threatens to break the country apart.
Theresa May’s Conservative government is at odds with Parliament. The majority of MPs want Britain to remain in the European Union and so are at odds with their Brexit-majority voters. And virtually the entire country is in a state of war with itself.
Both “Remainers” and “Brexiteers,” however, are united on one thing: opposition to the faux-Brexit deal Mrs. May has struck with the EU. This would leave the UK still under the thumb of the EU but worse off even than now.
Not only would Britain still be bound by EU rules, it might only be able to leave the EU henceforth if the EU allowed it to do so – which it would obviously never do.
If Parliament rejects this travesty, the prospect looms of no-deal – or leaving the EU without agreeing the terms. No-deal is routinely described as “going off the edge of the cliff,” and is accompanied by apocalyptic warnings of planes falling out of the sky, supplies of medicines drying up and the country starving to death.
These and corresponding predictions of economic Armageddon are ludicrously exaggerated and make zero allowance for a crucial factor: the need for EU nations to make an accommodation with the UK, issue by issue, in order to avoid the enormous damage to their own economies that would otherwise result.
The suspicion is running high that the invidious choice with which Britain is accordingly being presented – catastrophic deal or apocalypse now from no-deal – has been engineered to terrify people into a second referendum, on the hallowed EU principle that if the people don’t deliver the correct result the first time they must vote again until they do.
The country is set to stumble yet further into chaos and uncharted constitutional territory. None of the further possible scenarios – Parliament votes for the deal, it votes against the deal, Mrs. May resigns, she does not resign, there is a general election, an attempted renegotiation or a second referendum – offers any prospect of resolving the issue.
The impasse and its roiling passions threaten to break British politics apart. If Brexit is betrayed, millions of British voters will never trust the democratic process again.
It is the greatest political and constitutional crisis in living memory. And although many Remainers are motivated not by ideology but more prosaically by fear of the costs of leaving the EU, the issue at its core is whether Britain should become again an independent, self-governing nation.
ACROSS THE English Channel, France’s President Emmanuel Macron has made plain what he thinks of that concept. With almost sociopathic disdain for the supreme sacrifice made by free nations during the two world wars, he chose the anniversary of the 1918 armistice to condemn nationalism for being a “betrayal of patriotism” because it held “our interests first. Who cares about the others?”
This was not only incoherent but a travesty of nationalism – which is merely to feel part of a shared national project based on a common culture and bounded by a territorial border.
But then, according to his own estimation, Macron is no less than a combination of Napoleon and Jupiter, and clearly regards the trans-national EU as the instrument of his imperial and godly ambitions.
Meanwhile, the people of his own country have been rioting against his ruinous policies. Both Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has come to grief over her promotion of uncontrolled immigration, have displayed contempt not only for their own citizens but also for life and liberty abroad.
For both Germany and France are leading the EU’s attempt to circumvent America’s renewed sanctions against Iran and thus continue to further fund and empower the terrorist and genocidal Iranian regime.
This is not just due to greed over trade. It also results from a deeply amoral way of thinking: that other nations possess neither intrinsic value nor demerits and deserve neither respect nor resistance but are merely to be used as instruments of cynical self-interest.
Macron was taking issue with President Trump’s remarks a few weeks previously when, declaring himself to be a nationalist, he said: “A globalist is a person that wants the globe to do well, frankly not caring about our country so much. And you know what? We can’t have that.”
Cue hysteria against Trump, matched only by hysteria over Brexit.
Trump is in fact trying to forge a new world order based on what was once accepted wisdom – the defense of the West and the nation-state that embodies its values. Israel is a vital component of this emerging order as the paradigm nation-state totally committed to its defense and survival.
Some in this new alliance make uncomfortable bedfellows: Hungary’s President Viktor Orbán with his “illiberal democracy,” or the “modernizing” Saudi crown prince whose reputation has been stained by the Khashoggi murder.
The key strategy, however, is to identify correctly the principal threats to life and liberty at any one time and defeat rather than appease them. That is to put your own nation and its values first and to ally with those who share the same perception of the enemy.
But many in the West no longer believe in putting their own nation first. Hence the current turmoil. And Britain, the ancient national cradle of political liberty, is experiencing the worst turmoil of all.
The Brexit vote put rocket fuel behind the fight against cultural suicide in both America and Europe. If Brexit is reversed, the damage done to this defense of the culture will be incalculable.
Which is why everyone who cares about the survival of Western civilization should view the political meltdown currently taking place in Britain with the greatest possible concern.
The writer is a columnist for The Times (UK)
Here is the 14th being used again to expand the courts powers to Legislate
Surely, following precedent is a core component of the rule of law. When the Supreme Court or
the Tenth Circuit has established a clear rule of law, our Court must follow it.
Defendants have argued that a 1972 Supreme Court decision controls the outcome here.
The Tenth Circuit has considered this proposition and squarely rejected it.
Consequently, this Order applies the following rule, adopted by the Tenth Circuit in Kitchen v. Herbert, to the
Kansas facts:
We hold that the Fourteenth Amendment [to the United States Constitution]
protects the fundamental right to marry, establish a family, raise children, and
enjoy the full protection of a state’s marital laws. A state may not deny the
issuance of a marriage license to two persons, or refuse to recognize their
marriage, based solely upon the sex of the persons in the marriage union.
Because Kansas’ constitution and statutes indeed do what Kitchen forbids, the Court concludes
that Kansas’ same-sex marriage ban violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Accordingly, the Court grants plaintiffs’ request for preliminary relief and enters the injunction
described at the end of this Order. The following discussion explains the rationale for the
Court’s decision and addresses the litany of defenses asserted by defendants.
Background
Plaintiffs are two same-sex couples who wish to marry in the state of Kansas.
Defendants are the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment et.al. ( See the PDF for full information about the case)
http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Kansas-marriage-DCt-ruling-on-PI-11-4-14.pdf
the Tenth Circuit has established a clear rule of law, our Court must follow it.
Defendants have argued that a 1972 Supreme Court decision controls the outcome here.
The Tenth Circuit has considered this proposition and squarely rejected it.
Consequently, this Order applies the following rule, adopted by the Tenth Circuit in Kitchen v. Herbert, to the
Kansas facts:
We hold that the Fourteenth Amendment [to the United States Constitution]
protects the fundamental right to marry, establish a family, raise children, and
enjoy the full protection of a state’s marital laws. A state may not deny the
issuance of a marriage license to two persons, or refuse to recognize their
marriage, based solely upon the sex of the persons in the marriage union.
Because Kansas’ constitution and statutes indeed do what Kitchen forbids, the Court concludes
that Kansas’ same-sex marriage ban violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Accordingly, the Court grants plaintiffs’ request for preliminary relief and enters the injunction
described at the end of this Order. The following discussion explains the rationale for the
Court’s decision and addresses the litany of defenses asserted by defendants.
Background
Plaintiffs are two same-sex couples who wish to marry in the state of Kansas.
Defendants are the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment et.al. ( See the PDF for full information about the case)
http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Kansas-marriage-DCt-ruling-on-PI-11-4-14.pdf
Two views of how the Constitution must be restored repealing the 14th, 16th and 17th amendment.
e must change the limits of the Constitution and the repealing of the 14th, 16th and 17th will take away all the money and power - so they will all retire. Article V is the only method to correct.
We have been changing politicians for 120 years and the big gov just keeps growing. Changing DC politicians does not work for the Bureaucrats run the gov the elected do not have a clue just look at Obama - he knew nothing of any of the problems until he saw it on TV and the media.
First let me say it is not you that I am trying to show a different look at the "LIMITS' of the Constitution on the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. There are very few words inside the Constitution that limit or even restrict States Rights and Powers to protect the people of their State. So let us use your links to show that the Bill of Rights was to apply only to the Federal Government and further limited the the powers of Article I through Article VII.
The reason for the Bill of Rights was that the anti Federalists did not trust a powerful central government which is what the system of Kings had been - all powerful filled with Tyranny and Oppression. One can read the works of the Founders, Framers and Ratifiers [original papers and links are in the Article V Project to Restore Liberty library] on the subject of formation and intent.
Let us review your links:
http://www.constitution.org/col/intent_14th.htm
The main clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment are:
Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; 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....
Section. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
This seemingly simple language has given rise to endless controversy over its interpretation. Beginning with the Slaughterhouse Cases, the Supreme Court has decided cases involving the Fourteenth by selectively invoking only the most minimal and restrictive rights needed to decide each case, and never finding or declaring in dictum that the Fourteenth protects all rights recognized by the Constitution. This has led to the doctrine of selective incorporation of the Bill of rights, most of which have eventually been included in the protection, but a few of which have not.
[bold mine . . I find no language inside the four corners of the actual constitution that permit or authorize courts or Congress to incorporate any LIMITS on States in the Bill of Rights]
http://www.redwoods.edu/instruct/klee/billofrights.htm
II. Applying the Bill of Rights to the States - The Theory of Incorporation
A) The Constitution, written and ratified, applied to the national government not to state governments.
1) The purpose of the bill of Rights was to restrict the power of the Central government.
2) Citizens of different states had different rights and citizenship requirements varied from state to state.
B) Liberties granted in the Constitution
1) Habeas Corpus – must show cause for imprisonment
2) No Bill of Attainder – trial and punishment in Congress
3) No ex post facto law – you cannot punish someone for violating a law that was passed after they committed the act in question
4) Trial by jury
5) No religious test for office
6) No impairment of contracts
III. The First Step – Defining Dual Citizenship
A) The process of applying the Bill of Rights to the States required that the issue of dual citizenship (state and national) be spelled out.
B) Barron v. Baltimore (1833) (5th Amendment - just compensation) Interpretation of the Constitution as non-incorporation.
The Constitution of the United States was established by the people of the United States for themselves, for their own government, and not for the government of the individual states. .... If these propositions be correct, the fifth amendment must be understood as restraining the power of the general government, not as applicable to the states. Chief Justice Marshall
C) Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) Africans could not be citizens of any state.
A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a "citizen" within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.
Since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, no State can by any subsequent law make a foreigner or any other description of persons citizens of the United States, nor entitle them to the rights and privileges secured to citizens by that instrument.
A State, by its laws passed since the adoption of the Constitution, may put a foreigner or any other description of persons upon a footing with its own citizens as to all the rights and privileges enjoyed by them within its dominion and by its laws. But that will not make him a citizen of the United States, nor entitle him to sue in its courts, nor to any of the privileges and immunities of a citizen in another State. Chief Justice Taney
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank
In its ruling, the Court did not incorporate the Bill of Rights to the states. The Court opined about the dualistic nature of the U.S. political system:
We have in our political system a government of the United States and a government of each of the several States. Each one of these governments is distinct from the others, and each has citizens of its own who owe it allegiance, and whose rights, within its jurisdiction, it must protect. The same person may be at the same time a citizen of the United States and a citizen of a State, but his rights of citizenship under one of these governments will be different from those he has under the other.[9]
Prior to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the development of the incorporation doctrine, the Supreme Court in 1833 held in Barron v. Baltimore that the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal, but not any state governments. Even years after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court inUnited States v. Cruikshank (1876) still held that the First and Second Amendment did not apply to state governments.
http://billofrightsinstitute.org/resources/educator-resources/ameri...
When the Supreme Court uses the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges and Immunities Clause or Due Process Clause to rule that a state law or policy has violated a Bill of Rights protection, it is said to have “incorporated” that protection. For example, the Court incorporated the Establishment Clause inEverson v. Board of Education (1947), freedom of speech in Gitlow v. New York (1925), andfreedom of the press in Near v. Minnesota (1931).
Justice Hugo Black argued for “total incorporation,” or that the Fourteenth Amendment meant that all Bill of Rights protections now applied to the states. The Court, however, has used “selective incorporation,” applying some protections but not others. The Court has not applied the Seventh Amendment, for example, to the states.
http://billofrightsinstitute.org/resources/educator-resources/lesso...
Quincy Railways v. Chicago (1897) Summary The landmark case we explore this month is Quincy Railways v. Chicago (1897), which illustrates the doctrine of incorporation, or the application of Bill of Rights protections to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court held that states must honor the Fifth Amendment’s requirement that just compensation be paid to owners when the government takes property. The case opened the door to other claims against states, and broadened the scope of the Bill of Rights’ protections.
[again - where does the court find authority to make this decision - not in Article III]
http://billofrightsinstitute.org/resources/educator-resources/lesso...
Reynolds v. United States (1878) Summary This Supreme Court Case focuses on a case which tested the limits of religious liberty:Reynolds v. United States (1878). The Court ruled unanimously that a law banning polygamy was constitutional, and did not infringe upon individuals’ First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.
The Court reasoned, “Congress cannot pass a law for the government of the Territories which shall prohibit the free exercise of religion. The first amendment to the Constitution expressly forbids such legislation….Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.” In other words, while Congress could not outlaw a belief in the correctness of polygamy, it could outlaw the practice of it. This was in part, the Court held, because marriage was a “most important” feature of social life: “Upon it [marriage] society may be said to be built. Marriage, while from its very nature a sacred obligation, is nevertheless, in most civilized nations, a civil contract, and usually regulated by law.”
[Where in Article III does the court get the power over State marriage laws? still an open question today?]
http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/constitution_d...
The 14th Amendment and the "Second Bill of Rights" In 1815, John Barron, a successful businessman, owned a wharf located at the deepest part of Baltimore's harbor. That year, several city street improvement projects diverted streams, which caused soil to build up in front of Barron's wharf. By 1822, no ships could tie up at the wharf and John Barron was out of business.
Barron went to a state court and sued the city of Baltimore for destroying his wharf business. According to the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, Barron argued, private property could not be taken or reduced in value for public use without "just compensation." The case finally ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court. Writing for the majority of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Marshall dismissed Barron's lawsuit on the grounds that the Fifth Amendment, as well as all the amendments of the Bill of Rights, applied only to the national government and not to the states. [Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Peters 243 (1833)]
The Barron decision established the principle that the rights listed in the original Bill of Rights did not control state laws or actions. A state could abolish freedom of speech, establish a tax-supported church, or do away with jury trials in state courts without violating the Bill of Rights.
http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-7-4-b-the-14th...
http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/134197/Constitution-of-th...
http://theweakerparty.wikispaces.com/Civil+Liberties+and+the+Bill+o...
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1851-1900/1878/1878_0
https://www.boundless.com/political-science/civil-liberties/civil-l...
http://www.constitutionfacts.com/us-supreme-court/landmark-cases/
Twenty-Five Landmark Cases in Supreme Court History So, we are all citizens of our Home State - I was born in (edit), but I am a citizen of (edit).
Keep in mind that all case law precedent on the Federal Level are usurped as Article III does not allow British case law theory nor does it allow for Judicial review.
(1807-1815) The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_Part 1 Beginning on Pg 53.
"DEAR SIR, While Burr's case is depending before the court, I will trouble you, from time to time, with what occurs to me. I observe that the case of Marbury v. Madison has been cited, and I think it material to stop at the threshold the citing that case as authority, and to have it denied to be law."
"I have long wished for a proper occasion to have the gratuitous opinion in Marbury v. Madison brought before the public, & denounced as not law; &: I think the present a fortunate one. because it occupies such a place in the public attention. I should be glad therefore. if, in noticing that case.you could take occasion to express the determination of the executive, that the doctrines of that case were given extra judicially & against law, and that their reverse will be the rule of action with the executive."
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000075.asp
http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/courtcases.htm
http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1554&...
Due process has also been frequently interpreted as limiting laws and legal proceedings (see substantive due process), so that judges—instead of legislators—may define and guarantee fundamental fairness, justice, and liberty. This interpretation has proven controversial, and is analogous to the concepts of natural justice, and procedural justice used in various other jurisdictions. This interpretation of due process is sometimes expressed as a command that the government must not be unfair to the people or abuse them physically.
SCOTUS Cases supporting BOR incorporation
1878 - Freedom of Religion - Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145
1897 - Eminent Domain - Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226
1908 - Limited rights applied but not 5th. - Twining v. New Jersey 211 U.S. 78, 99
1925 - Freedom of Speech - Benjamin Gitlow v. People of the State of New York, 268 U.S. 652 45 S. Ct. 625; 69 L. Ed. 1138
1931 - Right to Representation - Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S. Ct. 55, 77 L. Ed. 158
1931 - Freedom of the Press - J. M. Near v. Minnesota, ex rel. Floyd B. Olson, County Attorney, Hennepin County, Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 51 S. Ct. 625; 75 L. Ed. 1357
1937 - BOR Privileges and immunities so fundamental that states required to abide by them through Due Process Clause - Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 58 S. Ct. 149, 82 L. Ed. 288.
1939 - Freedom of Assembly - Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U.S. 496
1961 - Freedom from Warrant-less Searches and Seizures - Dollree Mapp v. State of Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 81 S. Ct.
1684; 6 L. Ed. 2d
1963 - Right to Counsel in a Criminal Trial - Clarence E. Gideon v. Louie L. Wainwright, Corrections Director, 372 U.S. 335 83 S. Ct. 792; 9 L. Ed. 2d 799
1964 - Right against Self-Incrimination & Forced Confessions - Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S. Ct. 1758, 12 L. Ed. 2d 977
1964 - Right against Self Incrimination - Malloy v. Hogan, Sheriff 387 U.S. 1
1966 - Right to Counsel and to Remain Silent -384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694
1969 - Rights against Double Jeopardy - Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784
1973 - Right to Privacy - Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479
I hope you don't consider all of this a "blizzard."
I have read that all before and and have reviewed all that are not repetitive - please notice that not one of the cases above reverse Barron and the clear statement that the Bill of Right do not apply to the States only the Federal Government nor do any of them point out any real authority inside the four corners of the Constitution. In other words they have no LEGAL FOUNDATION.
The two seminal cases Marbury V Madison and McCulloch V Maryland were conjured ideas created without Any Constitutional Foundation by Justice Marshall. Here is what Jefferson wrote about Judicial usurpation
So, we are all citizens of our Home State - I was born in (edit), but I am a citizen of (edit).
Keep in mind that all case law precedent on the Federal Level are usurped as Article III does not allow British case law theory nor does it allow for Judicial review.
(1807-1815) The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_Part 1 Beginning on Pg 53.
"DEAR SIR, While Burr's case is depending before the court, I will trouble you, from time to time, with what occurs to me. I observe that the case of Marbury v. Madison has been cited, and I think it material to stop at the threshold the citing that case as authority, and to have it denied to be law."
"I have long wished for a proper occasion to have the gratuitous opinion in Marbury v. Madison brought before the public, & denounced as not law; &: I think the present a fortunate one. because it occupies such a place in the public attention. I should be glad therefore. if, in noticing that case.you could take occasion to express the determination of the executive, that the doctrines of that case were given extra judicially & against law, and that their reverse will be the rule of action with the executive."
So, the only Conclusion is that the misuse of the 14th in so many lawsuits in based in usurped powers of the Courts acting outside the LIMITS OF THE ARTICLE III POWERS GIVEN.
The method to correct is here
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/take-action.html
We have been changing politicians for 120 years and the big gov just keeps growing. Changing DC politicians does not work for the Bureaucrats run the gov the elected do not have a clue just look at Obama - he knew nothing of any of the problems until he saw it on TV and the media.
First let me say it is not you that I am trying to show a different look at the "LIMITS' of the Constitution on the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. There are very few words inside the Constitution that limit or even restrict States Rights and Powers to protect the people of their State. So let us use your links to show that the Bill of Rights was to apply only to the Federal Government and further limited the the powers of Article I through Article VII.
The reason for the Bill of Rights was that the anti Federalists did not trust a powerful central government which is what the system of Kings had been - all powerful filled with Tyranny and Oppression. One can read the works of the Founders, Framers and Ratifiers [original papers and links are in the Article V Project to Restore Liberty library] on the subject of formation and intent.
Let us review your links:
http://www.constitution.org/col/intent_14th.htm
The main clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment are:
Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; 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....
Section. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
This seemingly simple language has given rise to endless controversy over its interpretation. Beginning with the Slaughterhouse Cases, the Supreme Court has decided cases involving the Fourteenth by selectively invoking only the most minimal and restrictive rights needed to decide each case, and never finding or declaring in dictum that the Fourteenth protects all rights recognized by the Constitution. This has led to the doctrine of selective incorporation of the Bill of rights, most of which have eventually been included in the protection, but a few of which have not.
[bold mine . . I find no language inside the four corners of the actual constitution that permit or authorize courts or Congress to incorporate any LIMITS on States in the Bill of Rights]
http://www.redwoods.edu/instruct/klee/billofrights.htm
II. Applying the Bill of Rights to the States - The Theory of Incorporation
A) The Constitution, written and ratified, applied to the national government not to state governments.
1) The purpose of the bill of Rights was to restrict the power of the Central government.
2) Citizens of different states had different rights and citizenship requirements varied from state to state.
B) Liberties granted in the Constitution
1) Habeas Corpus – must show cause for imprisonment
2) No Bill of Attainder – trial and punishment in Congress
3) No ex post facto law – you cannot punish someone for violating a law that was passed after they committed the act in question
4) Trial by jury
5) No religious test for office
6) No impairment of contracts
III. The First Step – Defining Dual Citizenship
A) The process of applying the Bill of Rights to the States required that the issue of dual citizenship (state and national) be spelled out.
B) Barron v. Baltimore (1833) (5th Amendment - just compensation) Interpretation of the Constitution as non-incorporation.
The Constitution of the United States was established by the people of the United States for themselves, for their own government, and not for the government of the individual states. .... If these propositions be correct, the fifth amendment must be understood as restraining the power of the general government, not as applicable to the states. Chief Justice Marshall
C) Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) Africans could not be citizens of any state.
A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a "citizen" within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.
Since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, no State can by any subsequent law make a foreigner or any other description of persons citizens of the United States, nor entitle them to the rights and privileges secured to citizens by that instrument.
A State, by its laws passed since the adoption of the Constitution, may put a foreigner or any other description of persons upon a footing with its own citizens as to all the rights and privileges enjoyed by them within its dominion and by its laws. But that will not make him a citizen of the United States, nor entitle him to sue in its courts, nor to any of the privileges and immunities of a citizen in another State. Chief Justice Taney
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank
In its ruling, the Court did not incorporate the Bill of Rights to the states. The Court opined about the dualistic nature of the U.S. political system:
We have in our political system a government of the United States and a government of each of the several States. Each one of these governments is distinct from the others, and each has citizens of its own who owe it allegiance, and whose rights, within its jurisdiction, it must protect. The same person may be at the same time a citizen of the United States and a citizen of a State, but his rights of citizenship under one of these governments will be different from those he has under the other.[9]
Prior to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the development of the incorporation doctrine, the Supreme Court in 1833 held in Barron v. Baltimore that the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal, but not any state governments. Even years after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court inUnited States v. Cruikshank (1876) still held that the First and Second Amendment did not apply to state governments.
http://billofrightsinstitute.org/resources/educator-resources/ameri...
When the Supreme Court uses the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges and Immunities Clause or Due Process Clause to rule that a state law or policy has violated a Bill of Rights protection, it is said to have “incorporated” that protection. For example, the Court incorporated the Establishment Clause inEverson v. Board of Education (1947), freedom of speech in Gitlow v. New York (1925), andfreedom of the press in Near v. Minnesota (1931).
Justice Hugo Black argued for “total incorporation,” or that the Fourteenth Amendment meant that all Bill of Rights protections now applied to the states. The Court, however, has used “selective incorporation,” applying some protections but not others. The Court has not applied the Seventh Amendment, for example, to the states.
http://billofrightsinstitute.org/resources/educator-resources/lesso...
Quincy Railways v. Chicago (1897) Summary The landmark case we explore this month is Quincy Railways v. Chicago (1897), which illustrates the doctrine of incorporation, or the application of Bill of Rights protections to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court held that states must honor the Fifth Amendment’s requirement that just compensation be paid to owners when the government takes property. The case opened the door to other claims against states, and broadened the scope of the Bill of Rights’ protections.
[again - where does the court find authority to make this decision - not in Article III]
http://billofrightsinstitute.org/resources/educator-resources/lesso...
Reynolds v. United States (1878) Summary This Supreme Court Case focuses on a case which tested the limits of religious liberty:Reynolds v. United States (1878). The Court ruled unanimously that a law banning polygamy was constitutional, and did not infringe upon individuals’ First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.
The Court reasoned, “Congress cannot pass a law for the government of the Territories which shall prohibit the free exercise of religion. The first amendment to the Constitution expressly forbids such legislation….Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.” In other words, while Congress could not outlaw a belief in the correctness of polygamy, it could outlaw the practice of it. This was in part, the Court held, because marriage was a “most important” feature of social life: “Upon it [marriage] society may be said to be built. Marriage, while from its very nature a sacred obligation, is nevertheless, in most civilized nations, a civil contract, and usually regulated by law.”
[Where in Article III does the court get the power over State marriage laws? still an open question today?]
http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/constitution_d...
The 14th Amendment and the "Second Bill of Rights" In 1815, John Barron, a successful businessman, owned a wharf located at the deepest part of Baltimore's harbor. That year, several city street improvement projects diverted streams, which caused soil to build up in front of Barron's wharf. By 1822, no ships could tie up at the wharf and John Barron was out of business.
Barron went to a state court and sued the city of Baltimore for destroying his wharf business. According to the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, Barron argued, private property could not be taken or reduced in value for public use without "just compensation." The case finally ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court. Writing for the majority of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Marshall dismissed Barron's lawsuit on the grounds that the Fifth Amendment, as well as all the amendments of the Bill of Rights, applied only to the national government and not to the states. [Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Peters 243 (1833)]
The Barron decision established the principle that the rights listed in the original Bill of Rights did not control state laws or actions. A state could abolish freedom of speech, establish a tax-supported church, or do away with jury trials in state courts without violating the Bill of Rights.
http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-7-4-b-the-14th...
http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/134197/Constitution-of-th...
http://theweakerparty.wikispaces.com/Civil+Liberties+and+the+Bill+o...
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1851-1900/1878/1878_0
https://www.boundless.com/political-science/civil-liberties/civil-l...
- Prior to the 1890s, the Bill of Rights was held only to apply to the federalgovernment, which was a principle solidified even further by a Supreme Courtcase in 1833 (Barron v. Baltimore).
- The Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause has been used to apply portions of the Bill of Rights to the state through selective incorporation. This amendment is cited in US litigation more than any other amendment.
- By the last half of the 20th century, nearly all of the first 8 amendments have been incorporated into state law (except the 3rd Amendment, and certain parts of the 5th, 7th, and 8th). The 9th and 10th Amendments apply to the federal government, and so have not been incorporated.
- Incorporation of the Bill of Rights into state law began with the case Gitlow v. New York (1925), in which the Supreme Court upheld that states must respectfreedom of speech.
- due processThe limits of laws and legal proceedings, so as to ensure a person fairness, justice, and liberty.
- incorporation doctrineThe process by which American courts have applied portions of the US Bill of Rights to the states, using the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Fourteenth AmendmentAn amendment to the US Constitution containing a clause that has been used to make most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, as well as to recognize substantive and procedural rights.
- [no Authority in the Constitution Article III to make such findings]
http://www.constitutionfacts.com/us-supreme-court/landmark-cases/
Twenty-Five Landmark Cases in Supreme Court History So, we are all citizens of our Home State - I was born in (edit), but I am a citizen of (edit).
Keep in mind that all case law precedent on the Federal Level are usurped as Article III does not allow British case law theory nor does it allow for Judicial review.
(1807-1815) The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_Part 1 Beginning on Pg 53.
"DEAR SIR, While Burr's case is depending before the court, I will trouble you, from time to time, with what occurs to me. I observe that the case of Marbury v. Madison has been cited, and I think it material to stop at the threshold the citing that case as authority, and to have it denied to be law."
"I have long wished for a proper occasion to have the gratuitous opinion in Marbury v. Madison brought before the public, & denounced as not law; &: I think the present a fortunate one. because it occupies such a place in the public attention. I should be glad therefore. if, in noticing that case.you could take occasion to express the determination of the executive, that the doctrines of that case were given extra judicially & against law, and that their reverse will be the rule of action with the executive."
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000075.asp
http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/courtcases.htm
http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1554&...
Due process has also been frequently interpreted as limiting laws and legal proceedings (see substantive due process), so that judges—instead of legislators—may define and guarantee fundamental fairness, justice, and liberty. This interpretation has proven controversial, and is analogous to the concepts of natural justice, and procedural justice used in various other jurisdictions. This interpretation of due process is sometimes expressed as a command that the government must not be unfair to the people or abuse them physically.
SCOTUS Cases supporting BOR incorporation
1878 - Freedom of Religion - Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145
1897 - Eminent Domain - Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226
1908 - Limited rights applied but not 5th. - Twining v. New Jersey 211 U.S. 78, 99
1925 - Freedom of Speech - Benjamin Gitlow v. People of the State of New York, 268 U.S. 652 45 S. Ct. 625; 69 L. Ed. 1138
1931 - Right to Representation - Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S. Ct. 55, 77 L. Ed. 158
1931 - Freedom of the Press - J. M. Near v. Minnesota, ex rel. Floyd B. Olson, County Attorney, Hennepin County, Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 51 S. Ct. 625; 75 L. Ed. 1357
1937 - BOR Privileges and immunities so fundamental that states required to abide by them through Due Process Clause - Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 58 S. Ct. 149, 82 L. Ed. 288.
1939 - Freedom of Assembly - Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U.S. 496
1961 - Freedom from Warrant-less Searches and Seizures - Dollree Mapp v. State of Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 81 S. Ct.
1684; 6 L. Ed. 2d
1963 - Right to Counsel in a Criminal Trial - Clarence E. Gideon v. Louie L. Wainwright, Corrections Director, 372 U.S. 335 83 S. Ct. 792; 9 L. Ed. 2d 799
1964 - Right against Self-Incrimination & Forced Confessions - Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S. Ct. 1758, 12 L. Ed. 2d 977
1964 - Right against Self Incrimination - Malloy v. Hogan, Sheriff 387 U.S. 1
1966 - Right to Counsel and to Remain Silent -384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694
1969 - Rights against Double Jeopardy - Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784
1973 - Right to Privacy - Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479
I hope you don't consider all of this a "blizzard."
I have read that all before and and have reviewed all that are not repetitive - please notice that not one of the cases above reverse Barron and the clear statement that the Bill of Right do not apply to the States only the Federal Government nor do any of them point out any real authority inside the four corners of the Constitution. In other words they have no LEGAL FOUNDATION.
The two seminal cases Marbury V Madison and McCulloch V Maryland were conjured ideas created without Any Constitutional Foundation by Justice Marshall. Here is what Jefferson wrote about Judicial usurpation
So, we are all citizens of our Home State - I was born in (edit), but I am a citizen of (edit).
Keep in mind that all case law precedent on the Federal Level are usurped as Article III does not allow British case law theory nor does it allow for Judicial review.
(1807-1815) The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_Part 1 Beginning on Pg 53.
"DEAR SIR, While Burr's case is depending before the court, I will trouble you, from time to time, with what occurs to me. I observe that the case of Marbury v. Madison has been cited, and I think it material to stop at the threshold the citing that case as authority, and to have it denied to be law."
"I have long wished for a proper occasion to have the gratuitous opinion in Marbury v. Madison brought before the public, & denounced as not law; &: I think the present a fortunate one. because it occupies such a place in the public attention. I should be glad therefore. if, in noticing that case.you could take occasion to express the determination of the executive, that the doctrines of that case were given extra judicially & against law, and that their reverse will be the rule of action with the executive."
So, the only Conclusion is that the misuse of the 14th in so many lawsuits in based in usurped powers of the Courts acting outside the LIMITS OF THE ARTICLE III POWERS GIVEN.
The method to correct is here
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/take-action.html
THE REBELLION AGAINST WASHINGTON ROGUE PRESIDENT AND HIS AGENCIES HAS BEGUN.
Murrieta Mutiny: Border Patrol “Will Not Obey Unlawful Orders” From Homeland Security and White House
by Mac Slavo
URL: http://wp.me/p3c1Bb-8EZ
border-patrol-oath
Given the recent history of such brazen actions by American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights, it was believed that the federal government would step in and begin detaining protesters in free speech zones or temporary holding facilities so that the buses could get through.
But that never happened.
Now, a highly credible insider speaking with GMN in a recorded interview has shed some light on what happened, and according to him things could have gone a whole different direction.
According to the whistle-blower, who has thus far remained anonymous for fear of reprisal, the Department of Homeland Security on orders from the White House was preparing to disperse the protesters with physical force if necessary. Federal riot police were being mobilized, complete with riot gear, body armor and armored personnel carriers.
When local law enforcement and border patrol agents, many of whom live in Murrieta, got wind of the plot they reportedly pushed back against the Federal government and themselves protested behind closed doors.
In an exclusive expose regarding the immigration standoff in Murrieta, California, it was revealed by a confidential informant inside the Murrieta U.S. Border Patrol facility that the real reason buses stopped delivering illegal immigrants was due to a virtual mutiny within the U.S. Border Patrol ranks.
...
A recorded telephone interview with a highly credible and prominent Murrieta community leader on Sunday July 14, 2014 when it was revealed that front-line U.S. Border Patrol agents threatened to stand down if the Department of Homeland Security executed a plan to use force upon protestors [sic] if they impeded buses transporting undocumented immigrants into the Murrieta processing facility.
...
“Most of the Border Patrol agents here at this facility are residents of Murrieta, and when they found out that the DHS was going to come in with riot gear, the agents declared that they would not obey any unlawful orders which violate the Constitutional rights of peaceful protestors.” said the informant.
“Our contact inside the U.S. Border Patrol told us that we do not even realize how impactful the protest was....it was a shot heard around the world....all the way back to Guatemala; Mexico, and not just the U.S. Government....the influx of immigrants coming over the border has decreased from 1500 per day down to 800 per day...cut almost in half as a direct result of what we’ve done.”
The front line U.S. Border Patrol agents are essentially refusing to perform any unconstitutional act upon the protesters, and they let their intentions be known to their superiors. As a result, the Department of Homeland Security could not proceed with delivery of another busload of illegal immigrants to Murrieta due to the lack of support by Murrieta Police Officers, as well as Border Patrol Agents who are steadfast in upholding their oath to defend and support the Constitution of the United States.
GMN via SGT Report
The reports have yet to be verified because numerous reports indicate that anyone who discusses what’s happening inside of detention facilities or with the immigration process is being threatened with arrest.
murrieta border patrol However, the federal government backed down surprisingly fast when protesters started blocking roadways, which adds credence to this report because without local law enforcement or border patrol support, it would have been a difficult undertaking for the White House.
In recent years the government has been working to hybridize local policing agencies and personnel by placing their command and control infrastructure under the directive of federal agencies like Department of Homeland Security. If this report is accurate, and all signs indicate that it is, then we have just witnessed how easy it is to take the bite out of federal authorities attempting to overstep their Constitutional bounds.
by Mac Slavo
URL: http://wp.me/p3c1Bb-8EZ
border-patrol-oath
Given the recent history of such brazen actions by American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights, it was believed that the federal government would step in and begin detaining protesters in free speech zones or temporary holding facilities so that the buses could get through.
But that never happened.
Now, a highly credible insider speaking with GMN in a recorded interview has shed some light on what happened, and according to him things could have gone a whole different direction.
According to the whistle-blower, who has thus far remained anonymous for fear of reprisal, the Department of Homeland Security on orders from the White House was preparing to disperse the protesters with physical force if necessary. Federal riot police were being mobilized, complete with riot gear, body armor and armored personnel carriers.
When local law enforcement and border patrol agents, many of whom live in Murrieta, got wind of the plot they reportedly pushed back against the Federal government and themselves protested behind closed doors.
In an exclusive expose regarding the immigration standoff in Murrieta, California, it was revealed by a confidential informant inside the Murrieta U.S. Border Patrol facility that the real reason buses stopped delivering illegal immigrants was due to a virtual mutiny within the U.S. Border Patrol ranks.
...
A recorded telephone interview with a highly credible and prominent Murrieta community leader on Sunday July 14, 2014 when it was revealed that front-line U.S. Border Patrol agents threatened to stand down if the Department of Homeland Security executed a plan to use force upon protestors [sic] if they impeded buses transporting undocumented immigrants into the Murrieta processing facility.
...
“Most of the Border Patrol agents here at this facility are residents of Murrieta, and when they found out that the DHS was going to come in with riot gear, the agents declared that they would not obey any unlawful orders which violate the Constitutional rights of peaceful protestors.” said the informant.
“Our contact inside the U.S. Border Patrol told us that we do not even realize how impactful the protest was....it was a shot heard around the world....all the way back to Guatemala; Mexico, and not just the U.S. Government....the influx of immigrants coming over the border has decreased from 1500 per day down to 800 per day...cut almost in half as a direct result of what we’ve done.”
The front line U.S. Border Patrol agents are essentially refusing to perform any unconstitutional act upon the protesters, and they let their intentions be known to their superiors. As a result, the Department of Homeland Security could not proceed with delivery of another busload of illegal immigrants to Murrieta due to the lack of support by Murrieta Police Officers, as well as Border Patrol Agents who are steadfast in upholding their oath to defend and support the Constitution of the United States.
GMN via SGT Report
The reports have yet to be verified because numerous reports indicate that anyone who discusses what’s happening inside of detention facilities or with the immigration process is being threatened with arrest.
murrieta border patrol However, the federal government backed down surprisingly fast when protesters started blocking roadways, which adds credence to this report because without local law enforcement or border patrol support, it would have been a difficult undertaking for the White House.
In recent years the government has been working to hybridize local policing agencies and personnel by placing their command and control infrastructure under the directive of federal agencies like Department of Homeland Security. If this report is accurate, and all signs indicate that it is, then we have just witnessed how easy it is to take the bite out of federal authorities attempting to overstep their Constitutional bounds.
Murrieta Mutiny: Border Patrol “Will Not Obey Unlawful Orders” From Homeland Security and White... www.dcclothesline.com As the Department of Homeland Security and The Department of Health and Human Services scrambled to find food, medical care and shelter for up to 60,000 illegal...
Grant Takes Charge
150 years ago—the appointment that won a war
Mar 31, 2014, Vol. 19, No. 28 • By GEOFFREY NORMAN
He arrived without ceremony. No pomp, no pageantry. It was as far in spirit from Caesar’s entry into Rome as it could possibly have been. He had come to Washington to be made only the third lieutenant general in the nation’s history (George Washington and Winfield Scott were the others) and to assume command of all the Union armies and, consequently, the direction of the war from Texas to Virginia. He was being asked—commanded, actually—by civilian leadership to save the Republic. He was not the first.
Mar 31, 2014, Vol. 19, No. 28 • By GEOFFREY NORMAN
He arrived without ceremony. No pomp, no pageantry. It was as far in spirit from Caesar’s entry into Rome as it could possibly have been. He had come to Washington to be made only the third lieutenant general in the nation’s history (George Washington and Winfield Scott were the others) and to assume command of all the Union armies and, consequently, the direction of the war from Texas to Virginia. He was being asked—commanded, actually—by civilian leadership to save the Republic. He was not the first.
But when he appeared, with his 12-year-old son, in the lobby of Willard’s Hotel, the clerk did not recognize him. The oversight could be forgiven. He was dressed in a worn uniform that was anything but gaudy—no braided epaulets and polished brass, but merely the insignia of a major general, and, God knows, they saw enough of them at Willard’s. In the recollection of someone who had been in the lobby at the time, he seemed a man of “no gait, no station, no manner.” Of “a rather scrubby look withal . . . as if he was out of office and on half pay with nothing to do but hang round the entry of Willard’s, cigar in mouth.” And he had “rather the look of a man who did, or once did, take a little too much to drink.”
He asked about a room. The desk clerk sized him up and responded, condescendingly, that he supposed they could manage something. There was something on the top floor, very small. He said that would do, and the desk clerk gave him the register to sign.
When the clerk read what the new lodger had written—“U.S. Grant & Son; Galena, Illinois”—his attitude changed instantly into one of complete and energetic sycophancy. Boy, fetch those bags! Best room in the house for the general!
Grant was given Parlor 6, the same suite that had been occupied by Abraham Lincoln in the days before the inauguration and where Julia Ward Howe had composed “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” These quarters were not only plush but symbolic to the cause.
Grant accepted the upgrade with equanimity. He wasn’t, as Washington was to learn, a man given to conspicuous displays of emotion. If he had feelings, he kept them to himself. Anyway, one hotel room was as good as another, one imagines him thinking. It was just for sleeping, and, after all, he didn’t plan on being there long. He had other business to attend to, down in Virginia.
Ulysses S. Grant had come to Washington, in early March 1864, a stranger to its culture and its customs and its intrigues. As regards those things, he was what the observer in Willard’s lobby had him pegged for—a rube. He may have had a reputation, even been something of a legend, and the nation might have placed all its hopes in him, but he was still a Midwesterner—a frontiersman, almost. His reputation had been earned far away, on the other side of the Alleghenies, and not in the theater of war that Washington knew intimately and mostly in the form of defeat at the hands of the Army of Northern Virginia and its commander, Robert E. Lee.
Still, General Grant had won his battles—Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga. These victories were complete and unequivocal and had, each of them, enhanced his reputation. Fort Donelson had revealed a firmness that bordered on brutality. When the commander of the Confederate forces asked for terms, with his men outnumbered and bottled up, Grant messaged back, “No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.”
His initials “U.S.” were thereafter said to stand for “Unconditional Surrender.” The man to whom Grant dictated these terms, Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner, was an old Army friend who had once lent him money when he was desperate. After the surrender, Grant offered to do the same for him. Buckner politely refused the offer. Long after the war, Buckner called on his old friend and adversary, who was then near death, to pay his final respects. No hard feelings. That demand for “unconditional surrender” had just been Grant being Grant.
Shiloh, in April 1862, was the first of the many Civil War battles where the casualty count exceeded that of Waterloo—almost 25,000 men counting both sides. When the battle opened, Grant was not even on the scene, and the forces under his command were surprised and nearly routed. When he arrived on the field, they were huddled in defensive positions with their backs to the Tennessee River and in danger of being driven into it, if not into prisoner of war camps. Demoralization, retreat, and surrender were in the air. But the Confederates had lost their commanding general, Albert Sidney Johnston, and they were spent. The day ended with the Union reinforcing and holding its lines.
While the soldiers slept on their arms, Grant’s subordinate, General William Tecumseh Sherman, searched the field for his commander and found him, near midnight, in the rain, under a tree, smoking a cigar and using a crutch for support. Grant had been injured in falling from a horse, which was unusual. His one distinction in an otherwise unremarkable four years at West Point had been as a horseman.
“Well, Grant, we’ve had the devil’s own day, haven’t we?” Sherman said.
“Yes,” Grant said. “Lick ’em tomorrow, though.”
And he did, and he was hailed, initially, as a hero for the victory. But the news that accumulated in the days after the battle cast a pall over his reputation. There was the business about his troops being surprised, something he would deny for the rest of his life. And then there were the awful casualty rolls that made some wonder if any victory could have been worth the price. Furthermore, there was the business about his not being on the scene, which led to rumors that he had been drinking. A decade earlier, he had left the Army under a cloud. Given the choice between resigning his commission and facing court-martial for being drunk while handing out payroll at a post in California, he had submitted his resignation and returned to a civilian life of disappointment and failure.
Rumors of his drinking would follow him throughout the war, leading to Lincoln’s famous, and perhaps apocryphal, rejoinder: “I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals.”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/grant-takes-charge_785693.html?utm_source=Kristol%20Clear%203_24_14%20-%2003/24/2014&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Kristol%20Clear%20Newsletter
He asked about a room. The desk clerk sized him up and responded, condescendingly, that he supposed they could manage something. There was something on the top floor, very small. He said that would do, and the desk clerk gave him the register to sign.
When the clerk read what the new lodger had written—“U.S. Grant & Son; Galena, Illinois”—his attitude changed instantly into one of complete and energetic sycophancy. Boy, fetch those bags! Best room in the house for the general!
Grant was given Parlor 6, the same suite that had been occupied by Abraham Lincoln in the days before the inauguration and where Julia Ward Howe had composed “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” These quarters were not only plush but symbolic to the cause.
Grant accepted the upgrade with equanimity. He wasn’t, as Washington was to learn, a man given to conspicuous displays of emotion. If he had feelings, he kept them to himself. Anyway, one hotel room was as good as another, one imagines him thinking. It was just for sleeping, and, after all, he didn’t plan on being there long. He had other business to attend to, down in Virginia.
Ulysses S. Grant had come to Washington, in early March 1864, a stranger to its culture and its customs and its intrigues. As regards those things, he was what the observer in Willard’s lobby had him pegged for—a rube. He may have had a reputation, even been something of a legend, and the nation might have placed all its hopes in him, but he was still a Midwesterner—a frontiersman, almost. His reputation had been earned far away, on the other side of the Alleghenies, and not in the theater of war that Washington knew intimately and mostly in the form of defeat at the hands of the Army of Northern Virginia and its commander, Robert E. Lee.
Still, General Grant had won his battles—Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga. These victories were complete and unequivocal and had, each of them, enhanced his reputation. Fort Donelson had revealed a firmness that bordered on brutality. When the commander of the Confederate forces asked for terms, with his men outnumbered and bottled up, Grant messaged back, “No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.”
His initials “U.S.” were thereafter said to stand for “Unconditional Surrender.” The man to whom Grant dictated these terms, Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner, was an old Army friend who had once lent him money when he was desperate. After the surrender, Grant offered to do the same for him. Buckner politely refused the offer. Long after the war, Buckner called on his old friend and adversary, who was then near death, to pay his final respects. No hard feelings. That demand for “unconditional surrender” had just been Grant being Grant.
Shiloh, in April 1862, was the first of the many Civil War battles where the casualty count exceeded that of Waterloo—almost 25,000 men counting both sides. When the battle opened, Grant was not even on the scene, and the forces under his command were surprised and nearly routed. When he arrived on the field, they were huddled in defensive positions with their backs to the Tennessee River and in danger of being driven into it, if not into prisoner of war camps. Demoralization, retreat, and surrender were in the air. But the Confederates had lost their commanding general, Albert Sidney Johnston, and they were spent. The day ended with the Union reinforcing and holding its lines.
While the soldiers slept on their arms, Grant’s subordinate, General William Tecumseh Sherman, searched the field for his commander and found him, near midnight, in the rain, under a tree, smoking a cigar and using a crutch for support. Grant had been injured in falling from a horse, which was unusual. His one distinction in an otherwise unremarkable four years at West Point had been as a horseman.
“Well, Grant, we’ve had the devil’s own day, haven’t we?” Sherman said.
“Yes,” Grant said. “Lick ’em tomorrow, though.”
And he did, and he was hailed, initially, as a hero for the victory. But the news that accumulated in the days after the battle cast a pall over his reputation. There was the business about his troops being surprised, something he would deny for the rest of his life. And then there were the awful casualty rolls that made some wonder if any victory could have been worth the price. Furthermore, there was the business about his not being on the scene, which led to rumors that he had been drinking. A decade earlier, he had left the Army under a cloud. Given the choice between resigning his commission and facing court-martial for being drunk while handing out payroll at a post in California, he had submitted his resignation and returned to a civilian life of disappointment and failure.
Rumors of his drinking would follow him throughout the war, leading to Lincoln’s famous, and perhaps apocryphal, rejoinder: “I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals.”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/grant-takes-charge_785693.html?utm_source=Kristol%20Clear%203_24_14%20-%2003/24/2014&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Kristol%20Clear%20Newsletter
"The framers of the constitution employed words in their natural sense; and, where they are plain and clear, resort to collateral aids to interpretation is unnecessary, and cannot be indulged in to narrow or enlarge the text; but where there is ambiguity or doubt, or where two views may well be entertained, contemporaneous and subsequent practical construction is entitled to the greatest weight."
-- Justice Melville Weston Fuller
(1833-1910) Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1888-1910
Source: delivering the opinion of the court in MCPHERSON v. BLACKER, 146 U.S. 1 (1892)
-- Justice Melville Weston Fuller
(1833-1910) Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1888-1910
Source: delivering the opinion of the court in MCPHERSON v. BLACKER, 146 U.S. 1 (1892)
The Lessons Of David And Goliath For The Tea Party And The Establishment
In Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, there is a chapter about legitimacy and authority and power. The backdrop of Gladwell’s narrative is the failure of the British to subdue Northern Ireland, and the way their tactics backfired terribly. But it also speaks to something interesting about the experience of American conservatism, and can certainly say a thing or two about the way the Republican establishment, and the intellectual class on the right, have spent the last few years struggling to deal with the post-Tea Party reality.
The crux of Gladwell’s argument is that if an authority is not recognized as legitimate the application of more power to to bring troublemakers into line only has the opposite effect.From The Atlantic’s review:
The moral of the stories he tells may have been lost on the Philistines, but has since sunk in: more is not always more. Gladwell tells how the British Army fueled rather than quelled the Irish Republican Army’s defiance with its heavy hand in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. He describes civil-rights activists in Birmingham using political jujitsu—turning an opponent’s overwhelming force back against him—when they lured Bull Connor into setting attack dogs on peaceful teenagers, producing photos that appalled the world.
But that was half a century ago, and the tactics have been refined—and countered and codified—since then. “Sometimes, the More Force Is Used, the Less Effective It Is,” says The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, warning that disproportionate power can undermine political legitimacy. The advice, published by the military in 2006, may not always be followed, but it is a major lesson of the manual—surely the very definition of conventional wisdom. Claiming the political high ground is the goal, which is indeed one that the Davids of this world can achieve with flexibility, creativity, patience, and intense commitment.
But it is much easier for the Goliaths to do so. Superior force is a disadvantage only because it often blinds a giant to all other strategies. Deployed without subtlety, it favors the enemy. Yet disproportionate power, guns, and money, when used intelligently and in the service of building legitimacy, are rather effective. The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong—Gladwell is right about that. Betting on their victory, though, is still the way to go.
Yes, Goliath is still the better bet. But one of the things we underestimate given the tools of the modern age is how quickly Goliath’s tools can be matched by new, rebellious institutions which achieve things once thought impossible. Consider, for instance, this news:
The Tea Party Patriots raised $6.4 million all year — more than what Rove and his three outside groups took in combined. Rove’s Crossroads groups — consisting of two super PACs and a nonprofit — raised $6.1 million. That’s a modest sum for a network that spent more than $300 million in 2012 to defeat Obama and Senate Democrats. The Club for Growth alone tied Rove’s American Crossroads super PAC in the second half of 2013 — with each group raising $1.6 million. The Senate Conservatives Fund — a thorn in the side of the GOP establishment — raised $7.7 million in 2013. An affiliated super PAC took in another $1.6 million.
The Republican establishment may be befuddled by such figures – how could these rabble match the top-dollar donations of wealthy Republicans? But in a sense, the Tea Party’s success is in keeping with their connection to America’s original rebels, who defeated a professional Army of well-trained troops who had put down rebellion after rebellion from across their colonies.
There’s a deeper connection as well, one which speaks to the uniquely American nature of the original Revolution and the rebelliousness of today’s political iteration. Here’s one piece of many in a series of those from the Burkean intellectual elite, urging today’s more libertarian forces on the right to ditch their individualism and learn to love communitarian approaches to helping people – in this case, an acceptance of the permanent redistributive social welfare state. It’s hardly alone in the litany of calls from the right’s smart set, urging the rebels to cast aside their torches and pitchforks and join in the traditional Washington acceptance of the status quo.
What arguments like this leave out is that it is the Tea Party which is carrying on the traditions of the American Revolution, in ways they may not even recognize. The American Revolution remains the most conservative revolution – and a profoundly individualist one. It was driven by a group of people who thought that they were British citizens entitled to the rights and privileges of the Glorious Revolution. The American revolutionaries who took up arms against the British weren’t just rejecting a form of political leadership, disemboweling the past in order to start a new regime (as the French did). They were seeking to claim back their old rights from nearly a century earlier.
The colonists viewed themselves as English – they viewed 1688 as personal to them. But Parliament did not, nor did it share their Puritan spirit. The colonists trusted in the King to honor the earlier agreement and give them their rights. When the King would not, they trusted in Parliament. When Parliament would not, they trusted in themselves to take back their own rights they thought were God-given anyway.
We read events by what goes before and after. We think of Bunker Hill as the first real battle for independence, the prelude to the Revolution. Yet these were both after thoughts. Independence Day was still more than a year away and then eight years from accomplishment. The Revolution cannot be said to have become established until the adoption of the Federal Constitution. No, on this June day, these were not the conscious objects sought. They were contending for the liberties of the country, they were not yet bent on establishing a new nation nor on recognizing that relationship between men which the modern world calls democracy. They were maintaining well their traditions, these sons of Londonderry, lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray, and these sons of the Puritans, whom Macaulay tells us humbly abased themselves in the dust before the Lord, but hesitated not to set their foot upon the neck of their king.
It is the moral quality of the day that abides. It was the purpose of those plain garbed men behind the parapet that told whether they were savages bent on plunder, living under the law of the jungle, or sons of the morning bearing the light of civilization. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was fading from memory. The English Government of that day rested upon privilege and corruption at the base, surmounted by a king bent on despotism, but fortunately too weak to accomplish any design either of good or ill. An empire still outwardly sound was rotting at the core.
The privilege which had found Great Britain so complacent sought to establish itself over the Colonies. The purpose of the patriots was resistance to tyranny. Pitt and Burke and Lord Camden in England recognized this, and, loving liberty, approved the course of the Colonies. The Tories here, loving privilege, approved the course of the Royal Government. Bunker Hill meant that the Colonies would save themselves and by saving themselves save the mother country for liberty.
The war was not inevitable. Perhaps wars are never inevitable. But the conflict between freedom and privilege was inevitable. That it broke out in America rather than in England was accidental. Liberty, the rights of man against tyranny, the rights of kings, was in the air. One side must give way.
Ultimately, this battle for liberty was about the rejection of the colonists’ status as second class citizens. For Parliament, the idea that an American colonist was on equal footing with other Englishman was a silly concept, absurd on its face. Yet in the American colonies, all men who owned property were rather regarded as equal regardless of their station in life. In time, the British Empire’s failure to concede equality under the law to all the Dominions, including India, was the seed of its demise.
Today, the Goliaths of the modern political age – the technocratic equivalent of the Tories and the Royal Government – are struggling to understand and deal with the new reality of American conservatism. The elites on both sides of the aisle are insular in their thinking. For the moneyed establishment, this is because they misunderstand the altered nature of the political process; for the intellectual elite, because their vision of conservatism focuses on the powdered wig and denigrates the coonskin cap.
For those intellectuals on the right equipped with some insight, they recognize that the thread of populism which runs through Bunker Hill and The Alamo is an ally, not a foe. But for those who are prisoners to their narrow frame of the world, misunderstanding this long-running American tradition has turned into dripping condescension of the populist right. They decry the Tea Party and its new institutions as a kabuki dance performed for filthy luchre from ill-mannered hicks and racists… not realizing that it is in the nature of populism, particularly conservative populism, to to see the structures of power more clearly for what they are, as opposed to what they claim to be.
Just as the aristocracy of the day bought the Tories with the benefits of privilege, so today the existing Goliaths guard the status of the self-styled elite. Their approach to government not only protects elite status but also creates it, typically without merit – paired with the authoritarian technocrats’ belief that they know best, and have the right to make that best a reality. It’s why such elitism is the one thing they are conservative about – the modern aristocracy bequeaths titles of nobility for surviving the attacks of the hicks, protecting its own, and attempting to control the agenda in the same way they did in pre-revolutionary times. But the more Goliath ignores, insults, and fights David, the stronger he becomes.
The problem is that these Goliaths are slow and clumsy, and that, equipped with the technology-driven power of collaboration and the institutional wherewithal to match the established fundraisers, the Davids have more than enough smooth stones in hand to do what they came to do. The superior force on which the giants’ success depended grows ever less impressive with each passing election cycle. And the rebels are at the gate.
http://thefederalist.com/2014/02/05/the-lessons-of-david-and-goliath-for-the-tea-party-and-the-establishment/
The crux of Gladwell’s argument is that if an authority is not recognized as legitimate the application of more power to to bring troublemakers into line only has the opposite effect.From The Atlantic’s review:
The moral of the stories he tells may have been lost on the Philistines, but has since sunk in: more is not always more. Gladwell tells how the British Army fueled rather than quelled the Irish Republican Army’s defiance with its heavy hand in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. He describes civil-rights activists in Birmingham using political jujitsu—turning an opponent’s overwhelming force back against him—when they lured Bull Connor into setting attack dogs on peaceful teenagers, producing photos that appalled the world.
But that was half a century ago, and the tactics have been refined—and countered and codified—since then. “Sometimes, the More Force Is Used, the Less Effective It Is,” says The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, warning that disproportionate power can undermine political legitimacy. The advice, published by the military in 2006, may not always be followed, but it is a major lesson of the manual—surely the very definition of conventional wisdom. Claiming the political high ground is the goal, which is indeed one that the Davids of this world can achieve with flexibility, creativity, patience, and intense commitment.
But it is much easier for the Goliaths to do so. Superior force is a disadvantage only because it often blinds a giant to all other strategies. Deployed without subtlety, it favors the enemy. Yet disproportionate power, guns, and money, when used intelligently and in the service of building legitimacy, are rather effective. The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong—Gladwell is right about that. Betting on their victory, though, is still the way to go.
Yes, Goliath is still the better bet. But one of the things we underestimate given the tools of the modern age is how quickly Goliath’s tools can be matched by new, rebellious institutions which achieve things once thought impossible. Consider, for instance, this news:
The Tea Party Patriots raised $6.4 million all year — more than what Rove and his three outside groups took in combined. Rove’s Crossroads groups — consisting of two super PACs and a nonprofit — raised $6.1 million. That’s a modest sum for a network that spent more than $300 million in 2012 to defeat Obama and Senate Democrats. The Club for Growth alone tied Rove’s American Crossroads super PAC in the second half of 2013 — with each group raising $1.6 million. The Senate Conservatives Fund — a thorn in the side of the GOP establishment — raised $7.7 million in 2013. An affiliated super PAC took in another $1.6 million.
The Republican establishment may be befuddled by such figures – how could these rabble match the top-dollar donations of wealthy Republicans? But in a sense, the Tea Party’s success is in keeping with their connection to America’s original rebels, who defeated a professional Army of well-trained troops who had put down rebellion after rebellion from across their colonies.
There’s a deeper connection as well, one which speaks to the uniquely American nature of the original Revolution and the rebelliousness of today’s political iteration. Here’s one piece of many in a series of those from the Burkean intellectual elite, urging today’s more libertarian forces on the right to ditch their individualism and learn to love communitarian approaches to helping people – in this case, an acceptance of the permanent redistributive social welfare state. It’s hardly alone in the litany of calls from the right’s smart set, urging the rebels to cast aside their torches and pitchforks and join in the traditional Washington acceptance of the status quo.
What arguments like this leave out is that it is the Tea Party which is carrying on the traditions of the American Revolution, in ways they may not even recognize. The American Revolution remains the most conservative revolution – and a profoundly individualist one. It was driven by a group of people who thought that they were British citizens entitled to the rights and privileges of the Glorious Revolution. The American revolutionaries who took up arms against the British weren’t just rejecting a form of political leadership, disemboweling the past in order to start a new regime (as the French did). They were seeking to claim back their old rights from nearly a century earlier.
The colonists viewed themselves as English – they viewed 1688 as personal to them. But Parliament did not, nor did it share their Puritan spirit. The colonists trusted in the King to honor the earlier agreement and give them their rights. When the King would not, they trusted in Parliament. When Parliament would not, they trusted in themselves to take back their own rights they thought were God-given anyway.
We read events by what goes before and after. We think of Bunker Hill as the first real battle for independence, the prelude to the Revolution. Yet these were both after thoughts. Independence Day was still more than a year away and then eight years from accomplishment. The Revolution cannot be said to have become established until the adoption of the Federal Constitution. No, on this June day, these were not the conscious objects sought. They were contending for the liberties of the country, they were not yet bent on establishing a new nation nor on recognizing that relationship between men which the modern world calls democracy. They were maintaining well their traditions, these sons of Londonderry, lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray, and these sons of the Puritans, whom Macaulay tells us humbly abased themselves in the dust before the Lord, but hesitated not to set their foot upon the neck of their king.
It is the moral quality of the day that abides. It was the purpose of those plain garbed men behind the parapet that told whether they were savages bent on plunder, living under the law of the jungle, or sons of the morning bearing the light of civilization. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was fading from memory. The English Government of that day rested upon privilege and corruption at the base, surmounted by a king bent on despotism, but fortunately too weak to accomplish any design either of good or ill. An empire still outwardly sound was rotting at the core.
The privilege which had found Great Britain so complacent sought to establish itself over the Colonies. The purpose of the patriots was resistance to tyranny. Pitt and Burke and Lord Camden in England recognized this, and, loving liberty, approved the course of the Colonies. The Tories here, loving privilege, approved the course of the Royal Government. Bunker Hill meant that the Colonies would save themselves and by saving themselves save the mother country for liberty.
The war was not inevitable. Perhaps wars are never inevitable. But the conflict between freedom and privilege was inevitable. That it broke out in America rather than in England was accidental. Liberty, the rights of man against tyranny, the rights of kings, was in the air. One side must give way.
Ultimately, this battle for liberty was about the rejection of the colonists’ status as second class citizens. For Parliament, the idea that an American colonist was on equal footing with other Englishman was a silly concept, absurd on its face. Yet in the American colonies, all men who owned property were rather regarded as equal regardless of their station in life. In time, the British Empire’s failure to concede equality under the law to all the Dominions, including India, was the seed of its demise.
Today, the Goliaths of the modern political age – the technocratic equivalent of the Tories and the Royal Government – are struggling to understand and deal with the new reality of American conservatism. The elites on both sides of the aisle are insular in their thinking. For the moneyed establishment, this is because they misunderstand the altered nature of the political process; for the intellectual elite, because their vision of conservatism focuses on the powdered wig and denigrates the coonskin cap.
For those intellectuals on the right equipped with some insight, they recognize that the thread of populism which runs through Bunker Hill and The Alamo is an ally, not a foe. But for those who are prisoners to their narrow frame of the world, misunderstanding this long-running American tradition has turned into dripping condescension of the populist right. They decry the Tea Party and its new institutions as a kabuki dance performed for filthy luchre from ill-mannered hicks and racists… not realizing that it is in the nature of populism, particularly conservative populism, to to see the structures of power more clearly for what they are, as opposed to what they claim to be.
Just as the aristocracy of the day bought the Tories with the benefits of privilege, so today the existing Goliaths guard the status of the self-styled elite. Their approach to government not only protects elite status but also creates it, typically without merit – paired with the authoritarian technocrats’ belief that they know best, and have the right to make that best a reality. It’s why such elitism is the one thing they are conservative about – the modern aristocracy bequeaths titles of nobility for surviving the attacks of the hicks, protecting its own, and attempting to control the agenda in the same way they did in pre-revolutionary times. But the more Goliath ignores, insults, and fights David, the stronger he becomes.
The problem is that these Goliaths are slow and clumsy, and that, equipped with the technology-driven power of collaboration and the institutional wherewithal to match the established fundraisers, the Davids have more than enough smooth stones in hand to do what they came to do. The superior force on which the giants’ success depended grows ever less impressive with each passing election cycle. And the rebels are at the gate.
http://thefederalist.com/2014/02/05/the-lessons-of-david-and-goliath-for-the-tea-party-and-the-establishment/
THIS IS RIGHT ON . .An editorial I would like to share.
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) holds that researchers can declare their work private property, scientists must release only their findings and may keep their data and methods secret. Even when the work has been made public, the government’s case has been flimsy at best. In a subsequent case in 2009, the judge who set the ball rolling, Oliver Wanger, slammed researchers who were providing the biological opinions on which the water allocation in California is based, accusing them of zealotry, fraud, and junk science, publicly lamenting the consequences of his earlier decision, and charging that the federal government was providing “an answer searching for a question,” an “ends/means equation where the end justified the means no matter how you get there.” Wanger trained his fire on Fish and Wildlife Service’s Jennifer Norris in particular, complaining that she had provided completely different testimony in two different sessions, and that the “record says the opposite of what [she cited] the record for.” “I find her testimony to be that of a zealot,” Wanger wrote. “I’m not overstating the case, I’m not being histrionic, I’m not being dramatic. I’ve never seen anything like it. . . . Protecting endangered species is crucially important. It’s a legislative priority. And even the plaintiffs don’t dispute that. But when it overwhelms us to the point that we lose objectivity, we lose honesty, we’re all in a lot of trouble. Serious, serious trouble.”
Changing the Endangered Species Act seems equally unlikely — at least with Washington, D.C., in its current configuration. And absent an act of Congress, the chances that the smelt will be removed from the list are pretty much nonexistent. The seven-member Endangered Species Committee (ESC), which has the power to exempt federal departments from protecting species named in the Endangered Species Act in cases of regional or national importance, has convened only six times since it was formed in 1978, and only once in its history has it deemed conservation to be less important than the competing interests. The ESC, which critics call the “God Squad,” is expected to make its decisions on the reasonably simple principle that the benefits of any permitted behavior must exceed the benefits of conservation. It would seem that crises such as this one were precisely the reason that rueful lawmakers created the ESC — that now would be the time for a body that exists solely to ensure that environmentalism doesn’t get out of hand. But precedent, alas, is not on Californians’ side.
Inexplicably and inappropriately, it is on this question that President Obama has found his inner federalist. Obama has repeatedly implied that this is an issue for California to resolve on its own, even as he has threatened to veto any changes to the Endangered Species Act, which trumps state law and takes the immediate question out of the hands of local legislators. Nor are Californians likely to get much help from their homegrown power players. Nancy Pelosi is an outspoken environmentalist and, hailing from the Delta area herself, was involved in the original federal power grab in the early 1990s. Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein have both expressed regret, but they are unwilling to countenance changing the smelt’s protected status. Oddly, Governor Jerry Brown has been the most useful of all the Democrats. But without a federal initiative there is little he can really do, and his welcome proposal to build a series of underground tunnels that would bypass the smelt completely would take 15 years to be completed even if it were to be started tomorrow.
And so nothing happens. Each year, farmers sit and wait — praying for rain, and hoping that the federal government will send them a few drops of water so that they do not have to leave perfectly good land fallow and tell their employees that this month there will be no work. Of all our present troubles, California’s farming woes are perhaps the most inexplicably sourced and the most easily fixed. Complacently convinced of their infallibility, legislators in the nation’s richest state have prostrated themselves at the feet of many silly ideas in recent years. But for authorities to have put the livelihood of millions of citizens at the mercy of a tiny little fish is almost too much to bear.
I agree.
Thank you for reading.
Mangus Colorado
Source.
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/369490/print
Changing the Endangered Species Act seems equally unlikely — at least with Washington, D.C., in its current configuration. And absent an act of Congress, the chances that the smelt will be removed from the list are pretty much nonexistent. The seven-member Endangered Species Committee (ESC), which has the power to exempt federal departments from protecting species named in the Endangered Species Act in cases of regional or national importance, has convened only six times since it was formed in 1978, and only once in its history has it deemed conservation to be less important than the competing interests. The ESC, which critics call the “God Squad,” is expected to make its decisions on the reasonably simple principle that the benefits of any permitted behavior must exceed the benefits of conservation. It would seem that crises such as this one were precisely the reason that rueful lawmakers created the ESC — that now would be the time for a body that exists solely to ensure that environmentalism doesn’t get out of hand. But precedent, alas, is not on Californians’ side.
Inexplicably and inappropriately, it is on this question that President Obama has found his inner federalist. Obama has repeatedly implied that this is an issue for California to resolve on its own, even as he has threatened to veto any changes to the Endangered Species Act, which trumps state law and takes the immediate question out of the hands of local legislators. Nor are Californians likely to get much help from their homegrown power players. Nancy Pelosi is an outspoken environmentalist and, hailing from the Delta area herself, was involved in the original federal power grab in the early 1990s. Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein have both expressed regret, but they are unwilling to countenance changing the smelt’s protected status. Oddly, Governor Jerry Brown has been the most useful of all the Democrats. But without a federal initiative there is little he can really do, and his welcome proposal to build a series of underground tunnels that would bypass the smelt completely would take 15 years to be completed even if it were to be started tomorrow.
And so nothing happens. Each year, farmers sit and wait — praying for rain, and hoping that the federal government will send them a few drops of water so that they do not have to leave perfectly good land fallow and tell their employees that this month there will be no work. Of all our present troubles, California’s farming woes are perhaps the most inexplicably sourced and the most easily fixed. Complacently convinced of their infallibility, legislators in the nation’s richest state have prostrated themselves at the feet of many silly ideas in recent years. But for authorities to have put the livelihood of millions of citizens at the mercy of a tiny little fish is almost too much to bear.
I agree.
Thank you for reading.
Mangus Colorado
Source.
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/369490/print
May I Address You, Fellow Citizens
America is in serious jeopardy of becoming a Pure Democracy without the protection of a Constitution!
The 235 year old Constitution is being attacked from all sides - the Extreme left calls it a 'Living document', a Document of legal structure and not law, a outline to be filled in by Congress and statute laws; as time and the political fortunes and popular winds might blow it. How has that thought system been working for the people, I ask?
Are we not seeing our rights and liberties being reduced each and every year, as the three [federal] branches just basically ignore any limits stated in the original Constitution. The Congress says it can pretty much do as it pleases,... if it can pass the law.
The Executive now says he will do as he pleases as he has a phone and pen to sign Executive orders. The Courts have such narrow limits, concerning who and when, We The People or our representatives can not bring suit against the other branches of government. 'Standing' is a court invention and Judges can find it open to interpretation, especially if, the applicant is of liberal philosophy. A perfect example is an environmentalist group vs. an Industry or group of businesses. The Courts favor championing these cases and casting opinions in favor of this popular 'progressive' agenda. Then as the political landscape changes, perhaps the Next Judge or Court could be more conservative and say 'no' to the Environmental group, and say 'yes' to the Industry and businesses. The laws being made by current politics and changing standards, instead of true, fair, unprejudiced, and permanent Constitutional standard.
Clearly the government is out of control, and has changed to no longer respect The People's right to property - THEY take our property, while violating the "TAKING" clause of the fifth amendment, themselves. The THIEF is the Master, no longer a subject of the laws, but the 'violator' above them. Farmers can no longer farm their land, or sportsmen access public and federal lands, if an endangered species [weed, insect, lizard or even a non-native fly] is said to have been seen on the land.
Environmentalists found some small fish, and sued to cause the shutdown of irrigation in the California central valley - the government had contracted with the farmers to provide the irrigation water, and now using environmental activism and a fish, they break the contract. Many farmers lost their farms and were forced into bankruptcy - their legal rights were violated without just compensation. We The People were usurped by a fish.
Children in large city, the ghettos have had Government take away the vouchers that permitted their children to escape a collapsed and failed central city school system. The Federal government sued to stop Louisiana from issuing vouchers, to mostly black students ironically, many of the most impoverished, vouchers that would have allowed that they could go to better schools. How much sense does it make to force children to attend schools that can not educate them or provide them with skill sets that would allow them a opportunity to find gainful employment.
Job skills are not taught in most schools any more. Increasingly, we can see that the young can not find employment, either in jobs that require education skills, but also, as they have no trade or specific training to qualify them. Yet the federal government continues to demand more tax dollars to throw after the failing public school systems they have been socially engineering for decades.
Our failing social 'net' programs have failed us too, and have created a sad paradigm, young women choose to have babies out of wedlock so they can qualify for all the welfare monies available, like Food Stamps, housing allowance, Medicaid, school meals [3 per day] and afterschool free child care at schools.
"The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States." Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He was correct, the rules stated to qualify for help, the husband or man could not live with the family. How stupid was that in retrospect? We do not address education or training programs that target and specifically aid these mothers in a trade that can help her support her family; help her to leave the condition of reliance and break the cycle of poverty - proven through generations to perpetuate itself.
A further failure of the many public welfare programs for the unemployed person, if they do any work outside of their 'assistance' they could lose their welfare benefits that exceed the small earnings allowed. I have a common sense suggestion, how about if we encouraged them to work and let them reduce the amount of welfare money they can collect by 25% of the earned amount? Yes - reward them for work! Help them move up the economic ladder, build a skill set and self esteem and establish the concept of self-reliance and independence.
Consider the possibility, Could it be that the big city politicians want to keep control over the people and use them as voter farms? Yes, it is possible that people are being used, through encouraged dependency and perpetuating poverty and 'needy populations' for others to get and keep POWER OVER them. Doing so, by never really correcting the problems, just paying lip service to them, blaming the other political party for the conditions they in a turn, insure through pretended action and empathy.
Our Representative Democracy, correctly the 'Republic' upon which we were founded, is gone. Representative government today is just not working any longer to Protect We the People from Oppression and Tyranny . . the Federal government has continued to raise taxes, fees, permits, fines and other money collection methods to collect so much money. Money, they in turn, use to bribe voter blocks, or hold hostage our city, State and local governments, so they must do the bidding of 535 elected officials in Washington, DC.
We see the foolish results of all these statutes, like 2400 pages of the ACA, 1500 page budget bills, no one reads these and they still pass them into laws which just do not work to benefit the citizens. [Inside of these massive bills they hide and attach many 'perks' for the special interests and/or added layers of more laws and regulation.
These mega laws benefit the Government, the layers and additions grow government agencies. The IRS, NSA, DOE, DOD, EPA and many other agencies have now proven that Congress can not even provide oversight. The agencies go rouge, their administrations conduct business without Congressional oversight, we have created a leviathan bureaucracy that cannot, and is not managed. Now we have an executive that says he only needs a pen and a phone to get past Congress to do as he wishes, executive orders are issued and used to punish industries and segments of our industrial base, they are used to promote and implement an agenda that cannot pass through the legislative process.
Americans seem to be numb to all the abuse. The 24/7 news cycle drones every usurpation to mediocrity, we are no longer capable of being shocked. Disillusionment is the state where we just say - "well I tried, but electing new people does not change a thing, they are all the same?"
In an attempt, by many Patriots, the ARTICLE V STATE AMENDMENT movement was born about ten years ago. Many have fought hard to educate the public that WE THE PEOPLE have the power to shut them down - we can end the Oppression and Tyranny from Washington. We are the People living in the States are the last line of defense, the wall, the brake applied to this over-reaching, out-of-control, usurping federal government.
We can take back the majority of the money, stop the borrowing of our great grandchildren's money and freedoms. We can, by acting through our State Legislatures, regain our rights and freedoms using Article V to repeal the 14th, 16th, and 17th amendments, which will restore States rights and power. It will make the Senators report to our State Legislatures, it will make the courts withdraw usurped powers and start to respect the Limits of Article III of the Constitution of the United States again.
Yes, fellow citizens we the people have the power to make government smaller, weaker and limited. The government that governs best is the one closest to the people. Local and State. Now the important questions come- "Are you mad enough to take action? Will you present ideas to your State legislators [all of them], and will you ask them to take Article V action to their legislative floor, and propose the Repeal Amendment found in the Article V Project to Restore Liberty Library?
Each citizen has a responsibility to help govern our States and Nation. Voting is a right. With our votes we choose the people we trust to represent us and be our voice. Raising that voice in defense of restoring our Founding Document and demanding action that will stop the federal branches from usurping and ignoring the Constitution, is a responsibility. Ours, We The People.
Thank you for reading.
Your Friend in Liberty
Mangus Colorado
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/article-v---group-overview-and-proposal.html
The 235 year old Constitution is being attacked from all sides - the Extreme left calls it a 'Living document', a Document of legal structure and not law, a outline to be filled in by Congress and statute laws; as time and the political fortunes and popular winds might blow it. How has that thought system been working for the people, I ask?
Are we not seeing our rights and liberties being reduced each and every year, as the three [federal] branches just basically ignore any limits stated in the original Constitution. The Congress says it can pretty much do as it pleases,... if it can pass the law.
The Executive now says he will do as he pleases as he has a phone and pen to sign Executive orders. The Courts have such narrow limits, concerning who and when, We The People or our representatives can not bring suit against the other branches of government. 'Standing' is a court invention and Judges can find it open to interpretation, especially if, the applicant is of liberal philosophy. A perfect example is an environmentalist group vs. an Industry or group of businesses. The Courts favor championing these cases and casting opinions in favor of this popular 'progressive' agenda. Then as the political landscape changes, perhaps the Next Judge or Court could be more conservative and say 'no' to the Environmental group, and say 'yes' to the Industry and businesses. The laws being made by current politics and changing standards, instead of true, fair, unprejudiced, and permanent Constitutional standard.
Clearly the government is out of control, and has changed to no longer respect The People's right to property - THEY take our property, while violating the "TAKING" clause of the fifth amendment, themselves. The THIEF is the Master, no longer a subject of the laws, but the 'violator' above them. Farmers can no longer farm their land, or sportsmen access public and federal lands, if an endangered species [weed, insect, lizard or even a non-native fly] is said to have been seen on the land.
Environmentalists found some small fish, and sued to cause the shutdown of irrigation in the California central valley - the government had contracted with the farmers to provide the irrigation water, and now using environmental activism and a fish, they break the contract. Many farmers lost their farms and were forced into bankruptcy - their legal rights were violated without just compensation. We The People were usurped by a fish.
Children in large city, the ghettos have had Government take away the vouchers that permitted their children to escape a collapsed and failed central city school system. The Federal government sued to stop Louisiana from issuing vouchers, to mostly black students ironically, many of the most impoverished, vouchers that would have allowed that they could go to better schools. How much sense does it make to force children to attend schools that can not educate them or provide them with skill sets that would allow them a opportunity to find gainful employment.
Job skills are not taught in most schools any more. Increasingly, we can see that the young can not find employment, either in jobs that require education skills, but also, as they have no trade or specific training to qualify them. Yet the federal government continues to demand more tax dollars to throw after the failing public school systems they have been socially engineering for decades.
Our failing social 'net' programs have failed us too, and have created a sad paradigm, young women choose to have babies out of wedlock so they can qualify for all the welfare monies available, like Food Stamps, housing allowance, Medicaid, school meals [3 per day] and afterschool free child care at schools.
"The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States." Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He was correct, the rules stated to qualify for help, the husband or man could not live with the family. How stupid was that in retrospect? We do not address education or training programs that target and specifically aid these mothers in a trade that can help her support her family; help her to leave the condition of reliance and break the cycle of poverty - proven through generations to perpetuate itself.
A further failure of the many public welfare programs for the unemployed person, if they do any work outside of their 'assistance' they could lose their welfare benefits that exceed the small earnings allowed. I have a common sense suggestion, how about if we encouraged them to work and let them reduce the amount of welfare money they can collect by 25% of the earned amount? Yes - reward them for work! Help them move up the economic ladder, build a skill set and self esteem and establish the concept of self-reliance and independence.
Consider the possibility, Could it be that the big city politicians want to keep control over the people and use them as voter farms? Yes, it is possible that people are being used, through encouraged dependency and perpetuating poverty and 'needy populations' for others to get and keep POWER OVER them. Doing so, by never really correcting the problems, just paying lip service to them, blaming the other political party for the conditions they in a turn, insure through pretended action and empathy.
Our Representative Democracy, correctly the 'Republic' upon which we were founded, is gone. Representative government today is just not working any longer to Protect We the People from Oppression and Tyranny . . the Federal government has continued to raise taxes, fees, permits, fines and other money collection methods to collect so much money. Money, they in turn, use to bribe voter blocks, or hold hostage our city, State and local governments, so they must do the bidding of 535 elected officials in Washington, DC.
We see the foolish results of all these statutes, like 2400 pages of the ACA, 1500 page budget bills, no one reads these and they still pass them into laws which just do not work to benefit the citizens. [Inside of these massive bills they hide and attach many 'perks' for the special interests and/or added layers of more laws and regulation.
These mega laws benefit the Government, the layers and additions grow government agencies. The IRS, NSA, DOE, DOD, EPA and many other agencies have now proven that Congress can not even provide oversight. The agencies go rouge, their administrations conduct business without Congressional oversight, we have created a leviathan bureaucracy that cannot, and is not managed. Now we have an executive that says he only needs a pen and a phone to get past Congress to do as he wishes, executive orders are issued and used to punish industries and segments of our industrial base, they are used to promote and implement an agenda that cannot pass through the legislative process.
Americans seem to be numb to all the abuse. The 24/7 news cycle drones every usurpation to mediocrity, we are no longer capable of being shocked. Disillusionment is the state where we just say - "well I tried, but electing new people does not change a thing, they are all the same?"
In an attempt, by many Patriots, the ARTICLE V STATE AMENDMENT movement was born about ten years ago. Many have fought hard to educate the public that WE THE PEOPLE have the power to shut them down - we can end the Oppression and Tyranny from Washington. We are the People living in the States are the last line of defense, the wall, the brake applied to this over-reaching, out-of-control, usurping federal government.
We can take back the majority of the money, stop the borrowing of our great grandchildren's money and freedoms. We can, by acting through our State Legislatures, regain our rights and freedoms using Article V to repeal the 14th, 16th, and 17th amendments, which will restore States rights and power. It will make the Senators report to our State Legislatures, it will make the courts withdraw usurped powers and start to respect the Limits of Article III of the Constitution of the United States again.
Yes, fellow citizens we the people have the power to make government smaller, weaker and limited. The government that governs best is the one closest to the people. Local and State. Now the important questions come- "Are you mad enough to take action? Will you present ideas to your State legislators [all of them], and will you ask them to take Article V action to their legislative floor, and propose the Repeal Amendment found in the Article V Project to Restore Liberty Library?
Each citizen has a responsibility to help govern our States and Nation. Voting is a right. With our votes we choose the people we trust to represent us and be our voice. Raising that voice in defense of restoring our Founding Document and demanding action that will stop the federal branches from usurping and ignoring the Constitution, is a responsibility. Ours, We The People.
Thank you for reading.
Your Friend in Liberty
Mangus Colorado
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/article-v---group-overview-and-proposal.html
HAS THE TEA PARTY LOST ITS WAY?
“Weeds and nettles, briars and thorns, have thriven under your shadow, dis-settlement and division, discontentment and dissatisfaction, together with real dangers to the whole”. ~ Oliver Cromwell
Over the last three years the Tea Party has not presented a united message. The standard and known web sites have been turned into “bitch boards” that are divided into several factions.
*The Independents have taken over some of the boards and discussions, seeking to discover a cohesive message that is unique and specific to a comprehensive agenda that promotes a positive direction of their own is hard to discern.
*The Libertarians have been active on many; their message seems to be an 'anti-message' alone.
*There are some sites that are populated by Anarchists and conspiracy theory people. Several are Survivor sites where people predict the end of America and anarchy.
*Lastly, are the Social Religious conservatives, which claim they support conservative principles but support 'progressive fiscal programs’. They are people of many different faiths, some Evangelicals, Catholics and other churches that want government to provide for the poor.
This 'splintering' seems to have become very caustic in language and message that attacks all, except their view point. In my reading of the many sites this is evident. Some of the Independent sites are calling for a THIRD party to be formed.
They claim to support all Independents, but ignore the 50% of those same Independents, that are leaning left, or will not support the independent thought of Independent Social Conservative values. So what percentage do we evaluate as truly Independent, for they are 'splintered' within themselves. Most are united in their presentation of hate speech toward all of the so called RINOs, and vow to only vote for a candidate that is 100% solid in the ideals they separately support.
The question then becomes, how can these groups explain why they want to change the Constitution on a national basis, asking us to consider 'an amendment' that would narrowly focus on installing only their goals?
These groups will vote for third party candidates, even if it means the election will be won by the 'progressive DEMOCRAT'. I see this as an ultimate stupidity. Consider this question: 'Is this not just giving up - when the end result is failure and a waste of your power and sacred vote? The issue of this “PROTECTIVE” statement made with their vote. Casting a vote for a “PRINCIPLED” stand that does not equivocate from a pure or extreme point of view, results in the installation of a PURE SOCIAL DEMOCRACY...the opponent of the independent/conservative candidates wins. The recent case of the Virginia Governor’s Race illustrates this well. Diluted/purposely, diluted vote-split, guaranteed the democratic win.
Where is the truly single- positive- achievable proposal? Too many times all that is expressed is, 100% negative 'spilled milk' - and simply angry attitudes. I have/you can- read 100's of posts that are anti-Party [either one], and clearly state that only a 'new party' will get their vote. While they neither lack a platform that is broad and inclusive of their own, nor do they state comprehensive ideas. They only attack... toward the imaginary “ESTABLISHMENT.” The “establishment” which, ironically is certainly safe, undetermined /un-proven and covers about every opinion that differs from their own. How safe and under-whelming.
Some sites are now so corrupted that they are calling for rebellion and lawless behavior. The Libertarians [Ron Paul party loyalists] are still out there and very active on many sites – they offer only the same old criticism – anti- Federal Reserve, anti-Bankers, anti-Conservative or extreme-Liberal, and New World Order believers. Many times they disrupt the discussions on purpose and change the subject. It is interesting to note, that while they are 'anti' many things, what 'pro' anything concrete and workable do they offer?
The various sites that once called themselves 'Tea Party' have been lost as a positive voice for small, weak, and limited Federal government.
Now few threads are able to sustain any meaningful discussion on how we can save our Republic. Most support changes, but just like the 'progressive' movements, they principally only support changes to the Constitution that are for Social reasons i.e. {abortion - Defense Of Marriage Act}, that focus on their specific agendas, which will gain for them the support of the Religious base.
Where can then, anyone of these groups claim to be at the same time and on the same planet, both a 'conservative' on the one hand, while with the other, lay claim to be strict Constitutionalists. The social change they call for, unfairly favors or disadvantages, or impacts one group over the other.
The 'progressives' want to amend the Constitution to give more rights to their special interests and minorities, because they have not be able to get these policies through the Legislative process and/or override vetoes. They seek to 'Regulate what they cannot legislate, or mitigate through constitutional amendment what you cannot lawfully initiate. Another of their favorite tactics is taking the avenue of the courts, where they can seek re-dress and rulings that result in meaningful and consequential legislation from the bench.
The 'progressives' desire to completely destroy the powers of the States, under the 10th amendment which is the check and the balance to limit the Federal government size and powers.
Clearly, in my opinion, we have lost our way as a society, and most are confused as to the powers of the Constitution and the separation of powers between the States and the Central-Federal.
Once it appeared that the Tea Party movement could become a force for restoring our Rights and Liberties - which time has passed us by, as it appears that the original movement has been co-opted by extremists.
The media reads the various sites, what is being posted, and then they demonized the entire movement, by promoting the radical opinions that are stated there. This publicity, combined with the reported fact that the operation of the web sites have now become 'money-makers' and 'for profit' sites that provide salaries + benefits for the web-site administrators, damage the brand we once had of 'free communities' of patriot exchange of ideas and discussion. Even many of the 'non-profits' provide generous salaries to the site owners.
What was once known as communities of sites that provided monitored-respectful-and intelligent-discussions directed to publish topics with focus has now become whatever it takes to get and drive their participation numbers.
Many of we 'old-war-horses' have noticed how each site has gravitated to a certain point of view, views which by-the-way, are not in the best interest of our Republic. The choice has clearly become apparent to me, ‘The People' must/will determine if the future Tea Party reputation can be restored to the positive influence it once was.
We have arrived at the place where I suppose we all have found ourselves. Those who once thought they knew who and what being a Democratic meant, who and what claiming to be a Republican meant, or Independent, Tea Partier, Liberal...we have all been invaded and changed-'transformed' by the pervasive 'progressive' element from within our own ranks.
Only time will show the direction.
Both of the established, major - political parties have stepped away from the published extreme view points, being expressed on the so-titled tea party web-sites. Those of us who are so-joined must decide if we are to continue to be a relevant factor and a trusted voice in American politics.
Many of us started out with one pure wish, to teach-speak-and discuss with fellow patriots of like mind and heart. To do so, with reverence to The Constitution of the United States of America. Wishing to dedicate ourselves and contribute to the best of our abilities, to a united effort to Restore the Constitution and the Republic for which we stand. [Stood]
When aiming for the common denominator, be prepared for the occasional division by zero. ~ Author Unknown
Thank you for reading.
Mangus Colorado
Over the last three years the Tea Party has not presented a united message. The standard and known web sites have been turned into “bitch boards” that are divided into several factions.
*The Independents have taken over some of the boards and discussions, seeking to discover a cohesive message that is unique and specific to a comprehensive agenda that promotes a positive direction of their own is hard to discern.
*The Libertarians have been active on many; their message seems to be an 'anti-message' alone.
*There are some sites that are populated by Anarchists and conspiracy theory people. Several are Survivor sites where people predict the end of America and anarchy.
*Lastly, are the Social Religious conservatives, which claim they support conservative principles but support 'progressive fiscal programs’. They are people of many different faiths, some Evangelicals, Catholics and other churches that want government to provide for the poor.
This 'splintering' seems to have become very caustic in language and message that attacks all, except their view point. In my reading of the many sites this is evident. Some of the Independent sites are calling for a THIRD party to be formed.
They claim to support all Independents, but ignore the 50% of those same Independents, that are leaning left, or will not support the independent thought of Independent Social Conservative values. So what percentage do we evaluate as truly Independent, for they are 'splintered' within themselves. Most are united in their presentation of hate speech toward all of the so called RINOs, and vow to only vote for a candidate that is 100% solid in the ideals they separately support.
The question then becomes, how can these groups explain why they want to change the Constitution on a national basis, asking us to consider 'an amendment' that would narrowly focus on installing only their goals?
These groups will vote for third party candidates, even if it means the election will be won by the 'progressive DEMOCRAT'. I see this as an ultimate stupidity. Consider this question: 'Is this not just giving up - when the end result is failure and a waste of your power and sacred vote? The issue of this “PROTECTIVE” statement made with their vote. Casting a vote for a “PRINCIPLED” stand that does not equivocate from a pure or extreme point of view, results in the installation of a PURE SOCIAL DEMOCRACY...the opponent of the independent/conservative candidates wins. The recent case of the Virginia Governor’s Race illustrates this well. Diluted/purposely, diluted vote-split, guaranteed the democratic win.
Where is the truly single- positive- achievable proposal? Too many times all that is expressed is, 100% negative 'spilled milk' - and simply angry attitudes. I have/you can- read 100's of posts that are anti-Party [either one], and clearly state that only a 'new party' will get their vote. While they neither lack a platform that is broad and inclusive of their own, nor do they state comprehensive ideas. They only attack... toward the imaginary “ESTABLISHMENT.” The “establishment” which, ironically is certainly safe, undetermined /un-proven and covers about every opinion that differs from their own. How safe and under-whelming.
Some sites are now so corrupted that they are calling for rebellion and lawless behavior. The Libertarians [Ron Paul party loyalists] are still out there and very active on many sites – they offer only the same old criticism – anti- Federal Reserve, anti-Bankers, anti-Conservative or extreme-Liberal, and New World Order believers. Many times they disrupt the discussions on purpose and change the subject. It is interesting to note, that while they are 'anti' many things, what 'pro' anything concrete and workable do they offer?
The various sites that once called themselves 'Tea Party' have been lost as a positive voice for small, weak, and limited Federal government.
Now few threads are able to sustain any meaningful discussion on how we can save our Republic. Most support changes, but just like the 'progressive' movements, they principally only support changes to the Constitution that are for Social reasons i.e. {abortion - Defense Of Marriage Act}, that focus on their specific agendas, which will gain for them the support of the Religious base.
Where can then, anyone of these groups claim to be at the same time and on the same planet, both a 'conservative' on the one hand, while with the other, lay claim to be strict Constitutionalists. The social change they call for, unfairly favors or disadvantages, or impacts one group over the other.
The 'progressives' want to amend the Constitution to give more rights to their special interests and minorities, because they have not be able to get these policies through the Legislative process and/or override vetoes. They seek to 'Regulate what they cannot legislate, or mitigate through constitutional amendment what you cannot lawfully initiate. Another of their favorite tactics is taking the avenue of the courts, where they can seek re-dress and rulings that result in meaningful and consequential legislation from the bench.
The 'progressives' desire to completely destroy the powers of the States, under the 10th amendment which is the check and the balance to limit the Federal government size and powers.
Clearly, in my opinion, we have lost our way as a society, and most are confused as to the powers of the Constitution and the separation of powers between the States and the Central-Federal.
Once it appeared that the Tea Party movement could become a force for restoring our Rights and Liberties - which time has passed us by, as it appears that the original movement has been co-opted by extremists.
The media reads the various sites, what is being posted, and then they demonized the entire movement, by promoting the radical opinions that are stated there. This publicity, combined with the reported fact that the operation of the web sites have now become 'money-makers' and 'for profit' sites that provide salaries + benefits for the web-site administrators, damage the brand we once had of 'free communities' of patriot exchange of ideas and discussion. Even many of the 'non-profits' provide generous salaries to the site owners.
What was once known as communities of sites that provided monitored-respectful-and intelligent-discussions directed to publish topics with focus has now become whatever it takes to get and drive their participation numbers.
Many of we 'old-war-horses' have noticed how each site has gravitated to a certain point of view, views which by-the-way, are not in the best interest of our Republic. The choice has clearly become apparent to me, ‘The People' must/will determine if the future Tea Party reputation can be restored to the positive influence it once was.
We have arrived at the place where I suppose we all have found ourselves. Those who once thought they knew who and what being a Democratic meant, who and what claiming to be a Republican meant, or Independent, Tea Partier, Liberal...we have all been invaded and changed-'transformed' by the pervasive 'progressive' element from within our own ranks.
Only time will show the direction.
Both of the established, major - political parties have stepped away from the published extreme view points, being expressed on the so-titled tea party web-sites. Those of us who are so-joined must decide if we are to continue to be a relevant factor and a trusted voice in American politics.
Many of us started out with one pure wish, to teach-speak-and discuss with fellow patriots of like mind and heart. To do so, with reverence to The Constitution of the United States of America. Wishing to dedicate ourselves and contribute to the best of our abilities, to a united effort to Restore the Constitution and the Republic for which we stand. [Stood]
When aiming for the common denominator, be prepared for the occasional division by zero. ~ Author Unknown
Thank you for reading.
Mangus Colorado
The (NOT A) Constitutional Convention
Even before Shays’ Rebellion, prominent Americans were thinking of means to strengthen the Articles of Confederation. James Madison and others met with George Washington at Mount Vernon in 1785, to discuss commercial issues relating to Virginia and Maryland.
One recommendation from that meeting was to convene a group of delegates from the states to discuss alterations of the Articles. Only five states sent representatives to Annapolis in the fall of 1786, but Alexander Hamilton’s recommendation to convene another reform meeting in Philadelphia in the spring of 1787, was forwarded to the Continental Congress.
Two ground rules would govern the convention proceedings.
1--First, all deliberations were to be kept secret. (Detailed word about the debates remained guarded until the publication of Madison’s notes in 1840.) 2--Second, no issue was to be regarded as closed and could be revisited for debate at any time.
The Convention convened on May 25, 1787, at the State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia. It opened eleven days later than planned because of the slow arrival of some delegates. All of the states were represented except for Rhode Island, which declined to attend.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h368.html
Why the 2 ground rules? These are some of the highlights I have found in research. I include a list of resources for all to study as they choose.
Madison's notes of 1840 give the best insight, having the details at the time kept secret was a deliberate decision. The purpose was not to exclude all the people from the process it was to address many concerns:
*it kept the people from becoming anxious and fearful of the outcome or the possibility of not reaching one,
* prevented mass argument and dissension over the many varied topics,
* not fully understanding the full context of the debates and implications of the topics, people might make uniformed opinions and conclusions,
* lacking the legal expertise, many people could not make a just or legal opinion *avoid the influence of public pressure, and warring opinions loosed upon the public.
The Founders feared that free common and public debate would reduce the process to chaos. They elected to determine the Founding document
and to develop the most just and balanced system of government through the chosen representatives of the people who were the most learned and equipped to apply all of the necessary knowledge and who had the best expert opinion in areas being discussed and who could be best qualified to do this work in reasoning through the process.
Creating the U.S. Constitution, Constitutional Convention, 1787, Primary Sources for Teachers, America in Class, National Humanities Center
Creating a New Constitution
The members of the [constitutional] convention were certainly human, which is to say they were complex, unpredictable, paradoxical, compounded by rationality and irrationality, moved by selfishness and by altruism, by love and by hate and by anger—and by principle. If the convention succeeded, it was not simply because the members possessed a common economic or class interest but because they held common principles, principles learned in twenty years of British tyranny and American seeking, in colonial assemblies, in state legislatures and in Congress. . . . They agreed, to begin with, on the urgency of their task.
Edmund S. Morgan, The Birth of the Republic, 1763-1789 (1956)
When we study the Constitutional Convention of 1787, we know its ultimate outcome—a new plan of government that was ratified, implemented, and amended twenty-seven times; that is honored as a model for democratic self-government and is perpetually examined for its meaning in changing times. But in May 1787, the fifty-five men who convened in Philadelphia to save the fledgling nation had no guarantee of success. "Most of them were convinced," continues historian Edmund Morgan, "that unless they came up with an acceptable, and at the same time workable, scheme of national government the union would dissolve."1 A fearsome prospect. As you study the delegates' deliberations—the Virginia Plan vs. the New York Plan, the Great Compromise, the three-fifths compromise—and their final plan of government, consider the "urgency of the task" that propelled them through the summer of 1787.
"the great business now before us": commentary on the Constitutional Convention.
After meeting on ninety-seven days from May 25 to September 17, 1787, the convention submitted a new plan of government to the states for their approval or rejection. It had been an arduous and contentious process, sustained through debate and compromise—and the realization that failure to revise or replace the moribund Articles of Confederation could doom the new nation to "anarchy and confusion," as George Washington feared. Because the delegates agreed to keep their deliberations secret, little was known of their progress and setbacks until after the convention adjourned. Collected here are statements from nine delegates and nine non-delegates that reveal the anxious yet exhilarating summer of 1787, and the first months of the ratification debates. What new perspective on the Constitutional Convention and its final document do you gain from reading the commentary? What do you learn about the Founding Fathers? Which man would you most want to ask for application on his views and sentiments? (9 pp.)
"We the People": The United States Constitution, 1787. Five articles and 4,543 words, with some of the most familiar phrases in American history—We the People, a more perfect Union, the Blessings of Liberty, Advice and Consent, Full Faith and Credit, and supreme law of the Land. Other phrases remind us that the document is over two hundred years old, such as Corruption of Blood, Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and the finally struck three-fifths of all other persons. It takes about half an hour to read the U.S. Constitution, and perhaps an hour to study a well-annotated text.....
Supplemental Resources
The U.S. Constitution, annotated text Questions and Answers about the Constitution of the United States (National Archives)
The Constitutional Convention of 1787, overview by Prof. A. E. Dick Howard (U.S. State Department)
The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Max Farrand, 1911 (Library of Congress)
Selected Correspondence from the Summer of 1787 (Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, Ashland University)
To Form A More Perfect Union (Library of Congress)
America's Founding Fathers: Delegates to the Constitutional Convention (National Archives)
The Constitution, History Now, Sept. 2007 (Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History) Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America (The New-York Historical Society)
Elbridge Gerry, letter to the Massachusetts Legislature on his objections to the Constitution, Nov. 1787 (Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs)
George Mason, Objections to this Constitution of Government, 16 Sept. 1787 (Gunston Hall)
General Online Resources
*PDF file - You will need software on your computer that allows you to read and print Portable Document Format (PDF) files, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have this software, you may download it FREE from Adobe's Web site.
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/makingrev/constitution/text...
One recommendation from that meeting was to convene a group of delegates from the states to discuss alterations of the Articles. Only five states sent representatives to Annapolis in the fall of 1786, but Alexander Hamilton’s recommendation to convene another reform meeting in Philadelphia in the spring of 1787, was forwarded to the Continental Congress.
Two ground rules would govern the convention proceedings.
1--First, all deliberations were to be kept secret. (Detailed word about the debates remained guarded until the publication of Madison’s notes in 1840.) 2--Second, no issue was to be regarded as closed and could be revisited for debate at any time.
The Convention convened on May 25, 1787, at the State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia. It opened eleven days later than planned because of the slow arrival of some delegates. All of the states were represented except for Rhode Island, which declined to attend.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h368.html
Why the 2 ground rules? These are some of the highlights I have found in research. I include a list of resources for all to study as they choose.
Madison's notes of 1840 give the best insight, having the details at the time kept secret was a deliberate decision. The purpose was not to exclude all the people from the process it was to address many concerns:
*it kept the people from becoming anxious and fearful of the outcome or the possibility of not reaching one,
* prevented mass argument and dissension over the many varied topics,
* not fully understanding the full context of the debates and implications of the topics, people might make uniformed opinions and conclusions,
* lacking the legal expertise, many people could not make a just or legal opinion *avoid the influence of public pressure, and warring opinions loosed upon the public.
The Founders feared that free common and public debate would reduce the process to chaos. They elected to determine the Founding document
and to develop the most just and balanced system of government through the chosen representatives of the people who were the most learned and equipped to apply all of the necessary knowledge and who had the best expert opinion in areas being discussed and who could be best qualified to do this work in reasoning through the process.
Creating the U.S. Constitution, Constitutional Convention, 1787, Primary Sources for Teachers, America in Class, National Humanities Center
Creating a New Constitution
The members of the [constitutional] convention were certainly human, which is to say they were complex, unpredictable, paradoxical, compounded by rationality and irrationality, moved by selfishness and by altruism, by love and by hate and by anger—and by principle. If the convention succeeded, it was not simply because the members possessed a common economic or class interest but because they held common principles, principles learned in twenty years of British tyranny and American seeking, in colonial assemblies, in state legislatures and in Congress. . . . They agreed, to begin with, on the urgency of their task.
Edmund S. Morgan, The Birth of the Republic, 1763-1789 (1956)
When we study the Constitutional Convention of 1787, we know its ultimate outcome—a new plan of government that was ratified, implemented, and amended twenty-seven times; that is honored as a model for democratic self-government and is perpetually examined for its meaning in changing times. But in May 1787, the fifty-five men who convened in Philadelphia to save the fledgling nation had no guarantee of success. "Most of them were convinced," continues historian Edmund Morgan, "that unless they came up with an acceptable, and at the same time workable, scheme of national government the union would dissolve."1 A fearsome prospect. As you study the delegates' deliberations—the Virginia Plan vs. the New York Plan, the Great Compromise, the three-fifths compromise—and their final plan of government, consider the "urgency of the task" that propelled them through the summer of 1787.
"the great business now before us": commentary on the Constitutional Convention.
After meeting on ninety-seven days from May 25 to September 17, 1787, the convention submitted a new plan of government to the states for their approval or rejection. It had been an arduous and contentious process, sustained through debate and compromise—and the realization that failure to revise or replace the moribund Articles of Confederation could doom the new nation to "anarchy and confusion," as George Washington feared. Because the delegates agreed to keep their deliberations secret, little was known of their progress and setbacks until after the convention adjourned. Collected here are statements from nine delegates and nine non-delegates that reveal the anxious yet exhilarating summer of 1787, and the first months of the ratification debates. What new perspective on the Constitutional Convention and its final document do you gain from reading the commentary? What do you learn about the Founding Fathers? Which man would you most want to ask for application on his views and sentiments? (9 pp.)
"We the People": The United States Constitution, 1787. Five articles and 4,543 words, with some of the most familiar phrases in American history—We the People, a more perfect Union, the Blessings of Liberty, Advice and Consent, Full Faith and Credit, and supreme law of the Land. Other phrases remind us that the document is over two hundred years old, such as Corruption of Blood, Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and the finally struck three-fifths of all other persons. It takes about half an hour to read the U.S. Constitution, and perhaps an hour to study a well-annotated text.....
Supplemental Resources
The U.S. Constitution, annotated text Questions and Answers about the Constitution of the United States (National Archives)
The Constitutional Convention of 1787, overview by Prof. A. E. Dick Howard (U.S. State Department)
The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Max Farrand, 1911 (Library of Congress)
Selected Correspondence from the Summer of 1787 (Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, Ashland University)
To Form A More Perfect Union (Library of Congress)
America's Founding Fathers: Delegates to the Constitutional Convention (National Archives)
The Constitution, History Now, Sept. 2007 (Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History) Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America (The New-York Historical Society)
Elbridge Gerry, letter to the Massachusetts Legislature on his objections to the Constitution, Nov. 1787 (Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs)
George Mason, Objections to this Constitution of Government, 16 Sept. 1787 (Gunston Hall)
General Online Resources
*PDF file - You will need software on your computer that allows you to read and print Portable Document Format (PDF) files, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have this software, you may download it FREE from Adobe's Web site.
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/makingrev/constitution/text...
PROGRESSIVES
Most of the down hill slide on American Freedoms, States rights, and Liberty Started with Teddy Roosevelt - a Republican PROGRESSIVE - then was furthered with Wilson and increased by FDR. The final blows to our Freedoms and Liberties came from LBJ and the War on Poverty - the GREAT SOCIETY . . every Congress and every President since then has added Liberty destroying laws - the EPA, IRS, DOE, FDA, Clean Air and water Act, limits on land use, locking up natural resources. Regulating foods, paint, farming, driving, flying, shipping [Jones act = must be UNION ship], Davis Bacon Act [Requires Union pay on all government construction sites].
It is not the parties it is the desire for more and more power from all of the POLITICAL CLASS - stop passing new laws that can not and will not be enforced. Gun controls are silly it a nut case wants to kill nothing but a well placed piece of lead will stop them. The problem can not be stopped a new law against criminals - they are already criminals so what is going to keep guns out of their hands - answer - NOTHING.
1912 PROGRESSIVE PLATFORM - WHAT THE MODERN PROGRESSIVE IS ABOUT?
This will show all what Progressives really have in mind for America and our way of life. They accomplished a lot of their goals; they are still fighting for some items. Pay attention to the fact that they want to make it easier for the Constitution to be changed {by general vote as in a true Democracy?}
Progressive Platform of 1912
The conscience of the people, in a time of grave national problems, has called into being a new party, born of the nation’s sense of justice. We of the Progressive party here dedicate ourselves to the fulfillment of the duty laid upon us by our fathers to maintain the government of the people, by the people and for the people whose foundations they laid.
We hold with Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln that the people are the masters of their Constitution, to fulfill its purposes and to safeguard it from those who, by perversion of its intent, would convert it into an instrument of injustice. In accordance with the needs of each generation the people must use their sovereign powers to establish and maintain equal opportunity and industrial justice, to secure which this Government was founded and without which no republic can endure.
This country belongs to the people who inhabit it. Its resources, its business, its institutions and its laws should be utilized, maintained or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.
It is time to set the public welfare in the first place.
THE OLD PARTIES
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.
From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
The deliberate betrayal of its trust by the Republican party, the fatal incapacity of the Democratic party to deal with the new issues of the new time, have compelled the people to forge a new instrument of government through which to give effect to their will in laws and institutions.
Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, undismayed by the magnitude of the task, the new party offers itself as the instrument of the people to sweep away old abuses, to build a new and nobler commonwealth.
A COVENANT WITH THE PEOPLE
This declaration is our covenant with the people, and we hereby bind the party and its candidates in State and Nation to the pledges made herein.
THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE
The National Progressive party, committed to the principles of government by a self-controlled democracy expressing its will through representatives of the people, pledges itself to secure such alterations in the fundamental law of the several States and of the United States as shall insure the representative character of the government.
In particular, the party declares for direct primaries for the nomination of State and National officers, for nation-wide preferential primaries for candidates for the presidency; for the direct election of United States Senators by the people; and we urge on the States the policy of the short ballot, with responsibility to the people secured by the initiative, referendum and recall.
AMENDMENT OF CONSTITUTION
The Progressive party, believing that a free people should have the power from time to time to amend their fundamental law so as to adapt it progressively to the changing needs of the people, pledges itself to provide a more easy and expeditious method of amending the Federal Constitution.
NATION AND STATE
Up to the limit of the Constitution, and later by amendment of the Constitution, it found necessary, we advocate bringing under effective national jurisdiction those problems which have expanded beyond reach of the individual States.
It is as grotesque as it is intolerable that the several States should by unequal laws in matter of common concern become competing commercial agencies, barter the lives of their children, the health of their women and the safety and well-being of their working people for the benefit of their financial interests.
The extreme insistence on States’ rights by the Democratic party in the Baltimore platform demonstrates anew its inability to understand the world into which it has survived or to administer the affairs of a union of States which have in all essential respects become one people.
EQUAL SUFFRAGE
The Progressive party, believing that no people can justly claim to be a true democracy which denies political rights on account of sex, pledges itself to the task of securing equal suffrage to men and women alike.
CORRUPT PRACTICES
We pledge our party to legislation that will compel strict limitation of all campaign contributions and expenditures, and detailed publicity of both before as well as after primaries and elections.
PUBLICITY AND PUBLIC SERVICE
We pledge our party to legislation compelling the registration of lobbyists; publicity of committee hearings except on foreign affairs, and recording of all votes in committee; and forbidding federal appointees from holding office in State or National political organizations, or taking part as officers or delegates in political conventions for the nomination of elective State or National officials.
THE COURTS
The Progressive party demands such restriction of the power of the courts as shall leave to the people the ultimate authority to determine fundamental questions of social welfare and public policy. To secure this end, it pledges itself to provide:
1. That when an Act, passed under the police power of the State is held unconstitutional under the State Constitution, by the courts, the people, after an ample interval for deliberation, shall have an opportunity to vote on the question whether they desire the Act to become law, notwithstanding such decision.
2. That every decision of the highest appellate court of a State declaring an Act of the Legislature unconstitutional on the ground of its violation of the Federal Constitution shall be subject to the same review by the Supreme Court of the United States as is now accorded to decisions sustaining such legislation.
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
The Progressive party, in order to secure to the people a better administration of justice and by that means to bring about a more general respect for the law and the courts, pledges itself to work unceasingly for the reform of legal procedure and judicial methods.
We believe that the issuance of injunctions in cases arising out of labor disputes should be prohibited when such injunctions would not apply when no labor disputes existed.
We also believe that a person cited for contempt in labor disputes, except when such contempt was committed in the actual presence of the court or so near thereto as to interfere with the proper administration of justice, should have a right to trial by jury.
SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL JUSTICE
The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in State and Nation for:
Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial accidents, occupational diseases, overwork, involuntary unemployment, and other injurious effects incident to modern industry;
The fixing of minimum safety and health standards for the various occupations, and the exercise of the public authority of State and Nation, including the Federal Control over interstate commerce, and the taxing power, to maintain such standards;
The prohibition of child labor; Minimum wage standards for working women, to provide a "living wage" in all industrial occupations; The general prohibition of night work for women and the establishment of an eight hour day for women and young persons; One day’s rest in seven for all wage workers; The eight hour day in continuous twenty-four hour industries; The abolition of the convict contract labor system; substituting a system of prison production for governmental consumption only; and the application of prisoners’ earnings to the support of their dependent families; Publicity as to wages, hours and conditions of labor; full reports upon industrial accidents and diseases, and the opening to public inspection of all tallies, weights, measures and check systems on labor products; Standards of compensation for death by industrial accident and injury and trade disease which will transfer the burden of lost earnings from the families of working people to the industry, and thus to the community; The protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use; The development of the creative labor power of America by lifting the last load of illiteracy from American youth and establishing continuation schools for industrial education under public control and encouraging agricultural education and demonstration in rural schools; The establishment of industrial research laboratories to put the methods and discoveries of science at the service of American producers; We favor the organization of the workers, men and women, as a means of protecting their interests and of promoting their progress.
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
We pledge our party to establish a department of labor with a seat in the cabinet, and with wide jurisdiction over matters affecting the conditions of labor and living.
COUNTRY LIFE
The development and prosperity of country life are as important to the people who live in the cities as they are to the farmers. Increase of prosperity on the farm will favorably affect the cost of living, and promote the interests of all who dwell in the country, and all who depend upon its products for clothing, shelter and food.
We pledge our party to foster the development of agricultural credit and co-operation, the teaching of agriculture in schools, agricultural college extension, the use of mechanical power on the farm, and to re-establish the Country Life Commission, thus directly promoting the welfare of the farmers, and bringing the benefits of better farming, better business and better living within their reach.
HIGH COST OF LIVING
The high cost of living is due partly to worldwide and partly to local causes; partly to natural and partly to artificial causes. The measures proposed in this platform on various subjects such as the tariff, the trusts and conservation, will of themselves remove the artificial causes.
There will remain other elements such as the tendency to leave the country for the city, waste, extravagance, bad system of taxation, poor methods of raising crops and bad business methods in marketing crops.
To remedy these conditions requires the fullest information and based on this information, effective government supervision and control to remove all the artificial causes. We pledge ourselves to such full and immediate inquiry and to immediate action to deal with every need such inquiry discloses.
HEALTH
We favor the union of all the existing agencies of the Federal Government dealing with the public health into a single national health service without discrimination against or for any one set of therapeutic methods, school of medicine, or school of healing with such additional powers as may be necessary to enable it to perform efficiently such duties in the protection of the public from preventable diseases as may be properly undertaken by the Federal authorities, including the executing of existing laws regarding pure food, quarantine and cognate subjects, the promotion of vital statistics and the extension of the registration area of such statistics, and co-operation with the health activities of the various States and cities of the Nation.
BUSINESS
We believe that true popular government, justice and prosperity go hand in hand, and, so believing, it is our purpose to secure that large measure of general prosperity which is the fruit of legitimate and honest business, fostered by equal justice and by sound progressive laws.
We demand that the test of true prosperity shall be the benefits conferred thereby on all the citizens, not confined to individuals or classes, and that the test of corporate efficiency shall be the ability better to serve the public; that those who profit by control of business affairs shall justify that profit and that control by sharing with the public the fruits thereof.
We therefore demand a strong National regulation of inter-State corporations. The corporation is an essential part of modern business. The concentration of modem business, in some degree, is both inevitable and necessary for national and international business efficiency. But the existing concentration of vast wealth under a corporate system, unguarded and uncontrolled by the Nation, has placed in the hands of a few men enormous, secret, irresponsible power over the daily life of the citizen; a power insufferable in a free Government and certain of abuse.
This power has been abused, in monopoly of National resources, in stock watering, in unfair competition and unfair privileges, and finally in sinister influences on the public agencies of State and Nation. We do not fear commercial power, but we insist that it shall be exercised openly, under publicity, supervision and regulation of the most efficient sort, which will preserve its good while eradicating and preventing its ill.
To that end we urge the establishment of a strong Federal administrative commission of high standing, which shall maintain permanent active supervision over industrial corporations engaged in inter-State commerce, or such of them as are of public importance, doing for them what the Government now does for the National banks, and what is now done for the railroads by the Inter-State Commerce Commission.
Such a commission must enforce the complete publicity of those corporation transactions which are of public interest; must attack unfair competition, false capitalization and special privilege, and by continuous trained watchfulness guard and keep open equally all the highways of American commerce.
Thus the business man will have certain knowledge of the law, and will be able to conduct his business easily in conformity therewith; the investor will find security for his capital; dividends will be rendered more certain, and the savings of the people will be drawn naturally and safely into the channels of trade.
Under such a system of constructive regulation, legitimate business, freed from confusion, uncertainty and fruitless litigation will develop normally in response to the energy and enterprise of the American business man.
We favor strengthening the Sherman Law by prohibiting agreement to divide territory or limit output; refusing to sell to customers who buy from business rivals; to sell below cost in certain areas while maintaining higher prices in other places; using the power of transportation to aid or injure special business concerns; and other unfair trade practices.
PATENTS
We pledge ourselves to the enactment of a patent law which will make it impossible for patents to be suppressed or used against the public welfare in the interests of injurious monopolies.
INTER-STATE COMMERCE COMMISSION
We pledge our party to secure to the Inter-State Commerce Commission the power to value the physical property of railroads. In order that the power of the commission to protect the people may not be impaired or destroyed, we demand the abolition of the Commerce Court.
CURRENCY
We believe there exists imperative need for prompt legislation for the improvement of our National currency system. We believe the present method of issuing notes through private agencies is harmful and unscientific.
The issue of currency is fundamentally a Government function and the system should have as basic principles soundness and elasticity. The control should be lodged with the Government and should be protected from domination or manipulation by Wall Street or any special interests.
We are opposed to the so-called Aldrich currency bill, because its provisions would place our currency and credit system in private hands, not subject to effective public control.
COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT
The time has come when the Federal Government should co-operate with manufacturers and producers in extending our foreign commerce. To this end we demand adequate appropriations by Congress, and the appointment of diplomatic and consular officers solely with a view to their special fitness and worth, and not in consideration of political expediency.
It is imperative to the welfare of our people that we enlarge and extend our foreign commerce.
In every way possible our Federal Government should co-operate in this important matter. Germany’s policy of co-operation between government and business has, in comparatively few years, made that nation a leading competitor for the commerce of the world.
CONSERVATION
The natural resources of the Nation must be promptly developed and generously used to supply the people’s needs, but we cannot safely allow them to be wasted, exploited, monopolized or controlled against the general good. We heartily favor the policy of conservation, and we pledge our party to protect the National forests without hindering their legitimate use for the benefit of all the people.
Agricultural lands in the National forests are, and should remain, open to the genuine settler. Conservation will not retard legitimate development. The honest settler must receive his patent promptly, without hindrance, rules or delays.
We believe that the remaining forests, coal and oil lands, water powers and other natural resources still in State or National control (except agricultural lands) are more likely to be wisely conserved and utilized for the general welfare if held in the public hands.
In order that consumers and producers, managers and workmen, now and hereafter, need not pay toll to private monopolies of power and raw material, we demand that such resources shall be retained by the State or Nation, and opened to immediate use under laws which will encourage development and make to the people a moderate return for benefits conferred.
In particular we pledge our party to require reasonable compensation to the public for water power rights hereafter granted by the public.
We pledge legislation to lease the public grazing lands under equitable provisions now pending which will increase the production of food for the people and thoroughly safeguard the rights of the actual homemaker. Natural resources, whose conservation is necessary for the National welfare, should be owned or controlled by the Nation.
GOOD ROADS
We recognize the vital importance of good roads and we pledge our party to foster their extension in every proper way, and we favor the early construction of National highways. We also favor the extension of the rural free delivery service.
ALASKA
The coal and other natural resources of Alaska should be opened to development at once. They are owned by the people of the United States, and are safe from monopoly, waste or destruction only while so owned.
We demand that they shall neither be sold nor given away, except under the Homestead Law, but while held in Government ownership shall be opened to use promptly upon liberal terms requiring immediate development.
Thus the benefit of cheap fuel will accrue to the Government of the United States and to the people of Alaska and the Pacific Coast; the settlement of extensive agricultural lands will be hastened; the extermination of the salmon will be prevented and the just and wise development of Alaskan resources will take the place of private extortion or monopoly.
We demand also that extortion or monopoly in transportation shall be prevented by the prompt acquisition, construction or improvement by the Government of such railroads, harbor and other facilities for transportation as the welfare of the people may demand.
We promise the people of the Territory of Alaska the same measure of legal self-government that was given to other American territories, and that Federal officials appointed there shall be qualified by previous bona-fide residence in the Territory.
WATERWAYS
The rivers of the United States are the natural arteries of this continent. We demand that they shall be opened to traffic as indispensable parts of a great Nation-wide system of transportation, in which the Panama Canal will be the central link, thus enabling the whole interior of the United States to share with the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards in the benefit derived from the canal.
It is a National obligation to develop our rivers, and especially the Mississippi and its tributaries, without delay, under a comprehensive general plan covering each river system from its source to its mouth, designed to secure its highest usefulness for navigation, irrigation, domestic supply, water power and the prevention of floods.
We pledge our party to the immediate preparation of such a plan, which should be made and carried out in close and friendly co-operation between the Nation, the States and the cities affected.
Under such a plan, the destructive floods of the Mississippi and other streams, which represent a vast and needless loss to the Nation, would be controlled by forest conservation and water storage at the headwaters, and by levees below; land sufficient to support millions of people would be reclaimed from the deserts and the swamps, water power enough to transform the industrial standings of whole States would be developed, adequate water terminals would be provided, transportation by river would revive, and the railroads would be compelled to co-operate as freely with the boat lines as with each other.
The equipment, organization and experience acquired in constructing the Panama Canal soon will be available for the Lakes-to-the-Gulf deep waterway and other portions of this great work, and should be utilized by the Nation in co-operation with the various States, at the lowest net cost to the people.
PANAMA CANAL
The Panama Canal, built and paid for by the American people, must be used primarily for their benefit.
We demand that the canal shall be so operated as to break the transportation monopoly now held and misused by the transcontinental railroads by maintaining sea competition with them; that ships directly or indirectly owned or controlled by American railroad corporations shall not be permitted to use the canal, and that American ships engaged in coastwise trade shall pay no tolls.
The Progressive party will favor legislation having for its aim the development of friendship and commerce between the United States and Latin-American nations.
TARIFF
We believe in a protective tariff which shall equalize conditions of competition between the United States and foreign countries, both for the farmer and the manufacturer, and which shall maintain for labor an adequate standard of living.
Primarily the benefit of any tariff should be disclosed in the pay envelope of the laborer. We declare that no industry deserves protection which is unfair to labor or which is operating in violation of Federal law. We believe that the presumption is always in favor of the consuming public.
We demand tariff revision because the present tariff is unjust to the people of the United States. Fair dealing toward the people requires an immediate downward revision of those schedules wherein duties are shown to be unjust or excessive.
We pledge ourselves to the establishment of a non-partisan scientific tariff commission, reporting both to the President and to either branch of Congress, which shall report, first, as to the costs of production, efficiency of labor, capitalization, industrial organization and efficiency and the general competitive position in this country and abroad of industries seeking protection from Congress; second, as to the revenue producing power of the tariff and its relation to the resources of Government; and, third, as to the effect of the tariff on prices, operations of middlemen, and on the purchasing power of the consumer.
We believe that this commission should have plenary power to elicit information, and for this purpose to prescribe a uniform system of accounting for the great protected industries. The work of the commission should not prevent the immediate adoption of acts reducing these schedules generally recognized as excessive.
We condemn the Payne-Aldrich bill as unjust to the people. The Republican organization is in the hands of those who have broken, and cannot again be trusted to keep, the promise of necessary downward revision.
The Democratic party is committed to the destruction of the protective system through a tariff for revenue only a policy which would inevitably produce widespread industrial and commercial disaster.
We demand the immediate repeal of the Canadian Reciprocity Act.
INHERITANCE AND INCOME TAX
We believe in a graduated inheritance tax as a National means of equalizing the obligations of holders of property to Government, and we hereby pledge our party to enact such a Federal law as will tax large inheritances, returning to the States an equitable percentage of all amounts collected.
We favor the ratification of the pending amendment to the Constitution giving the Government power to levy an income tax.
PEACE AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
The Progressive party deplores the survival in our civilization of the barbaric system of warfare among nations with its enormous waste of resources even in time of peace, and the consequent impoverishment of the life of the toiling masses. We pledge the party to use its best endeavors to substitute judicial and other peaceful means of settling international differences.
We favor an international agreement for the limitation of naval forces. Pending such an agreement, and as the best means of preserving peace, we pledge ourselves to maintain for the present the policy of building two battleships a year.
TREATY RIGHTS
We pledge our party to protect the rights of American citizenship at home and abroad. No treaty should receive the sanction of our Government which discriminates between American citizens because of birthplace, race, or religion, or that does not recognize the absolute right of expatriation.
THE IMMIGRANT
Through the establishment of industrial standards we propose to secure to the able-bodied immigrant and to his native fellow workers a larger share of American opportunity.
We denounce the fatal policy of indifference and neglect which has left our enormous immigrant population to become the prey of chance and cupidity.
We favor Governmental action to encourage the distribution of immigrants away from the congested cities, to rigidly supervise all private agencies dealing with them and to promote their assimilation, education and advancement.
PENSIONS
We pledge ourselves to a wise and just policy of pensioning American soldiers and sailors and their widows and children by the Federal Government. And we approve the policy of the southern States in granting pensions to the ex-Confederate soldiers and sailors and their widows and children.
PARCEL POST
We pledge our party to the immediate creation of a parcel post, with rates proportionate to distance and service.
CIVIL SERVICE
We condemn the violations of the Civil Service Law under the present administration, including the coercion and assessment of subordinate employees, and the President’s refusal to punish such violation after a finding of guilty by his own commission; his distribution of patronage among subservient congressmen, while withholding it from those who refuse support of administration measures; his withdrawal of nominations from the Senate until political support for himself was secured, and his open use of the offices to reward those who voted for his re-nomination.
To eradicate these abuses, we demand not only the enforcement of the civil service act in letter and spirit, but also legislation which will bring under the competitive system postmasters, collectors, marshals, and all other non-political officers, as well as the enactment of an equitable retirement law, and we also insist upon continuous service during good behavior and efficiency.
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ORGANIZATION
We pledge our party to readjustment of the business methods of the National Government and a proper co-ordination of the Federal bureaus, which will increase the economy and efficiency of the Government service, prevent duplications, and secure better results to the taxpayers for every dollar expended.
The Progressive party will favor legislation having for its aim the development of friendship and commerce between the United States and Latin-American nations.
TARIFF
We believe in a protective tariff which shall equalize conditions of competition between the United States and foreign countries, both for the farmer and the manufacturer, and which shall maintain for labor an adequate standard of living.
Primarily the benefit of any tariff should be disclosed in the pay envelope of the laborer. We declare that no industry deserves protection which is unfair to labor or which is operating in violation of Federal law. We believe that the presumption is always in favor of the consuming public.
We demand tariff revision because the present tariff is unjust to the people of the United States. Fair dealing toward the people requires an immediate downward revision of those schedules wherein duties are shown to be unjust or excessive.
We pledge ourselves to the establishment of a non-partisan scientific tariff commission, reporting both to the President and to either branch of Congress, which shall report, first, as to the costs of production, efficiency of labor, capitalization, industrial organization and efficiency and the general competitive position in this country and abroad of industries seeking protection from Congress; second, as to the revenue producing power of the tariff and its relation to the resources of Government; and, third, as to the effect of the tariff on prices, operations of middlemen, and on the purchasing power of the consumer.
We believe that this commission should have plenary power to elicit information, and for this purpose to prescribe a uniform system of accounting for the great protected industries. The work of the commission should not prevent the immediate adoption of acts reducing these schedules generally recognized as excessive.
We condemn the Payne-Aldrich bill as unjust to the people. The Republican organization is in the hands of those who have broken, and cannot again be trusted to keep, the promise of necessary downward revision.
The Democratic party is committed to the destruction of the protective system through a tariff for revenue only a policy which would inevitably produce widespread industrial and commercial disaster.
We demand the immediate repeal of the Canadian Reciprocity Act.
INHERITANCE AND INCOME TAX
We believe in a graduated inheritance tax as a National means of equalizing the obligations of holders of property to Government, and we hereby pledge our party to enact such a Federal law as will tax large inheritances, returning to the States an equitable percentage of all amounts collected.
We favor the ratification of the pending amendment to the Constitution giving the Government power to levy an income tax.
PEACE AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
The Progressive party deplores the survival in our civilization of the barbaric system of warfare among nations with its enormous waste of resources even in time of peace, and the consequent impoverishment of the life of the toiling masses. We pledge the party to use its best endeavors to substitute judicial and other peaceful means of settling international differences.
We favor an international agreement for the limitation of naval forces. Pending such an agreement, and as the best means of preserving peace, we pledge ourselves to maintain for the present the policy of building two battleships a year.
TREATY RIGHTS
We pledge our party to protect the rights of American citizenship at home and abroad. No treaty should receive the sanction of our Government which discriminates between American citizens because of birthplace, race, or religion, or that does not recognize the absolute right of expatriation.
THE IMMIGRANT
Through the establishment of industrial standards we propose to secure to the able-bodied immigrant and to his native fellow workers a larger share of American opportunity.
We denounce the fatal policy of indifference and neglect which has left our enormous immigrant population to become the prey of chance and cupidity.
We favor Governmental action to encourage the distribution of immigrants away from the congested cities, to rigidly supervise all private agencies dealing with them and to promote their assimilation, education and advancement.
PENSIONS
We pledge ourselves to a wise and just policy of pensioning American soldiers and sailors and their widows and children by the Federal Government. And we approve the policy of the southern States in granting pensions to the ex-Confederate soldiers and sailors and their widows and children.
PARCEL POST
We pledge our party to the immediate creation of a parcel post, with rates proportionate to distance and service.
CIVIL SERVICE
We condemn the violations of the Civil Service Law under the present administration, including the coercion and assessment of subordinate employees, and the President’s refusal to punish such violation after a finding of guilty by his own commission; his distribution of patronage among subservient congressmen, while withholding it from those who refuse support of administration measures; his withdrawal of nominations from the Senate until political support for himself was secured, and his open use of the offices to reward those who voted for his re-nomination.
To eradicate these abuses, we demand not only the enforcement of the civil service act in letter and spirit, but also legislation which will bring under the competitive system postmasters, collectors, marshals, and all other non-political officers, as well as the enactment of an equitable retirement law, and we also insist upon continuous service during good behavior and efficiency.
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ORGANIZATION
We pledge our party to readjustment of the business methods of the National Government and a proper co-ordination of the Federal bureaus, which will increase the economy and efficiency of the Government service, prevent duplications, and secure better results to the taxpayers for every dollar expended.
GOVERNMENT SUPERVISION OVER INVESTMENTS
The people of the United States are swindled out of many millions of dollars every year, through worthless investments. The plain people, the wage earner and the men and women with small savings, have no way of knowing the merit of concerns sending out highly colored prospectuses offering stock for sale, prospectuses that make big returns seem certain and fortunes easily within grasp.
We hold it to be the duty of the Government to protect its people from this kind of piracy. We, therefore, demand wise, carefully thought out legislation that will give us such Governmental supervision over this matter as will furnish to the people of the United States this much-needed protection, and we pledge ourselves thereto.
CONCLUSION
On these principles and on the recognized desirability of uniting the Progressive forces of the Nation into an organization which shall unequivocally represent the Progressive spirit and policy we appeal for the support of all American citizens, without regard to previous political affiliations.
Additional Note:
Pay attention to Madison's words used when describing PROPERTY
Amendment 5 - Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life...; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
It would seem certain that money is property and income is money so therefore - using a variable rate "progressive" system is a clear violation of the "TAKING CLAUSE".
The act of government taking for redistribution would require them paying "JUST COMPENSATION." This would clearly end income tax as we know it. Another reason for repealing the 16th amendment.
Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man’s house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man’s conscience, which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection for which the public faith is pledged by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact. – “Property” in The National Gazette (29 March 1792) James Madison
I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. – Annals of Congress (1794-01-10) James Madison
SOURCE LINK For Additional Note:
http://api.ning.com/files/ZwIi6Kh8TRM8S9mWCh1jVDneJsVihpTmHoGWsswEE..
It is not the parties it is the desire for more and more power from all of the POLITICAL CLASS - stop passing new laws that can not and will not be enforced. Gun controls are silly it a nut case wants to kill nothing but a well placed piece of lead will stop them. The problem can not be stopped a new law against criminals - they are already criminals so what is going to keep guns out of their hands - answer - NOTHING.
1912 PROGRESSIVE PLATFORM - WHAT THE MODERN PROGRESSIVE IS ABOUT?
This will show all what Progressives really have in mind for America and our way of life. They accomplished a lot of their goals; they are still fighting for some items. Pay attention to the fact that they want to make it easier for the Constitution to be changed {by general vote as in a true Democracy?}
Progressive Platform of 1912
The conscience of the people, in a time of grave national problems, has called into being a new party, born of the nation’s sense of justice. We of the Progressive party here dedicate ourselves to the fulfillment of the duty laid upon us by our fathers to maintain the government of the people, by the people and for the people whose foundations they laid.
We hold with Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln that the people are the masters of their Constitution, to fulfill its purposes and to safeguard it from those who, by perversion of its intent, would convert it into an instrument of injustice. In accordance with the needs of each generation the people must use their sovereign powers to establish and maintain equal opportunity and industrial justice, to secure which this Government was founded and without which no republic can endure.
This country belongs to the people who inhabit it. Its resources, its business, its institutions and its laws should be utilized, maintained or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.
It is time to set the public welfare in the first place.
THE OLD PARTIES
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.
From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
The deliberate betrayal of its trust by the Republican party, the fatal incapacity of the Democratic party to deal with the new issues of the new time, have compelled the people to forge a new instrument of government through which to give effect to their will in laws and institutions.
Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, undismayed by the magnitude of the task, the new party offers itself as the instrument of the people to sweep away old abuses, to build a new and nobler commonwealth.
A COVENANT WITH THE PEOPLE
This declaration is our covenant with the people, and we hereby bind the party and its candidates in State and Nation to the pledges made herein.
THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE
The National Progressive party, committed to the principles of government by a self-controlled democracy expressing its will through representatives of the people, pledges itself to secure such alterations in the fundamental law of the several States and of the United States as shall insure the representative character of the government.
In particular, the party declares for direct primaries for the nomination of State and National officers, for nation-wide preferential primaries for candidates for the presidency; for the direct election of United States Senators by the people; and we urge on the States the policy of the short ballot, with responsibility to the people secured by the initiative, referendum and recall.
AMENDMENT OF CONSTITUTION
The Progressive party, believing that a free people should have the power from time to time to amend their fundamental law so as to adapt it progressively to the changing needs of the people, pledges itself to provide a more easy and expeditious method of amending the Federal Constitution.
NATION AND STATE
Up to the limit of the Constitution, and later by amendment of the Constitution, it found necessary, we advocate bringing under effective national jurisdiction those problems which have expanded beyond reach of the individual States.
It is as grotesque as it is intolerable that the several States should by unequal laws in matter of common concern become competing commercial agencies, barter the lives of their children, the health of their women and the safety and well-being of their working people for the benefit of their financial interests.
The extreme insistence on States’ rights by the Democratic party in the Baltimore platform demonstrates anew its inability to understand the world into which it has survived or to administer the affairs of a union of States which have in all essential respects become one people.
EQUAL SUFFRAGE
The Progressive party, believing that no people can justly claim to be a true democracy which denies political rights on account of sex, pledges itself to the task of securing equal suffrage to men and women alike.
CORRUPT PRACTICES
We pledge our party to legislation that will compel strict limitation of all campaign contributions and expenditures, and detailed publicity of both before as well as after primaries and elections.
PUBLICITY AND PUBLIC SERVICE
We pledge our party to legislation compelling the registration of lobbyists; publicity of committee hearings except on foreign affairs, and recording of all votes in committee; and forbidding federal appointees from holding office in State or National political organizations, or taking part as officers or delegates in political conventions for the nomination of elective State or National officials.
THE COURTS
The Progressive party demands such restriction of the power of the courts as shall leave to the people the ultimate authority to determine fundamental questions of social welfare and public policy. To secure this end, it pledges itself to provide:
1. That when an Act, passed under the police power of the State is held unconstitutional under the State Constitution, by the courts, the people, after an ample interval for deliberation, shall have an opportunity to vote on the question whether they desire the Act to become law, notwithstanding such decision.
2. That every decision of the highest appellate court of a State declaring an Act of the Legislature unconstitutional on the ground of its violation of the Federal Constitution shall be subject to the same review by the Supreme Court of the United States as is now accorded to decisions sustaining such legislation.
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
The Progressive party, in order to secure to the people a better administration of justice and by that means to bring about a more general respect for the law and the courts, pledges itself to work unceasingly for the reform of legal procedure and judicial methods.
We believe that the issuance of injunctions in cases arising out of labor disputes should be prohibited when such injunctions would not apply when no labor disputes existed.
We also believe that a person cited for contempt in labor disputes, except when such contempt was committed in the actual presence of the court or so near thereto as to interfere with the proper administration of justice, should have a right to trial by jury.
SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL JUSTICE
The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in State and Nation for:
Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial accidents, occupational diseases, overwork, involuntary unemployment, and other injurious effects incident to modern industry;
The fixing of minimum safety and health standards for the various occupations, and the exercise of the public authority of State and Nation, including the Federal Control over interstate commerce, and the taxing power, to maintain such standards;
The prohibition of child labor; Minimum wage standards for working women, to provide a "living wage" in all industrial occupations; The general prohibition of night work for women and the establishment of an eight hour day for women and young persons; One day’s rest in seven for all wage workers; The eight hour day in continuous twenty-four hour industries; The abolition of the convict contract labor system; substituting a system of prison production for governmental consumption only; and the application of prisoners’ earnings to the support of their dependent families; Publicity as to wages, hours and conditions of labor; full reports upon industrial accidents and diseases, and the opening to public inspection of all tallies, weights, measures and check systems on labor products; Standards of compensation for death by industrial accident and injury and trade disease which will transfer the burden of lost earnings from the families of working people to the industry, and thus to the community; The protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use; The development of the creative labor power of America by lifting the last load of illiteracy from American youth and establishing continuation schools for industrial education under public control and encouraging agricultural education and demonstration in rural schools; The establishment of industrial research laboratories to put the methods and discoveries of science at the service of American producers; We favor the organization of the workers, men and women, as a means of protecting their interests and of promoting their progress.
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
We pledge our party to establish a department of labor with a seat in the cabinet, and with wide jurisdiction over matters affecting the conditions of labor and living.
COUNTRY LIFE
The development and prosperity of country life are as important to the people who live in the cities as they are to the farmers. Increase of prosperity on the farm will favorably affect the cost of living, and promote the interests of all who dwell in the country, and all who depend upon its products for clothing, shelter and food.
We pledge our party to foster the development of agricultural credit and co-operation, the teaching of agriculture in schools, agricultural college extension, the use of mechanical power on the farm, and to re-establish the Country Life Commission, thus directly promoting the welfare of the farmers, and bringing the benefits of better farming, better business and better living within their reach.
HIGH COST OF LIVING
The high cost of living is due partly to worldwide and partly to local causes; partly to natural and partly to artificial causes. The measures proposed in this platform on various subjects such as the tariff, the trusts and conservation, will of themselves remove the artificial causes.
There will remain other elements such as the tendency to leave the country for the city, waste, extravagance, bad system of taxation, poor methods of raising crops and bad business methods in marketing crops.
To remedy these conditions requires the fullest information and based on this information, effective government supervision and control to remove all the artificial causes. We pledge ourselves to such full and immediate inquiry and to immediate action to deal with every need such inquiry discloses.
HEALTH
We favor the union of all the existing agencies of the Federal Government dealing with the public health into a single national health service without discrimination against or for any one set of therapeutic methods, school of medicine, or school of healing with such additional powers as may be necessary to enable it to perform efficiently such duties in the protection of the public from preventable diseases as may be properly undertaken by the Federal authorities, including the executing of existing laws regarding pure food, quarantine and cognate subjects, the promotion of vital statistics and the extension of the registration area of such statistics, and co-operation with the health activities of the various States and cities of the Nation.
BUSINESS
We believe that true popular government, justice and prosperity go hand in hand, and, so believing, it is our purpose to secure that large measure of general prosperity which is the fruit of legitimate and honest business, fostered by equal justice and by sound progressive laws.
We demand that the test of true prosperity shall be the benefits conferred thereby on all the citizens, not confined to individuals or classes, and that the test of corporate efficiency shall be the ability better to serve the public; that those who profit by control of business affairs shall justify that profit and that control by sharing with the public the fruits thereof.
We therefore demand a strong National regulation of inter-State corporations. The corporation is an essential part of modern business. The concentration of modem business, in some degree, is both inevitable and necessary for national and international business efficiency. But the existing concentration of vast wealth under a corporate system, unguarded and uncontrolled by the Nation, has placed in the hands of a few men enormous, secret, irresponsible power over the daily life of the citizen; a power insufferable in a free Government and certain of abuse.
This power has been abused, in monopoly of National resources, in stock watering, in unfair competition and unfair privileges, and finally in sinister influences on the public agencies of State and Nation. We do not fear commercial power, but we insist that it shall be exercised openly, under publicity, supervision and regulation of the most efficient sort, which will preserve its good while eradicating and preventing its ill.
To that end we urge the establishment of a strong Federal administrative commission of high standing, which shall maintain permanent active supervision over industrial corporations engaged in inter-State commerce, or such of them as are of public importance, doing for them what the Government now does for the National banks, and what is now done for the railroads by the Inter-State Commerce Commission.
Such a commission must enforce the complete publicity of those corporation transactions which are of public interest; must attack unfair competition, false capitalization and special privilege, and by continuous trained watchfulness guard and keep open equally all the highways of American commerce.
Thus the business man will have certain knowledge of the law, and will be able to conduct his business easily in conformity therewith; the investor will find security for his capital; dividends will be rendered more certain, and the savings of the people will be drawn naturally and safely into the channels of trade.
Under such a system of constructive regulation, legitimate business, freed from confusion, uncertainty and fruitless litigation will develop normally in response to the energy and enterprise of the American business man.
We favor strengthening the Sherman Law by prohibiting agreement to divide territory or limit output; refusing to sell to customers who buy from business rivals; to sell below cost in certain areas while maintaining higher prices in other places; using the power of transportation to aid or injure special business concerns; and other unfair trade practices.
PATENTS
We pledge ourselves to the enactment of a patent law which will make it impossible for patents to be suppressed or used against the public welfare in the interests of injurious monopolies.
INTER-STATE COMMERCE COMMISSION
We pledge our party to secure to the Inter-State Commerce Commission the power to value the physical property of railroads. In order that the power of the commission to protect the people may not be impaired or destroyed, we demand the abolition of the Commerce Court.
CURRENCY
We believe there exists imperative need for prompt legislation for the improvement of our National currency system. We believe the present method of issuing notes through private agencies is harmful and unscientific.
The issue of currency is fundamentally a Government function and the system should have as basic principles soundness and elasticity. The control should be lodged with the Government and should be protected from domination or manipulation by Wall Street or any special interests.
We are opposed to the so-called Aldrich currency bill, because its provisions would place our currency and credit system in private hands, not subject to effective public control.
COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT
The time has come when the Federal Government should co-operate with manufacturers and producers in extending our foreign commerce. To this end we demand adequate appropriations by Congress, and the appointment of diplomatic and consular officers solely with a view to their special fitness and worth, and not in consideration of political expediency.
It is imperative to the welfare of our people that we enlarge and extend our foreign commerce.
In every way possible our Federal Government should co-operate in this important matter. Germany’s policy of co-operation between government and business has, in comparatively few years, made that nation a leading competitor for the commerce of the world.
CONSERVATION
The natural resources of the Nation must be promptly developed and generously used to supply the people’s needs, but we cannot safely allow them to be wasted, exploited, monopolized or controlled against the general good. We heartily favor the policy of conservation, and we pledge our party to protect the National forests without hindering their legitimate use for the benefit of all the people.
Agricultural lands in the National forests are, and should remain, open to the genuine settler. Conservation will not retard legitimate development. The honest settler must receive his patent promptly, without hindrance, rules or delays.
We believe that the remaining forests, coal and oil lands, water powers and other natural resources still in State or National control (except agricultural lands) are more likely to be wisely conserved and utilized for the general welfare if held in the public hands.
In order that consumers and producers, managers and workmen, now and hereafter, need not pay toll to private monopolies of power and raw material, we demand that such resources shall be retained by the State or Nation, and opened to immediate use under laws which will encourage development and make to the people a moderate return for benefits conferred.
In particular we pledge our party to require reasonable compensation to the public for water power rights hereafter granted by the public.
We pledge legislation to lease the public grazing lands under equitable provisions now pending which will increase the production of food for the people and thoroughly safeguard the rights of the actual homemaker. Natural resources, whose conservation is necessary for the National welfare, should be owned or controlled by the Nation.
GOOD ROADS
We recognize the vital importance of good roads and we pledge our party to foster their extension in every proper way, and we favor the early construction of National highways. We also favor the extension of the rural free delivery service.
ALASKA
The coal and other natural resources of Alaska should be opened to development at once. They are owned by the people of the United States, and are safe from monopoly, waste or destruction only while so owned.
We demand that they shall neither be sold nor given away, except under the Homestead Law, but while held in Government ownership shall be opened to use promptly upon liberal terms requiring immediate development.
Thus the benefit of cheap fuel will accrue to the Government of the United States and to the people of Alaska and the Pacific Coast; the settlement of extensive agricultural lands will be hastened; the extermination of the salmon will be prevented and the just and wise development of Alaskan resources will take the place of private extortion or monopoly.
We demand also that extortion or monopoly in transportation shall be prevented by the prompt acquisition, construction or improvement by the Government of such railroads, harbor and other facilities for transportation as the welfare of the people may demand.
We promise the people of the Territory of Alaska the same measure of legal self-government that was given to other American territories, and that Federal officials appointed there shall be qualified by previous bona-fide residence in the Territory.
WATERWAYS
The rivers of the United States are the natural arteries of this continent. We demand that they shall be opened to traffic as indispensable parts of a great Nation-wide system of transportation, in which the Panama Canal will be the central link, thus enabling the whole interior of the United States to share with the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards in the benefit derived from the canal.
It is a National obligation to develop our rivers, and especially the Mississippi and its tributaries, without delay, under a comprehensive general plan covering each river system from its source to its mouth, designed to secure its highest usefulness for navigation, irrigation, domestic supply, water power and the prevention of floods.
We pledge our party to the immediate preparation of such a plan, which should be made and carried out in close and friendly co-operation between the Nation, the States and the cities affected.
Under such a plan, the destructive floods of the Mississippi and other streams, which represent a vast and needless loss to the Nation, would be controlled by forest conservation and water storage at the headwaters, and by levees below; land sufficient to support millions of people would be reclaimed from the deserts and the swamps, water power enough to transform the industrial standings of whole States would be developed, adequate water terminals would be provided, transportation by river would revive, and the railroads would be compelled to co-operate as freely with the boat lines as with each other.
The equipment, organization and experience acquired in constructing the Panama Canal soon will be available for the Lakes-to-the-Gulf deep waterway and other portions of this great work, and should be utilized by the Nation in co-operation with the various States, at the lowest net cost to the people.
PANAMA CANAL
The Panama Canal, built and paid for by the American people, must be used primarily for their benefit.
We demand that the canal shall be so operated as to break the transportation monopoly now held and misused by the transcontinental railroads by maintaining sea competition with them; that ships directly or indirectly owned or controlled by American railroad corporations shall not be permitted to use the canal, and that American ships engaged in coastwise trade shall pay no tolls.
The Progressive party will favor legislation having for its aim the development of friendship and commerce between the United States and Latin-American nations.
TARIFF
We believe in a protective tariff which shall equalize conditions of competition between the United States and foreign countries, both for the farmer and the manufacturer, and which shall maintain for labor an adequate standard of living.
Primarily the benefit of any tariff should be disclosed in the pay envelope of the laborer. We declare that no industry deserves protection which is unfair to labor or which is operating in violation of Federal law. We believe that the presumption is always in favor of the consuming public.
We demand tariff revision because the present tariff is unjust to the people of the United States. Fair dealing toward the people requires an immediate downward revision of those schedules wherein duties are shown to be unjust or excessive.
We pledge ourselves to the establishment of a non-partisan scientific tariff commission, reporting both to the President and to either branch of Congress, which shall report, first, as to the costs of production, efficiency of labor, capitalization, industrial organization and efficiency and the general competitive position in this country and abroad of industries seeking protection from Congress; second, as to the revenue producing power of the tariff and its relation to the resources of Government; and, third, as to the effect of the tariff on prices, operations of middlemen, and on the purchasing power of the consumer.
We believe that this commission should have plenary power to elicit information, and for this purpose to prescribe a uniform system of accounting for the great protected industries. The work of the commission should not prevent the immediate adoption of acts reducing these schedules generally recognized as excessive.
We condemn the Payne-Aldrich bill as unjust to the people. The Republican organization is in the hands of those who have broken, and cannot again be trusted to keep, the promise of necessary downward revision.
The Democratic party is committed to the destruction of the protective system through a tariff for revenue only a policy which would inevitably produce widespread industrial and commercial disaster.
We demand the immediate repeal of the Canadian Reciprocity Act.
INHERITANCE AND INCOME TAX
We believe in a graduated inheritance tax as a National means of equalizing the obligations of holders of property to Government, and we hereby pledge our party to enact such a Federal law as will tax large inheritances, returning to the States an equitable percentage of all amounts collected.
We favor the ratification of the pending amendment to the Constitution giving the Government power to levy an income tax.
PEACE AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
The Progressive party deplores the survival in our civilization of the barbaric system of warfare among nations with its enormous waste of resources even in time of peace, and the consequent impoverishment of the life of the toiling masses. We pledge the party to use its best endeavors to substitute judicial and other peaceful means of settling international differences.
We favor an international agreement for the limitation of naval forces. Pending such an agreement, and as the best means of preserving peace, we pledge ourselves to maintain for the present the policy of building two battleships a year.
TREATY RIGHTS
We pledge our party to protect the rights of American citizenship at home and abroad. No treaty should receive the sanction of our Government which discriminates between American citizens because of birthplace, race, or religion, or that does not recognize the absolute right of expatriation.
THE IMMIGRANT
Through the establishment of industrial standards we propose to secure to the able-bodied immigrant and to his native fellow workers a larger share of American opportunity.
We denounce the fatal policy of indifference and neglect which has left our enormous immigrant population to become the prey of chance and cupidity.
We favor Governmental action to encourage the distribution of immigrants away from the congested cities, to rigidly supervise all private agencies dealing with them and to promote their assimilation, education and advancement.
PENSIONS
We pledge ourselves to a wise and just policy of pensioning American soldiers and sailors and their widows and children by the Federal Government. And we approve the policy of the southern States in granting pensions to the ex-Confederate soldiers and sailors and their widows and children.
PARCEL POST
We pledge our party to the immediate creation of a parcel post, with rates proportionate to distance and service.
CIVIL SERVICE
We condemn the violations of the Civil Service Law under the present administration, including the coercion and assessment of subordinate employees, and the President’s refusal to punish such violation after a finding of guilty by his own commission; his distribution of patronage among subservient congressmen, while withholding it from those who refuse support of administration measures; his withdrawal of nominations from the Senate until political support for himself was secured, and his open use of the offices to reward those who voted for his re-nomination.
To eradicate these abuses, we demand not only the enforcement of the civil service act in letter and spirit, but also legislation which will bring under the competitive system postmasters, collectors, marshals, and all other non-political officers, as well as the enactment of an equitable retirement law, and we also insist upon continuous service during good behavior and efficiency.
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ORGANIZATION
We pledge our party to readjustment of the business methods of the National Government and a proper co-ordination of the Federal bureaus, which will increase the economy and efficiency of the Government service, prevent duplications, and secure better results to the taxpayers for every dollar expended.
The Progressive party will favor legislation having for its aim the development of friendship and commerce between the United States and Latin-American nations.
TARIFF
We believe in a protective tariff which shall equalize conditions of competition between the United States and foreign countries, both for the farmer and the manufacturer, and which shall maintain for labor an adequate standard of living.
Primarily the benefit of any tariff should be disclosed in the pay envelope of the laborer. We declare that no industry deserves protection which is unfair to labor or which is operating in violation of Federal law. We believe that the presumption is always in favor of the consuming public.
We demand tariff revision because the present tariff is unjust to the people of the United States. Fair dealing toward the people requires an immediate downward revision of those schedules wherein duties are shown to be unjust or excessive.
We pledge ourselves to the establishment of a non-partisan scientific tariff commission, reporting both to the President and to either branch of Congress, which shall report, first, as to the costs of production, efficiency of labor, capitalization, industrial organization and efficiency and the general competitive position in this country and abroad of industries seeking protection from Congress; second, as to the revenue producing power of the tariff and its relation to the resources of Government; and, third, as to the effect of the tariff on prices, operations of middlemen, and on the purchasing power of the consumer.
We believe that this commission should have plenary power to elicit information, and for this purpose to prescribe a uniform system of accounting for the great protected industries. The work of the commission should not prevent the immediate adoption of acts reducing these schedules generally recognized as excessive.
We condemn the Payne-Aldrich bill as unjust to the people. The Republican organization is in the hands of those who have broken, and cannot again be trusted to keep, the promise of necessary downward revision.
The Democratic party is committed to the destruction of the protective system through a tariff for revenue only a policy which would inevitably produce widespread industrial and commercial disaster.
We demand the immediate repeal of the Canadian Reciprocity Act.
INHERITANCE AND INCOME TAX
We believe in a graduated inheritance tax as a National means of equalizing the obligations of holders of property to Government, and we hereby pledge our party to enact such a Federal law as will tax large inheritances, returning to the States an equitable percentage of all amounts collected.
We favor the ratification of the pending amendment to the Constitution giving the Government power to levy an income tax.
PEACE AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
The Progressive party deplores the survival in our civilization of the barbaric system of warfare among nations with its enormous waste of resources even in time of peace, and the consequent impoverishment of the life of the toiling masses. We pledge the party to use its best endeavors to substitute judicial and other peaceful means of settling international differences.
We favor an international agreement for the limitation of naval forces. Pending such an agreement, and as the best means of preserving peace, we pledge ourselves to maintain for the present the policy of building two battleships a year.
TREATY RIGHTS
We pledge our party to protect the rights of American citizenship at home and abroad. No treaty should receive the sanction of our Government which discriminates between American citizens because of birthplace, race, or religion, or that does not recognize the absolute right of expatriation.
THE IMMIGRANT
Through the establishment of industrial standards we propose to secure to the able-bodied immigrant and to his native fellow workers a larger share of American opportunity.
We denounce the fatal policy of indifference and neglect which has left our enormous immigrant population to become the prey of chance and cupidity.
We favor Governmental action to encourage the distribution of immigrants away from the congested cities, to rigidly supervise all private agencies dealing with them and to promote their assimilation, education and advancement.
PENSIONS
We pledge ourselves to a wise and just policy of pensioning American soldiers and sailors and their widows and children by the Federal Government. And we approve the policy of the southern States in granting pensions to the ex-Confederate soldiers and sailors and their widows and children.
PARCEL POST
We pledge our party to the immediate creation of a parcel post, with rates proportionate to distance and service.
CIVIL SERVICE
We condemn the violations of the Civil Service Law under the present administration, including the coercion and assessment of subordinate employees, and the President’s refusal to punish such violation after a finding of guilty by his own commission; his distribution of patronage among subservient congressmen, while withholding it from those who refuse support of administration measures; his withdrawal of nominations from the Senate until political support for himself was secured, and his open use of the offices to reward those who voted for his re-nomination.
To eradicate these abuses, we demand not only the enforcement of the civil service act in letter and spirit, but also legislation which will bring under the competitive system postmasters, collectors, marshals, and all other non-political officers, as well as the enactment of an equitable retirement law, and we also insist upon continuous service during good behavior and efficiency.
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ORGANIZATION
We pledge our party to readjustment of the business methods of the National Government and a proper co-ordination of the Federal bureaus, which will increase the economy and efficiency of the Government service, prevent duplications, and secure better results to the taxpayers for every dollar expended.
GOVERNMENT SUPERVISION OVER INVESTMENTS
The people of the United States are swindled out of many millions of dollars every year, through worthless investments. The plain people, the wage earner and the men and women with small savings, have no way of knowing the merit of concerns sending out highly colored prospectuses offering stock for sale, prospectuses that make big returns seem certain and fortunes easily within grasp.
We hold it to be the duty of the Government to protect its people from this kind of piracy. We, therefore, demand wise, carefully thought out legislation that will give us such Governmental supervision over this matter as will furnish to the people of the United States this much-needed protection, and we pledge ourselves thereto.
CONCLUSION
On these principles and on the recognized desirability of uniting the Progressive forces of the Nation into an organization which shall unequivocally represent the Progressive spirit and policy we appeal for the support of all American citizens, without regard to previous political affiliations.
Additional Note:
Pay attention to Madison's words used when describing PROPERTY
Amendment 5 - Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life...; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
It would seem certain that money is property and income is money so therefore - using a variable rate "progressive" system is a clear violation of the "TAKING CLAUSE".
The act of government taking for redistribution would require them paying "JUST COMPENSATION." This would clearly end income tax as we know it. Another reason for repealing the 16th amendment.
Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man’s house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man’s conscience, which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection for which the public faith is pledged by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact. – “Property” in The National Gazette (29 March 1792) James Madison
I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. – Annals of Congress (1794-01-10) James Madison
SOURCE LINK For Additional Note:
http://api.ning.com/files/ZwIi6Kh8TRM8S9mWCh1jVDneJsVihpTmHoGWsswEE..
TO TEA OR NOT TO TEA - THAT IS THE NEW QUESTION
All the media and Political class are burning the midnight oils trying to identify what is the TEA PARTY – one says it is filled with angry old white people – another says they are all anarchists – next is extreme right wing racists – the next says they are the KKK being reborn in the old South.
Some of the PROGRESSIVE wings of both established parties refuse to admit that they are a party made of many factions. The case of the Democrats is that they range from Communist, Socialist, Sierra club, Greenpeace, OWS, UNIONS, welfare people, Government employees, University Professors, Teachers’ Associations, and other social needs/justice groups. Then they attract the Lawyers and even the super-rich big businesses that want super REGULATIONS so they can eliminate small business competition. Democrats have lost all CONSERVATIVE BLUE DOGS as proven by the 100% vote in lockstep.
The Republicans range from very Liberal in the case of the NE and some North States all the way to very conservative in most of the South. What was the Reagan Democrat Catholic is now gone – either moved to Independent or just refuse to vote. The Evangelical and very Religious groups have decided to just stay home in two out of the last three elections. So, the Tea Party is not made up of Religious bigots and Homophobes as the media tries to paint.
It is difficult to tell the difference if you gauge them by the SPENDING HABITS of Congress – both parties have overspent and wasted the earning future of the next five generations. Neither suffers a single remorseful thought for they have deceived themselves into believing that they have no choice but to take care of all citizens financial – education needs. The people must be cared for as they are just children and powerless – the rich are taking advantage of all the employers.
The Political class on both sides again must create an ‘enemy mine’ – they must make their supporters HATE the other sides’ supporters. Now they both have identified and protected the factions within their parties – they defend the set factions with vigor and defiance. One has small business and the other has Unions – working people have no defenders only those using them as voter farms with bribes and payments.
Each Politician returns home and tells the voters all the good things they have caused to happen in their districts/States using Federal tax money from someone else in some other State. Therefore they are heroes and deserve reelection. The Greens like the regulations and locking up the lands, the farmer likes the subsidies and regulations that keep small farms from competing with them for market share.
The media never informs the public about these tactics to purchase power suing TAX DOLLARS – when is the last time government actually reduced its total size and cost to the society? No one talks about that because big government is feeding them all.
As the debt grew and grew the government grew further from the people that it is supposed to SERVE. It has taken on a life of its own and now makes further demands on the citizens to share more of their earnings with those that need more for doing less. From each according to their ability - to each according to their needs. Not American free enterprise now is it?
Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli
After the many decades of decline in opportunity for the average person alone came some portion of society that was concerned about debt and Regulations chasing away the America dream. Yes, these people saw the debt being a major issue, other groups saw an overgrown super-sized government as a major issue, still more felt that the amount taken from each individual annual earnings was excessive, some felt that the government school system from K-12 and even University was no longer educating.
These groups starting seeing that the children were being indoctrinated in Social Justice Political correctness. They were also forced to become secular in public, no Christmas, no crosses, no special lights, no Nativity scenes, no Bibles in schools - instead teaching of Islamic law in schools, teaching of tolerance for all except Christians and Jews.
Then came an election and these many groups across the nation were angry – hence someone created the T[axed] E[nough] A[lready] thus the TEA PARTY WAS BORN; it spread far and wide in a very short time. From the beginning the Media painted it as a small number of dissonant people that amounted to no serious issue or power.
Suddenly it appeared that there were thousands of these small unconnected groups from big cities to little farm towns. Soon the numbers were growing so fast that they began to nominate candidates and funded them with campaign money. Well, the success was great and the Republicans gained the benefit from the Tea Party activities. The Democrats lost control of the House by suffering the biggest single-shift ever.
The Tea Party suffered in 2012 by overreaching and selected some questionable candidates. The media and parties tried to move away and brand them as extremists. 2014 is currently a big question mark.
Some of the PROGRESSIVE wings of both established parties refuse to admit that they are a party made of many factions. The case of the Democrats is that they range from Communist, Socialist, Sierra club, Greenpeace, OWS, UNIONS, welfare people, Government employees, University Professors, Teachers’ Associations, and other social needs/justice groups. Then they attract the Lawyers and even the super-rich big businesses that want super REGULATIONS so they can eliminate small business competition. Democrats have lost all CONSERVATIVE BLUE DOGS as proven by the 100% vote in lockstep.
The Republicans range from very Liberal in the case of the NE and some North States all the way to very conservative in most of the South. What was the Reagan Democrat Catholic is now gone – either moved to Independent or just refuse to vote. The Evangelical and very Religious groups have decided to just stay home in two out of the last three elections. So, the Tea Party is not made up of Religious bigots and Homophobes as the media tries to paint.
It is difficult to tell the difference if you gauge them by the SPENDING HABITS of Congress – both parties have overspent and wasted the earning future of the next five generations. Neither suffers a single remorseful thought for they have deceived themselves into believing that they have no choice but to take care of all citizens financial – education needs. The people must be cared for as they are just children and powerless – the rich are taking advantage of all the employers.
The Political class on both sides again must create an ‘enemy mine’ – they must make their supporters HATE the other sides’ supporters. Now they both have identified and protected the factions within their parties – they defend the set factions with vigor and defiance. One has small business and the other has Unions – working people have no defenders only those using them as voter farms with bribes and payments.
Each Politician returns home and tells the voters all the good things they have caused to happen in their districts/States using Federal tax money from someone else in some other State. Therefore they are heroes and deserve reelection. The Greens like the regulations and locking up the lands, the farmer likes the subsidies and regulations that keep small farms from competing with them for market share.
The media never informs the public about these tactics to purchase power suing TAX DOLLARS – when is the last time government actually reduced its total size and cost to the society? No one talks about that because big government is feeding them all.
As the debt grew and grew the government grew further from the people that it is supposed to SERVE. It has taken on a life of its own and now makes further demands on the citizens to share more of their earnings with those that need more for doing less. From each according to their ability - to each according to their needs. Not American free enterprise now is it?
Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli
After the many decades of decline in opportunity for the average person alone came some portion of society that was concerned about debt and Regulations chasing away the America dream. Yes, these people saw the debt being a major issue, other groups saw an overgrown super-sized government as a major issue, still more felt that the amount taken from each individual annual earnings was excessive, some felt that the government school system from K-12 and even University was no longer educating.
These groups starting seeing that the children were being indoctrinated in Social Justice Political correctness. They were also forced to become secular in public, no Christmas, no crosses, no special lights, no Nativity scenes, no Bibles in schools - instead teaching of Islamic law in schools, teaching of tolerance for all except Christians and Jews.
Then came an election and these many groups across the nation were angry – hence someone created the T[axed] E[nough] A[lready] thus the TEA PARTY WAS BORN; it spread far and wide in a very short time. From the beginning the Media painted it as a small number of dissonant people that amounted to no serious issue or power.
Suddenly it appeared that there were thousands of these small unconnected groups from big cities to little farm towns. Soon the numbers were growing so fast that they began to nominate candidates and funded them with campaign money. Well, the success was great and the Republicans gained the benefit from the Tea Party activities. The Democrats lost control of the House by suffering the biggest single-shift ever.
The Tea Party suffered in 2012 by overreaching and selected some questionable candidates. The media and parties tried to move away and brand them as extremists. 2014 is currently a big question mark.
Outside the Box Our Government Has Put Us In
It is necessary to look outside the box the government has put us in so we can determine a way out of the hole.
Let's consider the China issue.
I made no supporting argument for China and it treatment of the citizens there, I would simply like to point to the benefits that the POOR of America who either have no jobs or have no job skills.
By the very nature of this fact alone, they are the permanent underclass that through the circumstance of their poverty become a generational reality that is reliant on the public dole. The sector would also include the unskilled worker that lives on $8 to $12 per hour retail sales or food service industry. Lower cost of everyday products changes their standard of living.
Even if you close the American market and raise the minimum wage to $25 per hour the new amount will only purchase a equal or even lower standard of living as all other wages increase the prices of everything will also rise. This is pure INFLATION without benefit to any sector of the society except government. Government receives more total tax dollars and can payoff debts with cheap dollars. So, In this economic model does the citizen gain or lose? Does the government win or lose?
In my opinion, we are still faced with a current flaw design - in fact that is the problem. The restrictions on industries to develop natural resources and to manufacture the heavy industrial goods we require to continue to grow our economy, have cost us thousands upon thousands of much needed jobs. Jobs people need. Only with re-industrialization can we compete with other nations; a battle we will always win if we are FREE to conduct commerce. It is not the external treaties that killed our industries it is the self inflicted wounds to our industries and after we cut off their legs we ask them to compete in a race.
The problem is government and the solution is freedom and a free market for our producer to produce what sells and not what the government regulates - that would be light bulbs and not CFTs.
I will now repeat the same principle by using a WSJ article 6/24/11:
FACTORY JOBS BECOME ELECTION ISSUE
In 1950 31% of the workers were employed in manufacturing, and in 2011 it is 9%. So, you can see the effect of EPA, OSHA,EEOC, BLM, NFS, ESA, political actions to close access to natural resources and excess regulations of the industries. [If you doubt this point, ask yourself, would a manufacturing Nation voluntarily reduce the strength of their economic base? Name one single other contributing factor that could have/would have caused such a reduction.]
People with sophisticated machine operator skills that can earn $ 50,000 to $ 80,000 a year in factories , but many U.S. manufactures say they can not find enough YOUNG people interested in acquiring those job skills. Skill shortages are emerging in engineering and other skilled positions.
Another current example is that Pennsylvania lost 169,000 jobs since Obama took office and that included 51,000 manufacturing jobs. It has been a down hill trend for the U.S.A. since 1950 and if you research it out you will find that the cost of regulations were a much greater cause of factories moving offshore than labor. This is proven out because the labor content of most manufactured items has been reduced by using automation and improved techniques. Many will say it was wage related but that is not 100% true. EPA permits, law suits from E-greens and agencies of the government delay any upgrade or improvement to factories, in some cases this has held up project for more than 10 years.
So, while is is popular to blame or point at the evil Corporations and greedy profit seekers they are more times than not innocent of the charges - they were reacting to changes in government regulations and access to energy and raw materials. If the government closes iron, aluminium and copper smelters then the industries that use those items follow the material sources.
When all thing that we see are going down hill and the future looks bleak, it is time to look at the real cause of the first big depression and any other subsequent to follow it, depressed economies have always started and continued as a result of intrusive government policy. When a huge number of attorneys, such as the increasing number that we elect to Congress, start to run and plan the business of the citizens - delays and cost increases, caused by the regulations and restrictions they design, coupled without an increase in productivity, they doom the economy and make recovery nearly impossible.
Let's consider the China issue.
I made no supporting argument for China and it treatment of the citizens there, I would simply like to point to the benefits that the POOR of America who either have no jobs or have no job skills.
By the very nature of this fact alone, they are the permanent underclass that through the circumstance of their poverty become a generational reality that is reliant on the public dole. The sector would also include the unskilled worker that lives on $8 to $12 per hour retail sales or food service industry. Lower cost of everyday products changes their standard of living.
Even if you close the American market and raise the minimum wage to $25 per hour the new amount will only purchase a equal or even lower standard of living as all other wages increase the prices of everything will also rise. This is pure INFLATION without benefit to any sector of the society except government. Government receives more total tax dollars and can payoff debts with cheap dollars. So, In this economic model does the citizen gain or lose? Does the government win or lose?
In my opinion, we are still faced with a current flaw design - in fact that is the problem. The restrictions on industries to develop natural resources and to manufacture the heavy industrial goods we require to continue to grow our economy, have cost us thousands upon thousands of much needed jobs. Jobs people need. Only with re-industrialization can we compete with other nations; a battle we will always win if we are FREE to conduct commerce. It is not the external treaties that killed our industries it is the self inflicted wounds to our industries and after we cut off their legs we ask them to compete in a race.
The problem is government and the solution is freedom and a free market for our producer to produce what sells and not what the government regulates - that would be light bulbs and not CFTs.
I will now repeat the same principle by using a WSJ article 6/24/11:
FACTORY JOBS BECOME ELECTION ISSUE
In 1950 31% of the workers were employed in manufacturing, and in 2011 it is 9%. So, you can see the effect of EPA, OSHA,EEOC, BLM, NFS, ESA, political actions to close access to natural resources and excess regulations of the industries. [If you doubt this point, ask yourself, would a manufacturing Nation voluntarily reduce the strength of their economic base? Name one single other contributing factor that could have/would have caused such a reduction.]
People with sophisticated machine operator skills that can earn $ 50,000 to $ 80,000 a year in factories , but many U.S. manufactures say they can not find enough YOUNG people interested in acquiring those job skills. Skill shortages are emerging in engineering and other skilled positions.
Another current example is that Pennsylvania lost 169,000 jobs since Obama took office and that included 51,000 manufacturing jobs. It has been a down hill trend for the U.S.A. since 1950 and if you research it out you will find that the cost of regulations were a much greater cause of factories moving offshore than labor. This is proven out because the labor content of most manufactured items has been reduced by using automation and improved techniques. Many will say it was wage related but that is not 100% true. EPA permits, law suits from E-greens and agencies of the government delay any upgrade or improvement to factories, in some cases this has held up project for more than 10 years.
So, while is is popular to blame or point at the evil Corporations and greedy profit seekers they are more times than not innocent of the charges - they were reacting to changes in government regulations and access to energy and raw materials. If the government closes iron, aluminium and copper smelters then the industries that use those items follow the material sources.
When all thing that we see are going down hill and the future looks bleak, it is time to look at the real cause of the first big depression and any other subsequent to follow it, depressed economies have always started and continued as a result of intrusive government policy. When a huge number of attorneys, such as the increasing number that we elect to Congress, start to run and plan the business of the citizens - delays and cost increases, caused by the regulations and restrictions they design, coupled without an increase in productivity, they doom the economy and make recovery nearly impossible.
SHAME ON YOU – SHAME ON YOU
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." ~ Plato
“We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little partial, local interests, our projects will be confounded and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, or conquest.” ~ (Benjamin Franklin)
The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” ~ (Benjamin Franklin)
Yes, as you can see we the People have not followed the wisdom of the ages and now find ourselves ruled by those that are inferior. Our RULE – BY – LAW Constitutional Republic has slowly been usurped by the Courts, the Legislative and Executive Branches and we are now a RULE – BY – MAN nation. Our Republic like the tree of Liberty has been neglected so long that the 250 year old is in serious risk of death.
The death will be slow unless we resolve to step up and end the movement to DEMOCRACY – which always ends in war and dictatorship.
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty. ~ Plato
Shame on us – shame on us for putting our personal wants and needs ahead of COUNTRY. We all just sat and voted for promises of free goodies and lower taxes.
"Where is the politician who has not promised to fight to the death for lower taxes- and who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible?" ~ Barry Goldwater
We now find our nation in decline, we have destroyed 50 million blue collar middle class skilled jobs – all sacrificed at the altar of the PROGRESSIVE movement since the early 1900s. We suffered through two world wars and lost millions of our people. Now we have given into POLICE ACTIONS, this was designed to keep Congress from being required by the Constitution to declare war. If they declared war then they would suffer at the election booth.
The answer to this Unconstitutional act was to pass the WAR POWERS ACT … where the Executive could take action and then go to congress for funding after a time period. It also required annual funding by a vote of Congress. My bet is that few know that Korea and the USA are still in a state of POLICE ACTION [AKA WAR]. These type engagements are never fought to win only to stabilize the region.
We are still engaged in four or five of these police actions and they are being politicized which divides the nation and forces the various factions to use them as clubs to beat up the other faction. Washington is without leadership - America is a rudderless ship spinning toward failure. The Federal Government spends our tax dollars to bribe voter blocks and business sectors and they use tax laws to do SOCIAL ENGINEERING AND REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” ~ James Madison
SHAME ON US we the people sat idly by and let the Politicians rob the TREASURY in the name of good when all they wanted was to increase their power to rule all individuals and to dictate our rights as if they were the CREATOR.
YES SHAME ON US – NOW WILL WE STAND AND FIGHT TO KEEP THE REPUBLIC OR TAKE THE COWARDS WAY OUT AND YIELD TO DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM.
Mangus Colorado
“We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little partial, local interests, our projects will be confounded and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, or conquest.” ~ (Benjamin Franklin)
The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” ~ (Benjamin Franklin)
Yes, as you can see we the People have not followed the wisdom of the ages and now find ourselves ruled by those that are inferior. Our RULE – BY – LAW Constitutional Republic has slowly been usurped by the Courts, the Legislative and Executive Branches and we are now a RULE – BY – MAN nation. Our Republic like the tree of Liberty has been neglected so long that the 250 year old is in serious risk of death.
The death will be slow unless we resolve to step up and end the movement to DEMOCRACY – which always ends in war and dictatorship.
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty. ~ Plato
Shame on us – shame on us for putting our personal wants and needs ahead of COUNTRY. We all just sat and voted for promises of free goodies and lower taxes.
"Where is the politician who has not promised to fight to the death for lower taxes- and who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible?" ~ Barry Goldwater
We now find our nation in decline, we have destroyed 50 million blue collar middle class skilled jobs – all sacrificed at the altar of the PROGRESSIVE movement since the early 1900s. We suffered through two world wars and lost millions of our people. Now we have given into POLICE ACTIONS, this was designed to keep Congress from being required by the Constitution to declare war. If they declared war then they would suffer at the election booth.
The answer to this Unconstitutional act was to pass the WAR POWERS ACT … where the Executive could take action and then go to congress for funding after a time period. It also required annual funding by a vote of Congress. My bet is that few know that Korea and the USA are still in a state of POLICE ACTION [AKA WAR]. These type engagements are never fought to win only to stabilize the region.
We are still engaged in four or five of these police actions and they are being politicized which divides the nation and forces the various factions to use them as clubs to beat up the other faction. Washington is without leadership - America is a rudderless ship spinning toward failure. The Federal Government spends our tax dollars to bribe voter blocks and business sectors and they use tax laws to do SOCIAL ENGINEERING AND REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” ~ James Madison
SHAME ON US we the people sat idly by and let the Politicians rob the TREASURY in the name of good when all they wanted was to increase their power to rule all individuals and to dictate our rights as if they were the CREATOR.
YES SHAME ON US – NOW WILL WE STAND AND FIGHT TO KEEP THE REPUBLIC OR TAKE THE COWARDS WAY OUT AND YIELD TO DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM.
Mangus Colorado
We Need Honor and Truth From the Press
LOOK AT HISTORY- every single DEBT LIMIT INCREASE VOTE, over the decades has required that the President give a list of items to Congress that justify the increase. This discussion - the process of valid examination of the requests - public analysis and reporting of the facts to be considered...and/or the government is threatened with 'shut down'? This has happened many many times.
Too bad we have no real Journalists left in the BIG media arena to vet the process for their readers/viewers - THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Today we have little research, little in-depth and neutral reporting. It is like gossip-rag tabloid t.v...The stories are all about 'did you hear what so and so said about you?' Soap opera reality-rating driven spectacular television.
The New Normal in Journalism -The New Normal that is the American Mainstream Press.
Come on someone out there write the good stuff that The People need to read and know so that they can be informed? This is the purpose of the [Free] Press and the First amendment - have you no honor?
I leave you with these thoughts my Friends, before you reflect on the current events below.
"The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent." Charles Eliot Norton
"One of the shrewdest ways for human predators to conquer their stronger victims is to steadily convince them with propaganda that they're still free." N.A. Scott.
"This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go undebated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths." -- Simon Heffer
Too bad we have no real Journalists left in the BIG media arena to vet the process for their readers/viewers - THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Today we have little research, little in-depth and neutral reporting. It is like gossip-rag tabloid t.v...The stories are all about 'did you hear what so and so said about you?' Soap opera reality-rating driven spectacular television.
The New Normal in Journalism -The New Normal that is the American Mainstream Press.
Come on someone out there write the good stuff that The People need to read and know so that they can be informed? This is the purpose of the [Free] Press and the First amendment - have you no honor?
I leave you with these thoughts my Friends, before you reflect on the current events below.
"The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent." Charles Eliot Norton
"One of the shrewdest ways for human predators to conquer their stronger victims is to steadily convince them with propaganda that they're still free." N.A. Scott.
"This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go undebated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths." -- Simon Heffer
John Boehner, hostage taker.
REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstIn the series of debt limit fights we've had since 2011, Republicans' explanation for why they make demands in exchange for raising the limit has been that the debt is out of control, so debt limit increases must be combined with policies to control the debt.
In 2011, John Boehner laid out the "Boehner rule": that there should be $1 in spending cuts for every $1 in debt limit increase. This rule was arbitrary, in that the spending cuts were measured over a 10-year budget window, but it was still a rule that tied added borrowing to fiscal austerity. And Boehner got his demands met in the Budget Control Act, which led to sequestration.
In January 2013, House Republicans agreed to another debt limit increase in exchange for a requirement that the Senate must pass a budget resolution. This was a cave by Republicans—the budget resolution didn't have to become law or even be reconciled with a House budget—but at least it tied the debt limit issue to the federal budget.
Now, Republicans are out with a list of demands for raising the debt ceiling, many of which have little or no connection to the federal debt. According to a report from National Review,they include:
A one-year delay of Obamacare.
Blocking Net Neutrality regulations.
Approving the Keystone Pipeline.
Blocking the EPA from regulating ash waste from coal-fired power plants.
Subjecting funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to annual Congressional appropriation.
This is just a list of things Republicans would like to do if they ran the government. But they don't run the government. Instead, they are contending that it is a valid legislative strategy to use the leverage of the debt ceiling — which will cause an economic crisis if it is not increased — to demand their way on any unrelated issue.
The pretense that debt limit fights are about the public debt is over.
Some parliamentary systems (Australia's, for example) have a system where one house of parliament can block funding for the operation of government even when the other chamber is controlled by a different party. But in those systems, a deadlock over funding leads to early elections, so voters can decide which side should get its way about the budget.
As Americans, we have no such luck. We're going to be stuck in this nightmare at least until the 2014 elections, or perhaps beyond.
America's constitutional system only works if the divided branches of government are willing to work together to make consensual agreements about running the government. Republicans are showing themselves to be too irresponsible to make the American constitutional system work. [End of article]
http://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-have-abandoned-any-pretense-that-the-debt-limit-fight-is-about-debt-2013-9#ixzz2g6eLcqNR
Harkin: Tea Party 'every bit' as dangerous to nation as the Civil War
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) on Friday said that the Tea Party movement is just as dangerous for America as the Civil War.
“A small group of willful men and women who have a certain ideology about how our country should run and what we should do cannot get their way in a normal discourse and votes,” Harkin said. “Since they can’t get their way, they’re going to create this confusion and discourse and hope the public is so mixed up in who to blame for this that perhaps they’ll blame both sides.”
“That is the path they see for taking over the government. It’s dangerous, very dangerous. ... Every bit as dangerous as the break up and the Civil War.” [End of Article]
Harkin made the comments as the Senate prepared to vote on a continuing resolution that would fund the government past Sept 30. Democrats are moving to strip language from the bill that would defund President Obama's healthcare law.
Harkin said Republicans were throwing a “temper tantrum” and threatening to "take their marbles home" unless they get their way on ObamaCare, risking a government shutdown.
“I suppose if you are of an anarchist mind, which I believe some of them are, then you don’t want government, you want to create chaos,” Harkin said. “But this is not a game and hopefully we’re not children.”
Last week, House Republicans passed H.J.Res. 59, which funds the government through Dec. 15 at sequestration levels but defunds ObamaCare. The Senate is expected to advance that legislation today, but only after adding an amendment that restores ObamaCare funding and moving the funding date to Nov. 15.
Harkin said it was hard enough for some Democrats to “swallow” the sequester spending level, but in the “spirit of compromise” the Senate would meet Republicans partway. The House would then have to accept the Senate changes or risk a government shutdown as time runs out.
The government will shut down Oct. 1 if Congress doesn't approve some a government funding measure.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/325091-harkin-tea-party-movement-is-as-dangerous-for-the-country-as-civil-war#ixzz2g6uzskBF
Thank You for Reading.
cl/MC
In 2011, John Boehner laid out the "Boehner rule": that there should be $1 in spending cuts for every $1 in debt limit increase. This rule was arbitrary, in that the spending cuts were measured over a 10-year budget window, but it was still a rule that tied added borrowing to fiscal austerity. And Boehner got his demands met in the Budget Control Act, which led to sequestration.
In January 2013, House Republicans agreed to another debt limit increase in exchange for a requirement that the Senate must pass a budget resolution. This was a cave by Republicans—the budget resolution didn't have to become law or even be reconciled with a House budget—but at least it tied the debt limit issue to the federal budget.
Now, Republicans are out with a list of demands for raising the debt ceiling, many of which have little or no connection to the federal debt. According to a report from National Review,they include:
A one-year delay of Obamacare.
Blocking Net Neutrality regulations.
Approving the Keystone Pipeline.
Blocking the EPA from regulating ash waste from coal-fired power plants.
Subjecting funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to annual Congressional appropriation.
This is just a list of things Republicans would like to do if they ran the government. But they don't run the government. Instead, they are contending that it is a valid legislative strategy to use the leverage of the debt ceiling — which will cause an economic crisis if it is not increased — to demand their way on any unrelated issue.
The pretense that debt limit fights are about the public debt is over.
Some parliamentary systems (Australia's, for example) have a system where one house of parliament can block funding for the operation of government even when the other chamber is controlled by a different party. But in those systems, a deadlock over funding leads to early elections, so voters can decide which side should get its way about the budget.
As Americans, we have no such luck. We're going to be stuck in this nightmare at least until the 2014 elections, or perhaps beyond.
America's constitutional system only works if the divided branches of government are willing to work together to make consensual agreements about running the government. Republicans are showing themselves to be too irresponsible to make the American constitutional system work. [End of article]
http://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-have-abandoned-any-pretense-that-the-debt-limit-fight-is-about-debt-2013-9#ixzz2g6eLcqNR
Harkin: Tea Party 'every bit' as dangerous to nation as the Civil War
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) on Friday said that the Tea Party movement is just as dangerous for America as the Civil War.
“A small group of willful men and women who have a certain ideology about how our country should run and what we should do cannot get their way in a normal discourse and votes,” Harkin said. “Since they can’t get their way, they’re going to create this confusion and discourse and hope the public is so mixed up in who to blame for this that perhaps they’ll blame both sides.”
“That is the path they see for taking over the government. It’s dangerous, very dangerous. ... Every bit as dangerous as the break up and the Civil War.” [End of Article]
Harkin made the comments as the Senate prepared to vote on a continuing resolution that would fund the government past Sept 30. Democrats are moving to strip language from the bill that would defund President Obama's healthcare law.
Harkin said Republicans were throwing a “temper tantrum” and threatening to "take their marbles home" unless they get their way on ObamaCare, risking a government shutdown.
“I suppose if you are of an anarchist mind, which I believe some of them are, then you don’t want government, you want to create chaos,” Harkin said. “But this is not a game and hopefully we’re not children.”
Last week, House Republicans passed H.J.Res. 59, which funds the government through Dec. 15 at sequestration levels but defunds ObamaCare. The Senate is expected to advance that legislation today, but only after adding an amendment that restores ObamaCare funding and moving the funding date to Nov. 15.
Harkin said it was hard enough for some Democrats to “swallow” the sequester spending level, but in the “spirit of compromise” the Senate would meet Republicans partway. The House would then have to accept the Senate changes or risk a government shutdown as time runs out.
The government will shut down Oct. 1 if Congress doesn't approve some a government funding measure.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/325091-harkin-tea-party-movement-is-as-dangerous-for-the-country-as-civil-war#ixzz2g6uzskBF
Thank You for Reading.
cl/MC
THE BROKEN ENVIRONMENTAL FALLACY
During the 2nd World War the government required the manufacturing companies to make as much as they could produce and to expand without limits. This directive also applied to mining, smelting, steel and brass foundries. All consideration for the treatment of waste was suspended.
This left the toxic materials flowing into streams lake and the ocean for many years. The Environmental protection Agency was not formed for many decades after the end of WWII.
This left the toxic materials flowing into streams lake and the ocean for many years. The Environmental protection Agency was not formed for many decades after the end of WWII.
Logo of the Environmental Protection Agency
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Flag of the Environmental Protection Agency
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Environmental Protection Agency
"EPA" and "Environmental Protection Agency".
Formed December 2, 1970 - Employees 17,359 (2011) - Annual budget $8.682 billion (2011)
Agency executives: Gina McCarthy, Administrator, Bob Perciasepe, Deputy Administrator
Website www.EPA.gov
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or sometimes USEPA) is an agency of the U.S. federal government which was created for the purpose of protecting human health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress.[2] The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.[3] The agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The current administrator is Gina McCarthy.[4] The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank.
Why did the government delay cleaning up the nationwide mess they created and then allowed to just sit? Today the government is still immune from its own laws – the past national laboratories have left millions of acres contaminated with many toxic compounds yet the Congress and the Administrations never budget the necessary money to clean up their war mess.
We can now see the fallacy that the Federal government using the power of the EPA has cleaned up our air and water. It was not them it was the private sector – each and every factory made changes and improvements – all stopped dumping into streams and lakes [yes there are some exception but they are few] which allowed nature to bury toxic materials under many feet of mud.
This covering with naturally eroded materials is what allowed for clean water it was not some government Environmentalist inspector that supervised the erosion. Over the 40 year time period most water was now clean and only the waste water treatment [government owned and operated] continued to pump out some serious waste products. The operators did not have the money to build and operate full tertiary treatment plants.
Tertiary wastewater treatment:
Sewage treatment, or domestic wastewater treatment, is the process of removing contaminants from wastewater and household sewage, both runoff (effluents) and domestic. It includes physical, chemical, and biological processes to remove physical, chemical and biological contaminants. ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_wastewater_treatment
Government Created the Pollution
The Federal government required the local governments to come up to this standard and then the Federal government was forced to make funding available to most cities and counties. So, the biggest problem in the modern environment was caused by Government at all levels. It took many years and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to even get started.
So the government created the pollution and the individual companies and the taxpayers paid for the cleanup. The Political elites in Washington took credit for the clean water even though they did little except use rules and regulations to slow down corrections in the private sector. To this day the EPA has limited slowed down or blocked water storage reservoirs using very long drawn out permit review – environment studies – earth quake studies – then the environmentalist movement groups sue the project to delay or kill it with cost increases.
The government and the environmentalist that want to improve water quality and management do the opposite. They have stopped or delayed projects in every State even ones that have serious water shortages during droughts.
Air Quality
The next fallacy is the EPA caused the air quality to improve by their tight standards concerning what factories and industries were discharging. The reviews were forced and did not take into consideration that air is global and what is in China today is in California in days or weeks. Then it covers the entire nation.
The government as always failed to review the short and long term effects the new rules and regulations. Heavy industries like machine products and furniture painting had their cost increased to much to quickly so they could not remain competitive with global prices.
Companies were directed to make major equipment changes and to capture all items like dust from brass machining washed off the roofs and this became hazardous waste. These changes forced the companies to move offshore which caused 50 million middle class blue collar skilled labor jobs to be lost. Maybe this is what destroyed the middle class and not the greedy business owners? These same issues went across our entire manufacturing of hard goods sector.
Energy Production
Energy production was the next target – the Sierra Club and others sued and forced the Politicians to yield destroying the nuclear energy industry. The retired President of the Sierra Club said the misrepresenting the safety of the nuclear power plants was his biggest error and it has resulted in the CO2 issue.
The fallacy is that nuclear is the safest, cleanest and most reliable source of base load electricity. We now find the same groups with the help of the current administration trying to kill king coal by saying that renewable sources can replace coal. Coal is about 40% or the total grid power and that is concentrated in the dense populated East coast, the Southeast, and the Lake States.
Again the premise is a fallacy – the cost of solar, wind, geothermal and tidal is four to ten times as expensive as coal electricity. Think the weak economy can absorb a four times increase in utilities and power for factories? Again they propose and promise but fail to produce a balance approach. If you look at solar and wind short life productions and the amount of energy and waste created in making them and then the cost of decommissioning – they create a lot of toxic waste – like gallium arsenic.
The Real Fallacy
Now we come to the real fallacy of a broken EPA they have closed down oil and gas production on most of the Federal controlled land. They now want natural gas to replace coal but have spent billions trying to shut down fracking on private land and have prohibited it on Federal lands.
The next false premise [fallacy] is the broken infrastructure system – Highways and streets need to be replaced but they use the Endangered Species act to stop the EPA and administration desired road improvements. It seems that they are science challenged as the EPA and the environmentalist movement wants to use Asphalt concrete to pave the millions of miles.
The Science
Asphaltene
The substance is completely soluble in carbon disulfide, and composed primarily of a mixture of highly condensed polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; it is most commonly modeled as a colloid, with asphaltenes as the dispersed phase and maltenes as the continuous phase (though there is some disagreement amongst chemists regarding its structure). One writer stated although a "considerable amount of work has been done on the composition of asphalt, it is exceedingly difficult to separate individual hydrocarbon in pure form",[14] and "it is almost impossible to separate and identify all the different molecules of asphalt, because the number of molecules with different chemical structure is extremely large".[15]
Most natural bitumens contain sulfur and several heavy metals, such as nickel, vanadium, lead, chromium, mercury, arsenic, selenium, and other toxic elements.[citation needed] Bitumens can provide good preservation of plants and animal fossils.
Asphalt/bitumen can sometimes be confused with "tar", which is a similar black, thermoplastic material produced by the destructive distillation of coal. During the early and mid-20th century when town gas was produced, tar was a readily available product and extensively used as the binder for road aggregates. The addition of tar to macadam roads led to the word tarmac, which is now used in common parlance to refer to road-making materials. However, since the 1970s, when natural gas succeeded town gas, asphalt/bitumen has completely overtaken the use of tar in these applications. Other examples of this confusion include the La Brea Tar Pits and the Canadian tar sands. Pitch is another term mistakenly used at times to refer to asphalt/bitumen, as in Pitch Lake.
Asphalt/bitumen can be separated from the other components in crude oil (such as naphtha, gasoline and diesel) by the process of fractional distillation, usually under vacuum conditions. A better separation can be achieved by further processing of the heavier fractions of the crude oil in a de-asphalting unit, which uses either propane or butane in a super-critical phase to dissolve the lighter molecules which are then separated. Further processing is possible by "blowing" the product: namely reacting it with oxygen. This makes the product harder and more viscous.
Asphalt/bitumen is typically stored and transported at temperatures around 150°C (300°F). Sometimes diesel oil or kerosene are mixed in before shipping to retain liquidity; upon delivery, these lighter materials are separated out of the mixture. This mixture is often called "bitumen feedstock", or BFS. Some dump trucks route the hot engine exhaust through pipes in the dump body to keep the material warm. The backs of tippers carrying asphalt/bitumen, as well as some handling equipment, are also commonly sprayed with a releasing agent before filling to aid release. Diesel oil is no longer used as a release agent due to environmental concerns.
Asphalt is then an OIL product that contains carbon [coal like] and diesel or kerosene – now EPA and Environmentalist what happened as cars and trucks run over that material – it wears and turns to dust [coal dust] – now it rains and the coal/oil mixture is leached out of the sand and rock. This is why road turns gray over time – they have lost much of the carbon. If this was a private industry they would be required by law to shut and to call hazardous material specialists to clean up the oil spill. So it is the government that is placing oil/carbon in the water tables, streams and lakes. WOW fallacy EPA government protection?
Let us now look at tires which wear out as they rub on the carbon road – what are tires made of?
The Goodyear P195/75R14 all season passenger tire, the most popular size, weighs about 21
pounds and contains:
30 different types of synthetic rubber (5 lbs)
8 types of natural rubber (4 lbs)
8 types of carbon black (5 lbs)
steel cord for belts (1 lb)
polyester and nylon (1 lb)
steel bead wire (less than 1 lb)
40 different kinds of chemicals, waxes, oils,
pigments, etc. (3 lbs)
Approximate Composition Percentages:
85% carbon
10 to 15% ferric material (2.5 pounds
steel in a 17 pound tire)
to 1.25% sulfur
The governments are polluting our earth and spoiling our water should they not issue a letter of violation and set a fine per day say one billion until they clean up their mess?
Yes – EPA you are a broken fallacy.
cl/Mangus Colorado
TAKE A REAL HARD LOOK AT THE BODY POLITICS.
IT IS MY OPINION THAT....
All Conservatives must stand back and take a real hard look at the body politics. First is that if we demand Social and fiscal Conservatives only about 20% of Republics registered classify themselves to fit this mold. Such a Candidate as this would not be electable in the entire North East, Lake States, and most of the West coast States.
This would lead to a guaranteed Progressive Democrat landslide in every election. This would result in a veto proof Senate and House lead by a Democrat President - that is exactly what happened in 2008 and then again 2012 when 4 million less voted.
I have seen this before - let us consider the issue of NATIONAL POLITICS. The House and the Senate can not be won by the R's unless they take more moderate position on many issues - it has always been this way - the Rockefeller Republicans - all middle of the road country club types, and the entire east coast and west coast is comprised of that persuasion.
Conservatives make up about 30 to 40% of the voting public depending on the poll - now voting is different - 47% as Romney said have been bought and paid for with tax dollars from the Democrats and Republicans but the R's get no credit for any Progressive programs and they had many . . so now if you take a 100% conservative view point you will have your hat handed to you as has happened in California, NY, Mass, Oregon, Washington, the NE, Florida, ND, SD, Mont. and more are just not supporting hard conservative options.
So, to stand tall on one side of a teeter-doter and have those on the center right and left of center stand on the other - when they jump the Conservatives will be tossed in the ocean and lost forever. It is pure foolishness to even think that way = total losing theory - these people will not even get 170 elected to the national House and maybe 30 Senators at best.
AV is the only way - no money or power in DC they will all leave and then those leaning conservative will move to conservative States and the left will have their own. My bet is soon the left loses most of the States as they, like California go broke with broken promises all over their States.
Elections will not fix our nations problems at this point in time as history has shown us being ruled by Progressives in both parties - only the Article V State amendment process can save the REPUBLIC and that will require all fiscal or social or center rights to unite and pressure the State legislatures [38 States] to do the repeal the 14th, 16th and 17th amendments.
If we cannot do this then it is game over and the Progressives holding a lock on 48% of the entire population by bribing them with our tax money. Then you add the center left and they will get 55% + in every election except maybe 8 to 10 States. MC
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/
All Conservatives must stand back and take a real hard look at the body politics. First is that if we demand Social and fiscal Conservatives only about 20% of Republics registered classify themselves to fit this mold. Such a Candidate as this would not be electable in the entire North East, Lake States, and most of the West coast States.
This would lead to a guaranteed Progressive Democrat landslide in every election. This would result in a veto proof Senate and House lead by a Democrat President - that is exactly what happened in 2008 and then again 2012 when 4 million less voted.
I have seen this before - let us consider the issue of NATIONAL POLITICS. The House and the Senate can not be won by the R's unless they take more moderate position on many issues - it has always been this way - the Rockefeller Republicans - all middle of the road country club types, and the entire east coast and west coast is comprised of that persuasion.
Conservatives make up about 30 to 40% of the voting public depending on the poll - now voting is different - 47% as Romney said have been bought and paid for with tax dollars from the Democrats and Republicans but the R's get no credit for any Progressive programs and they had many . . so now if you take a 100% conservative view point you will have your hat handed to you as has happened in California, NY, Mass, Oregon, Washington, the NE, Florida, ND, SD, Mont. and more are just not supporting hard conservative options.
So, to stand tall on one side of a teeter-doter and have those on the center right and left of center stand on the other - when they jump the Conservatives will be tossed in the ocean and lost forever. It is pure foolishness to even think that way = total losing theory - these people will not even get 170 elected to the national House and maybe 30 Senators at best.
AV is the only way - no money or power in DC they will all leave and then those leaning conservative will move to conservative States and the left will have their own. My bet is soon the left loses most of the States as they, like California go broke with broken promises all over their States.
Elections will not fix our nations problems at this point in time as history has shown us being ruled by Progressives in both parties - only the Article V State amendment process can save the REPUBLIC and that will require all fiscal or social or center rights to unite and pressure the State legislatures [38 States] to do the repeal the 14th, 16th and 17th amendments.
If we cannot do this then it is game over and the Progressives holding a lock on 48% of the entire population by bribing them with our tax money. Then you add the center left and they will get 55% + in every election except maybe 8 to 10 States. MC
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/